Roughly piled atop each other, the stones formed a simple pyramid. Eyeing it, the man found a spot to insert the stone, and strengthen the pile. He placed it close to the base, with great care. To the drow, it seemed as though he were loathe to see the pile fall apart. "Why do you do this?"
"For luck." he replied. "Not many make the trip. Not today. But I'm cautious - I'd like his help if I'm lost." She nodded, and looked up into the tree. She had planted it some four centuries ago.
At it's base she had buried the curled, grey-haired body of a half-orc who didn't know her. Some miles off, the dim lights of a logging camp could be seen. The young strider explained that this same tree would soon be logged, as had the rest of the forest. "They have new machines now, that take the trees down quickly."
The young strider looked up into the branches reverently, searching. But he saw nothing. After a brief prayer, he left, whistling, with the wind at his back - bound for parts unknown.
When he was safely gone, she pulled down a nearby branch, and examined the stems. Each terminated in a small green leaf, all but one. Replacing her leaf at the end of one stem, it fused there, and the silver lining its edge faded.
A wind pushed at the limbs then, and a rustling shurring surrounded her. Climbing up onto a branch, she rested against the trunk of the great tree, and rested her old bones. Before long the branches shook again with the wind, and a rustling worked its way down from the upper-most branches.
"How goes it, Laish?"
Leaning sideways against the trunk of the tree, the voice of her old friend echoed in her soul. She could see him, crouched down as was his way, his head cocked, eyes searching her.
"I'm tired Krog." She felt a sympathetic nod.
"Then rest for a while here, with me."
Her friend surveyed the land, and lingered in the direction of the camp.
"I can't stay here much longer, I don't think. It's time I go." Her heart sank.
Alone, without even the ghost of an old friend for comfort.. She nodded, and grinned, remembering her half-orc friend's vision of his afterlife, his eternal reward.
"I'll wander through every land unknown to men, places that no longer exist, and places that never will."
It made her glad to imagine her old friend cresting peaks, and looking down at some new discovery, his eyes young.
"Maybe you'd like to come with me?" She nodded sleepily, and a smile appeared on her thinning lips. "Let me rest first, Krog, then we'll go." He was always in a rush to get moving!
The trunk of the tree supported her, until her breathing stopped. A rush of wind crept through the tall grass, crouched up against the tree, sprang up into the branches, and then out into the cool night air.
