Wandering out the back door into the constant light of the city, Diana squinted at her surroundings. At the bottom of the back steps was a small patch of earth surrounded by the stone of the alleyway. Touching it, she found that it went straight down to the world’s heart. A tree planted here would be able to reach any other, and suit her purposes for communication. Next to the pitiful patch was a dumpster and dual purpose incinerator. A few brave onions had sprung up by the silvery waste unit. Across from the hotel was a half closed culinary school that held night classes. These onions, with their scarlet flutes reaching up from the humid damp earth, had escaped destruction and had been left by some tired student for long enough to grow quite large. They deserved this patch to themselves. Also, Diana didn’t want to catch anyone off guard with a tree in their way, they were clumsy enough.

Out about the empty city, Diana wondered what it had looked like two hundred years before. The Arch Priestess had spoken of it with some fondness as she watched over Jonah. It was far more dim filled with people, the blinding nature was mostly added in the repairs. When the bombs fell and the people escaped, the Grands fought to cover every surface with all they could remember or had written down. No one tried to stop them, the High elves had given up, living in darker sections close to the inland walls. By the port many still lived in covered houses or underground. Niae said there was a sizable smuggling operation of “discount goods'' that she had no interest in stopping. So long as they weren’t smuggling people, she didn’t care. The hotel owners were most likely a part of this, as Diana saw the neighboring room had rowoak furniture that at a touch wasn’t the famous wood. She should destroy it, but with all the problems she had going on, knockoff easy chairs was a low priority.

A problem for her now was the amount of nature that had been alchemized in the city. She passed by more flowers, rushes, and shrubs covered in precious metals than she had patience to bear. Aiko was on the watch for Grand elves, the elves and their musty robes had a distinct scent. Diana walked up to the planters in the center of the four lane road, and began to overbloom their leaves and petals with a furious tapping of her staff on the street. She was glad to discover that the alchemy ran only to its skin and it flecked off in most places. It would have been much harder to breathe without any plant life. Diana felt sorry leaving the trees in the planter. The metals were ingrained into the bark, and she couldn’t control processed metal.

“I’m so sorry,” she said to the tree in the middle of the divide.

She felt a vague sigh, a resolve to be where it was. Their communication was not unlike Aiko’s. This tree could grow and expand, it could breathe, but was held under what would have been a cloth over her face.

Aiko chuffed at her, not a warning, but a verbal reminder of what it told her mentally, they needed to find a better place. It didn’t have complex words, but looked at the rushes and humid elven flowers she had uncovered. It sniffed their renewed scent and sighed. They both knew that when a Grand elf saw it, they were just going to cover it back up again.

Diana left the flora and her mission of restoring it, walking along a road that once held carriages, now only holding the wind of the city, She was left with the comfort that all the plant life would outlive even the Grands. Whenever they were extinct and she herself was long gone, nature would retake this nightmare. All the Grands gone, their magic would expire. The magic that kept their alchemy shining vainly would fade out and the walls would one day crumble to the wind it now resisted.

This far reaching idea, the eons passing, death, decay, and rebirth, it was a Druid’s standard. Repeated endlessly by the very wise, who had already watched all those they loved die of natural causes or heroic deaths in service to the sources. All the older ones in the Avarice that came to the death ritual, where Luann was mourned and celebrated, tried to intone it to the two Druids. Diana wanted to sic Aiko on them, her rage burned harder than the fire lit in the clearing. Her mother Eliza steadied her, and in the light of that bonfire, Diana saw her mother harden into the hawk for the first time since Luann had died. She stayed that way until Diana spoke with her before leaving. As she ascended up to that accursed ship, her last memory of her mother was not a smile, or tear stained face, but that resting fierceness.

Diana found a small park with Aiko’s help. The rubies set into the sidewalk and the surrounding rose quartz buildings, were dampened by the white gold trees and the shade they provided. Their bark had not escaped the alchemy madness, and neither had the silvery grass that bent at her boots and righted itself on her passing. All the surfaces reflected each other into a soup of deep pink and silver, the darkest of the dawn light she had seen in the city.

