05. The Grove of Elders

 

The Grove of Elders

The sun notches farther into the sky, banishing any lingering hint of the cool night. The residents of Embryveil are awake and ready for the first day of the Firefly Festival. Children chase each other through lanes, free from school for the holidays and the noise level reflects it. High-pitched shouts and laughter mingle with the usual sounds of birdsong, bug chirps, and adult work. Every grove of the city is now alive with bustle and celebration. 

Visible on nearly every windowsill or porch, and affixed to every tree—be it home, shop, or plant—are lanterns of varying size, shape, color, and pattern. Some trees are so highly decorated that from certain angles lanterns appear to be as numbered as the leaves in the canopy. 

Posts line the length of every street. Bright, colorful ribbons are twisted and braided up their heights and strung between each pole, dressing each grove in its own splendor. Lanterns hang even from some of these ribbons, causing them to droop lower to the ground. Local children make games to see who can jump closest to the low hanging decorations and touch them. 

Adults would break up these tournaments and shoo the children away, but there was always a different lane with a different decoration to challenge themselves with. 

Just north-east of the riverside tea shop, in Old Oak Grove, a small group of siblings is facing its own set of challenges. 

Three young children race down one of the ribbon-strewn lanes as an older boy trails haplessly behind them.

Zixxes Keun-Hag is a fifteen-year-old, half-Goliath boy. He stands five feet, eleven inches tall and his skin a deep, cool brown. His purple hair cropped short only from his temples to the crown of his head; the hair below his crown is twisted into thick dreads that fall in heavy ropes just below his shoulders. He is built like a swimmer whose best stroke is the butterfly, wide shoulders like the mast of a ship tapering down into a slim waist and hips. His legs are lean and graceful, lithe like a dancer. Large hands, feet, and ears bookend his extremities with inherent awkwardness, while his face is decorated with a wide nose and slim eyes—one gray and the other dark brown—and a bony chin meeting in the sharp angles of a square. 

He is aware, himself, that the sum of all of his parts appear strange and unbalanced. However, he has seen many of his siblings pass through this portion of puberty and so has hope that one day he will grow into all the spaces of himself. 

“Wait,” he calls out to his scattering siblings. They do not listen. 

A set of twins nearly three years old race away from each other, each interested in something on the opposite side of the road. The older boy freezes between the two, unsure of who he should collect first. In his hesitation a third child, a sturdy five-year-old boy more than ready to test his mettle, races past him up the street to one of the dress poles. The young boy digs his small fingers into the rough-hewn wood, trying to find purchase as he wiggles his small body up the pole.

“Clan!” the older boy calls, but once again he is ignored. He is not used to this.

Zixxes is not the oldest child in his family, but at least among those younger than him, he is used to a certain level of authority. In the Grimshale Highlands, where this small troupe calls home, he doesn’t usually need to do much more than call out to his siblings to get their attention or cooperation. But, in the Highlands, he is also the only thing of interest or note for miles. Here, in this city so foreign to the tiny clan, it is too much for the younger children to ignore. 

Zixxes pushes his sleeves up his forearms as his eyes dart madly between his charges. He is not dressed for the warmth of the day. Already he can feel sweat at the collar of his woolen jacket and the wet press of his linen undershirt on his skin. The Highlands are much cooler than this place. Despite this, he refuses to remove his outer-wear, wanting something to mark him as other so he would not be confused for a resident of Embryveil. This is not true of his companions, however. All three children had long ago shed their coats. Zixxes had insisted they wear them knotted around their waist so they would not lose them and he himself would not be forced to carry them all.

Now he sees that this was a wise tactical choice as he makes a split decision and rushes after one of the twins, reeling the boy in by his knotted coat before scooping him up under one arm. The small boy makes a yip of glee that almost immediately turns to a whine as he begins to wiggle in his older brother's hold. 

“Beros, stop kicking!” Zixxes says sternly, tightening his arm around the child before focusing his attention on the toddler’s twin sister. “Larn, get here!” He raises his voice to be heard over Beros, frustration making his tone sharp. “Now.”

If she hears him, she does not act like it. 

Zixxes’ eyes skip over to the five-year-old Brinnin, who has managed to shimmy his way nearly ten feet from the ground, hopelessly destroying the red and silver ribbons wrapped around the pole.

“Brinnin--” Zixxes calls, but the sound of it is immediately cut off by the wail of the child clutched under his arm.

