"Don't go back where you know.
You don't belong."
RJ.
- x -
Turmoil was a frail and unsatisfactory term for what had happened to her people. They emerged with sore and snapping limbs, some with cracking antlers and others didn't arise at all. The ground had been frozen like a blanket, trapping them and their roots beneath its surface. Left to starve and otherwise rely on the soil of the Earth to keep them alive - asleep for who knew how long before they returned to the grasslands with nothing but absolute and utter loss.
Nora had been thankful that she had gotten the council to agree to their burial in a forestland. The Frost would have never been forgiving if only grass-covered their rooted homes. The trees were bare and the air was still cold but it was home, and they were free to stretch to heights that bested the tallest of trees, or go hide in their sorrows as small as a grasshopper.
A month since their awakening and the loss of her sister and their newborn nephew wasn't any easier. They ever missed their brother-in-law and his terrible jokes. Family was all they knew, it was the very core of their being the same as their roots tangled and burrowed into the ground where they stood. There was no other option in their blood.
"You mustn't linger." Her brother's voice was gentle despite his towering appearance and grumble of a voice. He was an Elder alongside her since their parents passing, now the oldest of their kind and left to protect them. Nora felt she had failed in doing so.
The saplings in front of her were so ill and weak and there was nothing more she could do than gather for their witch doctors and pray to whatever God was left.
"Humanity?" She asked in a broken tone and her brother placed a hand on her shoulder.
"We have searched far and wide, Nora. There's no life left."
Turning her head away from Derek she simply rolled her lower lip between her teeth and closed her eyes. How could a being wipe all of existence from Earth without so much of a blink? A coward in his own right for doing it while the guardians of warmth were deep beneath their soiled grounds.
"I want war, brat mi."
My Brother.
He knew when she spoke in the ancient tongue that she was solid in her decision, but war wasn't the answer. As he looked upon the tiny saps and their frail bodies he could only feel pain deep in his soul. He was a man that often attempted to push the emotion away, down into the pits of his body so that logic could find its place at his forefront - but in times like these, it was hard not to agree with his hard-headed sister.
"We don't know that this was on purpose."
Her head snapped towards him, prepared for an argument but almost instantly her eyes softened as she realized perhaps something more could have happened. Something they weren't around to know about. However, as quickly as the mercy-filled thought crossed her mind she pushed it away. She didn't want to give the Prim's the benefit of the doubt. They were monstrous beings with nothing but greed to gain. Her brother was meant to be her brain where her heart ruled but today it wouldn't win.
Not while she stood directly in the midst of the horror.
"We need to meet with the other Elders if you want war, Nora. Do you really want to bring them away from their families at this moment in time?" Derek ran his forefinger and thumb gently over a petal of a rose that sat at the side of a child. No bigger than his arm in length or width. Sleeping peacefully while he healed, his hair tousled in their natural form to look like the smallest of twisted mosses, antlers poking just barely from the crown of his skull.
With a heaving sigh, Nora found herself kneeling beside a small girl as her eyes drifted open and shut. The sapling wanted to see the world around her, figure out where she was and if others in her family had survived. Nora gently outstretched a hand towards her, in control of her mortal form while those sick could only remain true. They were so beautiful in their God-given one that she often forgot how strange it felt to see skin instead of bark. An olive-toned thumb ran down the side of the girl's cheek and Nora leaned forth to press a kiss to the sap's shoulder.
"No, Brother. You're right. I won't bother them. Not now."
As the air had gradually grown warmer, more of their greenery took over, the roots and hard ground beneath her bare heels offered a small cushion by the growing moss. So as she rose back to her full mortal height she just turned on her heel and left her brother to aid the ill, beginning a small walk through the dead forestation.
Each tree she passed she closed her eyes and pressed easy fingertips to the rotten texture, feeling them thaw beneath her as life tried to find the forest in more ample life. Branches began to bloom leaves and flowers, snow melted away at their mere presence. She hadn't spent enough time on reviving the world around her and without the assistance of Mother Nature they stood no chance at survival. Her bare bodice wound in curves more delectable than honeysuckle on a summer evening. Vines covered the most vital parts of her but still left little to the imagination, the Dŭrvos accustomed to their appearance while the rest of the world wasn't.
Most of them lay in the shadows, only emerging at night and in the ancient folklore tales of the humans. Perched as birds or animals on the ground when in the presence of mortals, watching them bring life and war both to the planes of the Earth. Nora had always loved the tiny feet of children more, their curious states of mind always ongoing and in awe at the world before them, like it was an eternal graceland made just for them. A sight she would no longer be blessed with now that the humans were absent.