Aiko kept going down the sidewalk to a large gazebo that served as the center of the park. The tiger sniffed at the seats and under them, relaying its default image for humans, a flash card of one. Diana investigated for herself, finding the gum stuck underneath the bench.

“We’re miles into the city and someone comes to deface it with gum?” she asked aloud. The silence was getting to her. “They couldn’t have gotten lost… If they were part of the smuggling operation, then why would they be meeting here?” She looked out to the northern end of the city. There were more towns outside the city, but very few had humans that she knew of. There was no reason to live all the way out by the Grands for a human. Elves and half elves lived all over the Kingdom, but the last census had humans at some thousand in all of Aayen G’ld.

Aiko chuffed at her, an open question to her thoughts.

“No, I don’t think its worth finding someplace else,” she said. “Even if they do show up, then I would like to meet the people that are brave enough to stick gum on a Grand elf’s bench.”

Aiko made a sound like a scoff.

Diana found a tree some ways off from the gazebo, a lone ancient alder tree on a rise. The mound left her enough room to draw back the earth for a hollow to sit in for her, and to hide from either a human or Grand. The thin skin bark was silver, perforated magically to allow the wizened tree to still breathe. It wasn’t thin enough, and like a real tiger, Aiko clawed away the metal and into the flesh of the tree low enough for Diana. Putting her hand onto it, she felt relief and thanks at having been able to breathe again. She learned it was stunted by the magic, that it was far older than it looked. A powerful part of nature held back by the selfish elves. It bore no animosity, as it knew innately that all it had to do was keep waiting. She pleaded gently with it to use its roots for her harmless purpose. There was no need to ask, but it flooded her with thanks for the gesture and returned to its waiting.

Eyes closed, she pushed her mind into the tall tree and saw herself in that dug out bit of land. A speck of dark green clothing and red hair in a sea of other warm colors. Aiko turned to a cat, rolling up as a white ball between the roots. Then Diana pushed herself down through the roots, through the world itself. She was no longer in Alpha, her bodily sensations were numbed there. She appeared on the other side of the world at night. She landed in the body of a willow tree she knew well. It grew beside a river called the Greed, an expanse of cold algae glass, ripples spread across it with a subtle breeze, now reflecting a late night moon. The willow leaned over it, beside it a stone bench where her family had sat in summer and winter, hot humid air or teeth chattering chill. Though it was called weeping, this willow always seemed to be sweeping along the water's surface to her.

Like a newly birthed Nymph, Diana's ghostly green form stepped out. Anyone could see her and the first was her mother's hawk, Castor, who after Luann's death had grown tired of the castle's confines and flew about the grounds. As soon as Castor saw her, it turned its wing, started to flap and glided back towards the distant figure of the castle. It was a few miles away, past a glade where Diana had spoken to her first tree and trained in befriending animals with squirrels and robins.

Normally, it would take a half an hour or so to travel to the lake side, but not for Eliza. Soon, Castor was back, joined by another red tailed hawk, a female. As Castor flew up into a current, the other flew down and a moment before diving into the ground exploded into Eliza. Her mother took several graceful steps forward, negating the speed from the air. She wore her Druid armor, all natural in its make. Boots and greaves of shed green dragon leather. Her Weaver clothes and cloak were much older, but still held the strength of Diana’s freshly made set. The chest piece was the same Ironwood and the tiara was fit with uncut ocean blue sapphires. Diana couldn't help but feel jealous, she had yet to take even one Beast shape.

The queen Druid linked her hands in front of her and walked to the lake, staring out at it. "Good evening my dear, as it's nearly midnight here," she said in her rich and royal voice.

"Good evening mother, please, join me," Diana said, unable to disturb the dust and leaves as she patted the stone.

“Why are you here to see me?” her mother asked. “I heard you on the radio at dinner, you are safe with the Pirate and the other Heroes.” A smile twitched on her stern face. “Did you miss your mother too much after so little time?”

