Sam and Dr. Drake watched the three student mooses head off toward the village clustered around the base of the very big tree. Willhalm was walking mostly on the snow with his bottom pooves morphed into very large feet. This allowed his feet to act like snow shoes and give him more surface area to walk on the snow. That meant he would not sink deep into the snow. Maison was listening to Willhalm explain how to morph her feet to act as snow shows. Meralda had already mastered the idea once she had seen the idea being done by the Snowfall Tree moosen. Little Abe was riding on Willhalm’s shoulder. The small green moog looked very skeptical at the large amount of snow. He had been exposed to snow in Moose Valley, but the snow here near Snowfall Tree was truly a vast amount.
Once the others were well out of hearing range, even for the exceptional hearing of a moose, Doctor Drake turned to present an inquiry to Sam, “So how has the tree been?”
“Well, Doc, the tree is growing well…” replied Sam.
“I hear a qualifying, unspoken conjunction in there, Sam. The tree is well, but what else?” said Dr. Drake.
“The patrols out in the hinterlands have found massive tracts of mundane forest destroyed along with immense furrows in the ground. The conclusion is that something big has plowed through the snow, soil, and forest for a very long distance,” stated Sam.
Dr. Drake frowned, “That sounds like something only a Titan could and would do.”
“That is what we speculated as well. There is even some concern that it might be Nidhoggr himself, trying to get at the roots of the Snowfall Tree,” replied Sam.
Sam walked beside Dr. Drake as they strolled across the deep snow drifts toward the large mega oak tree and the village buildings in and around it. The two thought about the last time the titan serpent attacked the Snowfall Tree. Nidhoggr enjoyed snacking upon the roots of mega oaks. but the serpent was so destructive that it often uprooted and killed the large trees.
The Moosgardians often had to counter the destructive habits of that particular titan. But the Moosgardians had only ever been able to drive it off, never truly defeating the titan serpent. They had never been able to fully capture it or put it to sleep as they had with so many other Titans.
Moose Valley Tales 