“Wiver!! Wiver! I wan’ go wiver!!”

“No.” The word is harsh and hurried as Zixxes readjusts his hold on the squirming child. “You don’t know how to swim yet. No river today.”

“Swim!” Larn screeches from his left. She is running in circles chanting the word over and over. “Swim, swim, swim, swim.” 

Zixxes’ eyes dart quickly to his right where the river flows at a mild pace. He is positioned between his youngest sister and the water so, if she ran for it, he is sure he would be able to get to her first. 

Probably.

Panicked sweat rushes between his shoulder blades and his mind stutters on blank for long seconds. 

Beros is caught safe under his arm, and though Larn is near the river, she is not moving toward it. Brinnin is stationary on the pole but far enough up that if he falls it will not be without damage and would leave Zixxes with a third screaming child. 

He cannot allow panic to have leverage in this moment. He forces the thorny feeling of losing control down as far and fast as he can and refocuses. He falls back on what he knows the children will respond to. He starts a game. 

“Brinnin,” Zixxes says, placing a hand over the wailing Beros’s mouth. “Let us play Still.” 

Still is a game that mimics the skill needed for hunting. Zixxes’ mother had taught them all the fundamental blocks for living in the highlands this way. 

The older boy waits only long enough to see Brinnin’s eyes go wide and his body to go still before bolting for Larn. He grabs at the coat knotted at her tiny waist when she circles near him and yanks her from the ground, holding her like a purse. He whips back around to see Beros holding as still as he can even as his sweaty hands have him slipping slowly back to the ground. His eyes are locked on Zixxes, the bright smile on his brown cheeks enough to rival the sun at his back. 

Zixxes takes another fortifying breath before trying to wrestle back the calm and in-control demeanor he usually strives to maintain. 

He walks over to Brinnin with a smile of his own. “You are becoming very skilled at this.”

Brinnin releases the pole, falling the last few inches to his bum with a giggle. “Am I better than you, Brother?”

Zixxes hums thoughtfully, appearing to deeply consider the question. “Shall we have a test of skill when we return home?”

Brinnin whoops loudly causing the two children in Zixxes’ arms to imitate him. The whining and crying turns to laughter, yips, and various sounds of glee. Zixxes drops into a crouch in front Brinnin, turning his back to the younger boy and looking over his shoulder. “Yakpak?”

“Yakpak!” Brinnin shouts his agreement. Without being instructed, the five-year-old removes the long staff strapped to Zixxes’ back and straps across his own small shoulders. Then Brinnin leans forward and wraps his arms around his brother’s neck, squeezing his tiny knees around Zixxes’ torso.

Once he is sure the boy is secure, Zixxes adjusts his hold on Beros and Larn before standing once more. He is very warm with the added body heat but feels much better with the weight of family on him. 

Slowly the caravan of kids makes its way through the city. They continue heading south, their destination the Grove of Elders. Though Zixxes’ does not have extensive history about Embryveil memorized, he does know that the Grove of Elders is the oldest grove in the city. He knows that it is the first grove of all of Embryveil, the wellspring from which the thirteen other groves spring from. He knows little more than this and that the city itself was created by druids. His mother had not seen fit to educate her children about lands outside of the Grimshale Highlands. She left that to their father. 

As they enter the far reaches of the grove and continue to move toward its heart, Zixxes’ can tell that the trees and homes of this area are ancient compared to the forests the siblings walked through to get here. Massive is hardly an appropriate word to describe the breadth and width of the arbor surrounding them. 

Thankfully, the views serve to stun the children draped over his body, and the next twenty minutes of walking is blessedly more silent than the last few days. He is fairly sure Beros falls asleep under his arm. 

As the group draws closer to the center of the Grove of Elder’s, the roads become much more full as people begin their own tasks for the day. With the sun higher in the sky and people filling the roads around them, Zixxes decides it is best to have his hands free. He steps to the side of the road they are traveling and sets Larn and Beros down. Taking their hands, he crouches to be at their eye level. 

“Stay close.” He commands, waiting for them to nod and repeat his words back to him. Brinnin remains on his back. In this way, the group makes their way to a clearing in the center of the grove. 

Though “clearing” is certainly a misnomer.

