Pogs' Detail

I knew about the mother tree but had never heard about their language. It was an argument as to how many of the tree people there are. Each tree was a seedling or root start of the mother tree, so in essence they were all one person but traveling separate from one another. Even on a scientific scale there was no difference. Cells, genes, structure were all the same. Somehow though they have different personalities and gender, as far as a tree can have gender. Mother tree had long gone silent. Her trunk,branches, and roots still stood, growing and devouring more of the land she was born on. Said to have been laid down by the Goddess after her great dance that started the worlds to spiral into existence .

The Goddess along with other the Deity beings started all of life with a seed on fertile ground.

She grew from the first hill of the first ground on earth. Her birth was on the day we call Spring equinox. Her first root took hold as the moon entered her third phase of the full moon. Slowly the moon rose and her gentall root sprouted brown as dirt and sought the ground that matched its hew and luster, with as much hunger as a cub hungers for a mothers milk. After breaking through the shell of her seed and into the ground a stock as deep green as emerald or the thick forests of trees. The seeds milk dripped as the shell of it rose into the air, the stock growing into a thick strong trunk, as the shell broke apart and fell to the ground more roots grew soaking up the nutrients,where they took to ground small clumps of moss and greens popped up. Equally the supple branches took to the sky, reaching up like a system of veins and arteries sought out the sky. As it branched out it the Mother of Trees let out large leaves, each a different shade of green each a different shape and size. His body moved and danced to the rhythm of the wind.

Her form bloomed as well, her trunk revealing her young slender female body on one side and an older but strong male on the other, though he lay sleeping and in what seemed to be a state of dreaming. Her curves were as elegant as any arch or bow. Though made of bark, what would be her skin was soft and fuzzy to the touch, her face so perfect and pristine as if a Greek god had carved it themselves. I'd never met the Mother Tree, I wasn't even sure where she was located. More interesting was, how did Pogs know where she was? "Pogs, how do you know where the Mother Tree is?" I asked him as he cleared a pile of plates and a couple copper pans with a wave of his hand, just as new empty plats appeared in the kitchen with a light swoosh sound and notes from my siblings thanking Pogs for breakfast. "Hey I cooked too!" I yelled into the empty kitchen. All I heard back was laughter and a single gold shilling that one of us received ages ago as payment for some small menial service to a human. It has passed hands as a running joke in our family for centuries now. "Ahh my payment for services ehh Pogs." I said holding the shiny coin up to the light. We both chuckled. I put the coin into my pouch as I picked up and mended a dish that popped into the room missing the slab table altogether. "Pogs, you never answered me." I said again.

Pogs looked around the room and picked a stool that he climbed up to be at least face to shoulder with me. He pulled a long pipe out of his vest pocket, its velvet a soft brushed pink that was far too small to hold a pipe of its length. From the pouch at his hip he pulled out a wad of green sticky weed that his people smoked, in my opinion all too often. Though as the last of his kind I was in no position to tell him what he should or shouldn't do. He packed his pipe and with a snap of his finger a thin vein of smoke escaped the pipe and a small beating heart of flame nested in the center of his Billy Weed. Its earthy but pungent smell filled the kitchen and as I inhaled it the light around me seemed a little brighter and the air filled my lungs a little deeper and my limbs relaxed just a little deeper.

