Bowman Leafwing © @neonthewrite
Artwork by the wonderful @lamthetwickster
Tag: brothers asunder
Orb icons by kayosa-stock
Sam would certainly be interested in these videos. He could watch them to learn new tricks, and find things to try around the motel room. Depending on the skill level of the people on the video, he might find it tame compared to what he considers normal and everyday acts. Dean would be wide-eyed at the thought of any of this being considered tame.
Bowman, by contrast, would be plain amazed at these feats. Wood sprites definitely don’t climb often, since they have wings to get everywhere, so some of the parkour tricks out there would be very impressive indeed. He can do aerial acrobatics, but as we’ve seen in Lich, even climbing out of a pocket is tough for Bowman.
This is actually a pretty straightforward question. The sprites don’t follow any traditions/beliefs pertaining to a menstrual cycle, because they don’t have one. Despite appearances, they are not closely related to the Great Ape family, and that’s actually one of the only types of mammal that has a cycle.
Sprites, all of my sprites, are Spirit-made, so even though they look a lot like humans there are a handful of biological differences (in the case of the wood sprites, they’re actually part plant so that right there opens up a bunch of differences).
Jacob, explaining this to Dean in Brothers Asunder:
Jacob frowned, feeling a little like a bad guy for what he was suggesting. But, as the only one good to drive the car, he knew that he had some room to insist. Dean needed the rest. Another glance down at Bowman showed that he needed it, too.
It also gave Jacob an idea. He reached out and gently scooped his hand under Bowman. The sprite flopped over on his hand before sitting up sluggishly, blinking slowly. His wings hung slack.
“What?” Bowman groused, his voice heavy with exhaustion.
Jacob looked over Bowman’s slumped form at Dean. “Bowman’s basically a plant, Dean. He’s been up and flying around since well before the sun went down. He needs to recuperate a little, at least. And you probably should, too. You had an arm busted tonight, dude.”
“Plant?” Dean asked, eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “Like energy-from-the-sun kinda plant?” He gave Bowman a slightly accusing look. “And you didn’t want to tell me that? ” he shot at the sprite, sounding put out after being lectured about how Bowman was ‘fine’ not long ago. How in the world was he going to be able to watch out for the little sprite if he didn’t even know something as important as that? At least if he or Jacob needed energy they could grab some coffee or a soda, but a plant…
“We don’t have an extra sun on hand, so you’ll need to take it easy until the morning,” Dean said tartly. “Sam won’t be happy if we run his little brother into the ground when he’s not around.” He held out his hand, beckoning Jacob to hand the sprite over. “I’ll keep an eye on small fry over here and make sure he doesn’t get into any more trouble.”
(Well, Sassy, at least it gives me excuses to infodump about my lore)
This is many questions, I’ll just answer ‘em right in order.
1. For really bad inclement weather, wood sprites wouldn’t go outside, no. They’d bunker down inside their homes and make the best of things … they could find a container around if that was needed.
To keep themselves warm, most of the time they will snuggle together in a group (in Brothers Asunder, young Sam most definitely did grow up knowing of these snuggle piles). Wood sprites also know a few Prayers to help them out in such weather. They can Pray for magic that brings heat through the living tree all around them, and prevent them from freezing in their li’l cuddle piles.
2. Newborns and young babies do use cloth diapers, yes.
Fun fact about baby wood spites (hey, I warned about the infodump): When they are born, their wings are not fully developed. Instead, they have little leaf buds on their backs (which I’m sure their mothers are thankful for, no one wants to birth a set of fully developed wings). These leaf buds stay curled for the first few years of the young sprite’s life, developing into full wings with the help of sunlight. When they are four or five, the buds have reached a thickness of around twice what they were born with, and they start to uncurl. At that point, all flutters break loose as the nestlings learn to deal with the very sensitive nerves that are now exposed to the air.
3. They wash their clothes with water. No, really. Just water. Stones in the stream can be used for scrubbing if needed, but honestly they don’t often need it. Groundwater in Wellwood happens to be extra pure (for reasons), so the stream is extra A-OK to use for cleaning.
4. Correct. Wood sprites are very lax and don’t tend to be super inventive on their own, and usually they don’t need to be. “Necessity is the mother of invention” and all that.
Ah. Lore time.
My sprites (the earthbound sprites, not to be confused with nightmares’ Aeternum babies) all have a direct spiritual connection to the Spirit that made them. It is through these connections that a sprite can Pray, which is basically another word for incantation here. They borrow magic from their Spirit, and in the case of the wood sprites, they borrow magic from the Earth Spirit, the Lady of Life.
