The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
– T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
Northwest of Canterlot, perched high in the boughs of an ancient oak tree, there is a city in miniature. It is a place of soaring towers and deep shadows, and its name is Keskiyönnon.
To the unicorns of nearby Vanhoover, the tree is a minor tourist attraction. Its trunk is forked where lightning struck when the tree was a sapling, more than a thousand years ago. On the east side, its branches spread over the headwaters of the Farrier River. Straight white limbs stretch toward the sunshine that dapples the water's surface. Here the tree reaches its greatest height, climbing over two hundred feet in the air and giving shade to colonies of trout and salmon who live below. On the west side, the tree's branches are gnarled and stunted, and its leaves have a sickly look.
Dawn never touches the tree's western half—the towering branches of the east cast it into darkness. At mid-afternoon, the peaks of the Unicorn Range throw early shadows across the western boughs. While the eastern half of the tree grows straight and true, the western half is a tangle of branches, each fighting the others to claim the day's few rays of light.
For centuries, the unicorns of Vanhoover have called the tree "The Oak of the Two Sisters", for reasons that hardly bear repeating. Long before then, it was known by a different name. The builders of the city named the tree Tammen Tellervo, for their mythical ancestor who first led them to it. Little else now remains of the Kainen Tellervo, the folk of Tellervo. Even their name is consigned to a few dusty scraps in the archives of the Canterlot library, neither seen nor spoken in many long years. Now, the remnants of their race are known only as the breezies.
Much like the oak itself, the city is a place of opposing halves. It bridges the center of the tree, with long avenues criss-crossing from east to west—through the straight-limbed branches that climb over the Farrier's headwaters and through the tangled boughs that writhe beneath the shadow of the mountains. If a winged traveler were to rest in the mountains' shade, perched in the canopy of Vyyhti (as the darker half of the Tammen Tellervo was once called), she might be able to discern the outer towers of Keskiyönnon in the exposed branches of Torni, the tree's lighter half. Although these towers once marked the sole entrance to the city, they—like the rest of Keskiyönnon—have fallen into ruin.
If that traveler—by dint of some magic—were able to shrink herself and enter the city, she would see much more.
In the dappled sunlight of the Torni Oak, spiraling towers soar into the air. They are woven from carefully sculpted branches, and each year they grow taller. The tops of these towers are verdant explosions, as the braided branches unwind and seek the light. In the days of the Kainen Tellervo, the towers were perhaps less wild, more restrained. Few beings remember, and they do not speak of this place.
Within any of the towers, the traveler would find airy, vaulting chambers. The ancestors of the breezies lived here, once—each tower devoted to its own family line. Tall doors, twice the height of an acorn, connect grand state rooms where relics of habitation remain in various states of decay. Black-painted ceramics show images of Tellervo and her kin. Faded scraps of tapestries still cling to some walls, depicting histories and extravagant entertainments. Nothing remains of the Kainen Tellervo’s storied leaf-art; all such works fell to dust long ago. Nor do any remnants hint at the elegant resin-work for which the inhabitants were once famous. Even in its ruined state, however, the opulence here is striking. Empty niches must once have held statues of some sort. Entire rooms seem devoted solely to allowing the occupants a view of the mountains nearby.
Passing into the tower’s base, the traveler finds herself in a small warren of cramped chambers, segmented by thick paper and unadorned but for tiny glassless windows braided into the walls. Through many of them, a gleaming silver spire can be seen, rising up through the heart of the tree. Were she keen-eyed, the traveler might notice small differences in the construction of these rooms. Wider, shorter doorways. Thicker floors. In spots, she might see the vestige of cracking murals that once adorned the walls of these rooms, completely unlike the decor seen in the rest of the tower.
Between the living towers of the ancient breezies lie roads of woven reeds. A traveler steeped in the earth pony lore of stones and structures might call these roads bridges—but no earth pony has ever seen this place. Many of the city’s roads stretch from tower to tower, ascending or descending as they go. In places they vault over one another in an endless game of leapfrog. Different roads stretch from the base of the towers down into the tangled branches of the Vyyhti Oak.
Unlike the towers, the roads are as dead as the city they inhabit. Below the tree, in the long months of summer, bulrushes grow tall along the water's edge. In the libraries of Canterlot, dusty chronicles record that the Kainen Tellervo made a science of harvesting these bulrushes—learning which were lightest, and which were sturdiest; how best to gather them, and how to braid them. They mastered the subtle magic of anchoring their reed roads to the towers as they grew, and of treating those roads so they could endure over the long years they expected their city to stand.
Few creatures remain who recall Keskiyönnon, but once its name was known in every corner of the land. The City of Towers. The Heart of the Tree. The elegant capital of the Kainen Tellervo, most graceful of all the equine races. This was the Keskiyönnon all ponies knew.
Taking one of the downward paths to the Vyyhti Oak, the traveler encounters a different city. At the border between the eastern and western halves, the tangled branches of the Vyyhti Oak struggle against the thick boughs of the Torni Oak. There is new growth here—green leaves hunting and climbing toward the light. At the same time, there is further evidence of the city’s decay. The roads of woven reed become pitted and sap-stained. Twigs constrict around them and push them askew. Even in the gentlest breeze, the branches here creak and moan. Here, the sound of a soft buzzing fills the air.
