Under Her Branches

[SilkiyTea]

It was lonely, for it had a heart. One that was slow to feel, but aching in its pain like no other.

Yggdrasil, the tree of life, was surrounded by lush forests... But one without any to enjoy its garden.

-Excerpt from the Lost Fairy Tale

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13th of Geist, A Long Winter

It has been many moons since the execution of Xeinara, and since I have bought my new apprentice under my wings. We have been in near constant move, as those we once believed to be friends to our cause have now begun hunting us down for our powder. Such is to be expected by the avarice of humanity. Creatures, no, animals that they are. The few that are capable of thought beyond power and greed are outnumbered by those that are. Such a venom are their emotions that such is lethal to my kin. My apprentice, Ela, shows such prolific corruption that I sometimes fear that I am misusing Yggdrasil's name, and acting upon a lost cause. Be she born of sprouting Poppylus within a realm ill-suited, or through the combined mana of equal sinners, she holds within her a gluttonous nature.

Consumption only when necessary is how the Commune follows. Yet hers is needless, an innate thing which I have managed to subdue through proper meditation. Although complaints of her hunger have become less frequent, I can still feel it beneath her skin. Times like these make me thankful of my nature as an Executioner, and of hers as my apprentice, for I fear that gnawing ache- dull and benign as it is, would spread like wildfire amongst the commune. I should er on the side of caution, but I find myself unable to do so. She is young, she can still yet be saved. It is by Yggdrasil's will that she was delivered upon the commune through the corrupted mere weeks, if not days since her coming into this world. I shall not fail the Greatmother, I refuse to fail her now.

But I've written plenty of my apprentice, and this journal is one of remembrance for friends that have fallen.

Nomi, of age one-hundred and twenty, fell to a most recent corruption. The Elder of the Commune ponders if it was due to our past-allies turning against us, or perhaps the lingering neurosis from us journeying too close to the two-faced settlement of Duality and their Faceless God. It matters little in the end, for the corruption claimed him all the same. He was a warrior, and one that refused to go quietly into the Greatmother's embrace. I can still hear his anguished screams, for I had to shatter both his arms and legs, and tear his wings so that he could not escape. Ela and I administered the Rites of Release, and I allowed her to perform the act itself. She relayed to me as follows;

Nomi, his true name Nomirah, believed that all of humanity was a lost cause. That there would only be one way to convince the Greatmother to forgo her divine duties of the Spirit Realm and thus doom the souls of the life-stream, and that was to exterminate all life that was not born of her branches, regardless of what they had done or who they were. Exorcists were deemed the same as Occultists, all were sinners in the eyes of Nomirah, and all of them had to die for it. He called the Commune traitors to the Mother, even to his very last breath was he full of seething hatred.

Perhaps Ela believed I would not have noticed the marring of his Powder, perhaps she acted out of spite instead of hunger. But, such grains of gold are to be preserved in passing of the Corrupted, for their journey may never be as whole as one of the Pure and they are in need of as much help as they can get to return to her canopies in rest once more. But I noticed that his latent mana was lacking. I will chastise her tonight for such needless siphoning of deceased kin. She must learn that such is no minor matter, even if the punishment shall be more than verbal.

She will either stifle such human corruption, or I shall put her down myself.