((This is mostly to document what Evan gets up to with the charred tree, hence being a bit of an essay! If anyone wants to respond, though, feel free!))
After a day of helping out a sick friend, Evan had retired late, and therefore it was the the resounding crack of the mighty collision that roused him.
He scrambled out of bed and launched to standing in a heartbeat. But there was no follow-up crash and Evan had no idea what the first had been, so the young man struggled and mostly succeeded at calming himself. When he went to the balcony to get a look outside, however, the swirling ash began to invade the moment he opened the door: coughing and feeling an excited kind of panic rise, he slammed it shut again.
Had something caught fire?! He couldn't feel it, but then, if his meagre fire senses had been nerfed along with his ability to light up, that didn't tell him much. Of course, it could spell doom for the tree that housed them if somehow, something had gotten through its anti-fire protections, but...
...but the young elemental missed his element.
Evan rallied quickly. He dressed, got his pack, wetted down the front of his shirt so it could be pulled up as a filter, bundled up in his little-used canvas jacket, and in very little time had left the home tree to investigate.
The wind cut clear through his clothes with chill and plastered him with ash in moments, but where the finicky young man might otherwise have complained, he was instead stunned by the sight of a huge, blackened trunk leaning precariously, reaching up into the ash-clouded sky. He stood for a moment and marveled: the lightning-struck tree outside the barrier? It had been a couple of weeks, hadn't it? That was too long for embers to survive... wasn't it?
Still, with an ember of excitement hot in his own chest, he put his head down and struck out for the base of the fallen behemoth.
At normal scale, climbing a ragged landscape of charred wood would have been a slick, treacherous feat and a half. Even at a few inches tall it wasn't easy, but Evan could wedge his fingers in cracks between segments of charcoal, could jam his feet into crumbling pockets of carbonized wood. He wasn't sure why he had the urge to climb, except that he wanted to get further up where the char was worst.
The welcome heat seeped into his hands as he climbed, growing till he felt the familiar clamour of instinct that told him it'd've been too hot for human hands. He had to pause and check himself then, but no: the skin of his palms was warm and pink and tingling, but no blisters, no angry red burn welts. It was a relief that he still had that, at least.
Finally, where the angle of the tree took a shift for the steeper, he had to stop. Here, it was a ruined mess of former wood where a branch met the main trunk.
He began to feel against the trunk, seeking out where the heat was greatest. Finding a wide patch of blistering heat, he started pulling away great hunks of charcoal and shoving them aside where they tinkled to the ground. A determined kind of hope drove him, and he didn't notice as soot and charcoal dust were coating him head to foot. It was getting hotter as he went, and when Evan spotted the first little shimmer of orange light he sucked in an excited breath.
Clearing the space, he revealed small patch of embers. Grinning broadly, he leaned over them, pressing his hands towards that familiar warmth... and then turned, rooting around his pack.
He'd gathered a small nest of fresh leaf fragments for exactly this purpose, and laid them out carefully on the trunk, but when he went to reach in and very carefully put his hands around the first of the available embers with intention to lift it from its mooring, it immediately blinked out into ash. The hope he'd been feeling clenched up in his chest.
His second, third and fourth tries yielded little more than additional messy patches of ash, until Evan was sitting back and cursing, staring at the much-diminished patch of embers, now slowly shimmering lower. He rubbed his face with his filthy hands and groaned, self-doubt and anxiety gnawing at his bones.
Was he somehow cursed the same way the tree was, now? Was he going to be stuck like this? In a very specific and visceral kind of misery, the young man slumped back against the birch's charred branch, took his lighter out of his pocket to fiddle with, and tried to think his way around the problem.
Action
After a day of helping out a sick friend, Evan had retired late, and therefore it was the the resounding crack of the mighty collision that roused him.
He scrambled out of bed and launched to standing in a heartbeat. But there was no follow-up crash and Evan had no idea what the first had been, so the young man struggled and mostly succeeded at calming himself. When he went to the balcony to get a look outside, however, the swirling ash began to invade the moment he opened the door: coughing and feeling an excited kind of panic rise, he slammed it shut again.
Had something caught fire?! He couldn't feel it, but then, if his meagre fire senses had been nerfed along with his ability to light up, that didn't tell him much. Of course, it could spell doom for the tree that housed them if somehow, something had gotten through its anti-fire protections, but...
...but the young elemental missed his element.
Evan rallied quickly. He dressed, got his pack, wetted down the front of his shirt so it could be pulled up as a filter, bundled up in his little-used canvas jacket, and in very little time had left the home tree to investigate.
The wind cut clear through his clothes with chill and plastered him with ash in moments, but where the finicky young man might otherwise have complained, he was instead stunned by the sight of a huge, blackened trunk leaning precariously, reaching up into the ash-clouded sky. He stood for a moment and marveled: the lightning-struck tree outside the barrier? It had been a couple of weeks, hadn't it? That was too long for embers to survive... wasn't it?
Still, with an ember of excitement hot in his own chest, he put his head down and struck out for the base of the fallen behemoth.
At normal scale, climbing a ragged landscape of charred wood would have been a slick, treacherous feat and a half. Even at a few inches tall it wasn't easy, but Evan could wedge his fingers in cracks between segments of charcoal, could jam his feet into crumbling pockets of carbonized wood. He wasn't sure why he had the urge to climb, except that he wanted to get further up where the char was worst.
The welcome heat seeped into his hands as he climbed, growing till he felt the familiar clamour of instinct that told him it'd've been too hot for human hands. He had to pause and check himself then, but no: the skin of his palms was warm and pink and tingling, but no blisters, no angry red burn welts. It was a relief that he still had that, at least.
Finally, where the angle of the tree took a shift for the steeper, he had to stop. Here, it was a ruined mess of former wood where a branch met the main trunk.
He began to feel against the trunk, seeking out where the heat was greatest. Finding a wide patch of blistering heat, he started pulling away great hunks of charcoal and shoving them aside where they tinkled to the ground. A determined kind of hope drove him, and he didn't notice as soot and charcoal dust were coating him head to foot. It was getting hotter as he went, and when Evan spotted the first little shimmer of orange light he sucked in an excited breath.
Clearing the space, he revealed small patch of embers. Grinning broadly, he leaned over them, pressing his hands towards that familiar warmth... and then turned, rooting around his pack.
He'd gathered a small nest of fresh leaf fragments for exactly this purpose, and laid them out carefully on the trunk, but when he went to reach in and very carefully put his hands around the first of the available embers with intention to lift it from its mooring, it immediately blinked out into ash. The hope he'd been feeling clenched up in his chest.
His second, third and fourth tries yielded little more than additional messy patches of ash, until Evan was sitting back and cursing, staring at the much-diminished patch of embers, now slowly shimmering lower. He rubbed his face with his filthy hands and groaned, self-doubt and anxiety gnawing at his bones.
Was he somehow cursed the same way the tree was, now? Was he going to be stuck like this? In a very specific and visceral kind of misery, the young man slumped back against the birch's charred branch, took his lighter out of his pocket to fiddle with, and tried to think his way around the problem.