“We are the Black Limb on the Great Tree. It created us as tools, with purposes unclear. We cannot perform our given duties of destruction at the order of Dunesil of the Elvine, unless unleashed by his will from the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge entirely. None of the Elvine and none of the Black Leaves can leave the Veil entirely until Lord Dunesil decrees that it should be so.
Leaving the Veil means, stepping wholly down from the extra-dimension to enter your earth. There is the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge, where Addl’laen rests. There is the place you know as earth, and there is the place between, which allows us to influence the earth you are familiar with without being seen or heard or felt. That is all I believe we exist for.” He said it all at length as if reciting it for the dozenth time.
“Does that answer your question, milady?” He cocked his head to the side-like, brows raised like a hopeful child.
“You didn’t answer the question at all, Deh.” She answered.
“I mean, what does it mean for the Black Leaves to be unleashed? Are you as much prisoner of it as you are protected by it?” She asked, and he gained a look of understanding and surprise.
“Oh! The Veil restricts our emotions, our furies. Freed of it, means we are given back our furies, for such are necessary to return the earth to a state of flourishing.” He smiled, as if that answered everything between them.
“So, you have the ability to make choices? You’re no longer just machines with an uncertain purpose, but a clear one?” She asked.
“Like when you chose to defend President Manning against Athaem?” She added, leaning forth insistently.
“We are the Black Leaves of the Great Tree. We do not have the luxury of choices.” He corrected sternly.
“But...” She trailed off, disbelief marring her young features. “I saw you make a choice! I saw you choose not to kill me when you could have within the west!” He looked at her like a dumb child once again.
“Does the unleashing mean you get to choose for yourselves how best to wield your furies against man?” She asked, prodding his inability to answer her questions and simultaneously realize what the answer implied. He thought about it, long and hard, just a little boy in a lethal god’s position. She couldn’t believe he couldn’t see what was so obvious. He was free. The Veil of the Leaf’s Edge was as much a curse to the Black Leaves as it was a blessed sanctuary. She had the sudden sneaking suspicion Dunesil had imposed the Veil partially as a way to control them. Slowly but surely, Deh Leccend was seeing it, gears turning behind his features.
When his eyes came back to her, they were glittering, dancing with some sort of understanding, or delight, or possibly tears. Slowly, his features went through a range of emotions before finally growing a grim and furious look. Shannon couldn’t tell what he was thinking entirely. Not until his brow furrowed and his eyes alighted with a peculiar inner fire -a hatred. But it too melted away. His brow arched as a little grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. He understood it now. He understood it all.
“Do you see it now?” She asked to make certain.
“Yes, Firea’csweise. I see it.” He nodded and his grin double-folded.
“Dunesil is just like the leaders of my kin, isn’t he?” She made it a statement of fact, even though it was clear that Dunesil was entirely different than mankind in every other way. Despite such difference, it was true -he had created the Veil to kill several birds with one stone. He’d done so partly to unjustly control the Black Leaves. He’d stolen their dangerous emotions and free spirits to make tools of them without killing them and commit sin personally.
“In ways, yes.” Deh Leccend nodded, grin melting away, replaced by his dangerous fury and spite.
“Do you know where the powers were put to rest?” She asked, beginning to forge a plan. If the Black Leaves were truly granted freedom, then perhaps there was a way to end this war before it even reached its climax. Perhaps there was then also a way to change the minds of mankind as a whole -to let them see with clear eyes the errors of their ways and their need for reform. Shannon didn’t see the path to such an end. She didn’t have the vision for that. But she could see it was a possibility. She just needed to figure out a way to bring it about, and spare her kind and all the others from the Powers that be.
“Yes.” Deh Leccend responded certainly.
“And how they will come?” She asked another.
“It has already begun.” He answered.
“Where?! How?” She asked wildly, rising to her feet. “We have to do something, Deh!”
“In the West, in the East and in the North and South.” He answered. “They come from all quarters, and beyond. There is nothing we can do about that.”
“All at once?!” She couldn’t believe it.
“No.” Deh Leccend corrected her misunderstanding. “The powers of the sea, Lleviathaln and Kraquen, are frozen in the north until Enfaeri is freed by the coming of Miquael. His heated strike will free the beast, birthing it on the dawn of his coming. From the sun He will come. To the tallest peak he will descend.” He hesitated, judging her reaction, but Shannon wasn’t scared anymore. She was growing determined with the sight of hope.
“Turn it to sand, he will, and send all high points of snow and ice melting within minutes.” He clarified.
“Can you stop him?” She asked without hesitation.
“No.” He answered, lowering his eyes in dismal realization of his own futility, even for all his strengths.
“Can We stop him?” She asked again. “Together?”
