Private Tales A Druid's Prayer

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

Petrus did not pursue her, did not try and force her, as she shook her head and pulled away. He could tell that her walls were returning, that she like himself had allowed herself to be weak and now regretted it. His voice would be low, pointed, but not insulting as he murmured.

"I know. You will never have to."

Both a reassurance to her and a chastisement of himself he would nod at her request for time.

"Of course. I was never offering a trade, a transaction, only empathy. For whatever it is worth to you."

He would turn and walk to the edge of the grove and begin to once again weave soft and subtle enchantments to ward away intrusion. He had no control of his magic alluring and coaxing at Elinyra's senses but that was not his intent by returning to his task. Merely to create some distance for both their benefits.

Elinyra Derwinthir​

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra crossed her arms over herself as she hurried away. She had decided to walk it off once she'd checked in on Fielynn and Fwysog. Seeing that both were resting peacefully, she continued into the woods beyond the grove, merely following the direction her feet chose.

The stillness of Petrus's grove was replaced by the barest chill of an early autumn breeze. The undergrowth was black as pitch beneath a moonless sky. It proved no hindrance to the blightborn's vision, though the vibrant hues she could see in the daylight dulled into the glow of life energy; a dim vapor rising from a nearby rotting log, a solid white light in a mouse that scurried across her path.

"Of course. I was never offering a trade, a transaction, only empathy. For whatever it is worth to you."

As she glanced up at the patches of starlight that shone through the thick canopy, she thought about Petrus's words with a flush of embarrassment. Reflexively, she had snapped at the man in self-defense instead of showing gratitude for what was obviously very difficult for him. A situation she would have to rectify on her return, if sleep didn't claim her first.

She yawned. Now that her storm of emotions had passed, exhaustion was beginning to creep into her weary muscles. The decision on whether they would stay longer was one best made tomorrow, when sleep wasn't making her mind so groggy.

She was about to turn back around when something strange caught her eye. Six somethings, brighter than the surrounding forest, were moving through the underbrush in near-perfect silence -- in her direction.

Elinyra darted back to a nearby pine and pressed her back against it, her skin and bark-flesh taking on the tones of the surrounding wood. Thus camouflaged, she waited for the creatures to pass by. She noted with concern that at least four more were moving as a group towards the grove.

The group of six stopped in a circle around the tree Elinyra was hiding under. It was too dark to make out any physical features beyond the fact that they were short and had backwards-facing knees like some sort of beast. They chattered to each other in a language Elinyra recognized as some Sylvan dialect.

"She thinks she can hide from us," snickered one.

"Let's all stab her at once!" said another.

"No, me first!" wailed a third, leaping forward with a thin dagger in its hand.

Before any of them could get to her, the old pine shot upwards, its bark groaning as it split to make room for the new growth that exploded from its roots. Standing now on the tree's crown, Elinyra shouted as loudly as she could into the night,

"We're under attack!"

Petrus Ritus Iskandar

 

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

No sooner had the words of Elinyra's warning reached Petrus's ears than he noticed six entities of his own enter the clearing. It had taken them some extra time, the enchantments and obscuring rituals he had laden upon the place making it hard for many beings to truly locate the grove. He began to wonder to himself how the creatures had located it at all when he saw where their eyes trailed.... right to Fielynn. In fact they were so intent on their sleeping quarry that they did not even seem to notice him until he walked, in great strides to stand before the little child, between her and the would-be assailants. Pausing for only a moment, as the creatures were more than a little surprised by his appearance, Petrus would fill the silence by speaking to... someone or something else.

"Maintain your distance, no need to involve yourself in this battle, creatures such as this deserve my personal attention."

The last two words were bitten out as a threat while the creatures sniggered to one another and began to fan out, blades in hand, while Petrus swept his amber eyes across them before channeling a subtle spell to carry a warning to Elinyra on the wind.

'Danger. Fielynn. Target. Enemies. Protect. Safety.'

With that done Petrus would slowly turn to Fwysog and instruct the little hillock.

"Continue rocking the child, they won't bring her any ha-....."

A knife, thrown from the assailants, would whizz toward Petrus before he finished speaking and flick of his hand would conjure a gust of wind to blow it away, causing it to land with a faint THUNK in the grass. Returning his attention to the six of them he would exhale slowly, his voice a low, smoldering thing of restrained anger.

"No one will ever find your bodies."

He stated simply before dropping to one knee with surprising swiftness, a surge of magic met the charge of the creatures and with terrifying quickness the very earth beneath them would split, rending apart, and swallowing them before just as quickly slamming shut and burying the assailants as if they had never existed. Save for the lone dagger still stuck in the grass some feet from Petrus.

Elinyra Derwinthir​

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

The fae creatures were already scaling the tree Elinyra was perched upon. She felt a jab in her right leg as a hurled dagger stuck there, unable to penetrate the wooden flesh. She tore out the icy cold blade and tossed it aside before launching herself towards another nearby tree, which obligingly cushioned her descent with its branches.

