Fait Accompli: An Unwilling Tutelage

[Seperallis]

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. . : : Table of Contents : : . .

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Lesson 1: Practical Practicum
Lesson 2: Fundamentals of Magic
Lesson 3: Conservation of Reality
Lesson 4:

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Lesson 1: Practical Practicum

Such a curious phenomenon, how the world seemed to come alive in all its vibrant splendor the further Elke distanced herself from Sidgard and the heart of human lands. The land itself felt like it could stretch forth, relax, be the nature that nature was intended to be without being stamped out or controlled. Out in this part of the world, "nature" wasn't some scoffed-about otherland spoken in tones that hinted of an amorphous bogeymonster out to give good little people a Bad Time; the brush seemed thicker, greener, the water clearer, the rough trail upon which the caravaners traveled scars of a green giant whose domain they traveled within instead of through.

Or maybe it was just a mild thrill of adventure tinting the young woman's vision.

Such as it was, anyway, this "adventure." While tracking her prey hadn't proven especially difficult, the process had eaten the better part of the past months and been filled with explanations of "Oh, you just missed..." and "Oh, just went to..." and other frustrating nonsense. Such is the nature of hunting an ever-moving quarry, one could suppose, but spending a week on the trail with little to go on besides "try that way" can get rather tense when one wanders alone. Well, not entirely alone, but young wagoneers are often taught at an early age to avoid stopping for strange hitchhikers, lest they fall victim to a grand theft oxcart.

Or maybe they're just rude around here, hard to tell.

Not that it mattered much, thankfully, as the weather remained dry, a thick forest canopy sheltering creatures and travelers below from an otherwise be a scorching midday sun. No clouds, and only a slight breeze flowing between the trees with the path to gently push Elke, to say "come, come, this way. You're almost there." The birds and branches cheerily sang their agreement.

The forest abruptly thinned into a large clearing, or at least something that looked like it might have once been a clearing long ago; the ancient woods through which the young mage had been traveling stood tall in stark contrast to the smaller young growths that attempted to overrun man's home. An eight foot wall of earthwork, wood and stone outlined in crumbling relief what may have once been a grander settlement before the unkind passing of both armies and ages reduced it to a functionless monument. On one entire side, this testament to the past completely collapsed into a nearby stream that had dared to wander into town, while much of the remaining earthworks appeared to have been methodically dismantled over the decades, no doubt by the villagers themselves in efforts to fund purchases from passing merchants or for supplies to repair their homes.

Such as they were, those repairs; as one passed the unguarded suggestion of a wall, one could clearly see that the forest's reclamation of the clearing hadn't stopped simply at the hamlet's perimeter, but had permiated into the fabric of the village itself. So complete was the state of "disrepair" that one could quite clearly see that no more than half of all the standing buildings were even in any habitable shape, in such a state of abandonment that saw them completely succumb to the vegetation that embraced them...to speak nothing of the homes that had already been systematically dismantled by the inhabitants themselves, creating a patchwork of masonwork hovels terspersed with plots of loose stones and greenery. Some enterprising men and women had even taken to creating gardens within these patches, adding splotches of color and variation to an otherwise overwhelming fabric of greens and greys. Even the habitated buildings were snugly hugged by the encroaching growth of the forest, but their caretakes did combat with their shears and shovels, keeping the eventual tide of reclamation at bay for maybe another generation or two.

Habitants were few and far between. Some men and women stood together, sharing the news and gossip of the world and their lives in equal measures as if the two shared equal weight in the grand scheme of the cosmos. Still others sat within their aforementioned gardens, outside their homes, wandering to and from heres and theres tending to the day's myriad needs. Few paid mind to the oddly dressed lady from out of town, aside from an occasional "'Day" or a nod in greeting and acknowledgement of her existence, at the very least.

No haughty welcoming party, no greeting at a gate that didn't exist, the people here caught in a land the world forgot and living their lives having forgotten the world in kind.