Dressed to Kill, Chapter 5 (ASOIAF FI)

“I think the question we should ask is whether or not we’ll split up,” Aramr suggested, him and two more Lhazareen ex-slaves clustering around a table, having sprung up as leadership figures now that the Dothraki were taken away by an offended spirit. Himself, as the de-facto leader of the labor slaves Ko Goqo’s kosar had kept. Mireneh, a godswife from a village that was wholly razed and had all its inhabitants slain or taken as slaves. Temareh, a second godswife, far younger than the first - barely into her second decade - had taken Ladon’s intervention as a sign. She declared the spirit a messenger of the Great Shepherd. “Both options are valid, in my eyes: speed or numbers. Our destination is already known: Kosrak is the nearest major city, and I do not wish to be out in the plain and undefended when the Dothraki ride back to their Sea.”

Temareh grumbled wordlessly - her insistence that they follow the tracks North, wherever Ladon took the riders, was outvoted by him and Mireneh - before she answered. “Numbers, then - he told us of a dozen villages, still with people hiding out. With their pantries raided and homes devastated, they are unlikely to live through the next winter.”

“They will, child. They’ll have to slaughter what remains of their herds and so they’ll starve the next, but that is still another year to reach Kosrak,” Mireneh interjected, tapping the gnarled staff that she needed to walk before the spirit healed the old wound against the table. “Besides, the Dothraki do not both come and go on the same route. The boredom of nothing worthwhile to raid would cause even the most disciplined khalasar to collapse into infighting.”

“Ladon would not have given us the locations of people needing our help if he did not intend for us to aid them,” The younger godswife argued. “Are we to repay our rescue with inaction?”

Mireneh let out a low chuckle. “A man who fells an olive tree wants it for lumber, not for food. Ladon saved us, yes, but I imagine it neither likes nor guides us. We were a consequence of the Dothraki’s punishment taking effect, not something it actively desired. Those who did not wake are proof enough of that.”

Aramr let out a sigh. “We were saved. No demand was made of us, no price exacted only because of the oath the spirit gave another. Sharing our good fortune does not place us at any greater risk, and we have the supplies for it. Splitting up into three groups to gather the survivors, before reuniting at Kosrak, is a sound plan.” He declared, more to end the argument than any real desire to take a side.

Temareh’s eyes lit up at his decision, clearly taking his decision as support, “As you wish, Ararmr,” She declared with a bit too much enthusiasm to not be planning something. He was not surprised. “May I begin to make preparations?”

“Of course,” He allowed with an incline of his head, and as soon as she left the tent he turned to face Mireneh. He let the neutrality of his expression drop, mouth sliding into a frown. “Are there any survivors from your own village who chose to live?”

“Some,” She admitted without a moment of hesitation, one eyebrow raised. “You intend to send one of them - one I trust - to join her group and keep an eye on her, I imagine. Would have done it without asking - she’s young. Inexperienced. Prone to making decisions on sudden emotion. And with the respect given for a godswife…” A village had three figures of authority - the elder for their age and wisdom, the head shepherd for the value they provided through their skill and experience, and the godswife as they were trained in medicine, alchemy, and the interpretation of the Great Shepherd’s intent.

Leaving her alone and unopposed in charge of just about anything would be giving her too much authority, Aramr and Minereh both agreed on that. But demanding that Temareh do nothing and cede her position would just end with her trying to do her work somewhere they couldn’t see. 

“Best watch her like a wandering lamb.” Aramr grunted in commiseration.

Mireneh visibly considered that suggestion, mulling it over before shrugging. “I will send Haren. His wanderlust made him a constant annoyance, never able to stay in the village for long before going off somewhere and coming back weeks later. He’ll keep an eye on her and get back to us faster than she can if something important enough happens.”

Aramr let out a noise of assent. “All we can ask for.”

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Vigor flowed like water, a trillion blades of grass each taxed a mote of their lifeforce and redirected through the network that connected every being claimed by Ladon. Yet unlike the previous times this happened, the energy was not poured into men and horses and the sheep he had taken over on the way here, but into rhizome. Directed into the dense grass some distance away from the nameless river the stolen memories had guided Ladon to.

The green blades shifted, twisting in place. There was no evident change beyond growth, the grass rising in a circle, the diameter maybe a meter at most - but that did not last. Roots beneath the soil unified and became a single organism, and so the part of it above the soil merged, first into a green trunk that rapidly hardened and browned, cascading through colors almost like caramel. The topsoil buckled, rising up as the roots spread out, growing and expanding even as they pushed the twisting, curling trunk upwards.

The roots gnarled together, forming something resembling a dome that raised the tree proper a meter and a half above the ground and suggested at being passable shelter - there were gaps within the ‘structure,’ but only one was large enough to admit a person and all but four were smaller than a man’s fist. The trunk above resembled a corkscrew, spiraling upwards as branches extended skyward, splitting apart and forming a clustered canopy beneath an expansive crown that the main thrust of the tree spread apart into, almost seeming to branch and spread out into a dense and flat layer of wood and leaf as if it had struck some sort of invisible wall and splattered.

