Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Five - Negotreeations

“It started a long time ago,” Oak began.

Then he paused for entirely too long.

“Um,” I said.

“Yes. Many years ago, when I was a sapling. The Destroyers came. They cut down our brethren. Then I learned of weapons. Now we fight back.” The dryad sighed, as if that had taken a lot of him.

“Oh,” I said for a lack of anything else to say. We all kind of just stood there, the awkward silence partially drowned by the gurgling of the stream and birdsong from the forest.

Wisp whapped Oak. “You’re being too rigid,” she said before turning back to us. “We lost a lot of our forest. It started many years ago, and the elders thought it would stop, because it had before. Sometimes people took some trees, but they only took so many. Now they kill more and more trees, without stopping. The elders didn’t want to do anything, not even when Oak wanted to try. So he did, and now the cutting has stopped.”

I didn’t know how to feel, exactly. That was a bit strange, really, usually I didn’t have any difficulty feeling things. But in this case, should I be sad that the dryad’s home was being cut apart, or happy that they stopped it?

I decided on happy, on account that being happy for a friend’s success was never the wrong move.

“Good work!” I said as I hugged Oak as tight as I could.

“Thank you,” Oak said.

“So what are you doing with this situation?” Amaryllis asked. “I doubt that the East Mattergrove Company will just step aside and lose one of their better sources of income.”

Oak’s face carefully set into a very serious, and very handsome, scowl. “Then we continue to fight.”

“Oh no,” I said. “That’s awful. I’m sure we can figure something out.”

“Figure it out quickly then,” Amaryllis said as she glanced to the side. The lumberjacks were all down, as were Sebastien and Geoffrey, and they were all looking our way.

“Right,” I said. “You arranged this meeting, Oak?”

“It was... both arranged,” he said.

I took that to mean that both sides had agreed to a ceasefire and discussion. That was probably for the best. If everyone wanted to talk things out, then the chances of a peaceful resolution being reached were pretty good. This wasn’t one side forcing the other to the table.

“Are we having the discussion here?” I asked.

“It’s either here or aboard your vessel,” Sebastien said as he approached. “Which, frankly, would be quite annoying to climb back into after we took the effort to come down.”

I laughed and nodded. “That’s fair. Maybe we can bring some chairs down?”

Oak stirred. “I will make them.” He raised a hand, and from between the rocks beneath us came little roots and branches that wove themselves together, forming first one chair, then two, then three, all of them around an open, roughly oval space.

Oak lowered his arm, and Wisp took up the slack, pushing more roots through the ground and forming a big table in the centre of the circle. It was a nice table. A bit crooked, and so low that we’d risk banging our shins against it, but it was definitely a table. “This is how tables work,” she said with the certainty of someone that had never seen a table before.

I plopped myself down on one of the seats after tucking my skirt down. It was a bit rough, and could have used a cushion, but all in all it was certainly a chair.

Amaryllis and Awen and Bastion sat down next, then Sebastien and Geoffrey and finally Edmund, leaving a few seats empty at the far end of the table. Oak and Wisp looked a bit awkward sitting down, because that wasn’t a thing trees were known for, but they managed!

Oak hadn’t made enough seats for everyone, but the lumberjacks didn’t seem keen on sitting down anyway. They instead moved over a ways and stood around, talking in low voices and staring off into the woods.

No one said anything for a bit, so I decided to kick things off. “Alright, from what I understood, you guys both want the same thing, and of course, you can’t both have it. On Oak and the dryads’ side, you want the forest to be left alone. And on the side of the East Mattergrove Company wants the forest to chop it down.”

“We wish to exploit the land that we have rights to,” Geoffrey said. “I have a copy of the deed, signed by the previous monarch himself, as proof.”

“Right,” I said. “So before we get into the nitty gritty, we should probably make sure everyone’s on the same, um, wavelength.”

“What’s a wavelength?” Awen asked.

“I mean, on the same page.” I gestured to Oak and Wisp. “When you guys talk about the forest, you mean all of the Darkwoods, right?”

“Yes?” Oak said. He didn’t sound entirely sure, but that was good enough for me.

“And the East Mattergrove Company. Surely you have an idea of where your, um, thing stops?”

“Our exploitation rights stop on the far side of the forest,” Sebastien said.

“Wait,” Amaryllis said. “That’s very much in Deepmarsh territory. I don’t know exactly where the borders are, but you’ll end up stumbling right into a grenoil patrol who might take your cutting down of the entire woods about as well as the dryads, only Deepmarsh has a proper army, one that makes Mattergrove look like children playing with sticks.”

“Awa, Amaryllis is right,” Awen said. “You can’t go all the way to Deepmarsh. The borders of Mattergrove stop to the west of the Darkwoods, Deepmarsh’s border stops on the east.”

“So the woods act as a sort of natural border?” I asked.

Awen nodded. “Yes. It’s probably okay to take lumber from the edges, because it still keeps the border intact, but if they start going too deep, they’ll run into Deepmarsh roads and infrastructure.”

“Like Rockstack?”

“Is that an outpost?” Awen asked.

I nodded. “I can’t remember its official name. But it had a nice inn, and a stack of rocks in the middle. So they call it Rockstack.”

