Solo Touch Wood

[Jeremy Casing]

14th Summer

"No!" The ear-piercing shriek ripped through the Bronze Woods like a shard of dropped glass. Strangely, no birds lifted up from the trees despite the high pitched wail. "What are you doing? Not that tree, you great lummox!"

"Look, love. You said 'that tree over there'. How's I to know which one yer on 'bout?" The other voice was gruff, and sounded not at all pleased to be debating the issue.

"Are you blind?" The old woman cried, her voice as high and painful as before. "Can you not see how entirely different they are?"

A tick of silence.

Finally, the lumberjack gave a beast-like growl and raised his hands to the air, begging the Gods to devour him there and then. "Gods, help me woman!"

Jeremy watched the scene play out from a short way away. He smirked, shook his head slowly, and turned his attention to the young woman who stood beside him. She was short and squattish, possessing the opposite build to ever-lanky Jeremy. Their differences did not end there, though. Alexandra was a forester, armed with a wicked-looking axe to bring down the selected trees. Jeremy however, took the side of the mad old shrieking woman, defending the Bronze Woods and arguing with the lumberjacks to limit their tree cutting.

Fortunately, Jeremy and Alex's partnership had been more successful than others.

"She's mad, ain't she?" Alex muttered, swinging her axe over her right shoulder and waiting for Jeremy to led the way further into the woods.

The Kelvic glanced up in the direction of the old woman. She certainly fit the physical description of a madwoman: wild grey hair, homemade, crookedly stitched clothes, a voice that only came out as horrified shrieks. But Jeremy's opinion of Marie Devilliers was far more complementary. "She's just... very dedicated." He replied softly, unable to stop himself from smiling as Marie laid herself against a tree and whispered kind words to it.

Alex snorted and shrugged her broad shoulders. "Seems like madness to me."

Jeremy supposed that all the foresters thought the Witches were mad. They did, after all, communicate with plants and animals. It was hardly a normal thing to do. But then again, the foresters spent their career bringing down trees, which in Jeremy's book was not only blasphemous but mad in itself.

"So where's my next victim?" Alex wielded her axe playfully, imitating the chopping motion that she woukld later use to hack at a tree

[Jeremy Casing]

Jeremy tried to smile, but Alex's enthusiasm to chop down one of Caiyha's blessed trees was hard for him to accept, let alone be enthusiastic for. It was a necessary evil, he knew, but that didn't make it any easier to accept. He searched their immediate area for a chime, golden eyes scanning the nearby trees in search of an ideal... victim.

The witches of Syliras had agreed that only the trees empty of nests would be selected to be chopped down by the foresters. This thankfully protected the vast majority of trees in the woods, but it did not make Jeremy' task any easier. The trees that were known to house a bird's nest had been splattered with pink paint courtesy of Marie. Likewise, the oldest trees had been painted blue; Marie had declared that they, like all old things, should be respected and not sliced down in their golden years.

"How 'bout this one?" Alex asked, indicated to a pine tree, "it's got no mark that I could see."

She wasn't wrong. Jeremy quickly surveyed the tree. It was healthy, with no sign of disease. Birds or squirrels did not generally nest in pines due to the needle-like leaves, either. It was, in truth, an ideal candidate to be turned into furniture or building materials.

"You're correct." He said with some difficulty. It was no easy task for Jeremy to pick out a tree to be killed by Alexandra's axe. He felt like some gangster, selecting a poor stranger to be hacked to death by his underdogs.

"Oh, jolly wonderful." Alex spoke in haughty, airy voice that Jeremy knew was meant to mock Marie. He ignored the woman's guffaws and instead placed a hand on the Pine. The tree was approximately thirty years old - prime time for being harvested - and instinctively knew what was happening. It conveyed to Jeremy memories of its existence in the woods, being a member of the intricate network of trees and shrubbery in this area that were connected by the rich earth beneath his feet. Many people had sheltered under this tree in the midst of winter, when the pine's evergreen pin leaves provided cover from snowfall.

Sadly, Jeremy removed his hand and gave Alexandra a solemn nod.

For a tick, she seemed to respect his low mood and pursed her lips tightly, returning his nod with a sad smile.

And then Alexandra gave a war cry, followed immediately by maniacal laughter and a swing of her great axe. The blade embedded itself within the bark of the Pine. Jeremy thought he could hear the tree scream in agony.

He turned around, walked a little way from the scene and scrunched up his eyes. The sounds of falling trees and casual conversation surrounded him, pressed down on Jeremy's mind and soul. This is necessary. He told himself again and again, but the message just did not stick. At least we are ensuring a sustainable harvest. If the Witches were not here, the foresters would simply cut down whichever tree they fancied, bringing down nests, baby birds, entire families.

This is better than any other alternative

So then why was it so petching hard?

[Jeremy Casing]

"Watchit, timber!"

Alexandra's warning cry was not for Jeremy, who by then had wandered a short distance away from his forester partner. It was a habit, she had told him, for foresters to call out 'timber' to celebrate the fall of a tree (and to avoid death by crushing). To Jeremy, it was like singing a jolly song at a funeral in hopes that nobody else would die.

He watched as Alexandra's forester comrades began to hack and chop up the great Pine, gossiping like housewives over a glass of wine. How they could feel no remorse or sadness about their job, he would never understand. Silently, Jeremy stooped down, crouching to touch the earth with his deft fingertips. A prayer to Bala:

Let this woodland recover and flourish, Bala. Let there be flowers, shrubs, saplings come spring. Embrace these woods with your care so they recover form this... this event.

"That'll make some fine furniture, I reckon." Alexandra's voice interrupted his thoughts, and Jeremy resisted the urge to tell her to petch off.

It's not her fault, he told himself patiently. She was but a woman of a harsh trade, who could not be blamed for her own lack of understanding. People like Alexandra needed time and patience, not judgement and sneering. It's not her fault.

When he opened his eyes, Alexandra was observing him with a strange, almost bemused, expression on her broad face. "You really like this wood, don't ya? I can tell it upsets you what we're doin'."

It was an unexpected sign of humility and empathy from the forester. Jeremy nodded, but when Alexandra did not speak, he decided to try and explain himself further. "When Caiyha blessed me, it was the greatest honour I could imagine. The ability to communicate with plants and animals -- it was amazing. I could see no downside to it, but obviously, there is one." He gestured briefly to the woods around them both, the sounds of trees falling and forester's laughing echoing through the woodland. "I feel this pull to do all I can do for them. To defend them from needless killing. And I know this is needed--" This final sentence was added quickly, to show Alexandra that he did appreciate the practicality of her work, "--but that doesn't make it any easier."

The woman was silent for a long moment. Jeremy assumed that she was thinking how best to tell him that he was crazy or stupid, but when Alexandra did speak, he was surprised: "I get that. M'dad was a mercenary. He killed folks for a living, basically. But to me, he was the nicest, most cuddly man ever. I couldn't imagine him shoutin' at anyone, let alone killin' 'em. And when I got older, I told 'im that. And he said to me that to be my dad, to give me the best he could, required him to kill people for money. He was good at it, so 'e took the good - which was m'mam, me, me li'tle brother - with the bad, which was the killing. What you said is like that."

Again, Jeremy found himself surprised at the eloquence of the woman's speech. Yes, she had completely understood what Jeremy had been meaning. Perhaps he had assumed the worse of her, because of that axe and her tough nature. But she was as smart as any other woman, of course.