"Come, now. Rys will be most interested to see you all."
Halla tears her eyes away from the tree long enough to share a smirk with Maeve. "'Spéis,'" she remarks quietly. "Is é sin an focal taidhleoireachta."
"'Faigheann,' b'fhéidir," Maeve agrees, "nó 'eagla.'"
Cai glances sidelong at the conversation between Halla and Maeve, but none of the other elves seem to pay it much heed. Even your intelligent mounts seem awed by the sight-- Hunts walks along, slunk a little lower to the ground, and Tellignos makes a harrumphing noise at something more spectacular than himself in the immediate vicinity.
Knute and Rikka both gaze at the tree a moment, but Rikka speaks.
"...I dreamt of this tree," she says slowly. "The night the orks attacked. I had nearly forgotten it until now."
Mav looks over at Rikka with her elegant brows arched. "Did you now? I am sure that Rys will also find that interesting." The dusky elf-woman looks back to Kló at his questions, smiling in approval.
"This is the power of our Mother, that hold this place as you see it. Alfheimr is a place ruled by... strong wills. The lady who maintains the market, for instance: she is one such will, but she is weak compared to the Mother. Here, under the eyes of her priestess Acantha, it is always the seasons of either growing or harvest, and the cruel winters of the Wyrm are held away. Is it not beautiful?"
Mav leads her palfrey forward, and the ragtag group follows along. In short order there appears a wall-- not of stone, but of briars: a hedge of thorns at least twice the height of a man, seeming so dense and tangled that it's hard to imagine even the most agile creature twisting through it. Thorns several inches long sprout at every angle from hard, woody bramblevines as thick as a man's wrist. At regular intervals along this barrier wall there are enormous crimson flowers, each vivid blossom perhaps a foot across. There must be dozens of them, judging b the ones you can see from here.
"The Mother's power keeps us safe," Mav says, indicating the wall. She rides forward, following the carpet-of-flowers 'path' to the wall itself. "Yr wyf adref. Mae gen i westeion!"
The brambles twitch and shiver, then part like a curtain, drawing back to permit a passage through their thorned impasse. Mav smiles.
"Welcome to the garden. Shall we?"
Tassidars eyes took in the spectacle before him, the fey tinged breeze he could feel on his cheeks while his nose tried to separate and identify the exotic smell of the place, but he could feel the magic of this place throbbing in his bones.
In hushed eleven he speaks
Yggdrasill is its name,
a tall tree, showered
with shining loam.
From there come the dews
that drop in the valleys.
It stands forever green over
Urðr's well. . . "
"The scale, its . . . unfathomable."
Tassidar sifts through memories.
The huldra inclines her head graciously to Tassidar's gestures of respect, seeming charmed by them, and favors him with a warm smile.
Her brows arch at the next question, and she raises one fair hand and indicates a bracelet made of interwoven bands of green silk. "Most of us bear some token of allegiance to the lord or lady we have chosen to back," Sula says. "I myself favor the Mother, who watches over that which grows."
"For advice: speak kindly to all you meet, even if they do not to you. Fey delight in angering and vexing those from the mortal world, like yourselves; if you can stay calm in the face of insult, they often lose their interest. If any offer you a gift, offer something back-- or the fey can claim rudeness, and rudeness, here, is a serious thing. Do not give your true names out freely, nor ask for the names of others: ask instead what others would wish to be called. Stay on paths as best you can, for the paths are places of... how shall I say it? Stability-- and they are less prone to change than the deepness of the world, here."
Kló sits astride Hunts, trying not to gape at everything. When he rides through the impromptu passage, he leans down towards the natural wall. Reaching out, but not touching, the thorns and flowers. Almost inaudibly—and clearly meant for the objects of his inspection—he whispers.
Then he sits back up, trying to avoid eye contact of anyone who saw the exchange as he pats Hunts uncomfortably.
