It was edging into late afternoon when Simone finished carving; the lithe brown-skinned elf from the plains sighed and leaned back, rubbing her eyes.

  “All finished?” Mercedes asked, setting aside her spirit stick. She'd spent the time awkwardly carving a spiral into her stick.

  “Almost.” Simone replied. “I just need a leather thong.” The smaller elf reached around and grabbed the knapsack that was nearby and poked and prodded its contents. “I'm sorry it took so long...” Simone began, “I am not good with carving yet.”

  Mercedes gave Simone a lopsided smile and passed over her spirit stick; Simone smiled at the awkward spiral decorating the tip.

  “Next, you'll want to learn the symbols for the five sacred elements and carve them into your stick as well.” Simone advised.

  Mercedes gave the young shaman a confused look. “Five Sacred Elements? I've never heard of such a thing.”

  Simone nodded. “Earth, Water, Wind, Heat, and Cold.” she replied. “Earth is solid, it has substance. Water is movable, it flows. Wind is everywhere, even in stillness. Heat comes from fire or the sun. Cold is the element of death.”

  Mercedes was educated enough to understand that there were all sorts of different elements- the High Elves had studied the sciences as well as magic, but she was also pragmatic enough to hold her tongue; Simone wouldn't take well to having her beliefs challenged. Besides, for a barbaric culture like Simone's, it made a sort of sense.

  “Will you show me the symbols, sometime?” Mercedes asked.

  Simone nodded. “Tonight, after we handle the Protean.” She replied, tying a small piece of wood to a rock, of all things.

  The two disparate elves climbed to their feet and picked up their respective packs. Mercedes staggered; her legs had gone to sleep again.

  “Isn't all that metal heavy?” Simone asked with unfeigned curiosity.

  “Very.” Mercedes agreed. “But after a while you get strong enough that you don't even feel it, except after you've taken it off.” She smiled, “Then you realize how much it's been weighing you down.”

  Simone shook her head, mystified, and brushed some of her white hair away from her face.

  After a moment, Mercedes reached into her pack and pulled out a small pouch- it contained a few things for personal care, like a bar of soap wrapped in wax paper, a hairbrush, a bundle of absorbent fabrics for her monthly issue, and- she pulled out a spooled-up silk ribbon, an off-blue color that was somewhere between teal and aqua. She'd bought it for her hair, but ended up not using it.

  She held it out to the smaller elf. “Use this to tie your hair.”

  Strangely, Simone gave her a suspicious look, but took it, and awkwardly tried to use it. It was immediately obvious to Mercedes that Simone had never done something as simple as tying her hair back before, so Mercedes took it, and guided Simone through the process of gathering up her hair into a ponytail, then using the ribbon to tie it back.

  “...thank you, Mercedes.” Simone offered, blushing.

  “No problem at all.” Mercedes replied, putting everything else back into her pouch, then stuffing the pouch back into her pack. “Let's go.”

  Once again, they stood on the small overlook, a spot that allowed them to see down into the narrow canyon. The lone tree with its brilliant red leaves jutted out of the rock halfway down the length of the canyon wall, leaves stirring slightly.

  “It still looks like a tree to me.” Mercedes remarked doubtfully.

  Simone shot the taller elf a doubtful look. “You don't think a tree with red leaves is strange?” the shaman asked.

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  “There are trees where the leaves change color.” Mercedes replied simply.

  “In this season?” Simone retorted.

  Mercedes awkwardly scratched her cheek with her armored gauntlet. “There are all sorts of things here in this land we don't have where I'm from.” She replied. “Like wolves and bears.”

  Simone frowned at the crusader for a moment, then looked at the tree again. “Throw a rock.” She decided.

  Mercedes blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Throw a rock at it.” Simone insisted. “You'll see.”

  Feeling like an idiot, Mercedes bent and picked up a large-ish rock that was about twice the size of her gauntleted fist. It was speckled with a pasty green and yellow lichen in spots. She gauged the distance- she wasn't very good at throwing- and with a heave, she hurled the stone across the intervening space at the suspicious tree.

