Dunesil Llaerth stood before the great tree, his mother, Addl’laen, within the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge. He beseeched her with outstretched hands, wishing to speak to her one last time, but she had gone silent and still. She would not speak, not even as he struggled to spare her the coming of Traemin and Gane. He put everything he had into upholding the Veil, but he already knew there would be no stopping the Reclaimers.
He couldn’t relinquish though. He had to at least try to withstand it. Otherwise, he was no better than the murderous Black Leaf.
And so, the Lord of the Elvine felt the coming of the Reclaimers. He felt their vines digging into the Veil, piercing it like nothing else could ever do, and he doubled over, cringing and struggling in what was an inexorable failure.
The futility of his struggle would win him no victory, only a slow lightening of the skies, a gentle flicker as the eternal twilight slowly unraveled, revealing the third dimension’s midday hours. Slowly but surely, the juxtaposed realms were colliding, coalescing back at long last into a singular space. But before it was over, Dunesil Llaerth looked upon the mighty Addl’laen.
The world of the Veil shuddered and trembled as the Reclaimers knocked on its doors, tearing down his walls, and abruptly before the Elvine king's eyes, Addl’laen began to shed her leaves.
In utter droves they rained down about him, silver and pale, dark and faer, gray and yellow and more. All fell at the death of life itself. Stricken, Dunesil Llaerth was utterly confused.
The Addl’laen had sacrificed herself?
He couldn’t believe or understand it. He could only watch as the entire mass of her foliage came rustling to the earth, shed like water after a fair rain. He gaped as the branch of the Elvine lost its leaves in the hundreds and into the thousands with a swiftness that left him staggering. He watched it shed until it was his own time, first at the base of the Elvine. His leaf did not yet fall, and he knew exactly why.
The Veil of the Leaf’s Edge. As long as it survived, he could cheat the life cut off from himself. The Veil cracked, and Dunesil collapsed to his knees. The sky suddenly blazed with the high sun screaming through the baring boughs of the great tree, and amid it all, he spotted a single leaf that did not fall, yet did not also cheat death. It was a single leaf with which he was greatly familiar.
It was hung, silhouetted against the sun for his eyes alone -for none now lived to witness.
It was a brightness and warmth he had not seen in so many ages, the sun, and now that he felt it, he was happy that he had at the end of all things. But that tiny matter was pale before the darkness his eyes latched onto in that last leaf.
And then, Lord Dunesil Llaerth, last of the Elvine fell to death within confusion. Addl’laen had sacrificed herself to save that one leaf from death, and it would thereby save her? Dunesil Llaerth would never have his answer or understanding. In that moment, it was finished. The Veil shattered like a glass dome, whole sections of its false sky falling away.
The Elvine Llaerthir collapsed to the grasses, and from his hand rolled a glass orb, the simple talisman that helped make both the Veil and its Qual possible.
Before it even ceased to roll, it cracked into two odd halves, flopped, then shattered to nothing, leaving a sharp, glittering trail like a handful of faeri dust in the grasses of Addl’laen’s court.
The two separate versions of Earth collapsed upon one another in the single greatest catastrophe earth had ever known.
In the wake, everything would be remade by cataclysm wrought not only of the Reclaimer’s earth-changing passage and the works of the rest of the Powers, or even the minor acts of the Black Leaves. It was but the coalescence between what had once been, and what now was.
But in the wake, nothing would be the same. Not ever again.
***
Birds chirping in the late evening called out to unusually sensitive, raw ears. It was such a brilliant sound that it distorted the senses. A soft breeze rustled the leaves of the many trees of the new world, but it may as well have been a roar.
The land was quiet in the wake of the collision, but it could have been quaking to his senses. Clearly, he was shaken.
Ben Connelly woke up face first in the waters of Lake Union, and he thrashed to his feet. Why was he not quite on the shores of Lake Union?
He remembered only fragments. He’d been staring at the very edge of the consumption of the unbelievable juggernaut. But it was like trying to remember a nightmare -all intensity and yet vague enough that he couldn’t quite decide if it was real or imagined. He couldn’t even decide how to describe it.
He was staggered now, a dullard standing thigh deep in a lake, staring at the fantasy that had come into real. It seemed as though the destroyers he’d seen with his own eyes had simply vanished, replaced by trees. Everywhere he looked, there were trees, but one so close dwarfed all others by far. It dwarfed anything he’d ever seen. Addl’laen towered over the world itself from Connelly’s vantage.
A footstep sounded out at his backside, crunching on the shores, drawing his eyes away from the awe.
“Well, I thought I’d never see you again, lad.” Came a familiar old voice, and Connelly lay eyes upon what had once been Christopher Stevens. It was Habben, the Otherkin Faer, and he was in the company of his hounds.
“What on earth has just happened old man?!” Connelly demanded. He didn’t know what else to say, or do. He felt like his mind had cracked. There certainly wasn’t any room for any other questions.
“The end, Ben, the end.” Habben answered, coming to a halt on his gnarled little walking stick.
“The end of what?!” Connelly asked.