Mav smiles a sly smile at Tassidar's Elven words, responding in the same language to him: "You are not wrong. There is the Great Tree, and then there are echoes of it. Representations of it. Much in the First World operates on a similar principle."
The bramble vines do not appreciably respond at Klo's muttered, secret language, but neither do they harm him, or Tassidar. Halla is not so lucky-- the hem of her cloak catches on a thorny patch, and when she reaches to free it, she earns a brief sharp pain for her troubles-- one of the thorns nicks her across the hand, and a thin line of her own bright red blood wells up.
The little bird, Ailwyn, takes off with a merry chirp, leaving Tellignos's antlers behind as she flies ahead of you through the thorny passage, gone in a flash of white wings.
The briar wall is perhaps ten feet thick. On the other side, you find yourself in what can only be described as a lush and well-kept garden and orchard: plots of well-tended ground alternate with small orchard groves. Right near to you is a tilled vineyard, with fat bunches of grapes, so dark they are almost black, gleaming under the sun and weighing down the twisted vines. Beyond that, those are surely apple trees-- glossy red and yellow fruits are visible beneath green leaves. A few elves are moving between the plots of garden, tending, glancing up at your passage: surely this must be the place from which the elves bring such unseasonable bounty to Jol, each year.
The air hums with the song of bees and the scent of fruit and flowers. There are buildings here, too, clustered around the base of the giant tree trunk itself-- homes built against the massive roots, it seems, made of wood and painted in bright colors. It's towards these that Mav leads, but well before you reach them, a familiar figure is striding your way, his long, pale face blank with apparent shock.
Rys stands out here amid the rich bounty and vibrant color of the faery gardens: his ashen paleness seems all the more stark when surrounded by so much that is beautiful and vivid, and the drawn look on his face bespeaks a man at a funeral rather than someone standing amid such lush life. The snow bunting is on his shoulder, chirping nonstop at him though he seems to be ignoring it in favor of taking in the group.
His gaze moves past Tassidar-- then he double-takes, visibly, goggling at him a moment before regaining his composure and offering a stiff bow to the group.
"....welcome. Some of you, I remember from the most recent Jol," he begins slowly in Skald, gaze lingering on Halla, Rikka, and Knute. "Others of you, I think perhaps I have seen before, years gone." A slightly uncertain nod at Klo.
"And others of you, I know not at all." This at Tassidar and at Maeve. "I am called Rys. It seems we have much to discuss."
Judging by the looks he is shooting Mav as well, the elf leader probably has much he wishes to discuss with her as well-- but Mav laughs lightly, and slides off her palfrey. "Let us see your beasts stabled! And food prepared. It is such a long time since we had guests, here in the shadow of the Tree."
Halla gives the bramble-curtain a long, narrow-eyed stare as she continues through.
Rys stands out here amid the rich bounty and vibrant color of the faery gardens: his ashen paleness seems all the more stark when surrounded by so much that is beautiful and vivid, and the drawn look on his face bespeaks a man at a funeral rather than someone standing amid such lush life. The snow bunting is on his shoulder, chirping nonstop at him though he seems to be ignoring it in favor of taking in the group.
His gaze moves past Tassidar-- then he double-takes, visibly, goggling at him a moment before regaining his composure and offering a stiff bow to the group.
"....welcome. Some of you, I remember from the most recent Jol," he begins slowly in Skald, gaze lingering on Halla, Rikka, and Knute. "Others of you, I think perhaps I have seen before, years gone." A slightly uncertain nod at Klo.
"And others of you, I know not at all." This at Tassidar and at Maeve.
"Ní dhéanann sé cuimhin leat, Maeve," Halla smirks at her companion before bowing an acknowledgement to the elf-goði.
Kló sits quietly astride Hunts for a few seconds, expecting one of the group to speak up. When they don’t, he gives them a quick, uncertain look, then slides from Hunts’s back.
