The western woods, as its name implied, covered the entire western edge of Tomiro. It had once covered more than half of Tomiro, but after a fit of rage Rau had when he originally begun to battle Lamiria and all the elves; he had his torlics burn and cut down almost three fourths of it. It had been a sad day for the entire elven nation when they’d first come across the mass destruction of their beloved trees. This act enraged the elves so much it seemed for a while they might defeat Rau, but it was in vain. Their anger caused them to be rash; being rash and prideful brought around their downfall.
It was on the edge of these woods that Galena and Elenio decided to make camp for the night. She wanted to get a decent night’s sleep and to clean up seeing how she hadn’t taken a proper bath since they had left Corista. She also wanted to check up on Tark and see why they’d experienced no trouble with Rau or his evil creatures for almost a week now. She knew she’d put up a good battle before, but that never stopped the brainless creatures from attacking in the past.
She decided to try something new with her treehouse. Instead of making a home with several levels, she wanted to stick with something simple, like Pangoro’s home. It had been a single room dwelling. The common area, bedroom, and washroom had all been contained in that single large room. It was simple, but elegant. Galena remembered thinking it looked like there were multiple trees that made up this room, because of its width. Taking this into consideration, she stuck three different sticks into the frozen ground after whittling away at tiny holes each ten feet apart. Now came the tricky part. She was used to growing one tree rapidly and forming it as she went, but she was unsure if she should grow one tree at a time and then connect them, or grow all three together, connecting them as she went. She asked Elenio what he thought, but he just shrugged saying he had no clue.
Helpful as always, Galena thought sarcastically.
Sitting down a fair distance away from the small branches, Galena leaned back on Elenio who’d chosen to sit down behind her while she worked. She leaned her head back and smiled at him for which he took the moment to kiss the tip of her nose lovingly.
“Have you decided how you’re going to do this?” he asked, brushing some stray hairs that had come out of her long braid, from her face.
“Nope. I think I’m just going to wing it.”
“How do you just ‘wing’ it?” he asked, laughing quietly.
“True. I guess I do have to make a decision in order to form it. In that case, let’s try it with all three. I’m freezing, tired, and looking forward to soaking or dying in the washing basin and that seems the quickest way to achieve my goals.”
Elenio nodded, still smiling at her.
She was amazed with him. Ever since she energized him, for a lack of a better term, he had been relentless. They’d traveled at such a pace that Galena was thoroughly looking forward to a short reprieve from their journey. Not only had he been walking at a break neck pace, but he had also cooked every night, cleaned up camp, found campfire wood, and anything else they needed without complaint or growing very tired. Even at night, he went to bed much later than Galena and arose several hours earlier. This fact alone was so startling to Galena; she was seriously starting to contemplate reversing what she’d done. The only problem with that was she was unsure how to go about it without killing him. Although, after traveling for over fourteen hours straight one day, she came close to trying anyway.
Readjusting herself so that she was comfortable once more, she began to think of the trees growing, but stopped suddenly. “Where is Twoit?” she asked. She’d discovered two nights ago that Twoit didn’t always seem to have the sense Galena originally thought when the ferret had gotten in the way of her growing a bed, almost becoming encased in the mat part. Luckily, Elenio had been watching and called a halt to Galena’s process before it was too late.
Elenio indicated with a nod of his head toward the direction of the forest. “She went that way more than five minutes ago. I imagine she’s out looking for some small helpless creature for her dinner.”
He brought his knees up on either side of Galena and she rested her arms on them comfortably as he wrapped his arms around her waist. He placed his chin on her shoulder and waited for her to continue.
Sighing, she started where she had left off, with the trees a little bigger than year old saplings. She had chosen an oak tree as she thought these were truly the wood of choice. Grand, strong, and a pleasant aroma. The perfect combination for her final home before going to a magical cave that she may never come out of.
No, stay positive, she told herself firmly. Closing her eyes and blocking out these unpleasant thoughts, she returned her attention to the growing of three trees at once. When she first thought of the idea, it seemed intimidating to her, but as she began to work with them, she found it was slightly harder than working with just one.
Instead of shaping one tree, Galena found the trick was to think of them as parts of one and shaped them accordingly. As she was not trying to accomplish anything significantly fancy, she found that creating the single, long room an easy task. Once she formed a solid little home, she began to work on the finer details, something that had become second nature to her and therefore, required very little time. Opening her eyes, she found a somewhat longer home than she had originally planned, displayed before her. Feeling her chest swell with pride, she looked up at Elenio and smiled. She’d created this entire home, complete with doors, windows, a bed, table, chairs, cooking area, and wash area in less than ten minutes. A new record for her.
After they went in, Galena realized she would have to make the wash area into a separate room for unlike Pangoro, if they wanted privacy, they would have to have a separate area. It was only him in his little hut, so this had obviously not been a concern for him. This took her all of a minute to fix before declaring she was taking the first bath. Before she could escape to the washroom though, Elenio stopped her and requested for her to create a washtub in which he could start cleaning clothes in. Shaking her head as if she were ashamed of him, she made short work of the request before scurrying away to the washroom. Relentless, she thought once more. Hopefully, that particular part of her healing would wear off soon. Although, it was going on a week since she’d done it.
It was some time later, that she was awakened by several loud and persistent bangs on the door to the washroom. Startled, she looked around, trying to get her bearings once more. Her memories came rushing back and she considered scooting further down into the warm water again to resume her nap, but the knocking persisted.
“Galena, answer me before I break down the door. You’ve been in there over an hour.”
