Twistleaf fell to earth, laughing, he’d made a perhaps-fatal mistake, but – “anywhere the moon shines is a good place to die.”
He loved to fall, always had; he loved to Fall, too. A Falling leaf, was his joke, because Fall was the game his people played. His name figured into that, too; Fall supposedly recalled that there is no falling leaf the Green Man does not hear. More truthfully, more realistically, it probably speaks of all the gnomes who fell, regular as mulch to Autumn, while playing at it.
(Don’t blame the Green Man. If you could hear every falling leaf, what, exactly, would motivate you to listen?)
Twistleaf was a side-gnome, of which there was only one tribe, his. The Game was dizzying because he, and his ancestors before him, had intoxicating blood – or he, and those before, had intoxicating blood because they played the Game.
Which, exactly, came first? Who knew?
Intoxicating blood? Very much so. But no side-gnome could taste of its own blood, nor its body. (The body, too, intoxicated, each in its own way, flesh to bone, bone to mind.) Was it abomination, or religious wrong, which built this taboo? No – why would the Green Man care if there were more eaters and eaten in nature? That’s normative.
No, side-gnomes avoided ingesting side-gnomes because it would disrespect the Game. And why disrespect what’s best among you?
Leave that to humans.
The Green Man is not a useful god. He’s useful in that he exists, he clearly exists, and his godly features have been demonstrated more than sufficiently to those who, like the side-gnomes, have met him.
But he is frustrating in conversation, and he is socially awkward. And he refuses to make deep requests of his people or, indeed, to ask for, reward, or invite worship. Worshipping him merely increases the chance he will show up at a gathering of your kind, involve himself gawkily in unhelpful discussion, and wander off.
Or so he is to the side-gnomes. Who knows what humans do?
The Green Man did not invent Fall; if the gnomes knew who did, they’d give her worship. Because she had given them purpose, clear purpose in life, clear purpose in death, clear life, clear endings. Few sentients are given these things.
Twistleaf fell, singing, and the Earth caught him. Fall had more rules than could be counted or named; no player knew them all. But it was deeply more than random; no player can play long without acquiring a feel for even the unknown rules. And a somone like Twistleaf could understand a great deal of its scope and mechanisms.
Death by falling, however, was obvious enough for any beginner.
He sang low and he sang high; he sang his death-song; and then he was caught by a gentle cloud.
His opponent, it seemed, had made some more grave error; or perhaps his death-song had been pitched more correctly than he would have hoped. Life for him, death for the other. And death was swift; death was simple.
Why did the Green Man demand gladiatorial combat? Well, if you’re going to remove ‘nature red in tooth and claw’, and have a slightly-less-natural forest, you’re going to have to feed blood to the oak trees somehow, eh?
His opponent – his friend Locktip, a good man – was caught by another cloud. Gentler, even. It caught Locky, held him warmly, travelled up his body. Locky laughed; Locky waved to him. The cloud wrapped itself around his head, kissed him. His body fell to the floor.
The cloud bore the body away. Storm giants, mortar and pestle, would reduce it carefully to a paste; they breathed little, all the while, but still, those on the job were prone to giggles, to hallucinations, and to falling in love. What would the paste be? Tarts, was the accepted theory.
Or something else for humans; human cravings are hard to follow.
The cloud returned, bearing an ornamental stone bowl of moderate size – first blood. A glass of side-gnome blood, reward of the victor.
Life was nasty, brutish, and short. And lovely.
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