Pieces, Part 16 - Birds

"Oh, hey, Nemo?" said Custos from the other side of the room, and I turned to look at him. He was holding a log and looking at a rather empty cupboard. He tossed the log into the fireplace. "Think you could help me with something?"

"Sure, what do you need?" I asked as he dusted his hands on his pant legs. He gave me a slightly apologetic smile.

"I'm, uh, all out of firewood," he said, indicating the empty shelf behind him. It must've been where he kept it. "I have some bigger logs in the shed out back, but they need to be chopped down a bit. Think you could help me with that? It would make the process a lot faster, which would mean breakfast quicker and also less time in the cold."

"Oh, sure," I said, going to my bag to grab another shirt. "I'm not entirely sure I know how to chop wood though..."

"Don't worry about it, I'll show you how to handle it," said Custos, clapping my shoulder as he walked past me to retrieve his coat. "Thanks, bro. You girls go ahead and eat while we're gone, but leave some for us as well!" He laughed as he pulled his shoes on and stepped through the door. Rosa gave us a thumbs-up and an absentminded wave from where she was raiding Custos's pantry.

I wrapped my scarf around my neck and pulled my on coat on, and after lacing up my boots I walked out after him.

It was slightly colder than it had been the day before, but also a lot clearer. The sun could clearly be seen shining from between the tree branches, the snow on the ground and trees bright in the light. The whole forest seemed like a completely different place now, and while I still couldn't see anything but trees, at least I saw those. I looked out at the river, as it floated by. It was pretty tame by the house, much tamer than it had been further west where we'd come from. There was a rapid somewhere up there, judging by the distant roar. On the other side of the river the forest continued, thickly as ever, for as far as the eye could see.

"Oi, Nemo, this way," came Custos's voice from somewhere and I dragged my eyes from the river to find him standing behind the house. I followed the path he'd made into the freshly fallen snow. It must've snowed again last night. Our tracks from yesterday were barely visible.

Behind the house were two wooden buildings, a wooden door in a stone archway leading to the ground - presumably an underground storage or cellar - and a big stump in the middle of it all. Custos had walked over to the smaller wooden building, the shed, and pulled its door open with a yank. It was filled with logs, but even I could see they were too big to be burned as they were. They had probably been sawed from the trunks of fallen trees in the forest.

Custos took the axe that was hanging from the wall and turned to me.

"You wanna chop or you wanna carry?" he asked.

"What?" I asked. He gestured at the two basket like things he'd brought from inside, which were now resting next to the stump.

"I only have one axe and one place to chop. So what we're gonna do is one's gonna chop, and the other's gonna bring him more logs and take the chopped ones inside," he explained, complete with hand gestures. It made sense. We couldn't really pile the chopped logs onto the ground, they'd get wet, and it would be very inconvenient to keep running inside in the middle of chopping. "So which do you wanna do?"

"Uhhh," I said. "I don't really mind either way? I guess I could chop the wood. Knowing how to use and axe seems like a pretty useful thing to know how to do, so I might as well practice it in case I don't know how to already."

"Sure, buddy," said Custos, offering the axe my way. I walked over to him and took it. "Just swipe the  snow off the stump and I'll start giving you wood."

We made chit-chat while I started to chop the logs Custos brought me. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say Custos made chit-chat. He was a very talkative man. Not that I minded, I thought it was very interesting to listen to him talk, to learn more about the world from the trivial things he told me.

At first he talked about good ways to chop wood, where to aim on the head of the log, how much force to use, how small to make the pieces. Then he started talking about the wood itself, about which trees burned well and which didn't, which made a lot of smoke when it burned, which smelled terrible, and which would burn out too quickly. He talked about how to make a good fire. He knew a lot about that, which explained how quickly he'd lit the fireplace twenty minutes prior.

He talked about himself, and about Rose. He talked about their father, but only in passing. He talked about Ulula who had taken them in when their father had died. I asked about their mother, quietly, unsure if I was on thin ice. He looked proud when he told me she was a part of the witches' council, so she hadn't had time to take care of them, bringing them over to her own mother instead. He told me it was okay, they did still see their mother, it wasn't like she'd completely abandoned them.

