Downscaling

"Was that a good idea?" Edelgard was way more energetic on the way down the stairs of branches. Claudia vouching for her, though she didn't understand the full extent, must have been a very drastic decision when it even silenced the red-eyed elder. "Even I don't know if I was a bad person before coming here! How can you be so su-RE!?"

She had stepped on a slippery part of the branch, almost falling off.

"Careful, Edelgard," Claudia said amusedly, pulling her into a standing position again. "I just don't think you could be anything but bad," she said, caressing Edelgard's cheek. "We will be glad to take you in."

Right... she was married to Starkus.

Was it really alright to intrude on their private life like that?

"How will-"

"Don't worry about my husband," she assured her. "He also believes in your good intentions. Come."

Leaving her no further room to argue, they descended the tree.

In the far distance, Edelgard could make out several more of their kind. She hadn't looked earlier, but for some reason, her fear of the height was gone.

It must've been because of Claudia!

Her belief in Edelgard made everything seem so easy!

"It's beautiful," she found herself mumbling.

"Just because you wouldn't die if you fell off this place doesn't mean you have to provoke it," Claudia chuckled, taking her hand.

Edelgard cocked her head.

She wouldn't die...?

A glance below told her that she was maybe a hundred meters above ground, and that shouldn't kill her?

"You really are amazing," Edelgard said.

"You think so?"

They reached the bottom without incident.

They crossed several bridges in silence until Claudia halted. Every house looked the same to Edelgard, but judging from the earlier conversation, she made a wild guess.

"Is this your hut?"

"No, silly. You slept here last night, remember?" Claudia hid her smile behind a hand, trembling softly with suppressed laughter. "I will inform Starkus about the circumstances. He was quite worried, you know?" She winked, turning away. "Nonetheless, I ask you to wait here. I take it you are hungry, no?" Now that she mentioned it, Edelgard's stomach was complaining about a lack of nutrients. With all the stuff going on, there was little time for eating. Claudia pointed above the hut. "Just climb on the ceiling and pluck some fruits. They are delicious!"

With that, she took off.

Edelgard's gaze wandered between the hut and the tree a few times when a monumental question filled her head... Climb on the ceiling?

The walls were smooth and there was no hole in the ceiling, so how was she supposed to climb up there?

She turned a helpless gaze to the huts around her... but as her rotten luck would have it, no one tried to scale the huts right now.

Edelgard sighed.

Her stomach rumbled.

She'd just have to try.

Her talk with Starkus went smoothly.

Naturally, he understood why she vouched for Edelgard and quickly agreed to take her into their home.

They would care about her as parents would... Claudia blushed.

Both of them agreed to wait for a while longer to make a baby. It took decades for an elf baby to grow to the point where it would survive outside of the woman's belly, and it just wasn't time for that, yet.

But eventually...

"Hehe," Claudia hummed happily as she skipped along the bridges to Edelgard's past housing...

But something was different.

Countless elves took the same route, only moving through the trees or hiding on the ground. Why were they doing that?

The answer soon came into sight.

A crowd of onlookers had formed around Edelgard's hut, watching through the leaves and windows and holes between bridges as she tried, again and again, to scale the hut, only to slide down and groan from the effort.

"Ouch! Grr, again!"

She knew it was mean, but Claudia couldn't hold her chuckle back.

It looked too funny.

She waited for a few minutes before she intervened.

"What are you doing?" she asked, trying to act like she hadn't seen this display.

"Claudia!" Edelgard wailed, hugging her tightly. "It's just too difficult, is it even possible to scale the hut?"

Claudia patted her head, searching for a suitable answer.

Even children usually scaled them without difficulty.

"You just climb up?" she suggested, tilting her head.

This was difficult.

"That's not very helpful!" Edelgard complained, ending the hug. "Show me, maybe that will help me!"

"Alright..."

Taking a step back, Claudia jumped at the wall, pulling herself up the wood and one roll later, she sat atop the hut.

"... Wow."

"Did that help you?" Claudia asked, poking down.

Edelgard had her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

Her eyes lit up, and she shook her head.

"Not. At. All."

"Haha..." How could she explain something that came instinctively to her? Claudia decided to ask Starkus to help her. "Anyway, I'll pluck you some fruit."

Before she could toss it down, however, Edelgard suggested another idea.

"Pull me up!"

"Uhm..." Not thinking it through, Claudia reached out to Edelgard, when the full weight of two people suddenly assaulted her meager support. "Whoa!"

"Awawa!"

They both crashed to the floor, rubbing their bottoms.

"Sorry, Edelgard. Are you alright?" Claudia asked.

"Yeah... sorry for pulling you down with me, hehe..."

She laughed awkwardly.

Claudia didn't hear anything, but she knew that a hundred minds were just laughing at them. Her ears drooped shamefully when another problem was added to the list.

"What are you doing?" Starkus asked with a sigh, his arms crossed.

Claudia went beet-red, shocked to see her husband.

"Starkus?!"

"Sorry, I embarrassed your wife," Edelgard confessed, rubbing the back of her head.

Starkus couldn't keep his composure. Edelgard wasn't a woman to be taken seriously! To think she even broke his reprimanding look!

Claudia's husband sighed, helping them both up.

"I'll teach you how to scale a hut," he promised. "For now, let's go back to our hut. You must sleep separately from us, but that's no problem, right?"

"Not at all!"

While her husband and Edelgard made plans for the coming days, Claudia slowly followed them.

She vowed never to laugh at Edelgard's failure again.