“The end of mankind’s ways. The end of the destruction that was supposed to have come to pass in all of your deaths.” The faeri answered.
“I don’t understand.” Ben admitted, lost entirely to everything.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to.” Habben smiled brightly. “Even I was already dead. Didn’t you feel the change?”
“Change?” Ben asked. “Aside from the monster? The trees, you mean?”
“No, boy.” Habben chided him. “The change in yourself. Do you not know your rebirth when you see it?” He asked.
Ben just shook his head dumbly. He still didn’t get it.
“You died, Ben. Everyone died.” Habben revealed.
“Come, let us take a walk, and I will show you many great things.” The faeri gestured inland, and beckoned for Connelly to follow as he led away.
***
Dark eyes opened, squinting against the setting sunlight, scored on the horizon by lengthy ribbons of vibrant, wispy clouds. The gaze was erratically obstructed, however, by the many great trees and long blades of tall grasses. But it was also obstructed by the soft, exotic features of a nearby face. The face belonged to a delicate body in his clutches, pressing comfortably close in their slumber.
The cries of the rejoicing birdlife drew him fully awake, and he sat up, lazy and relaxed of heart. Like a boy finding new joys in old simple things, Deh Leccend smiled softly, looking up to see the canopy so high overhead. Alighted by the sun, he turned his features down upon her, nudging her gently to wake.
Shannon, the Lady White Leaves, groaned as if sleeping in on a lazy Sunday, safe within her own bed on any normal day. Slowly, she came back beneath his touch, but she didn’t want to wake. She just wanted to sleep, for she was comfortable and happy in this heaven, unawares to the glistening beauty of Lake Union through the trees. But, then she felt the soft, cradling touch of long cool grasses beneath her, and the sure presence of Deh Leccend.
“Shannon.” Deh finally used her real name where she could hear it, and he said it lovingly, drawing her fully awake.
“Shannon, my White Leaves! Look!” He spoke breathlessly in his happiness, drawing open her bright silvered eyes as he gestured aloft. Shannon did as he bid of her, and sure enough, she saw what he did. They were lain at the foot of great Addl’laen’s massive trunk, the place of their final stand. He looked dow
n and smiled upon her, drawing her own sheepish grin, and drawing her to sit up with him.
Shannon was invariably marked by wonder and filled with happiness as well. Her heart was light and free as Deh Leccend rose to his feet, striding several paces away, looking out over the new world. He then looked up to the great tree for a moment before returning his black gaze to her seated figure. His dark visage was alighted with sheer wonder, and Shannon rose to go to him.
Together they looked out over the descending day and Lake Union below this beautifully overgrown, half-consumed ruin of Seattle.
“The Veil of the Leaf’s Edge is no more.” He said softly, sounding saddened, and yet, he was visibly happy for it.
“The great tree lives, and her leaves are plentiful!” He added, tones lightening drastically, but his volume did not rise. And sure enough, there were people seen below, near the shores of the lake. There were survivors of the awful cataclysmic end that had been wrought of all of their efforts to spare the world of the destruction at the hands of the Powers.
“The Elvine is reborn.” He went on softly, and sure enough once more there were Elves amidst them. The world of Addl’laen’s creation had come full circle in the cleansing.
“The great tree was right, Shannon. I would live to see it all come about. Dunesil would live to see the end of the ways of man, but unwittingly die to prevent it, and you would be instrumental in the overturning of all things. You really were the Firea’csweise. My Lady White Leaves!” He spoke as if there had really ever been any doubt, reaching out to brush lightly at the little white limb and its feathery lengths worn amidst her hair.
“Please, Deh. Call me Shan.” She smiled as they looked out to the world remade.
Technologies of every sort had been destroyed across much of the globe. No planes would be seen in the skies. No poison fumes could be smelled in the air. No fossil fuels would burn. Electricity was a relic now. Satellite communication, gone. Money, poof -and hopefully along with it went greed. The consequences of this monstrous change, would be far reaching in the new dynamic of social coexistence on a global scale, but could not be calculated by anyone. The future was not unwritten, and in a universe like that, anything was possible. Good and evil alike.
Mankind was literally starting over on newly turned leaves of total rebirth. But they would not have to do so alone, for with the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge broken, the Elvine reborn and Faeries free to act as they would without fear of Elvine judgment and punishment the races had been thrown back into the mix with one another.
Elves and Man, most particularly, would be reduced to living together once again. The Faeri loved Man and Elvine alike, but the Elvine cared little for Man. They cared for the faeri, but not enough to have avoided leaving them behind at the inception of the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge. Man, on the third hand might well reject this moment where all had come to an unexpected end and birthed this new beginning. Either way, the Leaves would face it together.
Timidly, Deh took her hand.
Unabashed, Shannon let him.
Chapter 29
Ben Connelly did follow the Faeri Lord of the White River country. He slogged out of Lake Union’s chill and just walked with Habben for a time. The further he walked, the better he felt. Habben had been right about that.