Petrus's voice reached her on the wind as she dropped the final few feet from the tree and took off at a sprint towards the grove. She had to grant that her would-be assassins were quick; they had dropped down from the first tree and were on her heels. She caught glimpses of movement as they fanned out to try to cut off her path.

She wasn't in the mood to offer them the chance to live.

Bolts of fairie fire erupted from her hands and raced towards her assailants, alighting one of them in its eerie, chromatic light. It didn't seem to slow the creature down, but it gave her a better look at it: Ugly and misshapen, with sharp features, white eyes and sharp teeth that presently showed in a malicious grin.

Elinyra fell forward as something yanked her legs together. She rolled over onto her back to see a bola fashioned of vines and stone wrapped around her.

"Fool! You think you can hurt us with a bit of fae magic?" it hissed in Common, holding its dagger at her neck.

"Maybe not," she replied evenly. "But this will."

She grasped the dagger blade with her wooden hand while she reached up with the other. The creature's smug grin turned into a howl of surprise and pain as something erupted from her hand and went right through it, sending it falling backwards silently as necrotic energy ate through it like flames through paper.

Its previously-brazen cohorts lost some of their courage at the sight of the blighted scythe that their intended victim had conjured from her hand and was now cutting herself free with.

Another met the same fate as it attempted to sneak around her.

"Leave now or die," she growled at them and turned back towards the grove. None of them followed.

---

The grove had returned to silence since Petrus had dispatched the first assailants. It was a pressing silence, as if the crickets and owls, and even the breeze had retreated. In that silence, something else stalked towards the sacred space on six muscular, silvery legs that moved with such grace that they almost seemed to phase through the forest.

Four feline pupils set within golden eyes stared through the darkness at the lone man protecting the child. The magic within this place felt unpleasant against its sleek fur, but it would not be dissuaded from its task. Once set upon a hunt, a niwhylla would never stop.

With supernatural agility, the fae beast climbed one of the trees on the grove's periphery and crouched to attack its guardian.

Petrus Ritus Iskandar

 

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

Petrus exhaled softly as yet more felt wrong in the grove. More intruders.... no... an intruder. The wind whispered of it's presence, the trees rustled it's whereabouts, and two amber eyes would meet four golden orbs as Petrus calmly drew the rapier from his hip and stared the creature down. It, of course, thought itself the predator and Petrus drew a steadying breathe as a faint tingle in his fingertips told him that his earlier exertion in granting Elinyra her feeling back along with dispatching the rabble so quickly had taxed him. He was out of practice.

But at least here, of all places, he would focus from his crouched position and draw energy that Arethil was willing to give. Beckoning the trees, the grass, the rich minerals beneath, and he had only just begun to do this when the beast leapt to a different branch and then made it's lunge....

Petrus would, with a swift stab of his rapier, guide the earth to erupt up onto an equal pointed thrust. A piercing pillar of earth spiking upward to intercept the creature as it leapt for him.... only... it had not leapt for him. Not directly. The creature would contort it's body in the air, it's feline grace and claws allowing it to avoid the lethal spike and, instead, turn it's gaze to Fielynn as it's haunches ran taut and it prepared to pounce.

Petrus, hissing in anger, would without thinking place himself between the child and the beast as Elinyra reached the grove. The sight she would be greeted with was the feline creature standing on it's back legs, fangs sunk greedily not into her daughter but into the forearm of the man she had just met. Blood and saliva mixing into a slurry that fell upon the grove's floor.... and a rapier hilt that was buried into the beast's gut as it's body slowly went lip, it's snarling dying as it's life faded and... with one last heave Petrus would shove the beast off him and grunt in pain as he clutched his arm close.

He had also forgotten what pain such as this felt like.

Elinyra Derwinthir​

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra tried not to consider the worst as she emerged from the trees into the clearing, breaths ragged from the hard run back. She pushed herself even harder when she beheld the scene before her -- one that could have ended tragically if not for the druid's intervention.

Her first reaction was fury, both at Fwysog for doing so little to protect her daughter, and at herself for not being here when she was needed. She put that thought to the side when she saw the extent of Petrus's injury. Having no further need of it, the scythe that she'd been holding wilted and then decayed into nothing.

"I'll heal that for you.... hold on..." she gasped and tore a piece of her tunic to wrap the wound.

She looked down at the dead niwhylla. Memories older than hers knew of this creature and its inherent danger. That it had come seeking her daughter was more than a little troubling. But even in its state, it could do one last service to mend the damage it had caused.

She reached out and reaped its life force before all of it could dissipate back into the earth. Then she turned back to Petrus, her hands glowing with a soft white light and an expression of sincere gratitude on her face.

"May I?"

Petrus Ritus Iskandar