Diana sighed, wishing she could grip the stone bench. “I am no longer with the Heroes mother, I left,” she confessed.

“What!?” the queen said sharply, thin brows furrowed. She rushed around the bench, taking only an instant to whip forward her cloak before sitting down. She stared at her daughter, as if trying to read her soul. Diana imagined that if was there in the flesh, her mother would already have her Crown out and be probing her mind after such a sudden reply. She had never done it before, but they were in untread ground.

“What are you waiting for, speak, Diana, tell me why in all the world you would leave the Heroes?” her mother snapped. “They are your only hope to stop Blodwyn, why would you give that up?”

Diana faced the glare of the queen, her dark eyes wide to the whites at her, a real hawk never had a reason to be this furious. “You knew I would never be capable of stopping Blodwyn!” she roared. “I am not even an Archdruid! I haven't even mastered the Cloud school, I couldn’t stun her! I can’t even hope to match a single Hero in a sparring match! You sent me off to get rid of me!”

Eliza turned away from her, staring out at the Greed River where her familiar flew around in lazy circles. “I did no such thing,” she said, her royal clasping hands trembling. There was no expression on her face other than that stoic stare. “You were not happy here, you will never be happy here again. Neither will I and I have accepted that fact.” Her lips quivered. “No, no, I am trying to accept that fact. I keep trying to leave her room, to leave your room alone.” In the waning moon, only a few days from full, a tear sparkled down the queen’s face. Then more and more. “Diana, dear, please do come home. If you’re away from the Heroes, then you need to come home.” She turned to her daughter and was blubbering.

The Archdruid reached out for her ghostly form, grabbing only air. Her long fingers lingered in the phantom of her, making Diana back home shiver. Not out of any magical effect, but because her mother was breaking down like Luann was dead before her again.

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The queen wiped at the tears and snot after a moment. “Wait, wait, are you safe my love? Please, please tell me you are safe!” she smacked the bench roughly, her rings clicking on it.

“I’m safe, mother,” Diana urged her, feeling a sympathetic sob falling down her real form. Luann was dead and they were all surrounding her again. Her chest felt tight and she struggled to hold onto the tree for a moment. Her spectral form pulled back to the willow. She regained her composure, turning her face away from the queen.

Fighting to speak and clear herself of a fresh wave of sobbing, the queen took several long breaths. “Good, good, now tell me where you are and we will bring you home within the hour,” she said, whistling to Castor. “Your father just went to sleep, but he’ll be dressed in minutes. If needed, then I will have him open a Gate in his pajamas. It will be worth seeing your father’s pale legs to be home, now, won’t it?” She attempted a light hearted laugh, but it broke into a shaky breath.

“I’m not coming home, not yet, I cannot,” Diana stressed, facing her again, arms folded.

As she was thinking about the best way to introduce the subject of Jonah and his illness, her mother burst up from her seat. The queen threw down a collection of spores from a pouch and they sprung up as Lantern Caps, mushrooms of an impressive bioluminescence. The fungi glowed bright orange, threaded by dark lines, they shone on the queen’s tear stained scanning of her daughter’s projection.

“Why not?” she snapped at her. “You do not need to be away from your mother and father another moment longer. I need you here!”

“You didn’t need me a few weeks ago…” Diana said, distracted.

“I was wrong to ever let you go!” she replied, quickly. “I know I was too determined to see you off. That was a mistake I regret every moment. You probably hate your mother for not crying with you or comforting you! Well, when you return, you can join me in my nightly ritual of sitting in your sister’s room and sobbing until I have to be dragged out. I added your pillow to Luann’s after you left. I have drenched them with my tears, I have almost run out of things unspoiled by my own sorrow to weep over. Please, please, my love, my dear, dear, dear girl, my only daughter, return to me now that you are free of Angelina’s ship. I cannot stand the thought of losing you. It tears me up inside.” She gripped at her breastplate, attempting to tear what her mortal strength could not.

Diana wondered at the phrasing.“Do you know about Angelina’s ruses?” she asked, wiping at her face in Alpha.

