Interlude: The Magical Tree

It had been nearly two years since the tree had suddenly appeared.

Joan hadn't minded at all. The extra shade beside the place where she got the water for her cooking was always welcome in midsummer, and spring and autumn were always prettier with colorful leaves and blossoms. Other members of the village were not as pragmatic about the sudden appearance.

"It's a demon tree!" a red-haired man called from the center of the village square. The assembled crowd jeered as one. "We must get rid of it! It is what's causing our crops to fail!" Joan blamed the drought, which clearly had nothing to do with the tree. "It is what's causing the land to become dry!" …Or maybe not. "It is what's causing all the problems in the village! It was placed there by an Ascent! The Ascents want all the humans dead!" Louder and louder the man was massaging the crowd.

Joan didn't really trust the man's words; after all, he had appeared only shortly after the tree. He provided good services as a blacksmith, but a small village with two blacksmiths got a bit crowded with metal tools. Then he was spewing his normal crap about the tree being completely evil, but now people were actually listening to him. Joan was also listening, but Joan was also letting herself think. The tree had actually made her life easier directly. And claiming that it made her life harder indirectly… well, she'd need more than a man's word. Particularly a man such as that one.

The crowd was dispersing, having decided that the evening would be when they would all go to cut down the tree. And he headed straight for Joan. Used to this development by now, Joan merely hefted the bucket that she was going to use to get the water today and turned around.

"Hey!"

She ignored his call.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!"

That's why I'm ignoring you.

He caught up to her quickly, as he was not burdened with a large container and was willing to run. While Joan continued to keep her steady pace, the man fell into stride easily. "You need an escort if you're going to go to the nearest part of the stream."

She couldn't let that one go. "My husband begs to differ." A light emphasis on the operative word (husband) would fly right over the moron's head, but she couldn't help it.

"Your husband does not understand the danger involved," he said, clearly missing the point of what she said. "I'm the only one who truly understands the danger, after all." They kept walking, mostly because he wasn't going to leave her side and she knew that there was nothing that she could do to dissuade him from his self-appointed task.

Joan decided that she would try a different tack today, even if she had no real hope of it working. "Danger. From a tree." Alright, she'd admit it: she was just frustrated.

"A demon can possess anything, you know. That's what these Ascents are doing: possessing things and people in order to take over."

Joan looked over at her unwanted companion incredulously. "Are you saying that Ascents are demons?"

"Yes! Precisely! I knew you were a smart one!"

Joan knew that her face must be a sight to see, but she couldn't change it. Heck, she'd stopped walking. The man got ahead of her slightly before turning around to face her and tilting his head to one side in askance. Joan finally managed to school her face back into a scowl (her default expression for this bozo) and shook her head before resuming her walk. She looked out at the horizon, where something was different. "They're just as mortal as we are," she said somewhat absently, her blue eyes scanning the horizon warily.

He apparently hadn't noticed the anomaly. "That's our only advantage against them." He also wasn't really listening to her. Not that this was different than any other day. "We can defend against them because they're mortal like us… but in no other way are they like us."

Joan sighed. "Please shut up." She now knew what it was that had struck her as different about the horizon, and a small part of her really wanted to watch the moron notice. Most of her just wanted to get her water and go back to her house, while a last tiny part felt a little melancholy about the change.

Not able to take a hint was one thing, but now he was blatantly ignoring her. "They're the ones causing all of our problems. We humans have to band together and stand against them if we're to have a prayer of winning this war." What war? "They'll kill us all, you know." …what? "And they started with that one Ascent turning into that tree!" He finished with a flourish, spinning to face Joan and flinging his arm out to indicate the

…absent tree.

Joan found the appropriate response instantly. "What tree?"

He made a face. He clearly hadn't even looked at his surroundings yet. How did he not trip over his own feet? "The tree! The tree! The one I've been talking about! It's right there!" He flung his arm out again, this time extending a finger to help with the indication.

Joan tilted her head to one side. Don't smile. Don't smile. Don't smile… "I don't see a tree." She… sort of succeeded. Enough that oblivious over there isn't going to notice, anyway.

Now he was getting frustrated. "The tree! That damn tree right…!" He turned around, causing his cadence to drop off like a boulder down a cliff. Finally. Joan used the opportunity to walk forward toward the water, but she found herself held back by a hand on her sleeve. "What are you doing?" he asked desperately.

Joan looked at him like she thought he was crazy. Not hard; I do. "Getting water." She said it slowly, as if to a toddler.

"They're playing with our minds! Giving us a tree and then making it disappear! It's a fear tactic!"

Joan shook him off of her sleeve. "I need water. How about you go tell the village all about the disappearing tree?" He spun and shot off in the direction of the village shouting for everyone to come together to meet again. Joan sighed and turned around. What a stroke of luck! Because the tree was gone, she managed to shake off the bastard before the whole trip was over. She did wish her husband did something that kept him closer to the village instead of hunting monsters. Then he'd probably have told the idiot to shove off – physically - long before.

She arrived at the edge of the stream and carefully dipped her bucket in. She briefly missed the tree's shade, as the bright reflection from the water was nearly blinding in its intensity, but she was quickly finished with her task and on her way back to the village. Perhaps she'd hear the last bit of the idiots ranting and raving. If she was lucky, she'd miss him entirely on her way back to her house. It sure made an interesting story for her husband that evening.

Joan was not a very perceptive woman, though. She did not notice the figure of a man that was walking away from the stream when she and the idiot had been approaching it. Had she seen him, she might have given credence to the theories that her self-appointed guardian had been posing. Not being near him, she didn't even have a chance of hearing his muttered statement.

"Gaia's probably mightily tiffed at me by now."