Y'eveton's Prayer

Y’etevons' Prayer
by Meagan Blanchard
Copyright 2003
Edited 3.22.05


Our world had begun to change in the second year after The Great Harvest. Now called The Great Harvest, for we had never seen such bounty again in my life time. That winter it began to snow, endless white upon white. Horrific cold winds, that never stopped blowing harshly as the landscape turned so frozen that even when it didn't snow and the sun appeared, the deep ice didn't melt. Not even the seasons changed. Frost bite became a constant hazard, with many loosing limbs due to exposure. The Great Ice built up and up, never completely going away. Grass grazers died frozen and starving. We died frozen and starving.

I was not even a gleam in my mothers' eye then. She had been just a babe at the beginning. She is dead now, and at the tender age of only fifteen years.

She was only fourteen when she conceived me; I could say accidentally, but I am the filthy Product of Rape; and the reason for her death. I am told her labor was hard, long and painful and I am forever shunned for my leaping into the world feet first, instead of using my brain as normal babes, and entering the world thought before action. Ever have I been known to be fleet of foot and slow of thought; though before this day I had never believed it to be so.

The Trvual's had enslaved us. It happened in the fifth year after The Great Harvest. They were from the far Northern Caps, or so we believe. Great, big, giant men and women, tall as a young tree in its tenth year of growth, with long flowing beards. They came for us dressed in frozen coats from the skins of animals pieced together with frozen cords of leather thongs. They are fleshy, but even stronger than the once great trees that we had so revered. They came upon us, freezing in our cities, not willing to cut the precious trees that were our homes for warmth. But, they, they had ice homes such as we have never before seen. Great big castles of ice! Huge to us, but, small and cramped to the Trvual's. Rounded us up like we would have the grazers killing half our number for their cook pots as others were kept as slaves and used to cut down our homes for their warmth. The rest as they say, is History.

Before this day, my life consisted of chopping, the endless chopping of the Great Trees. I no longer hear them scream which is oddly a relief, but so terrifying at the same time. A relief because, now, I no longer have frozen tears on my cheeks and bleeding ears from their wailing; terrifying because now they will never again have the chance for the dormant healing of winter; they are truly dead. But, this day was different.

This day I was arisen by the normal bellows from my Master Tien, an old Trvual that holds me upon his shoulders so I may cut the smaller branches from the last of the great Trees. Only, this was a bellow of annoyance and irritation, instead of a bellow of resignation. Then I heard the fight ongoing outside. Elves screaming, Trvuals’ bellowing, and the scuffle of light feet running masked by the lumbering steps of a much larger tread. Much of fighting I had never learned, but this day I learned it was gruesome in the extreme. Sure, I had seen the slaughter Ice House, where the old, and the infirm were taken to die, then quartered for the pots. But, The Trvual's were almost nice with their darts of The Long Sleep; their almost pristine care of dissection. Waste naught, want naught; a truism especially hard to swallow for my kind.

I heard the cry of my fellow Elves: "Resistance!!!! Country Men! For the Trees!!"

Tears streamed down upon my cheeks as my ears and brain signified the importance of these few words. The trees! I wanted to wail: but, we have decimated them! They shall never survive this long hard winter that never ends! But, I held my tongue, so silent, and crept from my frozen sleeping pallet and ran for the nearest Great Tree. Why I ran for them I shall never know. Maybe because they were something familiar in the chaos of this day, or maybe because I needed to protect them and heal the harm I had done to them. Either way, I ended myself up in the thick of the battle. The Trvual's were obviously winning, with their great big staffs and Darts of the Long Sleep. Our battle was lost much before it had begun.

Oh, how I wanted to help! But, I did not know what to do! So helpless was I, that I could barely use my feet and brain at the same time! So, I just quit thinking at all. No thoughts of the bloody images upon the battlefield. No thoughts of my father, the Rapist, being tossed around like an ice pebble. No thinking upon why I hadn't been told, or trained, for this moment of moments that would change the rest of what would be the end of my Elvin life. I just Raced toward what was left of the Great Trees, not feeling the Long Sleep darts enter my side and back, not hearing the sound of them sinking into my soft tender flesh.

Upon reaching the Great Trees, and using my agility to climb an almost limbless dying Great Oaken brute of a Tree, I felt the first knife slice to my rib cage. I screamed, almost loosing my hold on the Tree, but I continued to grasp fast and sure. Letting go with one hand I reached to feel the blood, wet and sticky, upon my numb fingers. Surprise decorated my face. Questions raced in my thoughts. I was to die now, I knew and that hit me hard and sure. It blackened the world about me like nothing else could do.

Death.

The Great Black Ocean.

I feared it as I did nothing else! As all my kind did. Great Tree help me, I thought, I'm truly frightened. So scared I couldn't move voluntarily, just shake uncontrollably. Then the irony hit me! Another great implosion inside my mind; I was pleading for the Great Tree to stop my dying, and I had been slowly killing them all my life! Oh, great irony of ironies! How dense I was! Then the thought shimmered in my mind, of my feet first entrance into the world, of leaping before thought. I laughed! So hard my side and back screamed in agony at me.