The hawk’s face leveled out into a murderous glare. “Has she hurt you, is that why you left? She’s dead, I will tear her head from her shoulders if she did so much as scratch you, my love!” she cried. In the air her familiar gave an accompanying cry, one that could be heard for miles around, the telltale screech of a raptor.

Diana thought about all the harm she had received from the Heroes, both emotional and physical and wondered if her mother was serious. She certainly looked like she was.

“Tell me, what did Angelina do?” the queen said, and repeated several times until it came out as… “Bloody tell me now, Diana, or I will have your father open a Gate to the Pirate’s ship and slaughter them all on principle!”

“You’re not going to kill the fucking Heroes, mother,” Diana spat back. “Not that they don’t all deserve it.”

The queen went silent at that, further scanning her in the fungal light. With a series of deep breathing and two soiled royal handkerchiefs, she sat back down on the bench. She patted the stone. “Please, tell me everything you know, and I will tell you what I know as well,” she said evenly, the leveled sternness resumed. “There is a lot I have not told about my times with the Heroes, I think now is the time to share it with you.”

Diana stayed where she was for a moment. She feared that statement from her mother, she wasn’t normally nervous like Jonah. He told her about always picturing the worst, but he told her that they were usually nonsense. Most of what she knew now would have seemed like nonsense a month ago, it seemed insane now to explain to her mother.

“Please, my darling, if you will not return, then at least sit here now,” Eliza reasoned. “Once we have spoken, then I will still want you back, but I want to know whether I should go after the Heroes or not.”

Aiko cut in with a vision of people walking to the gazebo in Alpha. All of them were wearing cloaks of pinkish tie dye, as if an attempt to blend into the city at a distance. There were three of them, all humans.

“Mother, please, give me a moment,” Diana said, moving back to the willow.

The queen was up and following her. “Where are you going?” she stressed.

“I need to check on something, there’s some people in the park I’m in, I want to see what they’re doing,” she said, trying to split her focus across the world. Aiko wanted to follow, but didn’t want to leave her alone.

“What park? Where? Are you in our Kingdom? I’ll have the Silent Men sent to you at once. I didn’t have them follow you when you were with the Heroes, but I wanted to, so badly. I wanted to see you in Rowoak and Grayhill. I should have come to you then, my love. Oh, if I knew you were in danger with the Heroes, then I would have swooped you up there and then… Where are you, my love? Please, tell me.”

Wincing, Diana was unsettled by the overt affection of her mother, and the drop in practicality as she kept trying to reach into the projection. “I’m in an elvish city, well protected and guarded, I swear, mother,” she urged. “I only want to see about some people littering, that’s all.”

The hawk’s brow knitted together. “Why is that more important than talking with your mother?” she asked, trying to find a lie that wasn’t truly there.

“It’s not, I just need a moment to gather my thoughts,” she said, holding her hands up. “Please, I will be back in ten minutes, I swear.”

The queen stood there in silence for a moment.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Abandon your mother again. Check on those littering people, they are apparently more important than the peace of mind of your own mother,” she said, her voice drenched in venom.

“They aren’t, gathering my thoughts is important,” Diana replied.

“You could gather your thoughts perfectly well back home, in the flesh, where I could hold you. I am not about to let my daughter loose again. At this point in time I could hold you until years pass us by.”

Cringing at her mother’s new form, Diana tried to come up with a reason as the people sat waiting in the shade of the gazebo. Aiko could only see them in silhouette, and walking to a closer tree would be almost twenty feet away. Diana was well hidden, but far away from anything else.

“I need to breathe, mother, just a quick pace, that’s all,” she said.

“Fine, then go,” Eliza said, turning her back to her. “I will wait here, gutted every second that you are gone. It’s no different than my normal suffering--”

Eyes opening in Alpha, Diana was glad she missed the rest of the guilt trip and was thankful that her mother hadn't followed her through. Without knowing where she was, the queen couldn’t search for her. Or she could, but would be popping up in every elven city and every park within them.