Shannon knew some things had changed about her since she’d defended herself against Deh Leccend when he’d come to her in the hospital. Even Dunesil had told her she shared the Elvine gifts. She had the power to heal things and make things grow, as well as to tear things down. She’d felt that power working against Athaem. It was unexpected and wildly difficult to predict or control. But it was there. She had some ability to do something. It was high time she stopped being so afraid, and do something about what was happening to her world –just as she’d promised by joining E.L.F.
However, Deh Leccend shook his head.
“No.” He sighed sadly. “We are not great enough to stop Micquael, let alone any of the others in his wake. Not even all the Black Leaves could hope to stop him. Only the White Leaves’ charm can force him back to from the third dimension of your earth and capture him in the Sun.”
“How is it that you’re supposed to put him back into the charm?” She asked again, scrambling for answers.
“The last time, he was the last to be bound under lock and key.” Deh Leccend answered.
“He was the catalyst. He was the beginning and the end, Micquael, hand of the starfire sword.” His tongue was dramatic, but he hesitated.
“It took the eighth White Lady. It took his defeat in battle, and the driving of his body into the reach of her touch… by the lives of many Black Leaves, and then it was over.” He trailed off, growing saddened by the memory of his lost kinsmen.
“Then where is she?!” Shannon was all over it. “Is she just going to let this happen?!”
She spoke incredulously, and Deh Leccend was taken aback. How dare the Firea’csweise of all people speak badly of the White Leaves, his face seemed to say.
“If we can bring her to him as he arrives, then maybe we can stop him.”
“That is not likely.” He said, averting his eyes once again.
“Why not?!” Her frustration mounted.
“Because the White Leaves, the charm and key of Micquael, along with all the others, have fallen from the tree.” He answered, lips curling to a pout. It was indeed sad for the White Leaves to have died and fallen from the Great Tree.
“What do you mean?! They’re dead?!”
“Yes.” Deh Leccend answered, sniffling back his tears. His emotions swung up and down, changing so swiftly Shannon could hardly keep up with him. It must have been difficult, overwhelming, to have his furies back so abruptly. Shannon wondered how he didn�
�t just break down and sob out the many events of uncounted millennia he’d borne witness to, but she focused on the matter at hand, pressing the topic for certain answers.
“Then how did you capture them with the White Ladies the last time?!” She asked, bewildered. It didn’t make any sense.
“The White Leaves were grown and embodied by the white ladies when it was time.” He said, sighing once more as he stiffened proudly, remembering their glorious spirits.
“They came incarnate as Ladies. Great and awe inspiring ladies.” He said, swiftly turning to smiles as if bathed in the light of their coming all over again.
“Born of one woman, she was many.”
Frustrated and flustered altogether, Shannon slumped dismally. She was almost furious for a moment, but she inevitably gave in to the helplessness of the situation.
“So there is no way to stop his coming?”
“I do not believe so. There is no choice unless the White Leaves regrow.” He was shaking his head, and slowly he descended toward dismal as well -emotions swiftly swinging like a helpless pendulum. Deh Leccend’s machine-like, tireless, emotionless constancy was almost as frustrating and confusing as his new form, but not quite. All the ups and downs he suffered made his presence feel like a bipolar crazy person. He was sad again before Shannon could really keep up with him.
“We must only obey our purpose.” He finished, and his tongue sparked her rebellious persona once again, like flint striking gasoline ablaze.
“But, you have a choice!” She insisted again, falling back to the initial topic of freedom in the Black Leaves.
“Why don’t you do something about what you see happening?! You claim to do what is necessary when it is necessary, but if you do nothing right now, all of your kin, all of the Black Leaves, and everything else will die!” She was flushed.
“I do not understand?!” He answered, confused, -sorrow forgotten in exchange for feeling attacked. Shannon’s harsh tone hurt his ears and his feelings. He felt like she was chiding him for something he had no control over.
“I do not want you to die, Dayless End!” She changed her approach, still not understanding his name was not really what it sounded like. “Why can’t you see that You don’t Want to die either!?”
She didn’t get it. She might never get it. Was he really just a machine, or did he have a choice? He was free, but he didn’t act like it -not even after speaking that he realized it. Everyone had a choice. That was what it was to be alive. Wasn’t it?
He went silent, shrinking in his black cloak as he thought long and hard about her words. Slowly but surely, once more, he reasoned through what she’d said. Shannon Hunter, the Firea’csweise, was right. But suddenly that didn’t matter. Being right wasn’t important in any scenario.
Something Dunesil had said to her during her visit to Addl’laen clicked within her, linking up with something Deh Leccend had said about the White Leaves incarnate and their regrowth.
~Born of one woman, she was many...~ Deh Leccend had said.
~...the White Leaves were grown when it was time.~
~Now that you are kin to us...~ Dunesil had said after the Great Tree had spoken to her.
~...You have our gifts to make things grow, and to tear things down.~
He’d said much more, but that was all she’d needed to hear in this moment where things abruptly fit together like a final puzzle piece.
