Galena stood up to take a closer look at her creation. Walking up the stairs that looked exactly how she had pictured them, she pushed open the door. There, on either side of the large bottom room, were the huge beds with leaf mattresses covering them. In the middle of the room, were the stairs she’d imagined. She was sure if she climbed those stairs, she would find a washroom at the top, complete with a bathing basin.
She noticed the home was still very cool, so closing her eyes once more, she concentrated on trapping fire within a ball of air to heat the tree as she had seen done in the lodges they stayed at in the underground world. When she opened her eyes, she was pleased to see several balls of fire were floating around the room. She noted that they were already changing the temperature within the tree home. Giggling over her accomplishments, she turned to see what Tark and Elenio thought of her creation and found them in a state of shock and amazement.
They hadn’t moved from where they sat behind her, but instead of looking at her, they sat with their mouths open and their eyes wide, looking at the massive tree.
“What do you think?” Galena called happily to them.
Her question seemed to penetrate Tark’s amazed stupor, because he shook his head slightly as if to wake himself up, and then focused on Galena. “I think you have been keeping something from us,” Tark said accusingly.
Elenio continued to stare at the magnificent tree.
“Before, when you grew things, it seemed to be hard work for you and the tree that you were working with. Almost like the tree struggled with staying the same and doing what you wanted. It took you hours to do simple structures. But this, it seems like you sat down, simply thought of something, and instantly the tree started moving the way that you imagined.” Tark returned his gaze to the tree, a look of amazement creeping over his features again.
Galena walked over to Elenio and snapped her fingers in front of his face to wake him up from his trance. She watched as his eyes refocused on her and then he was up on his feet, holding her by her upper arms and shaking her slightly.
“Haven’t you learned your lesson yet? You could have killed yourself growing that monstrosity.” He shook her once more for emphasis.
She put her hands over his and looked up at him, a look of patience on her face. She knew he’d been through a terrible ordeal when he thought he’d lost her and she couldn’t get angry with him, because it would only make matters worse.
“Elenio, look at me. Do I look like I’m about to collapse?”
He dropped his hands from her arms as his eyes searched her over for any indication she’d done too much. She was pleased when he went from looking angry to mystified once he realized there was nothing wrong with her.
“I didn’t even break a sweat. I don’t have the marks to limit me anymore, so I need you to relax and trust me.”
“Morgo said even bigger stuff required more practice or more elves,” Elenio said a bit numbly.
“Mira told me I have more power than most elves too.” Galena shyly looked up at Elenio with this statement. It felt like she was bragging, which was something that she simply detested doing. “I’m not your average elf.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I didn’t want you to get your hopes up.”
“I don’t think that’s possible, because in the end, you still have to go against Rau. I don’t want to go in with a big head and have the whole thing thrown back in my face. But I do think this edges our chances a little more.” He almost smiled at her then. Kissing her on the nose, he brought her in for a warm embrace. “Don’t keep secrets from me anymore. If we can’t tell each other everything, we’ll never be able to trust each other fully.”
Galena nodded and returned his hug. She took a deep breath and nearly gagged. Pushing away from Elenio and reaching for her nose in one movement, she said in a nasally voice, “We’ll hug after you’ve cleaned up a bit.”
Elenio feigned looking insulted and pulled her toward him again, rubbing her nose on his stinky chest. Laughing, she tried to push him away, but he held on until she was forced to use a bit of wind to aide her. Turning to head toward the tree house, she saw that Tark had been inspecting it while she had been talking with Elenio. The same shocked look resided on his face as he made his way down the steps.
“Beds with home grown mattresses,” he called to her.
“Did you see the upstairs?” She hadn’t looked up there during her own inspection and wanted to know if it possessed the washing basin she was so hoping for.
“Yeah.”
“Did it have a washing basin?”
“Yep. That was about all there was in that room, besides roses and other flowers carved into the walls. Now, if we could just have someplace to wash our clothes we would be set.” Tark laughed at his own joke while he waited for them to reach him.
That’s easily remedied, Galena thought. Closing her eyes yet again, she imagined a stand growing from the wood of the second floor. Once the stand had made it to about waist level, she thought of a giant bowl capping it off. She thought of a scrubbing board attached to the one side and then realized they would need somewhere to rinse the washed clothes off. Beginning again with another stand, she replicated it according to how she shaped the first with the only difference being that there was no scrubbing board. She thought of a vine hanging across the room, as this would be how they dried the clothes. Once again, she opened her eyes, her vision blocked by the tree. She couldn’t see the basins inside, but she was sure they were there.
Elenio walked up to her in the short time she’d been working on their clothes cleaning system and took her hand. Together, they walked toward the tree with Tark leading the way. Elenio just shook his head in amazement as he regarded the room where they stood. The stairs were not as elaborate as the first house they stayed at, but they were well made. Galena climbed them to the top room and was pleased to see everything as she had seen it in her mind’s eye.
