#project canopy

note: this will assume you have read the previous lore post about mira.

content warning for (pretty nondescript) violence and cannibalism!

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Before there was The Canopy’s voice, there was a woman named Suzana.

She was a happy woman despite living in the snow wastelands far-flung from the desperate clutches of the courts[1]. These outskirts did not make for an easy life, but with survival came the freedom to raise her children without fear—and for years that is exactly what she did, only returning to society when the need for trade arose. 

Courtiers were not below bartering with wastelanders. In fact, they saw Suzana and her family as a novelty spectacle. But Suzana’s presence attracted the most attention from the courtiers’ young girls. Those waifish things watched to the way Suzana stood firm, unflinching and wickedly keen with her skills in bartering. They watched her scuff the chins of her sled dogs with affection and hitch chubby-cheeked grandchildren against her hips. Finally, they paid very precise attention when Suzana brought her own young daughters with her and they saw that never once were they used for barter, even when the men cast meaningful looks their way and thought to entice a more fruitful deal from the proud woman. 

It was not long after that frightened and awestruck young girls started trailing after Suzana’s sleds, slipping and sliding on bare feet in the snow for the very first time in their lives. Each pleaded their case for why they had run away. A jilted lover. A heavy-handed father. A dreaded duty to the court. Suzana took pity. She wrapped the girls in the fur coats of her family and tucked the stowaways into her sleds. From then on each time she left the courts with another stolen away girl—even the ones that came wearing their sisters’ skirts and that plead their cases in low, cracking tones, with hair barely curling past their ears and bristles pockmarking their chins.

The courts found this affair fascinating for a short time. As much as having those of their own stolen incensed them, they were equally as delighted by Suzana’s gall. To the courtiers Suzana was playing them at their own game[2]. But ever capricious, their patience waned.

Suzana had made the mistake of thinking herself safe in the outskirts. But the courtiers came bearing a fire that had seen the world set alight, and now it would consume everything Suzana once held dear. Not a soul was spared—besides those that had belonged to the courts and they had to be dragged home, kicking and screaming, as the woman who gave them another life was brought to her knees by the will of the court. 

It was a long and arduous night. Even after a mockery had been made of Suzana’s corpse, the courts did not relent. They reveled long into the night, hosting a great feast above the crackling carnage, feasting on fresh meat and dark wine. Each took a strand of Suzana’s hair as a trophy, and they left only her bones in the tar-like snow. 

When the sun rose, the gales howled them back into their beloved courts and they left behind them a barren wound in the land—and from that land rose a Hallow[3]. 

It was born of frigid bone and frozen root. What came from that accursed earth shocked even the gales, which ceased its mournful wailing and thus allowed the last of the snow to melt. It took time for the Hallow to assemble itself from the wreckage. Delicate phalanges, snapped down the middle, were mended and the roots became a hand. Then an arm. A shoulder and rib cage. By the time the tiniest fragment of skull had been pieced back together again, the once frigid landscape that had been Suzana’s home and grave was green with life.

At first, the Hallow was furious. It drove off any that dared approach the newfound sanctuary. Then it grew very frightened and tried to leave, but found it couldn’t leave the place of its birth. Lonely and barely sapient, the Hallow wove the tattered remains of Suzana’s tents into a canopy and curled up there, contenting itself to rot. This is where the first acolyte found it. 

It was a woman of unflinching spirit that some small part of the Hallow felt a kinship with and so it permitted her to stay beneath its branches. It watched her carve clay from the earth and use it to cover its sunburnt roots and bleaching bones in the stuff. The would-be acolyte smoothed the contours of the Hallow’s crudely shaped clay face with her slight fingers and pinched in dimpled cheeks. She puckered plush lips and bestowed upon them a kiss. 

So moved was the Hallow by her kindness that it gave to the acolyte in return not only a place to rest but a sanctuary. Bushes heavy with berries grew for the acolyte to eat and the ground cleaved open and erupted with water for the acolyte to drink. When more came—girls, women, some not quite either but compelled[4] to come all the same—they asked their Hallow for a name to call it. 

“Suzana.” The Hallow replied. “For the one who birthed me.”

The Canopy became a sanctuary to runaways and Suzana knew this was its—her purpose. Just as her predecessor had done before her. The Canopy could protect them from the ire of the courts. The Canopy could grant boons to those it cared for. New bodies, new shapes. Some transformed dramatically and wildly, blooms bursting from their skin as roots took hold around their necks. These few would still maintain their sense of self and go on to be the first Branches, acting as an extension of The Canopy’s will. 

Others wilted. 

The First acolyte grew roots as well, but these cemented her to the ground like that of the willowy trees around her. The more the roots grew the more the First waned, muscle and fat and skin giving way to shiny shoots of greenery. Hairs twisted into unfolding leaves. A mouth agape, flowering, as The Canopy ate her alive. 

The Canopy mourned. But the Hallow understood, instinctively, that this was her nature. That an acolyte was more then just a ward, that they were to be protected—and savored. 

That Suzana may have been her mother, but the courtiers that ate her were her father. 

The Canopy was a reclusive boarding house settled along the southern shores of ████████. Rumors had been milling for decades about the matron of the house, a woman only known by the name Suzana. Some said she was a witch and the house was a place of evil. Others, that it was a den of debauchery and occultic rituals. Several brave attempts to investigate had already been mounted. Most returned home and just as quickly retired. Others had been found in the river muck weeks later, bloated bodies untouched but for the grape vines wreathing their crowns. Mira had been sent there to disappear or die, at his earliest convenience.

Mira was not a brave man, but he couldn’t go home. When he arrived at the estate, he was attacked by a creature—later to be revealed as Enica, a fugitive under Suzana’s care—and was badly wounded. 

He managed to limp his way to The Canopy’s doors before he collapsed. When he awoke, he found himself within a lavish sanctum of gilded golds and watchful portraits. He was greeted warmly by the occupants—the simply dressed wards of The Canopy’s branches, each and every one sporting signs of a transformation into something other then themselves. Despite this, they were kind. They cleaned and dressed his wounds, and then insisted he meet their host, their voice, Suzana.

The Canopy’s voice was larger then life, sparkling with personality. She had prepared a fantastical feast for his arrival, tables laden with foods the likes of which he hadn’t the imagination for. He sipped the wine, for it was too enticing to ignore, but to Suzana’s chagrin, he did not eat.

When he pressed about leaving The Canopy, Suzana insisted he stay until he was healed from his wounds. 

Mira was hesitant to agree but had little other options in his weakened state. He still had his bag, which he had packed with rations, for even someone as mundane as he knew not to eat the food offered by alternates(2), lest your hunger see you bound in servitude to the hand which feeds. 

Suzana was the most agreeable of hosts. She dined with him each and every day, enticing him to speak at length about his life, his struggles, and his dreams. He was made to wear the clothes she made for him. His hair grew longer. She decorated him in the glittering golds of her Canopy and made of him a beloved pet. 

And every day she asked him to eat.

And every day he refused.

(1) In the world of  ████████, the written word is considered highly dangerous as it is unaffected by the influence of deceptive magic. There is no way to disguise the truth once it has been written on paper.