”Aye, it would have been twenty winters, Master Rys. And we thank you for the invitation when we show up unannounced. I promise you our need is great, though.”
As the mounts are being seen to, the big man looks over at Hunts. ”This one is not just a mount. She is a companion who has agreed to help me. If she wants, I ask that she be treated as such.”
The pale elf studies Halla a moment at her nod-- and her companion-- then looks to the big man at his words.
"There is truce between our people," he says after an awkward pause. "Of course you are-- welcome."
At Klo's words regarding the mount, Rys gazes at Hunts a moment-- the big cat licks her paw. "As he says. I am no dumb beast." The cat's tail twitches. "Neither the moose nor... the toad either I suppose."
"And we should not treat you as such!" Mav says with a little clap of her hands. "Do you wish to stay with your humans, or shall I take you to the stables? We have meat for you, mighty hunter, and I think you should like sweet apples, Tellignos? And I am sure we can find something for Glorn..."
Hunts perks up at the mention of 'meat', her purple tail twitching. She gives Klo a rasping lick then moves off following Mav, who throws a smile over her shoulder at Rys. "Well, Rys? Play host. Perhaps you remember how."
Rys clears his throat. "Please, follow me."
He leads the Hofnites into one of the buildings; the inside is decorated in a manner the native Hofnites have little experience with, though for Tassidar it calls to mind Kyonin... in a fashion. In Kyonin, the elves may work with the wood of a natural tree to shape it, and thus incorporate the organic world into their structures-- but not usually to this extent. The walls are made of braided vines in places; ivy curtains hang to divide the space into rooms, and flowers nestle in a riot of color up at the ceiling. The smell of the blossoms is thick and fragrant as a perfume.
The furniture is made of wood: low chairs and benches, carved and shaped with organic curves so they seem grown rather than cut. Rys gestures stiffly at several chairs. "Please. Sit. Are you... are you hungry?"
"You seem hale," Halla comments to Rys, "after your encounter with the winter-child. Has it been long for you since then?" (A question which would seem nonsensical in ordinary circumstances.)
Maeve is more interested in the environs than in those speaking; she looks around at the furniture with delight, letting her hand run along the smooth curves of the wood. Catching Rys's gesture, she sits in one of the chairs indicated. "Cad a dhéanann sé a rá?" she demands of Halla. "Mura bhfuil tú ag dul a aistriú go dtí mé, a shannadh ar an ceann leis na súile glas a dhéanamh. Déanfaidh mé air a insint dom nuair a fuair sé an deic na cártaí."
Kló inspects everything they pass. This place was so foreign and exotic, but the use and respect of the native spirits in the plants of the area ... well, it resonates with the teachings his father passed down to him. He tries to maintain an objective distance, but he's clearly awed by much of what he sees.
To his credit, when Rhys offers food, his usual blunt nature asserts itself. "Yes, I am hungry, but time is against us. We have spent time I don't think we have in the hopes your aid can make it up."
"He speaks truth," Halla concurs. "We have not come to test your hospitality. We are still seeking the children stolen from our village on Jól, however long ago that may have been for you, and followed the orks into this place. Help us retrieve our children, and you will be swiftly rid of us."
Tassidar''s mind was busy trying to take everything in, he was having trouble reading what was going on here. Was Rys glad to see them? Was there danger here? Why was Mav trying to separate them from their mounts?
Regardless, he was here. He had set out untold months ago to seek out and stand before this leader of an elven house, now he was unsure of how he felt about his accomplishment. One thing he was certain of though, this was going to be interesting.
Tassidar allowed the humans to speak first as was their style, simple and to the point, before he added his own voice.
Tassidar bows with his fingers steepled in a show of greeting and presenting one's self as answering a summons.
"Atish'all vallem, to you whom is called Rys in this place. I have adopted the name Tas here, my companion is called Veth. I have had the pleasure of traveling with your bunting, though I am unsure if she will sing any sweet words of me."