Descending into darkness, the traveler finds new structures carved from the tree itself, nothing like the towers of the Torni Oak. Hives of rough, windowless homes are hacked from the wood—single rooms with wide, empty doorframes. Reed-woven scaffolding circles these branches, tying into the chaotic network of roads that descend from the towers above.
Within the rough-hewn branch rooms, the traveler sees more faded scraps of paint, more hints of long-forgotten murals. Here, she finds housewares made from a hard, slick resin, the last relics of one of Keskiyönnon’s storied artforms. In all of the homes, a thick pulpy paper forms shelves and cabinets that remain mostly intact. Some homes are larger, with taller entryways, and these often contain shards of the same black-painted ceramics found in the Torni towers.
The traveler may notice several structures built entirely of paper as well. They are tall but cramped, and abut the wood-carved homes. These paper huts appear newer, though still ancient and disused, and most have fallen to ruin.
One reed-path, wider than the rest, leads down toward the heart of the tree, toward the spot where lightning cleaved through it long ago. Although centuries have passed since the last of the Kainen Tellervo set hoof in this place, the downward path is well tended, free of leaves and with ample space around it in the ubiquitous tangle of the Vyyhti Oak’s branches. At the end of the road sits the base of an enormous, silver spire, rising up through the canopy above.
The spire is thick at the base and tapers little as it rises. Close up, the traveler observes that the spire is formed from layer after layer of leaves. White veins stand thick on the surface of the leaves, and a transparent resin coats the entire structure, giving the spire its reflective sheen. The long years of abandonment do not seem to have touched its exterior. An enormous door, nearly the size of an apple, stands open to the air. Once, this was the heart of the city—where the rulers of the Kainen Tellervo would gather to pass laws and sit in judgment. Windows of clear resin dot its circumference and mark out sixty-two stories climbing toward the sky above.
Inside the spire, twin staircases twist upward along the walls. A single high-ceilinged atrium comprises the first floor, with a long channel rising up through the center of the tower and revealing the open sky overhead, beyond the treetop. The floor of the spire is tiled in colored stones. A hint of their long-ago polish can still be seen near the outer leaf-mat walls, but toward the center dark stains spill unevenly across them. On the opposite side of the chamber, the traveler can see another door leading out into the Torni Oak, taller and sleeker than the Vyyhti entrance.
Ascending through the spire, the lower floors are all a shambles. Some show rooms that are open to the central column, and wind has battered these over the long years since Keskiyönnon's occupation. Some show warrens of paper-walled chambers with wide entrances, not exposed to the elements, but here too are ruins. Tumbled statues to Tellervo and her parents, Mielikki and Tapio. Sturdy reed-woven furnishings overturned and broken.
Halfway up, the stairways open onto a tall, cavernous amphitheater. The spire’s central shaft is walled away here, with thin-spun resin forming a transparent cylinder at its heart. The traveler encounters benches of rough paper, torn to powder in many places. The air is still and oppressive here, carrying the feel of undisturbed centuries. At the heart of the room, encircling the central shaft, is a raised speaking platform. In some places, its surface is polished to a mirror-like shine. In others, it is scarred and pitted, stained a darker color than the rest of the wood.
The rooms in the upper half of the spire are much like those below.
At the top of the spire stands a large, circular gallery. Long display cases ring the room, crafted from clear resin and pulpy paper. Many of them are still intact. Alongside black-painted ceramics and intricate resin sculptures, the traveler at last finds the fabled leaf art of Keskiyönnen locked away from the elements.
The leaf art is reminiscent of the outer walls of the spire. Through careful cultivation, the Kainen Tellervo were able to force the veins of leaves into intricate patterns as they grew. Of the pieces on display, the majority are abstract images of boxes and whorls, crafted from the rounded leaves of magnolia and mulberry, holly and hornbeam. But along the western face of the tower, a long progression of images chronicle the history of the city. These, and only these, are written into the oak leaves of the Tammen Tellervo itself. In the first few leaves, the traveler sees simple figures approaching an enormous tree and exploring it. One of the resin cases here is broken and no hint remains of what story its artwork might have told. Further on, the images describe construction and cultivation, how the Kainen Tellervo built their towers and reed-roads. After these come images of leisure—the Kainen Tellervo resting by the banks of the river below, or admiring the sharp peaks to the west.
Some leaves in this third set show the intricate process of creating leaf art, others show resin workshops. There are odd differences between these scenes. Just as in the first sets of images, the pictures of leaf art creation use long, thin veins to sketch the bodies of the Kainen Tellervo; but the creatures in the resin workshops are depicted with short veins bunched tightly together. Continuing on to the last set of leaves, showing the construction of a tall spire at the heart of the tree, both forms now share space in the same images. There is a persistent air of hopefulness in these leaf-designs—although the figures are mere line representations, care has been taken to show them smiling.
