Chapter 4 of lone wolf

Chapter 4

New world, new lessons.

Before the aurora, the man was like a specter of death, a looming shadow in the evening light.

His eyes glowed a pale red as he looked down upon Lurion, not uttering a sound, he reached down and picked him up by the arm.

The chill wind was calm, but bit furiously into his skin wherever the figure touched him, and as he stared into those eyes, the dull crimson irises glowing like smoldering embers, he felt that death would be preferable to meeting that gaze on any other day.

“My son, a dragon, yet so….so far away from your true potential.” he muttered. “someday son, you will wake up and find yourself a stranger in a strange land, without ever really knowing why. When that day arrives….dry your tears, offer no prayers to the gods, move forward, and do not look back, lest you forget who it is you truly are….WAKE UP!!!”

Garland's eyes snapped open just as a pair of fairies giggled and flew behind some shrubs and foliage, their prank apparently having been a success.

Garland didn't see the painting on his face from the berry juices they'd mixed together, but he wouldn't have cared.

Garland's ego was, in a sense, bordering nonexistent, his sense of self and his ego had deteriorated to a bare shell since his childhood, he barely did anything on earth, he sat in libraries that would host him, surfing the internet and mulling over the tedium of existence. Oh he held jobs of course, but he was undeniably a vagrant in the human world, and now, here in the elven and fairy world, he was surely worse than a mere parasite on society.

No...not a parasite, he thought as he rubbed his face, noting the red smear and rolling his eyes before cursing “gods damned fairies.” and seeking out the closest source of water he could find.

In his world, the economy was crumbling due to world war three, the president had launched a preemptive attack on syria, leading to china panicking and sending a force down to north korea to bar refugees when north korea inevitably garnered the ire of the newest president.

What followed was...a nuclear exchange...the first in history. North korea launched a missile on the nearest chinese city, and from there the US intervened on china's behalf.

Together the two nations stormed north korea.

Of course, then russia became involved, and shortly thereafter another nuclear exchange was had, but this one was brief, and very devastating.

An area of washington DC was struck, and then the US responded by launching their own nukes, but on top of that they sent their full military force into russia, with china and many other nations backing the effort due to russia's newfound belligerence.

And so world war three had begun in earnest, with most large nations siding with china and the US and many lesser nations siding with russia.

It was around this time that garland had gone to sleep on a couch at a friend's home, and awoke a sacrifice in a temple.

He wasn't certain, but he had an idea that the timing of his summoning was no coincidence. Garland knew little of his lineage, but he'd met his father, and he had the distinct feeling his father was a dangerous character, perhaps not even human.

As he mulled over the possibility that his father had somehow been involved, a pair of fairies brought a small wooden bowl, three of them held it aloft and set it down at his feet.

It was filled with water, and he eyed the bowl warily, but decided that if he broke out in a rash due to the water being tainted, it wouldn't be so bad as the mess on his face in dire need of washing.

Taking care to wash the mixture off, he rose to his feet and took in the surroundings while the fairies settled on his shoulders, picking at his hair and studying his ears and facial features.

He didn't respond to their poking and prodding, too intent on the forest.

The roads were in plain view, barely a few dozen yards away, elves were busy traveling via carts and coming and going in droves. The landscape beyond the roads were littered with farms, but the pastures weren't cleared out, if anything they were mixed with the forest, and only identifiable by the fences surrounding them.

He looked to the forest.

The trees were massive, moreso than any forest he was familiar with, their trunks alone were the size of small houses and their boughs formed roads, in fact he could see people high above traveling the trees, having formed actual roads on their branches.

While there was no apparent way up or down, the elves didn't seem to have much trouble getting up, indeed, one made his way toward the forest, eying garland for a second before bowing respectfully, no doubt assuming him to be a pastor for god, and then he leaped with incredible strength, easily clearing the thirty foot distance in a single bound and landing safely and gingerly atop a “roadway branch”

these branches formed a vast complex network all about the canopy, and garland had to admit, he was impressed with how at peace with nature the elves were.

But he had more pressing matters to consider.

With a yawn he moved to the roads, noting that the number of carts was considerably higher, there was virtually no foot traffic passing him as he made his way as far away from the city as he could.