Up I went then, to the tip of the Dead Great Tree and I sat there all ironic laughter gone. I did something none have thought to do in my life time, as it was blasphemous to our kind for what we had done. I prayed. Elbows to knees, squatting; my back against the trunk, I prayed. Prayed for the Great Tree to end this winter madness and take my life in the bargain for my fifteen years of the taking of theirs.

Thus I prayed aloud:

"Great Holy Trees,
Hear my longing Pleas.
Take me from this world, so cold.
Take my soul as payment, not gold.
Forgive me my transgressions;
Please hear my confessions.
Crimes to Yours, my people have committed
This we have surely now, have admitted.
For the Great Black Ocean, I am currently headed.
This you know all my people have dreaded.
Herded as grazers, timidly we have let
The Trvual's take your lives by effort of our sweat.
Your screams of agony, did we hear
But, still we ignored, because of fear.
Take what is now freely given
By your actions we shall know if we are forgiven."

I closed my eyes and repeated my prayer until I started to get sleepy. Then, I looked around to see the rest of my people once again being herded as beasts by the Trvual's. As anger shot through me hard and fast, I surveyed the battle scene with scrutiny. The smaller Trvual's had gathering duty; the picking up of the dead to be carried to the Ice House of Slaughter. The redness of blood was already being covered up by a new snow. I wept for my people and for their brave but, hopeless actions on this day. I now knew why they had done so. To go along meekly just to escape death was a far worse punishment than death itself.

Vehemently, I prayed aloud once again. Screaming it defiantly into the biting winter wind!

“I am yours!" I screamed as I finished my prayer. "Take me!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Over and over until my throat was hoarse and my cheeks were frozen I screamed this prayer and plea aloud. Until no longer could I fight off exhaustion, then I remember nothing but, blackness.

****

"Do you think he followed the Prophecy?" a wounded Elf asked his sister who was tending him. Worriedly she fussed about him, wrapping his dressings of old and supple grazer hide tighter about his leg.

"He is our only hope dear brother, I surely hope he did, I surely hope he did."

****

Four days after the battle:

"The sun shines this rare day." grunted Master Tien to Grand Master Kepv.

Grand Master Kepv roared at Tien "Shut up you fool!! I....!" Kepv stopped, mid-sentence, as he noticed something on one of the Great Trees that was being readied to be uprooted.

"It's the boy." he whispered as much as any thing the same size as a full grown tree can whisper; which sounded much like a barrel of rocks being shaken.

"IT"S THE BOY!!!!!" he shouted, so loud that the Elves with their sensitive ears fell to their knees in agony, blood seeping out of many an already burst ear drum. Those that were farthest away started to cheer.

"Shut them up, quickly!" Kepv yelled to Tien. Tien marched toward the Elves with determination upon his craggy face, staff raised.

"HE’S DEAD!" Roared Kepv triumphantly. A shout that echoed ominously across the barren frozen winter-land.

The Elves began sobbing, quietly. Kepv picked up the boy's icy body and grunted once again his pleasure. As Kepv raised the boy high into the air, the sun began to blaze. Hot! The icy tundra floor immediately began to get misty, covering the ground with a pure white fog. The fog wrapped itself around the dead trees like a cloak. It rose so much it covered even the Tallest Trvual! The boy’s body in Kepv's paws screamed as if still alive, "Take me!!!!!!!!" and burst into a cleansing flame, burning Kepv with fire a that seemed would never go out. Bluish-white and hotter than any flame produced by known Elf or Trvual. Fueled by an oily substance that had leaked unnoticed from the boy’s body it engulfed Kepv and burned him alive. Kepv screamed silently. The fog receded as The Trvual's and Elves could only stare at the huge pile of ash that had once been Kepvs' great form. From the ashes an egg was uncovered by a warm southern wind and in One Great Mighty Crack, it split itself a’ twain. Up flew a Phoenix. Golden as the purest sunlight. It flew round the now cowering Trvuals and from its beak out flew the Phoenix's' Flame engulfing the Great Trees in its holy Fire. The Trees burst apart spitting its' flaming torches of splinters into each and every Trvual. A deadly strike each one as the flaming splinters spread their Holy fire into the bodies of each Trvual and they too, followed in Kepv's light dying with flaming, silent bellows.

From each Great Pile of Ashes inside was found a Great Seed; that even now the Elves were digging into the rapidly melting ice-covered earth to plant.

The Prophecy had been fulfilled. The fifteen year old boy, Product of Rape, Fleet of Foot and Slow of Thought, had done his sacred duty. And so, in his honor, in the middle of the now once again Great Oaken Forest, lies a Golden Oak Tree at the base of which, is a block of ice that shall feed the Tree its' nourishment and within is encased "Y'etevons' Prayer."