He talked more about the witches, when I asked. While it was true that generally speaking the witches weren't particularly loved by the general public, they were begrudgingly appreciated for their skills as healers and such. The witches had a council, which governed their use of magic, and would punish witches that behaved inappropriately. It was to make sure that not all witches would be condemned by the actions of a few again.

He talked about magic, how it passed through a family line, from mother to daughter. Ulula had passed it to her daughter, and she had passed it to Rosa. Men didn't inherit magic, he said, just a smidgen of jealousy in his voice. But sometimes, when the magic was strong enough in the bloodline, the men could also receive powers. Abilities. They could tune into the magical resonance of the world, make them more attuned to all things magic. It wasn't as impressive as being able to use magic yourself, but it was kinda cool to be a guardian.

"A guardian?" I asked, thinking back to the night before. Rosa had said something like that as well when they first arrived. "What exactly is a guardian?"

"A guardian is a man with strong magical blood, like me, who has been given a specific place to, well... guard," said Custos, tossing a log in his hands before placing it on the stump. I whacked it with the axe. "Places that have high concentration of magical energy in them, and could potentially be a risk are assigned people to watch over them, to keep an eye on. Elaborate spells often require more energy than the witch herself will have, so she'll need to gather it from her surroundings. Basically all high risk, dangerous spells, ones that you need the council's permission to perform, are like this, requiring an insane amount of energy to cast. So to make sure that people don't use them without permission there are guardians, who themselves are not capable of using magic. Did you... understand any of that?"

"I think so," I said, placing the chopped logs into the now-full basket. "Basically to cast a spell that's very powerful you need to be in a specific location, but you also need permission from the council. And to make sure that no one does the spells without permission, the council assigns guardians to these places. Guardians who can't use magic, but can, like, sense it and stuff."

"That's obviously not the only reason there are guardians in places like this," continued Custos, indicating with his hand at the surrounding forest. "We're also here to monitor for any kind of abnormalities, or big shifts in the energy fields, or anything suspicious really."

"What's so special about this place though?" I asked, looking around the small clearing in the woods. A blackbird was singing in a tree nearby, hopping on the branch. It looked like it was looking at me for a moment, but then it was joined by another, and they flew away together.

"Oh, Corsilva is teeming with magical energy," he said, rearranging the logs in the baskets a bit. "The energy levels in this forest are off the charts on any scale. The Other Side isn't the only reason this place is called the 'soul forest' you know." He picked up the logs. "Well, I think this is enough wood for now. I hope you're not too sore."

"Not at all," I said, walking to the shed to put away the axe. "It was a good workout. Woke me up pretty good."

"Well that's good," said Custos. He looked like he was about to leave, but then realised something and turned back to me with a sheepish smile on his face. "And I hope you didn't get bored with me talking all the time... Rosa's always telling me I talk too much."

"Oh, no," I hurried to say, falling into step with him as we rounded the house. "I found it very informative. I'm so much of a blank slate right now, I am more then happy to learn anything I can about the world."

The corner of Custos's mouth twitched, a full, bright smile spreading along his lips and he turned away bashfully. I smiled at him, though he couldn't see it. His cheeks were red from the cold, but they were also more red then they had been just before. His ears had been the first to turn red, just like Rosa's.

We walked back into the cottage, where the girls had mercifully left us some breakfast to eat.
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*insert inappropriate joke about taking care of morning wood*

It's soooo laaatteeeeeeeeeeeee I knooooow. I'm sorry. But I had no idea what to do with the plot, how to make it move forward so I just... avoided writing for the whole day. In the end I didn't even move the plot forward, really, but I did bring out some interesting backstory I think? It's not very long, I know, but it's something.

By the way I came up with the witch hierarchy as I wrote, can you tell? (except for the "only women can be witches" part, and that Custos is something called "a guardian" which Rosa does say in my previous part).

I'll be drawing a map, as per requested, but it will be drawn tomorrow, now I'll be going to bed. Good night.

Pie out.

P.S. Your topic is "Dare".
P.P.S. The other building behind the house is a stable, which is where the horses are atm (Custos took them there before going to bed last night) because frankly they can't have been outside the whole night they would have frozen and I we can't keep forgetting about our animals. Custos probably also has a horse of his own, buuutttt who knows. It might not be relevant.