Girl of Iron and Magic

12.

12.

PRESENT DAY

Lotte was thrown back when Maloru transformed, landing hard on the rocky ground. The same ground which Maloru's roots could barely dig into. Fintan flapped about, twilling urgently.

Do something. Do something. Do something.

At some point in the night, the blaze was going to reach them. Yomi elves were protectors. Their natural magicks could ward off even iron bullets during the daytime. That's why the humans engaged in battle only during the night, when the Yomi protections were weakest.
And that was also when the deadly Leilan elves were strongest.

Do something, DO SOMETHING!

How did the trees move, though? Maloru was just a small tree compared with the towering, majestic Solles trees Lotte had seen on that other battlefield. Obviously, he wasn't big or strong enough to break the hard wintry earth as they had done.

Lotte pictured young Yomi elves in the high cities of Lasuran, growing in sweet, soft soil rich in nutrients and overflowing with wild magic.
Maloru made a magnificent tree, but how could he compare to that?

She unslung her pack. She'd only ever enchanted objects and herself, but enchanting other people was entirely possible. That was what all those elven tattoos were all about.
She had even helped Poe with his tattoos on occasion. He had shown her how to mix Thilorite and Margar, the black and red elven inks used in Leilan tattoos. In her abandoned home in Sullivan tower, she kept a set of needles especially for the task.

But she couldn't tattoo a tree. And she didn't have red elven tears, phoenix ash, unicorn hair, blood of the moon and siloni oil.

While she could enchant old leaves to burn using only muddy rainwater and a twig, she wasn't about to start experimental enchantments on her friend.

Or was she?

Was there even a choice in the matter?

"Think, think," she muttered, slapping her forehead. Fintan attacked Maloru's pack before flying over to her and dropping two objects into her lap.

The first was the elven canteen, still a quarter full. Maloru had been conserving the water, sipping only a little bit at a time. "It's silly, I know," he had said to her only this morning. "What could such a small amount of water do for me, really, when elves my age had probably drunk lake-fulls of it since birth?"

The second object was the vial of Maloru's tears, still considered terribly fresh since they were only three days old. They wriggled and sparkled inside the vial, as if the sun never actually set for them.

Right. The tears were power, protective, healing. The water would be a good solvent, but it wouldn't be strong enough to prevent the tears from escaping. She needed some kind of binding agent that was water soluble and strong enough to keep he enchantment together for a few hours.

Like resin.

Lotte knew better than to ever use the chemical kind of resin that humans sold in powders. For starts, she abhorred the smell. But it also had absolutely no magical conductivity.

She looked up at Maloru who looked, even in tree form, grim and terrified. "I don't suppose you could produce me some resin?"

Maloru's branches rustled as if disturbed by a breeze.

"Was that a yes?"

Another rustle.

Lotte bit her lip and dug through her pack until she found her last empty vial and a knitting needle. She didn't have a knife with her, this was the only sharp object handy.