Amoral Village Head

When i went to the second section, i saw two figures shambling with their shoulders hunched and their heads swaying slowly while looking at the ground .

I stopped in shock and thought in alarm when did this Zombie apocalypse happen. When i was carefully watching those figures and preparing to run with a single odd behaviour. One of those figures raised his head and on seeing me perked up.

I sighed and walked towards them.

"What happened to you guys, Why are you shambling like this?"

"Gan we aren't able to hold on, we are dead tired from working on the first section and now we have to continue with the second without rest"

"Didn't you guys sleep before starting on the first section"

"Two days didn't help at all, after the trees burned in the third section the old head came to my hut and woke me up with his stick" he was strangely rubbing his behind when he said that.

"Don't whine kid, you would only have to struggle during Yosdu but if we lose the Ilphyr's we have to suffer every season"

I shared with them few of my Phir and Nectr to calm down the fighting father and son.

Zhambul while eating mumbled "Atleast we got his gift."

I asked them about Tulga and left them to their devices. I searched around the Orchard only to find Tulga in the same situation. When she took rest after working, i took her in my lap and fed her as much as i can.

But she was tired and after eating to fill her stomach fell asleep on my shoulders. I let her sleep and lay my head on her shoulders to take rest only to wake few moments later when Tulga's head hit my chain raising up.

These guys have a damn alarm on their heads as they wake up correctly whenever their gift is ready to activate again. Even with how tired they are they don't deceive or skip on this.

I sighed and went to find Sarnai. She was sleeping on her Charpoy and i gladly accompanied her. Yosdu moved quickly with me working hard and experimenting on my gift on every opportunity.

I was continuously learning about the Ilphyr with every connection we shared. Eventhough i wasn't able to consciously exert myself during the activation, after it finished a lot of information bubbled up to my mind from my subconscious.

I learned that the red stream, i saw travelling throught its trunk metaphysically is literally its nutrients it needed to survive. I saw the nutrients giving the foliage its vigor and getting pooled in the branches to form fruits.

The Ilphyr tree seemed to depend on the nutrients to constantly grow and strengthen its shell. It had a high metabolism to grow fruits as frequently as it did.

Its shell was a mystical concept i couldn't make sense of. It was more than a hardened membrane, to my senses it felt more like the essence or the soul of the tree.

But I couldn't make head or tails of how it is created. I only learned that i could grow or strengthen it whenever i feed it energy and i can make it harden in certain places by directing energy continuously in a section.

With every time i used my gift i became a little more comfortable in sharing my head and asked Buld to wait for some more time before disturbing me. I tried to control the Ilphyr as much as i can and ended up growing it to even more heights.

It is during these experiments i noticed something odd. Whenever i used my gift to broaden its trunk and make it grow in height or spread its branches and bear even more fruits. The Ilphyr couldn't sustain it beyond its normal levels.

After i finished activating my gift, the tree would quickly lose its excess to come back to its sustainable levels. The fruits would fall, the leaves would wither, the trunks would shrink to normal. It was odd watching it in reality and even Buld thought the same.