Reyn smiled a little when Taurëwen glanced back at him. He’d seen her leaving the camp, and had followed because the woods hereabouts seemed…malevolent. The trees were darker, the light was less than usual. The entire area seemed that it did not welcome the elves’ presence. Though he gathered wood with one hand, he kept the other ready to snatc.h a knife out of his sleeve at any time. Things just did not seem right here, but what had made it this way, he could not tell.
As he’d passed, he’d taken a look at the print that the others had mentioned, and had wondered what would make such a harsh mark in the earth. It was so deep. Whatever had made that print did not care for the forest. He supposed it could be a man, but what man could have made it into Greenwood without being spotted by the sentries? It just didn’t make sense. Not any sense at all.
He reached out and took a largish branch—and stopped short. This branch wasn’t ordinary dea.dfall. It had been hewed from the living tree only a few short hours ago. There was nothing wrong with this branch as far as he could tell, it had no holes where there shouldn’t be any, nor did it look to be infested with bugs. Now, it was one thing to cut dying branches off to allow the tree to live longer, or for wood when there wasn’t enough dea.dfall, but to cut a thriving branch off the tree for no purpose at all? That was just wrong. He stood up quietly and looked up at the tree above his head. There was the cut where the branch he held had been and the area around it was scored with even more marks. It really looked as though someone had just chopped up the tree to vent their frustration. He didn’t want to think that it might be for some other reason, nor what could be capable of such an act.
He looked around again and saw that this tree was not alone in its pain. Several others had been marred in a similar manner. Reyn clenched his fist. Who or whatever had done this would have to pay for these trees. And it was no longer any wonder that the forest seemed to resent their presence, with a violation such as this upon them. It just made him so angry…
“Taurëwen. Look at this,” he whispered, gesturing for her to come over and see. Her expression mirrored his shock and outrage when she saw what had happened to the trees. She looked at him in dismay.
“What could do such a thing?” she murmured, not really expecting an answer.
“I don’t know.”
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