Eureka! She almost cried aloud.
She heard the words of the living Addl’laen, streaking through her memories, fitting bigger pieces together in the picture.
~...And I promise you, when you are confronted by the choices you alone will have to make, that I will know your answers when you come to me. Then, will I know your Fate. Then will I be able to tell you the reason for your being, the why for the lacking of your leaf, and the meaning of both your purpose and your life.~ The Great Tree had told her when she’d asked the reasons for her involvement in all of this. They were reasons that went beyond the obvious answers to the questions of why. She was not involved in it all simply because Addl’laen had instructed Dunesil to contact his son Athaem and prevent her death back in Seattle.
No. She was not involved in all of this simply because prince Athaem had stayed Deh Leccend’s hand in response to that bidding. She wasn’t even involved because the Great Tree had spoken to her like it had never done with anyone in the exception of the great Lord of the branch of the Elvine, Dunesil Llaerth.
No. Shannon was involved in this for the reasons of the very beginning. She’d seen Deh Leccend during her E.L.F. affiliated attack on that company she had hated vehemently enough back not long ago to actually do something about. Even as she realized this, Shannon knew it was from far before that. The beginning had actually begun years and years ago. More than a decade past, when she was but a child, she’d seen an attack similar to Deh Leccend’s on Murton and Norton Industrial. But rather, it had been Hunter Industrial.
It had been when she was seven years old, that her father’s company had presumably been attacked by E.L.F. operatives. She’d seen it in the darkness of the hills -silver flashes she could not identify. She now presumed it was highly likely that Deh Leccend had been the very person responsible for the attack on her father’s company grounds, which had injured her lightly by the window’s shards she’d been staring through.
This fact clicked into place neatly with the fairly recent discovery of the Qual of the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge. She was here, now, because she had seen Deh Leccend long ago. But, now, she believed it wasn’t just the Qual and the glass that had let her see him that first time. It had only provided her with the insight she couldn’t have known otherwise, even though as a little girl, she couldn’t hope to comprehend it. During her attack on Murton and Norton, Shannon had seen Deh Leccend without the aid of glass. There was a reason for this. She didn’t know what it was exactly, but it was there on the tip of her tongue, just escaping her.
She dwelled on it in a hurry, rushing through the recently discovered connections in the pieces of the puzzle, but ended up her being named kin to the Elvine. Firea’csweise, they’d called her. The Herald of Change. Or maybe, Catalyst of Change?
Shannon suddenly had a different idea.
“Take me back to Addl’laen, Deh.” She said firmly, setting her jaw. “Take me quickly.”
“Whatever for, milady, Firea’csweise?” He asked, confused.
“Because I have made the choice to go there, as such a choice to do so has come before me, and you will take me to the Great Tree.” Shannon smiled upon him, and he rose to his feet, unable to deny her any request.
20
Deh Leccend asked nothing further of her. He would take her back to hidden Addl’laen, but only after ensuring her injuries were tended properly. She watched him work with his nimble, gentle hands. His soft, cool touches, she realized, were wrought of compassion. No longer was it merely his duty, her safe-keeping and well-being.
Deh Leccend was feeling. It left her silent, trying to decipher him all over again, and she could have fully marveled at his abilities and behavior had she not been so eager to be underway.
Soon enough she was fit as could be, marred not by bruise or tenderness. There were no sore spots, nor the slightest of aches, and she gratefully accepted his offered hand as he rose up before her.
Pulled to her feet, Shannon dusted off her posterior, and waited for him to lead her away to the Elvine.
Deh Leccend’s features were slightly contorted with worry.
“Do you feel well again?” He asked softly, brow and lips matching his voice.
“Yes. Thank you, Deh.” She laid a gentle hand of her own to his cheek, fleeting and quick to retreat.
“One day, you’ll have to show me how to do that trick.” Shannon smiled lightly upon him, prompting a swift reply.
“It is no trick, milady.” He smiled in response.
“Well, trick or no, you’ll have to teach me some day.” She insisted, prompting
him to smile a bit further.
“As you wish, milady.” Deh Leccend answered her with a light bow, turning her westward.
“I can teach you as we go.” He added, gesturing for her to walk with him, and she did, watching as they ascended to the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge. The visual residue of her world peeled back like wisps of silver silk and light morning sun-steam in a breeze. It was replaced by the everlasting twilight and the unending trees, ancient beyond time.
Shannon was vaguely aware that it had taken them seven real days to reach this location in the east after their first walk, and she feared it would take seven more to return. However, Deh Leccend held no such worries. He led her briskly ahead into the trees, aiming for what she could only assume was Addl’laen.
“You remember the Great Tree spoke to you of your kinship, yes?” He asked, arching a black brow as he pulled her along.
E.L.F. - White Leaves Page 27