Frivolous, flighty, Selena twirls about the grove's moonlit edge, dodging nimbly between trees, long hair glinting silver as she dances. Youngest and most innocent of the forest's sylphs, Selena feels that she must prove herself to the other sylphs, always striving to do by herself - even what others would join together to accomplish. This particular full Moon's night, Selena celebrates at grove's edge, almost within sight of the human town, singing a joyful hymn to the Spirit of the Wood. Until she sees the strangers attacking a tree.
Selena watches the ugly, brutish humans chop living wood to feed their unnatural fire and vows to put an end to their sacrilege and the fire.
A forest sylph's magic is weak against the worldly, sun and iron hardy strength of the humans, and Selena is youngest and least experienced of those sylphs.
Selena calls the forest animals to her and uses the night against the humans, spinning veils of haunting threat and lamenting sound, intending to drive them back into their town and to force them to abandon the bonfire to burn itself out.
(Beginner is supposed to stop here, but I want to try the morph....)
A Mage among the humans dispels her slight magic with a wave of his staff, pacing off a strong ward about their camp, and the other humans build their fire higher, threatening to set fire to the whole grove.
Routed in defeat and fled to the Deep Wood, Selena puts aside her own pride and calls the other sylphs to the threatened grove, and, together, they Sing the Wrong to the Living Wood, convincing the Mage to restrain his fellow humans to burn deadfall only.
***
If it is a short story, it ends there. If it is Horror (short story), the Mage is not convinced, and the humans burn the whole grove down, killing the sylphs and their trees so travelers will not be bothered on their way to town. If it is a novel, the story ends not with this one small band of reformed humans, but with the whole Kingdom reforming. If it's High Fantasy a la Tolkien, the Mage and Selena join mortal and faery magics to wage war against the Evil Sorcerer King who needs all the wood from all the forests to make charcoal for his arcane rites. If it is a Romance, Selena and the Mage win the war, fall in love, and get married. If it is Horror (novel), the Evil Sorcerer King wins OR Selena/Mage win but, in the process, burn the grove down. If it is SF, Selena is a xenobiologist, the grove is a new planet inconveniently possessed of a biosphere not fully hospitable to humans, and the Mage is the leader of the new colony who is considering a complete terraform. If it is Mystery, the full Moon is not until the night after the humans camp, so, when Selena arrives, she finds the murdered tree and must then track down and bring to justice the murderers. If it is standard fiction, Selena is an environmentalist, the grove is old-growth redwood, and the Mage is a would-be land developer. If it is a Western, Selena is a Lakota (plains American Indian, aka "Sioux") Chief's daughter, the grove becomes buffalo (American bison), and the Mage becomes the leader of the Wagon Train. And I can't for the life of me picture a youngest-forest-sylph International spy....
Copyright © 1999 A. Robin Bausman
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