65 A Gleeful Treeful (1/2)
”So she chose a tree on the edge of a cliff?” Nelda asked, somewhat rhetorically.
Nelda looked at the rickety Seussian structure of branches that held the pale centaur aloft.It was perched right at the top of a crumbling cliff face she had seen the manticore traverse just the previous night.Its roots visibly strained to hold the rocks and scant earth beneath its creaking trunked.
”Okay.”Nelda strode in a determined but wobbly way down the crooked path back to the compound.Fortunately, the drawbridge was down.She found Tyron snoozing on the floor next tot eh stripeflower sapling.
She had chosen one with several health branches hanging heavy with bright green fleshy leaves.Enough to have a good crop even if it lost a good few along the way.
[Like this.]
Nelda snapped off a sprig and retraced her steps.
[I just hope it kicks in a bit quicker for centaurs.Like the booze did.]
Back at the leaning tree, Nelda looked up the trunk, and then over the cliff, and then over to Phyllis.”I don't suppose you could…”She made a vague flapping motion with her hands.
Phyllis just glared a reply.
”Right.”
[Every problem as assailable, if you break it down into manageable steps.Step one, go up the tree and feed flying leap to a sleeping centaur without alerting her to her imminent probable demise.]
Placing the leafy twig between her teeth, Nelda set her hands upon the trunk. She had some vague notion of a program she had seen once where people were climbing coconut trees.
[All trials shall be surmounted.]
Getting up the trunk was made easier by it's distinct lean.She tried not to dwell on the void it leaned out over.
Jen hung in a haphazard sling of branched with her dainty equine legs hanging downward.Nelda wriggled herself into a position, feeling the tree settle a little further, creaking.She took a few leaves and crunched them between her thumb and forefinger.
”Good morning, Jen,” Nelda tried to inject her voice with a calm cheerfulness. ”It's not morning yet, so keep on sleeping.But if you take this herb, it will stop you from getting a hangover.You'd like that wouldn't you.”
Jen smacked together dry lipped and mumbled something.
Nelda took the opportunity to poke some sticky leaves into the centaur's mouth. At that moment, her attention was distracted by a sound.
”Whooooot!”
With a swooping sensation of vertigo and matching lurch of her stomach, Nelda looked out over the broken terrain of trees and boulders. The sharp edges of the topography created a tessellation of fluttering leaves, glinting planes, and impenetrable shadows.
Across on small sandy clearing, darted an even smaller, somewhat furry, shape.
”Whoooooooooooot!
Another followed after.SmithGuild's voice, made small by distance was still clear.”BugleHead, put down that basilisk!”
[I really hope they are talking about one of the dead ones.] ”Phyllis, do you think maybe you could help SmithGuild with that?”
”He is the one who assigned the tasks,” the dragon replied.”Who am I to argue?”
”You were happy to argue that centaurs are not suited to climb tr…” Nelda stopped herself and went back to trying to shove stripeflower leaf pulp between the centaur's lips.
”Whooooot!”
”Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck.”
[Oh shit. That sounds suspiciously like a not-very-dead-at-all basilisk.]
SmithGuild shrieked, ”Don't point that thing at me.”
[As the showgirl said to the bishop.]
Jen yawned and blinked blearily.Her pony legs paddled listlessly in the empty air.
”Um, eat more of these.Really quickly,” Nelda urged,