The first day of walking wasn't particularly troubling, the fairies remained on his shoulders, and when the elves noted him with them riding him, they seemed impressed and sometimes offered him prayers or shouts of approval.

While he tried to converse with them, he found that the fairies didn't speak his language at all, even if they sympathized in the universal tongue of body language.

Rather than be put off however, he assumed that his newfound companions would simply be riding his shoulders for as long as they deemed it necessary.

The next day they decided It was time to leave, and they offered him a shout of farewell and what he assumed was encouragement before fluttering away.

He waved, but deep down inside, he simply didn't care.

Something was nagging at him, and being in this peculiar world wasn't brushing that feeling that something was amiss away.

Of course that was likely the something that was amiss.

His stomach grumbling soon clued him in, and he noted that he hadn't “felt” hungry every since he got here.

Normally when he was hungry he would feel awash with fatigue and his stomach would feel as though it was filled with hot coals threatening to turn his insides to dust, now however he felt no strain from hunger, he hadn't even noticed he'd not eaten or wanted to eat for a while.

But he wasn't sure exactly how one hunted, or even how to cook.

No doubt if he were to try cooking over a campfire, he would soon be met with opposition from the elves, for elves were nature lovers, at least according to his understanding of them from fantasy novels, indeed they were also xenophobic, and there was even a race that enslaved all other races and lived on flying dragonships!!

fantasy literature aside, garland realized he'd need to hunt something, he hadn't the slightest idea what was or wasn't edible, but he needed food, even if he didn't feel particularly hungry.

Deciding it was high time to test his newfound strength and stamina, he left for the nearby forest and- finding a sapling, carefully aimed at it and launched a punch with full force.

The sapling shattered beneath the blow as though it were made of foam atop a mug of ale, and he stared blankly at his fist, trying to reconcile this new truth with what he knew of his considerable limits.

He was a weakling on earth, always had been, a worthless sort of person with barely the strength to go for a walk, though he wasn't heavy, he wasn't fit either, and this was due in large part to his flat-footedness. His feet lacked an arch, and so he couldn't run without crippling himself for a few days.

Here however, in this world, his body was undergoing some manner of change, or perhaps it was merely gravity was less in this world?

He considered that argument, taking a stone and dropping it.

The stone seemed to be what he would consider a normal sized one, and it felt heavy enough in his hand, when he dropped it, it fell normally, landing with a soft huff onto the thick carpet of grass and moss at his feet.

Just then, a naked woman with green skin emerged from the sapling he'd sundered, looking positively livid.

Snarling she pushed him back and away, and he held up his hands defensively as she gestured to the sapling, speaking a strange tongue he didn't know.

Confused, he stared at her as she shouted at him, gesturing to the sapling.

Perhaps she was accusing him?

Gritting her teeth she summoned a blade of emerald energy from that air and moved to attack him, the blade sliced the air before him as he backed away, unsure of what to do.

As he danced back, more green skinned humanoids emerged from the trees, sleepily blinking and watching the exchange, as they did so one of them, a bearded fellow with antlers, stopped the maiden and turned to face garland.

“she says you injured her tree...is this true young one?”

“I….I did….forgive me I….I wasn't...I had no idea these were your homes-”

“Homes?” the ent replied in surprise. “Boy those are our bodies!! you crippled my syena as surely as if you punched her yourself!”

“How...how might I make amends? I truly did not know!”

“Normally...” he began, pushing the maiden behind him as he turned to face garland, looking him over carefully. “we would demand you repair the tree with green magic...but you don't look to be a hydalian. What are you then? How is it you do not know of my kind?”
“I am garland...a human.”

that sent a gasp of shock from the ents and he realized that it wasn't a good thing to be human right now.

“Balderdash, your kind went extinct years ago! no- centuries ago!! mateus killed the lot of you!”

“I wouldn't know anything about that sir.” garland replied. “i was summoned here from another world as a sacrifice to this...mateus. In my world there are no spirits living in trees...or fairies...or hydalians." (he wanted to say elf, but decided that perhaps political correctness was called for in a foreign world.)

“spirits he calls us! Hah! How very human!” the ent fell over the word “Human” in an accusing manner but let the matter drop.

“alright then human, you are to be our prisoner.”

“for what purpose?” garland asked, bristling.