She went bounding down the stairs and out the door, pleased to note Tark and Elenio were both walking around the room taking in the intricate carvings she’d placed in the walls. She went out, grabbed their bags and weapons, and checked to make sure that Twoit was still in her bag. The ferret looked up when Galena opened the mouth of the sack to peek in and stretched, climbed out and onto Galena’s shoulder. She scratched under her chin before trotting back over to the tree.
When she walked in, she found both elves reclining back on the beds she’d created. Galena laughed aloud for they both struck the same position, hands behind their heads and legs crossed. Twoit sniffed the place cautiously before scaling down Galena to look around the room herself. Placing Elenio and Tark’s bags and all the weapons by the door, she shook her head and headed up the stairs to wash out one set of clothes before she took a bath so she would have something clean to change into once she was finished washing herself.
“I’ll be down in a little while. I’m going to clean up a bit,” she called down to whoever was listening. She rather hoped they would be willing to stay here a couple of days so they could make necessary repairs to their clothing and other things, as they’d been neglecting to do so through the course of their journey.
When she reached the top, she took her stiff, dirty clothes from her pack and the small package of the powdered soap they procured while they’d been with Morgo. She filled the basin on the stand that had the scrubbing board with water and began to vigorously scrub her clothing until she was pleased to see most of the dirt and grime were gone from them. Waving her hand, she sent the dirty water flying out the window while she filled the remaining basin with clean water and rinsed out her clothing. Twisting the water out as best she could, she draped her wet garments across the vine hanging across the length of the room.
She stared at them as she watched water dripping in a steady rhythm from her clothing, leaving small puddles on the floor and realized how long it would take for them to dry before she could wear them. Furrowing her brow, she wondered if she would be able to clean up tonight after all when an inspiration struck her. Waving her hand, she thought of a warm summer breeze filling the room and staying there, continuously blowing over the clothes. As she thought it, she felt the warm wind enter the room and like a twister that only grew within those walls, it whirled round and round until the clothing was completely dry. Smiling, Galena dismissed the wind, causing it to sail past her and through the open window.
Filling the bathing basin with water and causing the stones below to heat up, she thought smugly to herself, I could get used to having magic around. She stripped off her remaining set of clothing and stepped into the blissful warmth. Realizing she’d left the package of soap at the washbasin, she thought of wind picking up the package and bringing it to her. She lifted her hand as she finished this thought and was pleased to see the package land gently into her open palm.
Yep, definitely more convenient, she thought.
It was sometime later when she emerged from the washroom, feeling a great deal better than she had when she first went in. She was wearing clean clothes while the ones she’d just washed were hanging on the vines to dry. She descended the stairs to find both Tark and Elenio napping and once again had to shake her head in response to this. They were growing more and more alike with the passing days.
Looking around, she decided they needed chairs within this room to sit while they mended clothing, sharpened swords, and ate. She thought of a simple table and chair set and watched in fascination as the wood of the tree began to shape and mold itself. She realized the chairs would need a way to be moved around, so she simply thought of the wood in the chair legs separating from the wood of the tree home.
Finding food in her pack, she sat at one of the three chairs and ate several handfuls of the berries and a couple loaves of bread. She sat down with a needle and thread preparing to mend her traveling cloak in areas that it had become weak, when she it dawned on her that she was being silly. Instead, she thought of the material mending itself and it did. A full day’s work done in just a matter of minutes.
Twoit came up to her about then and climbed her leg. She continued her way up until she was on Galena’s shoulder. She nuzzled the side of her face affectionately for which Galena returned the favor by scratching her under her chin. The ferret made a purring sound, but was content to stay that way only for a moment. She hustled back down Galena’s arm and then leg and ran to the door in her funny little sideways trot to which she paced back and forth there.
“Hungry, are you?” Galena asked, standing up to let her friend out to do some hunting. “Just scratch when you want to come back in.” She turned to see Tark sitting up in bed and looking over at Elenio, who was still dozing peacefully in the other bed.
“My turn?” he asked in a sleep-filled voice.
“Yeah. You’ll find the soap package refilled and a washing and rinsing basin for your clothes. Wash one set of clothes and then hang them on the vine. Call down after you’ve done that and I’ll send warm air in to dry all the clothes, then you’ll have something clean to wear when you’ve washed. You can wash your second set of clothes after that.”
“Well, aren’t you an efficient little elf,” he said smirking at her.
“Just trying to make myself useful.”
“It’s about time you started doing something, because between bouts of trying to kill yourself, I thought Elenio and I would be the ones doing all the work.” He grinned down at her as he ascended the stairs.
Galena responded by helping him up the stairs a little with a whole lot of wind. She only laughed for a few minutes when she heard him hit the wall on the far side of the washroom.