She had one fallen in love with a man. A human male that was wonderful in all sense of the imagination. Her own kind told tales of the kind and gentle man that once co-existed alongside them and she had thought it false her entire life until she had met Henry. He was an explorer. A backpack strapped to his back and the Earth's creations at the tips of his fingers for finding. He was so full of life and love that it swelled her own heart. And while forbidden they still found it upon their spirits to get married and live out of the raw passion they exemplified for the world.
They were together 9 short years before his accident on an icy mountain - never to return to their cabin or her arms.
None of that existed any longer. For as long as her people could stand they said there was no sign of civilization. No buildings, no stability. Just natural chaos restored to its original order to start over. Mass plates beneath the Earth had moved as the oceans were frozen over, creating one large landmass where there had once stood countries, continents.
All gone to wastelands of freezing hell.
"Miss Nora?"
The voice was quaint but enough to pull her from her own mind, the forest around her now sprouting with life. She was one of the best at it, her brother just beneath her despite his age. Life at her fingertips had always been more full with her emotion and her heart. No one could deny it, even if she had abandoned them for a short period of time to join humanity.
"Yes, little tree?" She knelt before the girl that still looked sickly, but she was better off than most. Perhaps a handful of years old and still growing.
"I was wondering... If you knew the story of the Aching Woman? The doctor..."
Nora simply smiled and nodded to show the girl need not explain herself or her reasoning, placing her palm on the ground to build a bench of ivy and roses absent the thorns and just big enough for the child to sit.
Waiting for her to do so she saw the sapling trying to place herself into her mortal form and she simply brushed beneath the child's chin and in an instant Nora stood before her as the Dŭrvos she had been born as. Her skin turned to a red-toned oak of cherry, winding with dips of bark and sap as her antlers spread for feet above her scalp and were ringed with webs of moss and berries. Her face elongated to resemble that of a goat or deer, eyes turning a glossy gold as she accepted her natural state.
Bare feet were suddenly covered by the hooves that protected them from the Earth's rough plains and her hair went from ebony to a deep green.
"Wow..." The small sap gazed at Nora's horns and she gave a melodic laugh, her voice almost having an echo in the slightest as her natural being took over her appearance entirely.
"You'll grow them with age, Little Tree." She said with a coax and then stood to her full height, keeping herself about half the size of the tree before them. Just barely blocking out what there was of the moonlight through the parting grey clouds of frost. "We all do. Ever the Aching Woman was told to have the greatest of them." Her tender voice carried as she motioned at the stars above.
"It is told that she still wanders the sky and watches over all of us -- "
"Even the Prims?"
"Even the Prims." Nora gave a lopsided smile and then turned her attention back to the darkened sky. "She was young, younger than my brother and I when she ran off and planted herself away from the world. She rooted somewhere away from home and found solace in a man. It remains untold if he were human or Prim but the legends of both are exquisite." She sighed adoringly.
"What happened?" The wide-eyed child stared up at her in pure enchantment and Nora's smile faltered slightly.
"Some legends say the cold took her, some say she sacrificed herself for the only true love in her life." Placing a mossy hand over her heart she felt it thud like a thick lick of sap beneath the touch, sucking in a deep breath. "She was powerful, so young and full of life. It was said that she was one of the few that could sprout animals from beneath her breast bone." Kneeling before the girl she touched where her heart lay.
"People say you can, too..." She spoke like it was her and Nora's secret and with a wink of a golden dipped eye Nora tucked her hand against her rib, only to pull it away again and hold out a baby white hare with the palest red eyes.
Gawking at the animal the girl held out her fingers for the small tuft of fur and Nora placed it gently between her fingertips, petting the animal's ears before she kissed the saplings forehead and went to make her way back towards the infirmary.
"Can you show me? How to do that someday?" The child called after her and Nora simply glanced back with a bright set of pearly whites parting in a chuckle.
"Perhaps someday, Little Tree."
In a matter of moments, she was shifted back to her mortal form and lacking appropriate coverage, feeling the vines wrap around her toned stomach and up to her supple chest. Down around her legs, it felt like snakes winding and knotting around her hips and thighs before everything came to a halt to remain where they were and offer her small peace of mind just before spotting her brother at the edge of the canopies.
Derek was never a man of rigid stance but at that moment he was a brick standing among willows, he had something important to say and not ever the stubborn sister of his would escape it. It would be done without the Elder's knowledge and without the advice of their people. He needed to know the truth before anyone acted. If they were to wage war there was to be an appropriate reason. Not a misconception.
