Warring Gods

Unable to wait, Rawena launched herself up into the branches, slick though they were from the still pouring rain.  She ignored the shouts of her tribe to return to their safe cave, their shelter in times of distress, but hardly their home.  She couldn’t just sit there any longer, not knowing.  Besides, in her gut she knew the worst was over.  The storm had not yet spent itself, but it had no fury left.

The tree gave her no trouble, nor did the rain.  She spent her life in these trees, and the rain came often from the ocean, occasionally with a vengeance at some soul who had wronged it.  Rawena had never seen it this bad, though.  Neither had anyone but the very oldest of their tribe, who spoke of a tempest in his youth that flung down ice in the middle of summer and slew many of the inhabitants of their forest.

She had begun on a mountainside, where the rain would not gather in their shelter, and chosen the tallest tree.  Now, as she broke through the thick middle branches to the sparse top, she settled herself on the last branch that could stand her weight, and looked down toward their home.

Darkness and sheets of rain impaired her vision, but she could still make out, near the bottom of the slope, their mighty tree that made up the center square of their village.  Their sacred guardian, the representative of all the forest, who had watched over all the people who had lived there, who sheltered birthing mothers and cradled dying elders.

The Mother of their village, split in two, and dying.