Sprites’ souls are essentially little pieces of the Spirit’s soul. Sam, as a human, has an entirely different kind of soul and thus no connection to the Spirit. He could try to Pray, but he doesn’t have any way to channel magic from the Lady of Life.
Cerul, one of the first wood sprites Sam meets in Brothers Asunder, has a gift called the Voice of the Spirit, which means that his connection to Her is the strongest it can be. The gift enables him to Pray much more without tiring, it gives him an empathy to the feelings, physical and emotional, of the living things around him, and it enables him to see where the Spirit’s influence flows. He would have been able to see right away that Sam does not have a connection to a Spirit.
Sam tends to not be a fan of black coffee, and pine sap is much worse as far as pure bitterness goes. He probably tried it once at Bowman’s insistance, only to hear the sprite cackle as he made a face. Bowman, by contrast, loves the stuff. Sam’s more likely to go for maple or birch sap, as they are much sweeter and milder than pine.
Orb icons by kayosa-stock
It did occur to them, in fact. As said before, they had to awkwardly ask if he needed meat to survive. They would have gone out to get him bugs or worms if they needed to, despite not being used to catching them for food. Luckily for them, they didn’t need to make that adjustment. Wellwood is plentiful with all kinds of non-meat foods that provide the nutrients a young Sam could need.
And lets remember that Sam isn’t a big meat-eater like his brother is! It would be easier for him to adapt to a steady diet of roots, vegetables, mushrooms and fruits, along with Sam and Bowman’s favorite honeycomb!
The contest has closed but the fun continues! Enjoy a special sneak peek for Brothers Asunder while I’m going through the entries ❤
“Now let him go or I’ll make you regret it!” Sam shouted up, false bravado covering up the fear in his voice. His hazel eyes were hard and determined. His knees remained slightly bent, ready to leap out of the way if the human snatched at him.
Jacob’s eyebrows shot up. “Woah, woah,” he said, trying to head off the fear and nerves directed at him. He didn’t want to terrorize the little guys. His curiosity kept his hand wrapped securely around the winged one, despite the tiny kicks twitching against his palm and the bitty hands pushing on his knuckles. “I’m not gonna hurt anyone,” Jacob insisted.
He kept his eyes on the little swordsman even as the winged guy barked out a laugh at him. The little jacket had some kind of designs in the hem and the sleeves, and there was a similar design along the side seam of the pants tucked into those boots. He definitely looked like a swordsman right out of a novel, and Jacob wondered what the cape-like attachment fixed to the side of the jacket was for.
“Seriously, I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on here,” Jacob tried again. “Why don’t you have wings, too?” He reached down towards the little guy, trying to keep his hand lower to avoid that sword if he could. It might be tiny, but it looked sharp.
Bowman, twisted around to keep an eye on his adopted brother, felt his frantic heart speed up even more. “Sam!”
Sam’s eyes went wide at the size of the hand as it swept towards him and he almost went to stumble backwards instead of stay in the forms Scar had taught him. The sprite’s lessons focused on methods to take on animals bigger than the sprites.
The enemy is strong, and he is dangerous. But he will be strong and dangerous whether we cower and doubt ourselves or fly out to meet him.
Sam’s nerves solidified and he lunged forward with his sword to meet the human’s grab on his own terms.
The slash with the rapier met flesh, slicing across the human’s hand at the same time as Sam leapt out of the way of the grab. He was bulkier than any sprite, but light and spry on his feet after training for a good portion of his life. The lightweight boots and uniform helped him move like a leaf, designed for the sprites so they could swoop and dodge and not be hindered by the fabric.
Jacob’s hand moved too fast for Sam to completely avoid with a leap. To his shock and eternal consternation, he found himself landing on the back of the human’s massive hand. The flesh gave slightly under his boots and his heart pounded.
Jacob winced and sucked in a breath of pain. He lifted his hand up and away from the ground again, surprised by how fast the little guy was. He’d thought for sure he’d be able to draw his hand back if that little sword swung at him. Already there was a stinging cut on the back of his hand near his thumb, an inch or two long. But Jacob wasn’t looking at the cut.
He was staring in shock at the little fighter standing on the back of his hand.
He hadn’t even noticed the tiny boots landing there in his haste to get his hand away from the threat. Now, he wasn’t safe from the threat, but he did have the little guy more or less in hand. He kept himself as steady as he could to avoid tipping the little guy right off the side, and stared openly. “Woah,” he breathed, in awe at the dexterity just displayed to him. “Holy shit.”
Artwork by the wonderful @lamthetwickster
Brothers Apart 