  The rock sailed through the air, but fell short of the target.

  Simone shot Mercedes a sour look; Mercedes blushed, but said nothing as the two of them watched the tree.

  If they hadn't been looking directly at the tree in that moment, they might have missed it. The tree shivered, trembled in a way that was obviously not the wind.

  “Did you see-?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Believe me now?” Simone prodded.

  “I...” Mercedes began, but fell silent. Simone smirked, and pulled a leather strap from her belt. The middle was wider than the ends, and a depression had been sunken into the leather itself, creating a cup.

  “A sling?” Mercedes asked, and Simone nodded.

  The shaman clapped her hands and planted the butt of her spear on a nearby stone; when the smaller elf took her hands away, the spear stood upright, despite not being anchored, in full defiance of physics.

  Simone pressed her palms together and began muttering under her breath; Mercedes couldn't hear all of it, and what she heard seemed to be in the shaman's native tongue, but she was fairly certain that Simone had mentioned the sacred elements at least a few times. As Simone chanted, she twisted her body slightly, shifting her posture. Her arms and hands danced in complicated patterns, fingers flashing, gesticulating in some exotic dance of motion and movement.

  A chill wind began to blow; Mercedes shivered as the air cooled rapidly. She glanced around as a cold droplet struck her face; a thin swirl of cloud slipped past her face, spiraling up into the sky.

  Mercedes glanced up as the sky darkened; clouds were starting to gather.

  “What-” She began, but stopped herself. Interrupting a spellcaster in the middle of a chant could have disastrous consequences. She'd been taught that from a very young age.

  Simone danced without moving from where she stood, hips swaying, body twisting, her arms moving back and forth rhythmically, her hands describing expressive arcs, fingers fluttering. It was a strangely alluring and evocative dance, and with those hip movements, scandalously erotic. Definitely not something she'd ever be caught doing, herself.

  Simone's right hand shot up, pointing at the sky; Mercedes glanced up reflexively; a small grey-black stormcloud hovered overhead in an otherwise perfectly clear and sunny day- Simone's left hand shot out and pointed directly at the suspicious tree with vibrant red leaves. Simone pulled her right hand down, finger extended, as if she were drawing a line from cloud to tree and then-

  Mercedes had never been so close to a lightning strike. The flash was brilliant, eye-watering, leaving a weird purple streak in her vision even as the simultaneous thunderstrike split the air, threatening to rupture her eardrums.

  Despite the streak across her vision, the pain in her ears, the disorientation, the bizarre feeling of disconnection with her whole body, and the tingle of electricity sizzling in her armor, She saw the tree flex.

  Numbly, Mercedes sat down in a loose heap as the tree, charred from the strike, suddenly erupted from the stony soil, long, insectile legs with cloven hooves spreading out from the trunk, grasping and clutching.

  Simone pulled out the stone with the piece of wood tied to it, settled it in the cup of her sling, gave it a quick whirl, and whipped her arm forward.

  Mercedes expected the rock to hit either the tree-monster- the Protean- or the ground near it- she couldn't track the stone itself, but the throw was a powerful one- but instead, the ground erupted in a blast of fire that enveloped the creature in boiling flames.

  Mercedes could see a seething mass of writhing tentacles snatching at the ground, struggling to pull itself away from the conflagration; but the flames burned hot, so hot that Mercedes could feel the heat baking off of it even from this distance.

  Even through the ringing in her ears, the roar of the flames, the brittle, sharp sound of rocks cracking apart in the ferocious blaze, Mercedes could hear- or fancied she heard- a thin, piping scream from the thing that was no longer a tree, a scream of pain, of deeply rooted agony, but also carrying notes of frustration, a terrible thwarted rage at the things that had doomed it.

  Mercedes turned to look at Simone just as the spear toppled over to clatter on the stones. Simone let out a whispery wheeze and hit the ground on her knees, then pitched forward, Mercedes lunging to catch the smaller elf before she plunged off the side of the cliff.