“I think we might be going off topic,” Amaryllis said. “Let’s just touch on all of the obvious solutions first. Mister Oak, you made this table. Could you make lumber in the form that these guys want?”

Oak titled his head. “I can make this much.” He gestured to the chair. “And a little more.”

Amaryllis tapped her chin. “That seems... about as much as... one one-hundredth of a tree in terms of pure mass alone. From one dryad. There are about a dozen here, probably more of them around... hmm.”

“We’ve considered that,” Sebastien said. “Even if there were twice as many dryads as we think there are, they still couldn't make enough lumber to out-produce the mill.”

“Not to mention that would be me and my boys out of work, miss,” Edmund said.

Amaryllis nodded. “I’m just exploring the obvious solutions. Maybe some of the dryads could supplement your gathering operations to an extent. It would cut down on the number of trees you need to... well, cut down.”

“What about bringing trees that were cut down back?” I asked. “Could you heal them from the stump up?” I asked Oak.

The dryad thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “If the tree brother still lives. We can heal it back.”

“Then they could cut down some trees while your bring others back, and you could like, rotate it, maybe?”

Oak’s face scrunched up, but it was Wisp who answered. “That would be hurting a tree again and again,” she said.

“Ah,” I said. That wasn’t a much better solution.

I think that Oak noticed that we were about to run into a wall of sorts because he raised a hand and carefully set it onto the table. “There are trees that can be cut,” he said.

Wisp looked at him weird.

Oak continued. “Old trees. Sick trees. Trees that grow in bad places. We could lead the cutters to these. That would be... possible.”

“I don’t think that would cover the company’s needs,” Sebastien said.

“It would be some,” Oak said.

“We could help regrow some trees too,” Wisp said. “Even if that means being cut again and again. We could help them grow with more branches for cutting.”

“That would seriously cut into our margins,” Sebastien said.

“How would those margins react if the Dryads continue to fight you and you begin to lose men?” Amaryllis asked. “Or do you not care enough about them for it to matter?”

The lumberjacks were looking at the company representatives now, who both shifted on their seats. “Well, the shareholders won’t like it,” Sebastien said.

“You could just tell us who those are,” Edmund said. “I’m sure we could explain things.”

“So!” I said to try and clear the air. It was too nice a day to be bogged down by bad feelings. “We have three solutions. The dryad could make some wood, maybe they could even directly make some furniture and planks and the like. They can also show you to some trees that can be cut down here and there. And finally, they can help regrow some of the cut down forest with trees that are shaped to be better for you guys,” I said. “And in exchange... well, I guess you’d have to pay the dryads a bit, and you’d need to cut down fewer trees.”

Geoffrey harrumphed. “None of that would keep our production as high, and we still own the rights over this land,” he said.

I frowned for a bit. They did, kinda, own those rights. But the legitimacy of that was very much up to debate. Which... actually gave me an idea. I smacked the table and grinned. “I know!” I said.

“Sister Broccoli?” Oak asked.

“We’ll help you, or the elder dryad, ask for the rights over the Darkwoods,” I said.

“We already have those rights,” Geoffrey said.

“Ah, but did you ask the grenoil for them?” I asked. “I’m sure we could help the dryad get the rights over their own lands officially recognized in Deepmarsh.”

Geoffrey looked both flabbergasted and downright indignant. Oak didn’t seem to get what was going on and... and Amaryllis started cackling.

“You can’t do that,” Geoffrey said.

“We can ask Booksie to help,” I said. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind, and I bet she knows who to ask better than we do.”

Amaryllis started laughing even harder, with the occasional hoot and whistle breaking out where a human might snort. “Oh, oh, I bet Rhawrexdee would jump on that opportunity. A small nation right under his nesting ground. He could, he could make Booksie one of the regents.”

“Oh my,” Awen said.

“It’s a solution,” I said. “And it wouldn’t stop the dryads from working with the company.”

“But we’d lose a lot here, Captain,” Sebastein said. “I thought you were here to assist us.”

“Um, no, I’m here to make things fair. And your bottom line is the least important thing here, so it’s normal that it’s the one that should be sacrificed first to make everything okay.”

“I don’t understand, Sister Broccoli,” Oak said.

I smiled over at my tree friend. “It’s simple, sorta. See, the East Mattergrove Company has the rights to exploit these woods, but Mattergrove only kinda controls this area. So if you approach Deepmarsh and ask them for help, maybe through one of my friends, Booksie, then you could get them to say that you own this land.”

“It is ours,” Oak said.

“This would make it official,” I said. “And on top of that, you could also help the company by providing wood, like this table, and by doing the things you and Wisp mentioned. It means the company would be cutting fewer trees, and making less money, but it means less people fighting, and it’s a lot more fair.”

Oak looked to Wisp, who seemed blissfully happy. “Okay. I trust Sister Broccoli,” he said. “We will need to explain this to the elders.”

I hopped to my feet. “Then we should get to that,” I said. “I’m sure all of this kerfuffle can be solved in a way that will make everyone happy.”

“But not our bottom line,” Sebastien said.

“A bottom line isn’t someone,” I said.

***