He studied the ruins of Seattle in the few places where they survived the obliteration of the Reclaimers and the cataclysmic collapse of the Veil –none of which he knew anything about. Most of the city was gone, superseded in time and space by the makings of the Veil. It had been replaced by beautiful Addl’laen, who dominated most of the Denny regrade with her court, and the Elvine city. And soon enough, he was ready to start asking questions.
“What would you know, Ben?” Habben asked first.
“I don’t know where to begin.” he admitted. “I don’t even know what happened.”
“Well then there’s a good place to start lad.” The Faeri smiled that eerie smile of his.
They’d rounded the east face of Addl’laen into her southern exposure at a range of a hundred yards and now came into sight of two figures standing together. Ben Connelly recognized Shannon Hunter almost immediately.
“Is that…” He started to question, but both thought better of himself and was cut off by the Faeri, who drew him to a halt.
“No.” Habben said. “It was, but no longer.”
“That’s Shannon Hunter. I know it is.” Ben said.
“No. That’s the Lady White Leaves, Ben. Shannon never existed. She always was the Lady White Leaves. From the day she was born, she was. She just didn’t know until she went to Addl’laen.
Listen well now, lad. Addl’laen, is the holy of holies. She, is the Tree of Life, for all. She, like all trees, can sacrifice herself, to save a life. She took a dangerous gamble, and won. That’s what happened, Ben...
Our great mother sacrificed herself, and every single one of us to save that one leaf, right there.” And the Faeri spoke emphatically as he pointed. His finger fell squarely on the dark little figure at Shannon’s paled side. Not on Shannon at all. But Deh Leccend.
“That Leaf, Black. That Leaf is the killer you’ve been looking for. It was he who slew your partner, Mr. Fastez, was it?” Habben was quick to lay a gentle hand on Ben’s arm. Ben looked from the duo in the shadow of Addl’laen to the Faeri and back again. He blinked. For some reason, Carlos was at rest in Ben's mind. He did not feel so disturbed by his partner’s loss. Something had changed in him for the greater.
“I’m glad to see you’ve grown.” Habben smiled softly. “Now, let me tell you, the miracle it is to be here with you today, is inconsequential to what really troubles me. Perhaps, you can help me solve it?”
“I don’t think I even understand what you’ve said already, creature. How could I help you solve any of your bizarre talk?” Ben spoke bitter and shook his head.
“I’m sorry.” He promptly apologized. Habben’s expression didn’t change at all.
“Addl’laen sacrificed her life, to save that one. A killer. The killer of killers. Why do you think that is? Doesn’t that trouble your detective’s mind, agent?
More to the point. Why would she save that one, bound to the Lady White Leaves’ entire ordeal, hoping by some miraculous loophole in the laws of life, that she might keep herself alive in the gesture? That’s a ludicrous gamble, you know. So much life at stake, and she couldn’t even be sure it would work.
It’s doubly complex though, when you figure, if the Lady White Leaves failed to stop the Powers, Traemin and Gane, the Black Leaf would have likely already perished. And she would still die. Maybe she took the gamble, knowing her death was inevitable if she didn’t.
But I think there’s more to it than that. Can you tell me what it is?” The Faeri was long winded, but Ben was tracking now. He could see the oddities in the act -forgetting the fact that it was all positively unbelievable from the start.
Ben decided to assume what the Faeri was saying was true. After all, he was talking to a Faeri.
He didn’t even have to think about his answer. Standing here, unnoticed by Shannon and her dark companion, beneath the Tree of Life, in the company of a Faeri Lord, everything just seemed so clear. Every piece of the puzzle just clicked into place.
It was Shannon. The answer was the Lady White Leaves.
“Yes.” Habben smiled widely. “I’ve thought as much. But Why?”
Shannon was the answer. Ben could feel it, but all those puzzle pieces didn’t display a clear picture once put together. He watched the Black Leaf turn and walk away from her. Shannon gave chase playfully.
The answer was right there on the tip of his tongue, lit up so well it blinded him to its obviousness. Love.
“Imagine, Ben.” Habben started as if reading his mind yet again.
“Imagine standing before a Goddess, and being all that she sees. Why at the end of all things would Addl’laen sacrifice herself, and leave those two, alone and alive.
You see. Sh
annon, the Lady White Leaves, wears her leaves. Addl’laen’s sacrifice could not kill her. In some ways, I’ve begun to wonder if now she’s fully Faeri. I wonder if she will age and die, or live forever alongside us to ensure the Powers never come back. But that’s beside the point.
Just imagine standing before mother earth, our mother, Addl’laen’s mother, the goddess herself. Imagine being all that she sees for that dire moment in time where her only child, the tree, has died.
Why would Addl’laen choose that?”
“Love.” Ben said what he’d already thought and Habben had hinted at. “She wanted Earth to see Love.”
“So that’s it then.” The Faeri seemed disappointed. How anticlimactic, his sigh said. And yet, it had a peculiar mix of, 'just as he’d suspected.'
“I guess so.” Ben said, staring after the disappearing figures of the Lord and Lady of the Leaves Black and White. But then it really hit him.
Why did Addl’laen do that?
E.L.F. - White Leaves Page 39