Who: Torunn What: Have you ever seen a god argue with the trees? When: Sunday morning Where: Outside Rating: G Status: Narrative When she awoke this morning, something was off immediately. She did not feel the joyous rays of the sun, nor did her lungs take in the charge from the morning air as she looked out of their window. In fact, there was no charge at all.. But there were voices. Plenty of voices and imagery that were completely foreign to her. While she gazed over the campus, she could see the entirety of in her mind. Hundreds of little whispers advising, gossiping, chatting about absolutely nothing she gave a damn of. What was this? Looking to her roommate, she would have shaken her awake furiously, but the girl was already gone for the time being.
There was no time for changing, this was a matter of utmost urgency. Grabbing hold of her bow which was propped against the wall, she grunted at just how heavy it seemed in comparison, which, in return, made her highly worried that she had done something to deem her unworthy of handling such a weapon. She was able to lift it, though, but without her strength natural strength, the task of firing it would surely be difficult. It took a few moments to fasten the bow between her shoulders and adjusting white shift dress. It was a real dress, made of linen that stopped just above her knees and left her arms bare. In her lack of cultural understanding, while indeed the dress was labeled as a 'shift' dress, she had assumed it was a modern take on an actual chemise and to be worn for slumber, not for a fun rooftop party in the heat of a summer night.
Storming out of her room, her footsteps greatly lacked in the thunder that typically resounded with each step. Eventually, ignorant to every faced she pushed past to get outside, she made it to the campus grounds. The source of the voices were very clearly belonging to not humans, but trees. There was one voice, one tree in particular that seemed to have some rather strong opinions about the current situation, mocking the mortals as if they were chickens with their heads chopped off. It was this tree that Torunn singled out. If her eyes could shoot lasers from sheer glaring alone, that tree would have been ash.
"Who are you to mock such people when you lack legs and a head of your own?!" She demanded an answer, but little did she know, oaks were as particularly proud and stubborn as she. And my oh my did she pick the wrong tree to bark up. The two of them began a yelling match about which race was superior, how the wisdom of the trees far surpassed any wisdom she could have acquired on her minimal time on Earth. To which, she retorted her rather winded explanation of her origin, and eventually insulted the great oak by insisting it could never be as great as the greatest tree of all: Yggdrasil. The surrounding trees were quick to act in defense of their friend (even though they would gossip about the oak later behind it's back).
It didn't take long before Torunn was ready to show just how truly superior she was, allowing her arms to try and wrap around the mighty trunk. The bark scratched and tore at her flesh as she tried digging her fingers into the wood, trying with all of her might to simply uproot the tree entirely. One try... a second try... And a very angry third try (it looked more like she was giving the thing the greatest hug in the world!) was given before the little god was exhausted and bleeding. She stumbled back to catch her breath, doing her best to ignore the laughter formulating in her head. Trees... they were cruel. Very, very cruel. It was unfair. To have lost her strength... of which she had, only weeks prior, uplifted several trees for the bonfire.. Indeed she was humbled in this moment.
Humbled... and angered... and foolish.
"You think you are so wise? I need not strength to destroy you! Behold!" She shouted in a preemptive cry of victory as she lifted the bow high above her head. Several steps were taken backwards as she used all of her strength to position the bow as properly as she could. At this range, a mere couple of feet away, she could not miss, even if she tried. Drawing back on the string took tremendous effort, and while she lacked the strength to pull back enough to generate a strong arrow, the small one she fired into the oak was enough to singe the bark and leave a gaping hole the size of a baseball through the tree.
Instantly, the bow itself became far too heavy for her to handle and dragged her to the ground, the tip weighing so much it pierced through the grass and dirt. The cries of pain coming from the oak were blinding. She had not killed it, but instead, made it suffer. It was her own act of cruelty, an act intention that no longer made her worthy of wielding her own weapon. Scrambling to her feet, she tried to tug and pull and yank at her bow, all while trying to ignore the pain from the tree and the accusatory words the surrounding trees were yelling. Tears were flowing freely from her eyes as she pulled desperately at her bow, yelling back at the trees to shut up, threatening that they would feel the same as their friend... But it was no use. This was a battle she would lose, and so she did the only thing she knew to do when the weight of guilt was too much to bear.
Resting on her knees, she sat next to her bow, facing the weeping oak, and after she attempted to apologize, she shut down and found that hidden field inside her head where she and Vebjorn used to play. She traveled there, where the wild grass was soft and colorful, the stars littered the sky in clusters, and the suns warmed her aching flesh. It was a level of meditation that took hundreds of years to achieve, and no lack of strength was going to weaken her mind.