She moves at a steady pace up the curve of the mountain. It is no easy climb, and it is not made any more so with the hulking weight of a tree upon her back. She detests hills as the willow tree seems to grow half as heavy when she has to walk up. As with anything though, only difficult tasks yield great rewards.
Gritting it and bearing it and racing a snail, which beat her, Willow managed to scramble to the top huffing and puffing. Though her gut was by no means engorged, she had never been an overly fit individual, much more apt to bask in sunlight and roll in fields than to train her stamina and strength.
Blowing out heat from her body while the sun reigned over head, darkening her coat with sweat and summoning flies to her coat, Willow lurched to the throne of the Earth God. Well, what was left of it. She paused for a moment, uncertain if the godly realm always seemed in such disrepair. She doubted as much, knowing them to be generally proud beings that were prone to grandeur instead of squalor. She furrowed her 'brow in quiet wonder and awe, green eyes drinking in the destruction while she felt her nerves twisting together with anxiety. Was this a sign that she shouldn't have come here? She has been afraid the Earth god might scold her for failing the herd in her duties of a Storyteller. It was a high honor, but not one she felt suited for in a herd she knew nothing about. She had avoided using that mysterious pool again, it was too intimate of a thing when her belief was so thin. The Earth God was truly fashioned after her own heart, but he was not her god and this was not her home.
Then why had she come?
Willow glanced back, veridian gaze sweeping over the arduous trail where she could have turned back at any point. On her withers Ermine snuggled up into her mane, crooning softly. It brought her encouragement and steeled her heart against this deed. She would never know until she tried.
"Oh Earth God, hear me, Willow the Lignea, I would have your council if you would grant it." She murmured, her muzzle close to the earth, bowed before the crumpled shrine that vines seemed to have obliterated with their might. She could only hope it was at the god's request and not that the fauna were revolting. Was she wasting his time by being here for selfish reasons, particularly if he was indeed under assault?
Determined, Willow shook her head, berating herself for such wild assumptions.
She kept her gaze downcast, suspecting he slept underneath the ground. Last she'd seen him he'd risen from a pool of water, not fallen from the sky as so many others seem to think the kingdom of the heavenly. Her heart was heavy and troubled, but who's is not? She is a young lignea still, and though it is not in her nature or that of her kin to request anything of the deities, Willow knows her gods are too far away from her to hear her prayers and her hoofsteps feel misguided. Ermine's success in awakening a magic she didn't even think he possessed only further knotted her stomach, and trials within the herd and without were showing her that she may not be as capable as she thought. She had to know if she was doing the right thing in leaving Prim'sylvia all those years ago. She had to know if there was any hope in her mission, if her home still fared well, if she was ever to be blessed.... Childishly she'd thought it would have already come, although she is not an elder yet she perhaps arrogantly thinks herself more learned than the sheltered lignea of her birth place. Was she not deserving of an ability, especially when she sought only to assist with it?
Though Willow is a selfless thing, we all have our moments of selfishness and despair, and Willow has fallen into such a pit.
[she seeks magic: Earth .. Able to move tendrils on body, serving as hands or fingers might, or even as a bind when used all together.]
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|reach| [earth god]