"What is it?" She spoke with authority but his came in far larger waves. A man of fewer words and even fewer actions, it was his own voice as law. No contest. Jutting his chin towards the darkened parts of the forest that they'd yet to revive he began to guide his sister in silence, iron fists for hands tucked behind his back and knocking at the base of his spine as he stomped, slowly rising in size and shedding his mortality. His antlers stretched ever further than her's and as he reached the height of the tallest tree in the dead end winter wasteland he saw Nora had followed suit despite her preference for her human form.
Standing just slightly shorter than him they looked over the tops of the bare branches and stretches of dark ice. They would warm the land slowly and do it correctly. They wouldn't create a mass wave of their powers and draw attention, it was enough that The Frost went on for hundreds of miles in their view. The Earth could stand no more instantaneous changes.
Derek's face said all it needed to. When they spoke in their biggest forms their tones were slow and exaggerated, lowered to the tones of thunder like rumbles and inconceivable to anyone near the ground. They could have instead shifted to the height of the grass but with the unforgiving ice, he feared the creatures that could lurk about in the grasps of the Neprimirim King.
"We need to make our presence known before they find out on their own." His eyes found hers and she nodded, taking a hoofed step so she could turn and look out over the snow-capped mountains, a deep breath causing them to rumble ever so slightly in her stature.
"And you've consulted the elders?"
Derek shook his head only slightly. A decision made without their consent could mean reprimand but if Derek thought it necessary then she wouldn't question it. He was the greater good of their kind. He had no ill intention. He often meditated to find the answer and sought it with great confidence before relaying it.
Seeing him nod gently they both drifted down into their mortal forms, the nature wrapping around them more so than usual to keep them out of the shrill biting cold. Her brother produced a scroll from his palm that he had likely been toying with the entire time, her warm eyes honing in on the aged nature of the paper. Shredded no doubt from his own form and written with the ink of a Quill and its blood.
Taking the parchment gently she began to unravel it, seeing that there wasn't much on its surface regardless of the weight it would hold between the species.
- x -
We live.
We breathe.
We are warm where you've caused bereavement.
We do not yet seek war.
But a call for peace.
If you've set this Frost upon us then it's an end you will meet.
Come forth with your council.
Meet us in three dawns.
We will discuss a treaty, or shake hands over none.
The mass in the center of the broken lands.
Where sun meets horizon and green meets bland.
We will wait no longer than a day's time.
If you do not come,
We will take that as your surrender
In due time.
Dŭrvos.
- x -
Hesitating on rolling the scroll back up she finally did with shaking fingers and met the mirrored eyes of her elder brother. Their sister had been among the dead. Their nephew died in her arms without a chance of life. She wanted war, she wanted blood - but it wasn't their way of life. They were peaceful beings and bountiful and love and emotion, sharing the very Earth with all those around them. Derek wouldn't have written such powerful words if they weren't to be taken as the gavel they were.
The absolute law.
Staring at him she knew what came next and she turned her gaze away from him, reaching beneath her breast and to the very bones in her core. It was with great powers that the greater the price paid the more came forth. Gritting her teeth in pain she pulled a bone from her spine that would regrow in time watching as it formed an antler of white fur and then expanded into another until an albino buck that stood taller than her was at their side.
Panting between cracking lips with the freezing temperatures her brother touched her face to ensure she was alright, earning a simple nod. Dropping her face he touched the snout of her creation and watched as his own powers created a vined ribbon for his neck like the one they used to give horses that raced for bets. Tucking the scroll between its confines he put his forehead to the creature and spoke as soft as the powdered snow its hooves would soon find.
"Go to them, beyond the green and into the black ice. Tread carefully and deliver it safely. We are with you." He moved his hand down the side of its face and then in a quick movement he landed a hard smack to one of its rear thighs, watching it take off in a cry.
As Nora regained her strength she stood to watch it fade into the night, the prints from its trek there in the chilled ground while her brother's and her own were whisked away in the natural breeze that followed their kind. Never a trace of them to be found beside their alterations of life.
"We must return and tell the Elders. We will leave at the break of the sun." He glared at the sky for a brief moment and she nodded gently in agreement, taking his arm so that he could guide her back to their home.
"Will they kill him?" She asked as if she were naive, a young girl again in the midst of being rooted for the first time. She knew the answer of course.
"You needn't worry about that. All we need to worry about is preparing what we have left for war."
With a glance to her brother and the certainty of his words, she wondered if there was something more he knew, something more than what he was letting on. In the end, it was always their own over all else but something in his eyes worried her. Something about the way the snow and the ice settled in the blue of his eyes the same way a fire and flames settled in her own.
Like he was struggling with a spectrum not even he knew existed, a decision he hadn't yet made.
A prophecy that had yet to be told.