Groaning, she slowly sat up, regretting the action immediately as the cold surrounding her, made contact with her skin. Quickly, she created another fire orb, making the room warmer almost instantly. Bringing her hands to the side of the basin for leverage, she laughed aloud when she saw the condition of her skin. She looked like she had aged at least fifty years. Her hands alone looked like they were nearing their deathbed due to the amount of wrinkles in her fingers. If Elenio hadn’t woke her up, she was sure she would have turned into an overdone prune.
Preparing herself to stand, Galena called out, as Elenio hadn’t stopped his continual beating on the door. “I’m coming, I’m coming. Since you were so productive out there, I don’t suppose you have any clean clothes for me to change into.”
“Yes, but they’re wet still. You didn’t make me a place to hang them to dry or send me a breeze to help the process along.”
“Must I do everything,” Galena growled sarcastically.
“Yes, because sleeping in a tub counts as doing everything,” he replied back, his voice dripping with sarcasm as well.
Galena grinned despite herself. She loved giving him a hard time. It made her feel giddy inside. She turned her head at the sound of the door opening and heard the smack of soaking wet clothes hitting the floor. Hmph, they were clean, she thought to herself. She reached for the drying cloth she’d brought with her and dried herself while she thought of a vine stretching itself across the small room. Hanging her clothes up there, she started combing out her hair as she sent a steady gust of wind through the room until the clothes were thoroughly dry. Galena found from several different attempts, that when she used a warm, almost hot breeze or gust of wind, the clothes were more apt to dry than using a breeze from the cold outdoors. So thinking of summer, she created wind from the air surrounding her in the room and used it to dry the clothes.
She emerged from the room to find a slightly disgruntled Elenio, staring grumpily at her from one of the chairs around the table. He held his head in his hand and had his elbow propped up on the table. He definitely looked more tired than he had any other time since she energized him. Like his old, un-energized self. Smiling at the fact that it looked like he was finally wearing down, she stepped to the side of the washroom door and indicating with a broad sweep of one arm, that it was his turn. Grudgingly, he hauled himself up from the chair and slumped over to the washroom, making a point to slam the door behind him. Galena giggled quietly as she warmed the stones and filled the basin with water then headed toward the living area to first check in on Tark and to start making something for dinner while she dried Elenio’s newly washed clothes.
It was sometime later after Galena set the table that Elenio came out to join her. He still looks worn out, but at least he smells better, Galena thought to herself as she watched him sit down across from her.
“The energizing finally wear off?” she asked, still smiling broadly. It would be so much easier to keep up with him now. She thought if they kept going at the pace they had been, she would never make it through the cave. She passed him a basket of food and waited for his response.
“I feel like I could sleep for a week,” he almost groaned.
“Well, if you think I’m going to give you another burst of energy, you’d better think again. You just about killed me the last time.” She took a bite of an apple while regarding him and his sleepy state.
“You could give us both a burst of energy,” he stated, shrugging.
“I somehow don’t think that’s a good idea. I think we should reserve that kind of energy for special occasions,” Galena started, choosing each word carefully.
Elenio raised an eyebrow in surprise, but kept quiet as he waited for her to continue.
“Having that much energy seems to be hard on the body. Sure, you felt amazing for a while, but then you pushed yourself too hard during that timeframe. Now that the magic has worn off, your body is feeling the effects of being pushed so hard, for so long. It’s not good.”
Elenio continued chewing his bread while regarding Galena. “Good point,” he said simply. They ate the rest of their meal in silence, both lost in their own thoughts.
Galena’s mind began to wander to the cave and the terrors she would find inside. According to the elves at the last village they’d passed, once they reached the outer edge of the western woods it would be roughly a two-day journey before they reached the heart of the woods. There had been a couple elves who traveled to that area, but hadn’t actually found the entrance of the cave, because of the guardian. They stated that once they reached the heart, Galena and Elenio would know it. Galena tried to convince them to tell her what the guardian was, but the elves smiled and just shook their heads. Both stated that once they left the heart, they remembered there being a guardian, but neither could quite remember what the guardian had been.
“Are you scared?”
Galena jumped nearly a foot into the air at these words. She’d been so lost in her thoughts she’d temporarily forgotten Elenio was there. “Of what, you giving a heart attack?” she practically yelled as she tried to calm her now racing heart.
Elenio just laughed and took a bite of the sweet bread she laid out for them.
Taking several calming breaths, she looked at him, trying not to let the fear that swelled up in the pit of her stomach reach him, but she saw from the expression on his face that he felt it. He nodded his head and stood. Walking over to her, he pulled her up and embraced her gently, lovingly. He kissed the top of her head and she buried her face into his clean smelling chest. She drew a ragged breath, the only sign of her anxiety breaking through her otherwise confident demeanor and as she did, he held her tighter.
“I would be lying if I said no and you would know I was lying,” she said in a muffled voice.
He stroked her hair as the fear that had been eating away at her broke free. She needed to get this out if she wanted to go on. She felt as if by holding on to the fear, it would only hinder her more once she reached the cave. Fear, sadness, desperation, the desire to live, and hatred all spilled over in her hot tears and angry cries. Not for the first time since starting out did she wonder why it had to be her. It seemed so unfair she should have to carry the weight of the elven world on her shoulders.
Elenio held her through it all, until she felt calmer, more at peace with her lot in life. The tears dried and embarrassment replaced all of her other emotions. She let go of Elenio and went in search of a cloth to clean her face. Elenio watched her go with mild interest. Her face turned redder when she saw the wet front of his shirt.
What a pathetic excuse of an elf am I, Galena thought to herself.
Once cleaned up, she returned to the living area, where she found Elenio leaning against the table, waiting for her to return. Without a word, he reached for her hand and they went to bed for the night with the unspoken understanding that it would be all right in the morning.