The lordling looked to Milani and asked, “Can you help it? The fields take neither forest nor crop. The battle fought here seems to have corrupted the ground. We’ve had it consecrated, which stopped the dead from shambling up out of it, but still nothing grows.”
She stepped up to the edge of the baren plot. There was a stark edge where the wild grasses came up to the edge and just stopped. The lordling looked at her impatiently. His kind only needed a druid when the wilds were angry or baren and there was no one left to ask. She paid him no mind and crouched by the edge, touching her hand to the soil. She closed her eyes and communed with nature. At first the area actively resisted her, but her will was strong. She felt like she was wading through mud in her mind. A pinpoint of light up ahead grew, and expanded into a vision.
She sneered and stood erect. She growled at the lordling, “You clear cut this place just for your battle.”
Rather unapologetically the lordling said, “The forest here presented a blind spot and we knew the enemy was coming from this side.”
“There was a dryad here,” She snarled, “You felled her tree!”
The lordling shifted uncomfortably. His men closed in around him protectively. They had not expected her to learn that particular truth it seemed. He rose his hands, “She wasn’t willing to help stand in the way of the coming forces. She was actively fighting the clearly of the forest around her, to include charming and turning some of our troops against us. The choice was her or my people. What would you have done?”
“Wouldn’t be involved in a war,” She said flatly, “I do not treat my mother as property and fight over her bits.”
He sputtered through a string of weak excuses for why the battle was necessary that basically came down to a simple border dispute.
Nobles… Squabling over land and resources to feed their power and sense of self-importance. Bad seed, the lot of them, punching the womb of the world as they greedily suckled on her breast until she was dry. She looked hard into him and said, “You will sell this land to me. I’d ask you to preserve the new forest that sprouts here, but clearly you are the type that will burn it the moment it grows and the need suits you. It is always the easiest, most destructive way with you lot. All you respect is your contracts, and so I will have one of your mighty papers.”
His eyes went wide, “There are hectares of land here, owning that much land would entitle you to minor ennobling. Be reasonable.”
“I doubt you truly gave the dryad a chance to ‘be reasonable’,” Milani spat, “Her unwillingness to do anything as militant forces passed through her woods was evidence of her mistreatment far before you told her to help or get out of the way. If you find my terms unreasonable, enjoy the baren view.”
The dryad laid to rest here did not rest easy. Her soul burned with hate for the thoughtless treatment of her land and the mortal blood that soaked the soil. This place would grow nothing until her voice was heard, and the ground was cleansed. Milani needed to be able to offer some comfort and assurance that the land would be allowed to heal and not be further abused. She knowingly asked for more than the lordling would agree to.
It was a gamble. She knew the scar they left on the land bordered a main road coming into the area. It was an embarrassment; a thing that required constant explanation to visitors who then left speaking of the ill blight in their lands.
Nobles and their fragile egos. He wanted to stop explaining. He didn’t care about the land at all. The real question was if he felt a need to keep this land for some use. She knew he wouldn’t give her the land, but if she could get him to commit to a contract outlining the land’s potential use…
“I can’t make you a lady in my own lands!” He grumbled becoming red in the face, “Our lands are small and sparse as it is. You want a contract? I will agree to a contract labeling half of it a reserve. Hunting will only be allowed by the nobility or special permit. No more than 20 permits in a year.”
“All of it,” She said flatly.
“Two thirds!”
“All… Of… It…”
He turned and spoke in hushed words to his council. They eventually left to discuss the prospect. Some three days later they stood there again, and he presented her the contract with his seal upon it. She tucked it safely away and stepped onto the baren soil. She reached out with her senses and called in prayer. Soon she found herself moved to a lingering song that seemed etched into the abused ground beneath her feet and it burst forth from her lips as she was enveloped in an otherworld green glow. Oak leafs floated in on the wind, circling her in the warm green light.
((Adapted from "Noble Blood" Tommee Profit))
They fight,
They fall,
Because duty called, it called!
So they chose, like there’s no choice at all,
duty called, it called!
Vines rose up out of the ground all around her, spreading like a wave as far as could be seen. It stirring the packed earth, bringing much needed air to its depths. She was vaguely aware of the startled gasps at the spectacle playing out before them.
See… Know the power of the deep wilds.
Mercy, Peace, and Justice,
Will cherish and protect us,
Battle borne the sent us,
Protected by our noble blood.
They rise,
Standing tall,
Lightning erupted from her eyes and licked all around her. The angry, forgotten winds stir around her as she became the avatar of storms.
Steady hands,
For the draw,
Swing the sword,
Watch them fall..
She reached to the sky and pulled downward bringing a flood of water that spawned three greater water elementals.
Because duty called, it called…
She danced and sang the dead fey’s lament as the elementals spread out.
Mercy, Peace and Justice,
You have all forsook us,
Now the fields lie baren,
Covered in their noble blood.
They soaked the stirred ground and driving the blood up and running it off. She reached into her satchel, grabbing fists of acorns and native seeds. She spread them as she danced, hearing the song again and again in her mind. The vines aided her, snatching the seeds and pulling them in the ground.
Those gathered watched in stunned wonder as a few trees rose in full maturity. The green glow sunk into the ground and resurrected the old wood while the seeds she spread were woken by her song and the promise of protection.
To one watching her life they might have called her important and powerful; chosen by the gods of nature to right so many wrongs. However, the reach of the gods of Toril was not as absolute as they hoped their followers would believe. There were many more gods and many more prime worlds. If their power was not absolute, what was? Ao? Fate? Was there a direction or sense to any of it?
The bleakers would say no because they only saw meaning in what happened within a limited, magnified scope. As Milani died in Sigil, coughing up acid and pollution, they would say that was the payment for her service. She was evidence that there was no point or protection to be had. There was no truth to fate and no grand design. Death and suffering came to all and claimed all. Champions or beggars, they were fleas on the back of existence. Who rose and fell was completely accidental. Trying to live according to any creed in the hopes that morality and service would shield you was ridiculous. Living a life of service should be so that you can make peace when the verse claimed you and rest easy. Be assured that it could and would claim you and your loved ones without mercy or consideration.
They had it partially right. Sometimes lights existed to be snuffed out. A mortal could only contemplate the fairness of their existence. Seeing the true effect their life and the lives they touched was beyond the scope of their vision. They might think their life had no point because everyone they knew and loved was dead and they suffered no matter how they tried. They failed to see that their true purpose was to drop a coin on the street. A coin that would roll into the hands of a beggar child. They might even have seen it happened, but the coin and the face of the child whose hands it reached were long forgotten as one of those
insignificant moments. What could one coin do?
It might be the coin that bought medicine for the ailing mother in the alley behind him. Her continued life might convince him that there was some small kindness to the world. Or maybe the coin was taken and the child beaten to death and left in a ditch. Maybe that child had a sister who then dedicated herself to necromancy in a misguided attempt to right that injustice. No one can say, but as small as it was, the coin was important; a catalyst. Catalysts were often small to the point of being inpreceptible.
Mortals would cry that a whole life’s point should not be to drop a single coin but the truth of fate was that it cared very little for individual fairness. It was likely that it was at least not that wasteful; Spending a whole life for one coin. However, it didn’t care about a person’s ego and feeling that the things important to them were somehow important to the verse. Every action created a ripple, or an opportunity for the butterfly affect. There was a point to every life and every death. It was simply beyond our sight, lost to what was insignificant to us in our self-centeredness.
The forest she rose out of that desolation was leveled and sown for more corn a mere year after she went missing.
So what was her true purpose?
