Leaf Manytrees

*'And here we all are, the Manytrees brothers…’ He’d gestured to the others and excluded Mosk, and Mosk had stood and stared at Leaf, daring him to acknowledge it. It was a bold thing to do. Leaf was the custodian of stories, the weaver of tales, and to challenge him was rude, but Mosk thought he’d been rude first.'*

## General details

### Relatives

Amaley Manytrees (mamatree, deceased); Imshiel Manytrees (papatree, deceased); Im Manytrees (brothertree, deceased); Shiel Manytrees (brothertree, deceased); Chert Manytrees (brothertree, deceased); Ela Manytrees (sistertree, deceased); Himshi Manytrees (brothertree, deceased); Mallem Manytrees (brothertree, deceased); Chaley Manytrees (sistertree, deceased); Mosk Manytrees (brothertree)

### Roles or Vocation

Keeper of the family knowledge, culture, and names

## Appearance

Leaf had a 'gentle, measured voice'. He had 'very bright' golden eyes, '[l]ike glitter and mica.'

## Personality

Leaf only cared about knowing the names of trees, and didn't care about knowing the names of animals. Some of Mosk's siblings lived separate from the main home when they found their Aur tree, but would come home sometimes, though it's unclear where Leaf fell on that spectrum. Chaley Manytrees and some of Mosk's other siblings worried about him living away from home before he'd started a family of his own, since Aur dryads are supposed to live at home until that point. It's unclear if Leaf worried, as well.

## Life

Olphix and Davix wanted to know if they could create a seventh son of a seventh son themselves, rather than accidentally stumbling upon one, in order to 'augment it, tune the world towards a species and there, grant a son [they] could sunder and use.' So Olphix poisoned the Aur forest. The Aur dryads failed to heal it themselves, and finally sought aid from the School of the Staff (not knowing Olphix had poisoned the forest to start with), and the School sent Olphix to help. He offered to heal the forest in exchange for the Aur dryads' then-non-existent seventh son of a seventh son. Amaley Manytrees and Imshiel Manytrees only had two children at the time - Im Manytrees and Shiel Manytrees - and assumed they would have no more, so they agreed, thinking the promise would never be fulfilled. When they continued having children, they used magic to try to only have girls, which wasn't that successful. Of their seven children born after Shiel, only two were girls. They tried to stop having children entirely after Chaley, but went to a party, and conceived Mosk.

Leaf was the fifth child and fourth son of Amaley and Imshiel. All fifth children of Aur dryads are called Leaf, and granted the Storyweaver role. The Storyweaver holds 'the knowledge of the family'. This also made him 'the custodian of all the plant names'. This meant he would name plants. As an adult, he bonded with a catechu.

Leaf would tell many stories, including about former Aur dryads. One of Leaf's stories was that the songbirds with the best voices 'traded their handsome plumage and vibrant colours for vibrant voices'.

Olphix murdered Leaf along with the other Manytrees family members, save Mosk, when Olphix came to collect Mosk. Mosk heard all of his family screaming as they burned to death.

## Special Abilities

All Aur dryads possess an ability to communicate with all trees, even without touching them, and they have a unique ability to process the voices of thousands of trees in a forest at the same time. This allows them to automatically know where water is, as well as pathways, other fae, other homes, animals and sources of danger.

Aur dryads can tell the health of a tree directly from its sap, including its age, whether it's sick, whether it's large or small, and the species.

Aur dryads have an ability to grow plants, as well as grow them faster than is normal. They also have an ability to heal plants.

Aur dryads can turn into their Aur tree when they change into true-form, however, they cannot change back into a human or hybrid-form after this, due to the fact that they lose all knowledge of themselves. As a result, turning into a tree is considered an end-of-life form of death, with a few trees in the Aur forest being Aur dryads that have 'died' and live out the rest of their life as a tree.

## Relationships

#### Mallem Manytrees

It's unclear if Mallem actually respected Leaf, or just wanted to get under Mosk's skin, but at least during the story where Leaf excluded Mosk as a brother, Mallem said Mosk wasn't supposed to interrupt Leaf while Leaf was telling a story.

#### Mosk Manytrees

Once, Leaf told a story to the Manytrees family where he excluded Mosk as a member of the family, and no one in the family who was present (Chaley was not) challenged it. When Mallem noticed Mosk's upset, Mallem insulted Mosk for it, and although Amaley made a noise to make Mallem desist for a while, none of the family stood up for Mosk. Leaf also did pretended not to notice Mosk's distress over Mallem's words.

## Trivia

* Mosk notes that none of his siblings saw the sea before they died.
* As Mosk is around 200 years old at the start of *The Ice Plague*, and the youngest of his siblings, it is implied that Leaf was more than 200 years old.

## Folklore/Mythology

'A dryad (Greek: Δρυάδες, *sing*.: Δρυάς) is a tree nymph or tree spirit in Greek mythology. *Drys* signifies "oak" in Greek, and dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, but the term has come to be used for tree nymphs in general, or human-tree hybrids in fantasy. They were normally considered to be very shy creatures except around the goddess Artemis, who was known to be a friend to most nymphs.'

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 *The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas*, Chapter 13: The Glory of the House of Atros. Accessed 23 March 2021.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 *The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire*, Chapter 18: Sparks of Revelation. Accessed 25 March 2021.
3. ↑ *The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas*, Chapter 22: Service. Accessed 25 March 2021.
4. ↑ *The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague*, Chapter 1: The Ice and the Dryad. Accessed 25 March 2021.
5. ↑ *The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire*, Chapter 13: Captured. Accessed 01 May 2021.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 *The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas*, Chapter 28: Farewell. Accessed 01 May 2021.
7. ↑ *The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas*, Chapter 31: Whatever It Takes. Accessed 30 April 2021.
8. ↑ *The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire*, Chapter 23: The Arrow's Path. Accessed 26 March 2021.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 *The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire*, Chapter 32: Somewhere Safe. Accessed 25 March 2021.
10. ↑ *The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas*, Chapter 21: Reaffirmation. Accessed 25 March 2021.
11. ↑ *The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas*, Chapter 27: Risk. Accessed 25 March 2021.
12. ↑ *The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire*, Chapter 10: The World Forest. Accessed 13 March 2021.
13. ↑ *The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire*, Chapter 12: Empty Whispers. Accessed 26 May 2021.
14. ↑ *The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas*, Chapter 12: A Liar and the Truth. Accessed 26 May 2021.
15. ↑ *The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire*, Chapter 15: Isn't This Better? Accessed 26 May 2021.
16. ↑ "Dryad". Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryad. Accessed 07 May 2021.