"Oh I haven't seen that wench in half my life I suppose. I was in an arranged marriage with her at one point, meant to be the father of her brood of Bittsie trolls." He took a puff and went to speak again but before he did I couldn't help but spit out, "What in the hells do you mean marry her?" I had no idea that the Mother of Trees ever married let alone that Pogs of all beings was one of her chosen suitors. "Forgive my outburst it just, the Mother of Trees and you, why would she think you would be able to help her bare Bitsie Trolls?" I asked with as much mirth as I could feign in my voice. Another question I had was how Bitsie Trolls came into being if not by him. They were of course a well known family and as far as I understood it had no relation to Pogs or his family. Bitsie Trolls were taller and thinner than your average troll and by human standards very attractive. Though by Fey views they were average, fey standards are fickle and change as often as the seasons. Some of the Bitsie Troll actually married into my extended family, though most in disguise as humans from neighboring tribes. As the human world forgot about the magics and the ability to shape essence, again, more and more Fey born married into the human world to hide or simply to hide in plain sight. It was harder to accuse someone of being otherworldly if their spouse was human. Still it was sad to see that so many beings felt like they had to hide in order to survive. Why has the human world become so intolerant of the realms and other beings living side by side. A question I still ask to this day. Their magics were in illusions and part of the light fey sect. From his wench statement I guessed that his opinion of the Mother of Trees was low. He took another puff and again the lights around me seemed to dance a little more. "When I was young and a bit stupid I thought it was my duty as a prince to expand our influence as creatures of the realms. My mother, Peggnilia, thought it was the best way." He puffed and sank deep into the fold of his stool looking more relaxed and a bit far off, lost in memory and hindsight. What do humans say, it's twenty by twenty. "I convinced myself that I had fallen in love with her, but it was her sleeping half that interested me, he of course rarely wakes and speaks even less but when he did his words moved me deep in my core. His words were like steel, iron, bronze. It anchored my soul to a greater being of my kind." Pogs had seemed a bit sad when he mentioned his mother Peggnilia. I knew the Mother of Trees, who now goes by Tessa or at least the last of my knowledge that was her name, still her whereabouts I had no idea. There were so many cities and towns in that part of Canada. It must have been hard for her to hide. Still I guessed Pogs had more to tell. I knew as I walked around her trunk that I couldn't possibly marry her when my heart, soul, and flesh were so completely his. I have waited two thousand years for him to wake up again, to speak with me. I left a token with him and her to let me know when he wakes." Pogs told me more then I think he meant to, the Billy Weed must be a bit stronger today then normal. A token, Pogs left a token with the sleeping half of Tessa, that's all I need to know at the moment.

Somewhere in the halls of House other beings were going about their lives, a small pixie family had made a great hall with bedrooms and a music hall in the closet under the first flight of stairs. The gentle small sound of origin music piped out of the floorboards of the fifth step up. Peeking in, what can only be explained as a great and beautiful room, corners gilt with gold, great columns of white marble with the lightest shades of rose pink striations that danced around it, its footprints soft and smokey like clouds in an endless expanse of white. At the far end what would be a giant oak pipe origin was being played by a tiny leather winged Pixie who was younger right now then she had been this morning. A little known fact about pixie, along with dust and light and tending gardens. Music made them younger, as they played or sang. A sure way to attract them is to play an Irish jig, something light and easy to dance too. The hall was full of dancing pixies, drinking and merry as the day grew older into its adulthood. Throughout the house their tiny pipes reached through cracks and round corners, up vents and down halls. Never loud but it was always there clear as a bird chirping in the morning. "Its odd falling in love with a man you've never actually spent time alone with, isn't it Jonesie? You must think I'm a fool but Gods help me and by the Hells I fell hard." Pogs added as his lids crept slowly down and a cracky smile sprang across his face. "No Pogs, it's not a foolish thing, it would be more foolish not to fall in love at all." I answered softly, not wanting to disrupt his sleep. Before he was fully asleep I moved him through the air, as weightless as a feather to his bed. House was kind enough to move his door directly outside the kitchen. I watched as he floated through the air, his pipe still smoldering in his hand. I reached out with essence and snuffed the little ember out as the door closed and Pogs was left to sleep the Billy Weed away. "Now what was that token I wonder." I said out loud to an empty room made cold by the absence of any being other than the ever present feeling of House in the kitchen, who as always never interfered with life.

The far off worlds of beings in our home went on, I could smell a roast being cooked in a pit coming from the abandoned corner where the Gremlins had made a home. House left it derelict mainly because anytime they fixed it up the gremlins did what gramlins do, mainly dismantled things. It was a small price for house to pay to keep our guests happy in that corner of House. Gramilns came in handy with all things human machine related, even magic tech if I'm honest there were few better suited than gremlins. In another area there were hobb goblins, run of the mill goblins, gargoyles, the odd Elvish family, and tolls of course. Even a banshee called the attic home. At times there were herds of animals from the realms human and otherwise. Beast roamed the corridors and through rooms just as freely as any other creature. Some animals with basic understandings tried to read a book in the library or operate the lift from floor to floor. Some animals were able to rise above their normal station after a few years or centuries under House's care. It's no wonder we didn't have human guests often, who could understand the menagerie of creatures that called our grounds home, and these were just the beings we let into the main rooms. What if a human were to stumble on the hidden door to the sanctuary below? Gods that would be a hard one to explain. As I left the kitchen and turned down a hall I passed the Pixie Hall, and the Gremlin corner, I smelled the roast as it cooked, the eves and buttresses of the house shifted and changed around me, lines of ceilings raised and fell as House found its footing for the day. Making room for as much for a neck as tall as a giraffe, and as wide as two mammoths walking side by side. Our home at work, As I entered one hall and then another and then a room after that and then another I had to wonder what token would a 'Shroom troll leave for the first of all living beings on Earth and her sleeping and silent companion?