“we shall teach you the ways of green magic and this world, as you call it. If you were indeed summoned from another world you will doubtless cause trouble here without intending. In exchange for our teachings we shall take from you a stipend of time and freedom from you. If you refuse...well...I suppose you will refuse. We will have great disdain for you, but you are free to leave and never enter our forests again. At least not without battling our kind, and wouldn't you know it? Forests account for most of the world!” the ent grinned.

“I see no problem with waging endless battle.” garland replied coldly and it was the ent's turn to be surprised by the comment.

“I would reconsider your words with great care-”

“Let me be clear here tree spirit.” garland continued. “those who threaten my freedom for any reasons become my enemy no matter what. Those who are my enemy have absolutely no right to have a hold of any sort over me. You consider your offer reasonable and expect a willing servant out of me, a stipend of time and freedom, now a rational person, be he man or elf (he was too livid to be politically correct) would positively leap at that offer when the threat of being forced out of the world's forests was the alternative. I on the other hand, would burn the forests to the ground to spite you for the mere act of making such a bargain. So tree spirit, I highly suggest you reconsider just what sort of person it is you think you're speaking to. I can be rational, but I will not be if my freedom is taken for granted. But i'm open to continued bargaining if you retract your threat.”

“and if you do not retract yours?” the ent asked, growing angry.

He went pale when he saw garland's eyes narrow, almost too murderously to belong to any human, and the ent did not doubt that this human before him would deliberately pick the path of the most resistance for the sheer pleasure of spitting on his offer for the sake of his pride.

“Perhaps I was being…..too callous.” the ent said warily and syrena practically screamed at him.

He lifted a hand to silence her.

“then our offer will be changed. You are free to come and go through our forests, and we shall not do you harm, but we shall not aid you either, should you refuse us. However If you wish to perhaps make amends...we would ask you pay a price of time and freedom in order to learn more and repair my daughter's tree.”

“then.” garland bowed. “I humbly accept your generous offer of tutelage.

The ent breathed a sigh of relief at this, glad to at least be making some headway on the matter of his daughter's broken tree.

“we are known as the macha, ents the hydalians call us. “tree spirits” as you call us. We are extensions of the trees we call home, they are our bodies, and what you see is our soul given a form and image. For ten winters you will live among us and serve the grove, ten years human, within that time we shall teach you our tongue, teach you our ways, teach you what we know of the world, and when the hydalians come inquiring about their sacrifice...” he turned to syena “we shall keep silent on your presence here. You will repair my daughter's tree before it dies.”

“what happens if it dies?” garland asked and the ent stared at him for a few moments as though the answer was obvious.

“and...you show no concern?”

“it will take weeks for the trauma to her tree to kill it. I give you one to learn the basic repairing magicks and heal her tree. If, within that time it dies….she dies. But do not think that for us, death is the end. Our kind are reborn, and very, very long lived. This is my fifty-thousandth life cycle here. I am known as Par-Salain, the tree of wisdom, and my people, as you may have guessed, number in the thousands.”

Garland began his lessons the next two days, learning from par directly, but his understanding of magic was so limited that par ended up repairing the damage to syena himself to be safe before continuing.

“you shall instead mend her back to full health.” he explained. “had I known you were so difficult to teach spells to, I would've done this sooner.”

“My apologies.” garland said, his eyes downcast by this failure, for the past two days par had been trying to teach him how to reach into the earth and speak to the life-force, but garland hadn't the slightest idea what that even meant.

“we shall begin as a sapling would, with meditation. You are to sit and remain silent for half a day.”

“I need to eat.” garland said in protest but par held up a hand. “you will be brought food shortly, we have two ari trees who've just borne fruit. You shall devour those for the time.”

“are you...alright with that?” he asked and the ent laughed. “come now boy!! it is how we reproduce, you fleshlings devour the meat of our fruit and cast the seeds, and they delve into the soil over time while our souls, adrift as they are in the lifestream, find one and inhabit it!”

“your kind seem very attuned to life after death.” he noted.

“all plants are. It's you fleshlings who are always confused. We plants and plantkin are life incarnate, we are the wheel of life and death, and enlightened to it we are!! meditate, food will come shortly.”

garland did precisely that, deciding that perhaps learning magic would be beneficial to his survival on this strange new world.