Fig

Winter’s stubborn grip on Helovia was slow to slip, even as the days at last began to lengthen and the days grew ever warmer. A cold wind harried much of her week long journey to the Threshold, blasting with renewed fury down from the ice-capped peaks to the north, but as her ambling stride neared eventually the rough line of old, raggedy pines marking the borderline of her destination, that chill failed, and naught but the beauty of ensuing Birdsong remained.

As sunlight slipped down from the far eastern horizon to split and dissolve the dark haze of night, the restless tree-girl stirred to life, and blearily she stretched the night’s stiff residue from her legs. The bright chant of a waking warbler roused her pulse to quicken with delight, and mossy-green eyes lifted to find the small creature where she sat, welcoming the new morning. She drew a deep breath and gaze lowered to search for a more spacious path through the old wood – if she could avoid entangling her lush, sprawling canopy, she would.

Joints groaned as Fig pulled forward through the small glade, though she hardly seemed to notice. She carried her body plant like any other might bear their coat; it was a part of her, an appendage that she had never lived without, though her stride was cumbersome and slow. The Lignea were a sluggish race who thrived when days passed in an unremarkable fashion, and the simplest of conversations could stretch for months. She knew nothing of war and the bitter personalities like those leaked through this land; though recently she had discovered a disturbing morbidity, and they called it murder.

There was very slight wariness as she moved finally into the forest, the villain was yet to be captured; their identity remained a mystery. Many had blessed her with warning, bidding her to take the greatest care as she moved about rolling hills and spans of wind-brushed grass. But Fig was not frightened; her mind, thoughts nor heart had never known reason for apprehension, and she carried on with life blissfully naive.

There was suddenly a trumpet through the forest. All manner of birdlife ascended to the safety of the heavens, and the obsidian tree-girl paused with nostrils lifted to test the air in true equine way. There was trace of another wafting clear above set, dormant scents, yet the path towards the call with littered with eroded roots and fallen wood – all of which Fig stood little hope of passing across. Instead she turned her lips to the sky and returned a harmonic cry riddled with naught but good-will and joy.