thehometree

When the winds had begun picking up this week, Jolene had admitted that it might be time to turn in. She'd even gone so far as to try to hang around the interior hotsprings, albeit in her usual clothing, to see what the fuss was about. So far, public bathing seemed like a nuisance that she didn't see the appeal of, though the option to scrub at her stained clothing was appreciated...

But then the trunk shook with a thunderous crack and water spilled up and over the sides of the rock piles and Jo leapt to her feet, various prudish thoughts completely forgotten. She had been soaked by the splash and now she stumbled out into the open through a harried flutter of lanky limbs, soot clinging to every part of her as she came out on a limb that was occluded by the ominous weight of the fallen tree.

The air smelled foul and the wind howled and Jo, mind flashing back to the life she'd been dragged from, froze up in a panic that locked down all limbs and all thought. To anyone else who was nearby, it would be clear that the wind wasn't responsible for that level of yowling; it was the soot-soaked adventurer jarred out of sorts. Her hairsays were quick to leap on her panic: she saw in the fire-struck tree the towering monoliths of her city transformed into half-living monstrosities, and the hairsays, too stupid to distinguish between reality and a memory, were trying to communicate with it.

...She might need a shake or a punch in the shoulder or perhaps to be dragged back inside.

[ Already in her transformed state, Illya could easily hear the sound of the tree that had been set on fire a while back. This wasn't good for them in the slightest, considering that it was a tree that was larger than life. Even though the weather's bad, it won't stop Illya from making absolutely certain that people were safe.

Which is why she's going to check things out, having already decisively thought that it would be too dangerous to fly. The tree may be large, but she needs to make sure that it doesn't end up crashing into anybody. ]

Ruby! Put everything into physical strength. We're going to need it to push the tree away. [ And Ruby seems to comply easily. Alright, let's do this. ]

Edited 2015-08-14 18:19 (UTC)

The face in the amber is that of a cat who's not been having a great time of things lately. Arj has already been shaken up by the bad raspberries in storage, and the weather is bad enough for him to retreat under the fur blankets in his bed. That's where he is now, his image darkened, but his eyes wide.

"Er... did anyone else feel that?"

Not that he's going to go and look. The sensible thing to do is hide, and he's doing a good job of it so far.

(Amber)

Eek! W-what was that?!

[A bit of fumbling, as she grabs her talisman...]

WHO DARES ATTACK OUR SACRED FOREST? SHOW YOURSELVES AND SUFFER UNDER THE WRATH OF MY VENGEANCE!

(Action)

Noire has flown off to investigate what's going on, but that's not entirely the best option. Smoke catches her, and she hits the ground, though thankfully she wasn't too high up to begin with. She coughs hard, struggling to clear her throat.

[Celena's no longer suffering from food poisoning, but the bout has left her weak as a kitten. She's sitting in the hot springs, recovering, when the burning tree falls and hits their own.

The bang sounds like a floating fortress crashing to the ground. The smoke stinks like a burning battlefield. She screams as she leaps out of the water and struggles into her clothing]

Who's attacking?!

[She grabs her sword, her arm shaking with the effort to lift it]

Celena had been in the baths when the tree had struck and now she's covered in soot stuck to the wet of her skin. She's panicking.

"Something struck the tree! I don't know if it's an attack or an accident!"

Celena had been soaking her kitten-weak body in the water nearby when the tree had struck. She staggered over to Jo a minute after the tree struck, her blouse and leggings clinging to her wet skin, dragging her sword behind her.

"Jolene! Jolene?! Jolene, move! We have to escape!" But Jo was lost to her panic. Celena swapped her sword to her left hand, twisted, and slapped the other woman across her face, hoping to knock her out of her daze. Had she been at her full strength the blow would have been enough to knock Jo off of her feet, but in Celena's current state it was only enough to rock the other woman.

Gil's flown over to Noire, a paper fan in his hand and is just sort of... gently fanning the smoke away. It's not nearly enough to clear the ash, but at least it should keep more from getting to Noire.

He doesn't seem too concerned with this whole affair. In fact, he's pretty entertained.

