Lorina placed her hand on the ground, in this case the tree branch they sat atop. Her palm rested there with the familiar intimacy of a daughter touching a father’s shoulder. The wood answered at once, a low thrum that brushed the skin like distant thunder felt rather than heard.
Suddenly, the tree branch itself grew and pulled them all the way to the top of the tree, cradling them without a single vibration or tremor, safely carrying them to a place far higher on the tree. The motion loosened the view beneath them into a tapestry of small, moving shapes, then drew it close again as they rose through veils of leaves. The cradle that ford around them felt as inevitable as a yawn, a curve grown for this purpose and this pair. The air cooled a step at a ti. The light thinned and clarified. The world beyond the spatial lock beca a painted thing at the edges of sight.
Lorina jumped down first, and ushered for Ludwig to follow her. Once Ludwig did, she guided him until they reached the main tree bark, which simply opened up for them, revealing a most disturbing look. The split parted as if acknowledging a knock it had been waiting for. The space inside did not sll like the halls below. It held the dry breath of very old rooms, the sense of ti that settles when movent stops for a long while.
A woman, one of the most beautiful Ludwig had ever seen, carved of wood almost, was fused to what looked like a raised dais of wood in the middle of a circular hall. Roots from all over the tree were embedded onto her back, while she only had bits of her body that hadn’t turned to wood, the rest looked like it was carved from the tree of life itself. The flesh that remained was luminous and pale, the color of the inner side of a leaf, and where skin gave way to grain the transition was heartbreakingly careful, as if a gentle hand had tried to make the theft kind. Veins in the wood carried a slow, pale glow. Her hair had beco strands of polished fiber that flowed into the dais and disappeared. Eyes closed, lashes shadowing cheeks that were not entirely flesh, she seed to listen to sothing that none of them could hear.
"If you ever wondered why there are no Queens or Kings of the Elves. This is why," Lorina said. The sentence did not crack. It laid itself down like an offering.
The sentintal look Lorina gave to the wooden woman was clear. It was not weakness. It was loyalty given daily until it had beco a manner of standing.
"Mother I suppose," Ludwig said as he approached the statue. He stopped at a respectful distance where the roots thickened into the dais, close enough to see the fine dust that settled along the carved collarbone, far enough that his breath would not stir it.
"Yes, Lorina replied. And the tree of Life is my father. But as you can see, they’re both dying." She said. The truth sat in the room like a weight. The pulsing in the walls seed to dim and then return, as if the tree had overheard and refused to be impolite by contradicting her.
Ludwig nodded as he noted everything down. "A binding of both soul and body. The Queen is giving up her longevity for the tree of life." The shape of the magic was visible to him now, threads laid between heartwood and heart, a net woven in haste and with brilliance, strong enough to hold, not strong enough to heal.
Lorina approached the statue and wiped so specs of dust from her mother’s face. The gesture was tender and practical, a daughter’s ritual against the indignities of stillness. The dust clung to her fingertip like reluctance.
"Father refused, but mother insisted, without the Tree of Life, there will be no elves. This is a temporary solution that the Witch of the Mare ca up with to stop the spread of that disease the Envious Death had placed upon them both." She turned to Ludwig. The na of the witch was spoken without fear, with respect that had endured beyond outcos. It put an old friendship in the air, one that had cost dearly and still was nad with warmth.
"How would killing the Envious Death remove this disease?" Ludwig asked. He let the harshness of the premise stand naked between them. Hope that has to step over clarity to reach its place is a hope that falls later.
"It’s her weapon. The Envious Death’s weapon has the ability to cause plagues and illnesses and it can also remove them. As long as it is in her hands, all those she infected will suffer eternally." Her voice did not rise. The enormity of it was carried in the evenness, the way one states a law of the world that has already proved itself on bodies.
"Sounds simple enough, how co you guys didn’t try and fight?" Ludwig said. The dryness in the words was not mockery. It was the way soldiers speak of impossible roads to keep from cursing them.
"We can’t stay away from the tree of life more than a few days. My ti back at Mira was already stretched thin, and just going to the kingdom of the sands and back would take weeks. Not to ntion fighting in foreign territory. We’ll die before we even reach their gates...and the humans..." She did not spit the last word, yet it did not enter the room clean. The distance between peoples lay in it like grit.
"You can’t ask them for help due to all your past history..." He rembered the guards’ hands at the leaf, the careful gap left between bodies and blades. The war lived on in small muscles.
"It was all her ploy, to cause strife between us and the humans, label us as traitors, isolate us, then drive the final nail in the coffin, by poisoning my parents." The strategy was neat enough to admire if one could step outside its cost. Her jaw tightened on the last words, and then loosened by force, as if she refused to give the enemy the courtesy of worsened posture.
Ludwig thought for a second, "I see. I can’t promise you that I’ll be able to win, but our goals align, after all, it’s my mission to take down everyone of the Usurpers." He let the vow stand without ornant. The room felt it. Even the slow glow in the roots seed to answer, faintly brighter and then calm again.
"I knew you’d help us. In that case how about I help you instead," she said. There was relief in it, yes, but also intent, a plan that had been waiting for a door to open.
"How so?" His hands stayed loose at his sides.
"Well, follow then." She turned toward another seam in the bark that had not been there a heartbeat ago. The air before it cooled, and the scent of wet earth deepened, as if whatever waited beyond had pulled the forest closer in preparation.
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