Does that make elven arrows some kind of sprouts, with fresh, sometimes even living, flesh being the only place fit for them to put down their roots?
You mean like, they embed roots on contact, to establish a tree later, even if the arrow is removed?
That'd be like the Aliens from Alien, only.. In tree form.
Man, I don't feel too good.. I think I'm gunna barf!
...*pop*
OH GOD, IT'S A SAPLING!
It's more likely than you think.I wanted to draw some of this story (particularly the second last paragraph), but I have no talent for such things. Think of it like a picture with words:
Usu Umackara "Botherheats" left the town she had trained in during the summer of 1050, to try her axe against the world. She was ambushed by a cougar, but decapitated it easily, and butchered its corpse - eating the prepared brain for sustenance. After travelling some more, she was ambushed by wolves. She crushed this ambush as readily as the first, and was munching down on the delicious wolf brains when she was ambushed by a brown bear. "Hah!" She said, "If I can kill wolves after all the horror stories I've heard, a single bear will be a cinch!" She came in swinging, slicing open the bear's femural artery. The bear charged, but Usu dodged with ease. She retaliated by giving the bear a gash across the chest. It was then that the bear bit her right thigh with as much force as it could muster. Usu screamed and tried to get away, but the bear kept on shaking the wound. She started to hack wildly at the bear, and eventually, in a mist of mixed blood, it died. She disengaged its jaws to find that she could not feel her leg, much less stand on it. And by the size of the wound, she wasn't long for this world anyway. As a last act of vengeance, she crawled forwards and carefully butchered the bear. She took a sip of water from her flask, started eating the bear's brain, and waited for death. But death never came.
Usu crawled back to the nearest town, Camustathra. Night had fallen by the time she got there. After searching for the nearest shelter, she entered, finding many of people lying on the floor asleep. She saw the warlord among them, and a spark grew behind her eyes. She could never walk again, but maybe she could go out in a blaze of glory. She woke him up and asked him if they needed anything slayed. The warlord looked her up and down (mostly down), and decided to trust her with an appropriate task: "Kill Urus Standcanyons the Adventurous Strength. He has killed eighty-eight in his lust for murder!"
If Usu was to put what she thought just then into words, the nearest translation would be "Fuck that shit". So instead of a blaze of glory, she chose a blaze of infamy. She decapitated the warlord with a swing from her position on the floor and rolled over to face the mob. Except there was no mob. Everyone, from the cheesemakers to the recruits, was fast asleep. So Usu went around and hacked every one of them to bits, except the last; a child. The child just looked so peaceful sleeping there, that she couldn't bear to amputate all its limbs. So instead she broke all its bones and then choked it to death. With no repercussions to speak of, Usu decided to go out and kill the damnable hydra.
Of course, the hydra was in a cave. It was labyrinthine, and dull. Besides killing blind cave bears and lighting various trees on fire, there was nothing down there. The hydra was too well hidden. But Usu did find something interesting: a magma vent. Bored to tears, Usu decided to end it all and jump into the vent. She landed in the sea of magma, and somehow bled to death. The end.