There is a mighty tree planted in the middle of the meadow. It dwarfs even the massive trees they had seen as they made their way here. The only word that Zixxes’ thinks properly describes its size is mountainous. Even from his distance at the opening of clearing, a distance he judged to be over 100 feet, he could make out the texture of the bark. Thick, deep roots sink deep into the land, the earth rippling out around the hidden wood; grass as long as a goblin is tall lay pushed down in the trampling of many feet. As his head tips back to take in the full height of it, he hears a soft gasp beside his ear. 

“Wow,” Brinnin breathes out in awe, and Zixxes cannot help but silently agree. “Do you think we could climb it, Brother?”

Zixxes laughs, and nuzzles the side of his brother’s head with his cheek. “It might be a bit out of either of our skill sets at the moment, Pup.” 

Vibrations at the end of his arms bring his attention back to ground level. While he and Brinnin were captivated by the tree, the two youngest of his clan had been entranced by what lies in front of it. 

Booths, tents, and carts fill the space all around the tree. The area teems with movement as vendors work to get their spaces settled. Every booth was decorated with ribbons, banners, and lanterns, but all seemed to be doing something different. Some had wears for sale—foods, tools, gifts, and the like—while others seemed to house various different games or entertainers. From where they stand at the entrance, on a slight hill leading into the area, he can see the festival grounds are more conventionally organized than the streets of Embryveil. At first it seems like it is a zig-zagging mess of booths, tents, and people, but soon he is able to pick out that the booths are set up in a circular pattern that spirals from the outermost edge of the clearing all the way to the middle, mimicking the rings of a tree. 

Staring at all that is laid before him, Zixxes suddenly feels the weight of his next task: to find someone in this unfamiliar mess. 

The letter did not give a place of meeting more specific than the festival grounds. He had hoped that meant that someone would be waiting for him here, before he even had to enter the grounds. 

Clearly he was wrong. He is going to have to walk through every lane looking for one of his older siblings with three excitable children who would want to touch everything. The letter didn’t even say who he was to meet!

Zixxes sighs in a big heave, pushing away the things he cannot change and accepting his fate. There is no game that is going to be able to distract them this time. Brute strength and luck will have to see him through.

Zixxes tightens his hold on the toddlers and prays to some god that Brinnin doesn’t simply hop off his back the moment he finds another pole worthy of climbing. He starts through the aisles, determined to get this over with

It’s even more difficult than he imagined; there are so many people here, even though most festival activities do not start until late afternoon. Folks peruse the few open booths, while others just stroll idly though the clearing, seemingly to watch things come together. It’s impossible for him to find who he is looking for. On more than one occasion, he rushes after a head of dark hair only for it to be a stranger. Frustration rises in him the longer it drags on. 

As he moves into the seventh ring of the circle, he wonders if he should just head directly to the tree in the middle; that seems a logical place to meet if no one met him at the entrance. 

He does not register the sound of children laughing as he is distracted by his own thoughts. He does, however, take note of the twins pulling him to a stop. He glances up and sees an enchanter setting off a colorful minor illusion of a dragon dancing in the air, flying above the small crowd of children gathered. 

It is far too late for Zixxes to turn and flee. The two youngest are already straining against his grip, pleading to be released.

In a last ditch effort to avoid this delay, Zixxes drops to his knees to grab their attention. 

“Would you like sweets?” He hates that he has to stoop to bribery, but desperate times are upon him.

But it is as though they don’t even hear him. Brinnin drops off of his back and flips over his older brother’s hip in a move that would truly impress Zixxes if it was not in this moment. The boy’s acrobatics jars the arm holding Beros, and the child takes the advantage, breaking Zixxes’ grip and running off after Brinnin. Larn is still in his grasp, tugging frantically to follow after her brothers; and after a second of thought, Zixxes releases her too. 

He stands and peels the coat away from the skin of his back and arms to give himself some relief from the heat. He unbuttons the coat but leaves it on, pushing up the sleeves up his forearms instead. He is out of his element; he can admit that to himself. But a teaching of his mother still rings true even in this foreign place: “Sometimes the greatest course of action is to stay still.”

Zixxes steps up behind the children, retrieving his staff from Brinnin and pulling him in closer to the twins so they were all together. He whispers over their heads. 

“We can stay, but do not leave my line of sight.” He watches them all nod to show he has been heard even as their gazes are fixed at the show in front of them. 

Zixxes crosses his arms and waits it out. Pretending not to be just as entertained as his siblings.

Zixxes Keun-Hag
(ai generated image)

                         {Part Six: The Festival Grounds}