Onee-san, you might be strong, but you're not that strong.

[ Gil's showed up, and is just... flitting around, watching, waiting, trying to figure out what exactly they're supposed to do about this dang thing lying against their tree.

Probably nothing, the home tree was perfectly sturdy. ]

If I have to, I'll get Saber-san to help! If we can't push the tree away, we'll just destroy it.

[ She's a Master now, too. She won't allow anybody to get hurt, not on her watch. ]

One of the other trees is going to collapse. Don't worry, though, I'm going to deal with it.

[ And possibly some others if she can grab it. ]

It's a small effort, but effort all the same, so she appreciates it. She looks up, slowly nodding. "Thank you..."

[This isn't what he was expecting for the day. Not at all.

It's the smell that hits him first, and it's one he's not likely ever going to forget.

When the area fills with ash and soot it's a lot harder not to see smoke. So instead of investigating the tree, he's going to get to where the air is clearer....

Normally this doesn't bother him a ton(outwardly). He has dealt with fire since...]

Hey, are you alright?

[ Illya herself is covering her mouth with one arm to not get the ash and soot in her mouth, the other hand is holding onto Ruby. She's trying to make sure that everybody is safe and away from harm first and foremost. ]

[That's not a bad idea.]

Y-yes. Fine.

[Not the same situation and it's not actually on fire...they're not actually trapped. Give him a few minutes.]

What the hell happened?!

Even if she'd lost most of her strength to her food poisoning, Celena's slaps were still a thing of jolting precision. Jo rocked, alright, but she also stopped yowling like a rusty gate under heavy torsion. She blinked so blearily she looked like she'd been under some heavy sedation, but her gaze focused on Celena again after a few moments. "Wh.. h... what the fuck's happening, are we safe?! Where are they?!"

She seemed to get ahold of herself all of a sudden, and circling around Celena like a mantling dog, she whipped her head around through the haze of black and looked up and down the branch, up at the half-fallen tree, into the hole that led to the bathing room; she looked like she was ready to throw someone over the side of the tree and down several floors to their doom. It was only when she couldn't spot anyone in their immediate vicinity that she whipped her attention back on Celena and looked her over; she looked like roadkill, but she didn't look threatening. "We're going inside," Jo decided forcefully, taking Celena by the wrist.

((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.

One of the other trees is tempting to fall! I-- I'm going to see if I can't stop it from crashing here!

[ Now here's a face she hasn't seen in quite some time. She's using her hand so she wouldn't breath it in while occasionally firing some some sword like beams to get the smoke out out of the air. ]

Hello..! Is anybody else here?!

....

[Well, that's dire isn't it.

....]

Right...

[hmm, plan. Gotta think.]

Yeah, that's why I want to either destroy the other tree or push it towards the other direction.

Destroying it will only drop more ash on us....but how would we destroy it?

[Pushing it away...did Zagan have that kind of power? If home yes, but he hasn't tried to use it much since he got here....

and what he has done is very limited.]

People would need various magics to push it away. Wind would especially useful, either way.

That depends on how you destroy it, right? If we do it in a manner where it would fall in the other direction, it should be fine.

[ She folds her arms mulling things over in her head. ]

I don't have any wind magic, but I can definitely use something to fan out the ashes.

That would take major force...or something to pull it back beyond the mist.

[Should be an easy task...]

It would be easier to manage if we didn't risk suffocation from falling ash and soot.

Fuu instinctively shouted when the stricken tree crashed down and regretted it at once when her mouth filled with ash. She quickly clamped her hand over her nose and mouth as it pattered against her glasses, which at least kept some of it out of her eyes.

This was what she got for cabin fever! She felt around for the trunk and jerked her hand back as she felt the shudder, her instincts screaming earthquake on top of this disaster. She couldn't see a thing... raising her hand, she sputtered "Binding Wind!" through the soot. It would not actually do much to bind particulate matter, but she just wanted the breezes to clear enough of a circle around her to see where she was going. She had been lucky, but others might not be so. Pulling her collar up over her face, she hurried into the soot to look for them.

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