A/N: A little thing to bridge between seasons/holidays in the Schwarzwald. Nothing big. Always wanted to write some part of the Mass but never had the opportunity to think about its details. So have the bit where it starts.


Midwinter is winding down in Central.

The Wolf knows celebrations will likely continue further into the night for the other towns and the many hamlets, but Central has begun to lower its lights, so to speak. The festivities have quieted with the solemn sending of the yearly tribute toward the Inner Circle, where the heart of their Zone resides. It is a quiet and reverent affair, with lines of carts and escorts atop Fracture Eaters trekking with heads bowed and thanks like prayers murmured into the night alongside the light of low lanterns so as not to set off the wandering Patrol Trees. A ghostly procession, the members of which will not be seen until the next morning.

There is a low wind over the harbor, mixing with the tangy smell of fish below the surface and the sounds of humming splashing as the boats play and entertain among themselves. Moonlight glints in slivered rays through holes in their protective canopy off their gossamer sails as they flap them, off the crests of waves around them. An almost dreamy sight.

There is a clatter of the stringed lanterns hung in crisscrossed patterns over streets and the main square, offering a haunting bit of backlighting over frosty structures and a few rogue snowdrifts of a recent winter storm. They are barely more than ambiance in sight and sound, illuminating the few forms of revelers still out and about, milling between inns and taverns where distant sounds of continued celebration can be heard, muffled through doors and windows and walls.

The smell of the harbor mingles with the sharp cold air of winter in her nose, and for a moment, The Wolf takes stock of her senses around her from the center of the main square. Closing her eyes, she can still see all points of nearby activity through hearing and she imagines walking the street and watching through windows and open doors human activity where it parallels none outside those thresholds. She opens her eyes slowly when a familiar smell interrupts her thoughts.

Clove-soaked tobacco. Earthy in its undertone, sweet in the over with a faint hint of spice.

The glow off her eyes catches wisps of smoky tendrils rising from the cup of her pipe clenched in her teeth, sparks of faint light before they're gone. She did not light the pipe. She knows what it means.

Change is coming.

A new year with the procession making its way deeper into the confines of the trees they all make their home would incite change. But they are not yet at their destination, she knows. No, this is something else. Something nearby she has been ignoring for deeper familiar ambiance in her surroundings.

There is a grumbling creak of massive trees, a whispered call only she can hear flowing around her head into her ears. It is not her mother's voice. Schwarzwald herself remains silent in all the noise. More hushed whisperings mingled in the groaning of wood, but these are not the trees. These are the wraiths that live among them, control them and provide of and for them.

The Merchants' Guild is preparing to move. The Mass is beginning.

It starts with a single low note that rattles her down to the ground she stands on, echoes through her chest into her feet. Like a horn to warn others they are moving, alongside the cracks and creaks of wooden joints that have not moved in a little over two weeks becoming mobile again. The first steps are taken, the feel of the entire weight of hundreds of thousands of tons of living wood felt in the encompassing boom of the first roots shifting up and putting down.

The Guild's trees move slowly at first, a lethargic pace while the movement unfreezes the wood and gains momentum. Each new step renews the purpose of motion and before long, elegant arches of wooden tendrils block out her view of the sky above with crackling masses of the monoliths passing soon after, displaced air in the sheer monstrousness of the building momentum ruffling her hair and clothing, pulling her pipe's smoke in its wake. She catches the silhouettes of bridges and structures built across the higher boughs and tethering the gigantic parade together as they make their way to the harbor.

The playful boats scatter like frightened minnows as soon as the first of the trees splashes down, massive waves rising and crashing against the shore and over piers and up the sides of sleeping boats moored to their place for the night. The cacophony of clicking boats angered by being forced to wake so early against the creaking and splashing as the rest of the Guild's pack of trees follow their leader into the harbor and begin to wade across it is almost overwhelming, and The Wolf has to break her stoic stillness to put some distance between her and the events unfolding.

Her relocation is brief, as she returns soon after the exodus of trees has gone far enough away that the disturbed boats stop reprimanding them and begin to fall silent once more. The startled younger boats have slowly begun to filter back into the main harbor body to resume their games.

The shadows of the Merchants' Guild are fading into the gloom the further they get from shore, beginning the month-long Merchants' Mass. They will recruit all who would give up their pure humanity to the Zone, a proprietor of the local economy and ferryman of goods. It is a process and a sacrifice not even The Wolf would be willing to give, despite her standing and her own sacrifices. A Guide gives their life, but they are still human in the end. A person gives their existence, their very essence, to be reborn into the wraith-like Merchants.

As the smoke peters from the pipe on the Guild's leave, The Wolf does not envy the Mass.