The Uncontrollable
'The Morning After'
*****
"This is where it gave way, here on the Western bank of the river. The Eastern bank didn't give way at all," commented Sarge to Gary, Raoul, Alanna and Daine. They looked around. The river made a sharp turn to the West at this point. It separated two different parts of the forest. The Eastern bank was thinner in the way of trees. The few that did reside there were hardly more than saplings. The Western bank however, held densely populated fully-grown pines that, before the mudslide, reached the very edge of the river. Now the edge of the Western bank was nothing more than a steep incline of fallen earth and trees that spanned an area of almost 100 feet.
Gary raised his eyebrows at Sarge. "This looks like most mudslide starting points to me."
Sarge looked at him as if he were an idiot. "Do you not see it, lad?"
"See what?" asked Alanna. Daine tried to 'see' whatever Sarge had been ranting incoherently about for 20 minutes when he came to get them down at the edge of the forest where the mudslide had done the most damage. She looked around in confusion. Sarge was obviously trying to get them to notice something of importance.
The huge man sighed in aggravation before starting up again. "The river turns west here. It shouldn't have caused a mudslide."
"Well, obviously it did Sarge, so what's your point?" questioned Gary.
Daine was about to agree. There obviously had been a mudslide on the Western side; so what did the fact that the river turned west here have to do with…oh…. "It should have been the Eastern side," she said in realization.
"What?" Alanna.
"The river…," Daine pointed. "It turns west. So the majority of the water pressure is placed on the Eastern bank where the turn is. The mudslide should have come from the Eastern bank."
"So maybe the Eastern bank has stronger earth. It is possible." Raoul pitched in.
"True," commented Sarge. "But not in this case. Look at the trees on both sides. First of all, they're Pines. Pines grow best in thick packed dirt. It allows the roots to get a better grip. The Eastern bank has hardly any grown trees while the Western half is packed full of 'em."
"So the Western bank should have been sturdier than the Eastern." Alanna concluded.
"Then why was there a mudslide on the Western side?" questioned Raoul.
"That's why I said you all should come and see this. I wandered around a bit to see what could have caused the Western bank to cave. That's when I noticed this…" he walked towards the new edge of the Western bank where the earth had given way. He walked up to one of the trees that narrowly missed having fallen in with the others and stooped down. "Look at the roots." She looked. 'Ok'…so they had roots…'nothing odd about that, right?' "Some of them reach out of the ground as if they were Willows or somthin'. Pines don't have roots that come out of the ground.
"So it's a messed up tree." Raoul sighed. "There are the occasional rogue trees."
Sarge stared him down. "Not like this. The tree wouldn't have survived to be this old with roots like those."
"So what you're implying, is that the roots just…" Alanna waved her arm around "…lifted its roots out of the ground last night?" Sarge raised his eyebrows up in answer. Alanna smirked. "You have a good imagination, Sarge. Anyone ever tell you that?" She smiled and turned to walk away. "Come on Daine, let's get back to the damaged area." Daine followed silently. "Sarge is getting too old." Alanna laughed. "Have you ever heard of such nonsense?"
Daine smiled and almost laughed when she suddenly stopped in contemplation. "Yes," she said.
"What?"
"4 years ago, Alanna. Don't you remember? I mean, you actually saw it; I didn't."
"Alanna stopped in her tracks. She looked back in the direction they had come from and squinted. "But that was because of the firebirds, Daine."
"No. Lorelei told me it wasn't them. That they hadn't anything to do with it. She said it was forest magic or something."
"But it happened when the firebirds were here. The forest, whatever magic it has, wouldn't do something like that…" she gestured towards the banks. "…for no reason."
"How do you know? Maybe they did have a reason. We don't know anything about the magic in the forest. We can't just conclude it wouldn't happen; we don't know."
Alanna sighed heavily. "Great. Just another mystery to add to the hundreds of my lifetime." She stretched her arms over her head and yawned loudly. "The temporary magical holdings we put on the damn mudslide last night took a lot out of me. If Numair hadn't been there, I don't think we could have stopped it before it reached the edge of the forest and hit the crops. I'm getting old."
Daine laughed. "You're not old, Alanna."
"No?" she asked incredulously. "I'll be forty in five months. I'd say that's getting up there in age. Be happy you're only 25, Daine. You got a lot of years ahead of you still."
Daine smirked and raised doubting eyebrows. "I feel old. I don't know how you pulled off three children Alanna. I can hardly keep up with my one."
Alanna laughed loudly. "Jade is a slingshot, I'll give you that."
"She's wild!" Daine insisted. "She has more energy than a packed canon!" Daine rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands tiredly.
"Speaking of your canon ball…," said Alanna.
Daine dropped her hands to see where her daughter was when she heard a loud "Mamma!" screeched happily from up ahead. Jade ran towards them with all the speed her little 3-year-old legs would give her, her father trailing behind. Daine smiled brightly at her daughter. 'Well at least she's over her funk.' They had left late last night when the castle was woken up to the sounds of crashing trees from far away. All the Mages rushed out to help slow the gradually increasing mudslide. Female servants had been sent up to watch any children that were left sleeping in their beds. Jade had been punished that night for wandering off and giving Daine another grouping of gray hairs after spending half an hour looking for her. The little emerald-eyed girl had been furious at being placed in the corner, refusing to talk to her father or Daine for the rest of the evening. That had obviously passed. The smile on Daine's face suddenly vanished, replaced by a dead-pan look of utter amazement as Jade came closer. Her daughter was completely covered, from head to toe, in mud!
Jade leaped into her mother's arms and started ranting about earthworms being slimy and gross. "Jade, Jade, wait a second sweet…" Jade ceased. "Why are you covered in Mud?" Daine asked with a maternal whine.
Jade looked at her blankly; as if the answer was obvious. "Because I was playing in the mud, Mamma."
"I see that, Jade. But why were you playing in the mud?"
"Papa let me!" she stated happily.
Daine raised her eyebrows in curiosity. "Did he?" The little girl nodded rigorously.
Daine looked past the girl in her arms to a nervous looking Numair. He had his hands shoved into his pockets with a look of guilty innocence plastered across is face. He smiled testingly at her. When she didn't smile back he shrugged, made a look of apology and explained, "She did the lip thing."
Daine's head fell back in exasperation as she groaned. "You are so weak, Numair. I swear, you let her do whatever she wants. She has you wrapped around her finger like a string," she accused.
He walked up to her, and, with Jade still in her mother's arms, kissed her sweetly. "No different than you, Magelet."
Daine sighed as she set down a wiggling Jade. "You get to bathe her tonight," she stated as she walked arm in arm with him after Jade who was talking animatedly with Alanna.
*****
A/N: I hope you all are enjoying the story so far. I am. I have a lot of work this weekend so I won't be posting right away. Give me reviews…lots of reviews…you know how much I love them. Hehe…bye bye
Karigan