A dozen eyes looked it over from every angle, just as many hands poking and prodding. Testing how strong the roots were and how well anchored the whole of the structure was to the ground. Just this thing alone may work as a ‘tent’ of sorts, although Ladon had much greater ambitions in mind now that he knew he could merge and transmute plantlife like this.

It was solidly entrenched into the ground, the roots spreading out from the center and leaving the core that could serve as shelter to be mere soil. A boon and bane at the same time - any serious rain would result in the bottom of the ‘tent’ becoming mud, but it broke the ground well enough and root cellars were, in fact, a thing. It would take some effort, but it could certainly be made to work.

The wood of the tree itself didn’t exactly seem fit for construction - too curved, the spiraling of the trunk limiting the length of planks that could be made, and the efficiency with which it could be worked. It would certainly be useless for anything other than firewood when viewed as a log. ‘Boro’ approached as well, a swing of his arakh taking off a larger branch to examine - the timber that could be taken was a pale, near-white beige that contrasted the bark, and while not soft, it was relatively yielding. 

A search through the crown suggested a lack of fruits or nuts to take advantage of, the dark green leaves almost perfectly matching the shape of a human eye, in silhouette if nothing else. Almost disconcertingly so, even if the subsumed existence of the tree confirmed they did not actually see. 

Now, the obvious question was how far could he push it. Being able to grow some sort of living wood longhouses would let him completely ignore matters of housing for a long while, freeing him up to focus on fortifications and farming.

The next step required another tithe of vitality, drained from the vast, ever-expanding swathes of grass under his dominion. More would be needed than what a single tree required - not enough so to kill any of the grass, not yet, but adding more than one or maybe two longhouses would require pulling energy from his more ambulatory shells. That could wait until at least the first was complete, in any case.

Ladon focused his attention, stretching the lifeforce across a length of terrain running parallel to the river as he tried to emulate the same sort of growth as the first tree did. Grass sprouted and converged before melding into a whole, clusters of roots tangling together, crawling atop and around one another like a bucketful of centipedes. They formed something different than the previous hut, the area beneath wider and taller by a quarter and with no natural partitions on the inside, turning it into a tunnel. Another divergence was the relatively even ground inside, the floor being a surprisingly flat stretch of not soil but more root and bark. With the arch of timber above, it was almost fit to be inhabited immediately, but there were still enough gaps that Ladon had doubts about insulation and waterproofing.

Aboveground, the trunks were as tangled as the roots beneath them, spiraling and leaning trees becoming a knot-like mess, lesser copies of it made by the stretching branches even as the crown stretched into a thick line of leaves that cast a shade across the grass.

It was certainly serviceable as immediate shelter, the dozen trees having grown in a straight line and capable of comfortably housing… a hundred or so Dothraki, ignoring privacy. It was all him, after all. If he also ignored comfort he could probably stuff another hundred in there. He’d need to make two more if he wanted the bodies to have at least a vague semblance of comfort and legroom.

He’d have to see how well puppet bodies took to night shifts, maybe he could guide the body refinement process to give them better night vision and to keep the meatsacks from whining about the reduction in sunlight? Something to figure out later, for now Ladon’s psychic appendages worked over the central trunk, trickling in more vitality as he teased out a few more meters of height from it, molding out subtle ladders across the whole structure as he went. After that, the top branches were shifted, woven together like a basket and reinforced. 

A rudimentary watchtower, more to rain down arrows on invaders than to keep an eye on the surroundings, given how he was aware of every step and shadow on the grass.

Once a few puppets had tested the design and found it functional enough, a second ‘longhouse’ of the same make went up in line with the first, boasting its own watchtower ready to fill up with archers. Considering the only serious threat anywhere nearby were the Dothraki and their already proven vulnerability to arrows, it would be an appreciable level of fortification if it came down to it. It was also impossible to scatter by cavalry charge - another plus.

The root-tunnels had enough room to make do sleeping in shifts, for the moment, and with enough storage space to hold what supplies the Dothraki had carried on them. Mostly provisions and arrows, but a few sets of various tools as well - needles and thread, saws, axes, hammers, and the like. While Ladon had yet to subsume anybody who knew to use that equipment with any degree of proficiency, it would be necessary if he wanted to establish a permanent settlement.

He estimated that he had enough food for another week for the human bodies, the horses perfectly content to graze. Water was not an issue - there was a river right there, and while it was both shallow and narrow as far as rivers went, it was still substantially more than anything that could be called a stream. Tentative plans of damming were shelved in the back of his consciousness, alongside ideas of subsuming the minds of the fish he could feel beneath the surface. Fish farms would go a long way keeping his puppets in robust health, just for starters.

But for now, he found himself wanting more vitality on tap than the endless expanse of grass provided, nevermind more headaches for the Dothraki. It was time to grow a forest, tree by tree.