the ellery tree
The birds seem harmless enough, standing there without moving. Their rough voices grate on your ears, their ghostly eyes seem to bore straight down into your soul - and yet, it seems a part of you was expecting this. You’ve made it past the fireflies and the fog, why should you not be able to make it past these shadow-birds as well if you stay the course?
Emboldened by the stranger’s words from the beginning of the trail, you step forward again.
The birds fall silent at once, like their voices were choked out of them. They stare at you in that quiet, unnerving way; heads twisting sideways to watch as you pass first one bird, then another, and another without protest. You weave your way around them, careful to not allow their inky feathers to touch your skin.
You are halfway through the flock when the rest of them arrive.
They drop upon you like stones, with beaks and claws and wings stretched wide, a living shadow blotting out the sky. If you were to look up now, all you would see is a blur of feathers disintegrating into smoke - but you can feel their onslaught sharp as ice against your skin. More and more of them come, descending savagely upon you, a wall of feathers and smoke and rough-throated screams blocking your path.
The shadow-birds push against you, flapping their wings in your face. Perhaps you try at first to push through them, to fight your way to the other side. But eventually their onslaught may prove to be too much, and perhaps you find yourself beginning to run, to duck, to flee beneath their shadow-claws that feel very much real. Even then, they do not stop until you are sprinting, and they are chasing you - diving at your back, aiming for your eyes every time you dare to look up. They follow you through the forest, as branches claw at your chest and underbrush snaps underhoof. You do not know how long you are running for, perhaps it feels like forever. But then, as suddenly as they had descended upon you, they vanish. The forest again is quiet, the birds disappearing in a wisp of smoke.
You open your eyes to find the shadow-birds gone, and you -
You are at the end of the trail. The trees end abruptly, but it is no clearing that you find yourself in. The branches woven together overhead never break, never reveal the night sky above you; they only grow thicker, and heavier, and the red-and-gold leaves shivering along their branches rub dryly together and begin to whisper. You made it, you imagine them saying. Now come, and see…
In the center of the not-clearing is the Ellery tree, if such a thing can still be called a tree. For this tree is a shagbark sentinel larger than any tree you have seen before, its trunk stretching seemingly endlessly, wider than your body, wider than two of your bodies standing nose-to-tail. Fairy lights are woven among its leaves and wrapped around its trunk, drawing you forward like a beacon for the lost. Gnarled roots rise from the ground all around it, a labyrinth snaking through the grass. In between those roots, glowing more brightly than the lanterns, grow dozens and dozens of moon-flowers. They shine silver and bright, as they dance in constant motion to a song only they can hear.
But if you listen closely, perhaps you can hear the same song. And perhaps, as you move through the waist-high flowers and press your cheek against the tree’s roots, you realize the song is coming from the tree itself, running through its core.
And perhaps the tree feels holy; perhaps when you press skin to root you can begin to feel as if the tree is singing directly to you.
There is one flower that is different from the others, standing within the hollow of the Ellery tree. Its petals are folded tightly shut, as if afraid to see the world around it. And it seems to call to you, in a language that speaks not in words, but whispers to your very soul.
You draw closer to it - what’s one last mystery to solve?
It is not until you lower your head to the bud that it begins to stir, unfurling its petals slowly and shaking the sleep from them. There is a light glowing in its center, a single, shuddering flame-that-does-not-burn rising from the heart of it. And it seems to you a gift, begging for you to take it with you when you leave.
@hälla and @"avallac'h" have reached the end of the quest! After scaring the birds away, they are able to approach the tree that marks the end of the quest. A massive shagbark sentinel stands alone, surrounded by glowing flowers and fairy lights. They say the tree used to be a woman named Ellery, who could urge plants to grow by singing to them; and that one day, she sang herself into the tree and became a part of it. They say too, if you make a wish in the hollow of the Ellery tree, she may just answer you... But be warned: you may not like what she has to say.
Growing within the tree's hollow is a single moonflower. It unfurls as you approach, a single flame rising from its center. The color of the flower and the flame is your choice! To claim this thread as completed, you'll need one last "exit" post. OPTIONAL: if you'd like, you can ask the tree a question or make a wish, and she may just answer you...
You can read more about the shagbark sentinels here, under the Trees of Viride Forest. The legend of the Ellery tree is coming soon...