Silently Aiko picked through the silvery grass with Diana behind it, shifting the ground up with each foot step. She reached a copse of oak trees beside the gazebo and helped the cat into the boughs while staying against the trunk.

The humans were secured tightly into their camouflage cloaks, and they were atop something already bulky. Two sat across from each other and one was standing. The latter was checking the perimeter constantly, an older man with a grizzled gaunt face and deep set eyes that had experienced untold hardships. The sitting one Aiko could see was always trying to correct her cloak, a young girl of black hair and shaded eyes with more pronounced lower lids. A Wanshi? Diana thought. What was a Wanshi girl doing so far from home? She could have been an immigrant, but the elves didn’t take them, they were on worse terms with the Wanshi than the Magi. Even if she was born and raised somewhere else, which was unlikely given the Wanshi’s immigration, there was no reason for her to be here. The other man could easily be a sailor, a veteran of some conflict given his drawn expression, but this girl might as well be a dragon in front of Diana.

Diana’s thoughts on the world’s races were broken as the third one spoke. “Goddamnit Ike, how long do we have to wait here?” he groaned. She couldn’t see his face, but he was rocking on the bench, loudly smacking his gum

“Shut up, Tim,” the older man snapped.

The young man, by his voice and smell to Aiko, stomped his feet like a child. “I forgot how bad this place stunk!” he cried.

Ike reached over and smacked his head, stopping him. “I told you to shut the fuck up,” he said, quietly. “Do what Chiru is doing, and shut the fuck up.”

Tim rubbed at his head. “Sorry, sorry,” he said.

Chiru, the young woman, stared at him indifferently. There was quite a history behind those young slate eyes as well, Diana thought.

An elf came up the other sidewalk, their inherent footsteps so light that Aiko barely heard them before the others. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking at the three with some fear. Ike turned to him, letting his cloak open up, the sight made the elf take a step back. Aiko moved forward, but couldn’t find an angle to see what was under it without exposing itself.

“Where’s our fucking shipment Ce’Es?” Ike growled, directing his hand to the elf.

“You guys can’t scare it out of me, I can’t make it appear out of thin air,” the elf said, holding up his hands. He was wearing the garb of a dock worker. A smuggler?

Ike reached his hand out closer to the elf and made him step back even further. “You know I’m old enough and strong enough,” he said evenly. “Do you need a demonstration? You aren’t warded, I can tell…”

“I can’t make anymore disappear right now, I’m sorry,” the elf insisted.

Ike flicked a finger and a vein on the elf’s forearm burst open, spraying a geyser blood across the sidewalk. The elf screamed loudly, clutching the damaged limb. Diana put a hand to her mouth to stifle the gasp. Her fingers strained as her heart raced. The older human looked back as the wind blew across the park. His cloak flapped open and underneath was the gray coat of an Ash Maker.

As quietly as she could, Diana conducted the ground around her to rise up, pushing into it with her knees. Already panicked, she could feel her teeth crashing together at the magic. Higher and higher the shell of earth rose. The Ash Maker left the elf to his blood spewing arm and was walking down the sidewalk. The others let their cloaks open to their gray coats and were putting their hands out to the air. The young man, Tim, flexed his fingers at a tree in front of Aiko’s and fissures cracked up it. The tree groaned in pain as the lines of superheated ash were far worse than the metal shell.

“Where are they?” Tim asked. “Was it a Grand? Did that fucker call in back up?”

Ike’s eyes filled with ink, and the space around his feet started to slowly lose its luster as he removed the magic enchanting it. His black orbs looked around as the affected area spread out to the grass, which became green again. If he had turned his head a few more degrees, then he would have seen Diana before the blanket of ground covered her. Aiko had been ready to pounce if need be.

The Ash Maker jerked back as the elf started to run away. Loping over the steps up and down in a few strides, he spread his fingers out wide and part of the elf’s back exploded with blood shooting several feet up. The smuggler skidded into the pavement and grass.

“That wasn’t enough to kill you, fucker, trust me, I know!” Ike roared, getting to the man. He picked him up by the hair, which made him groan in agony. “Get me the shipments I fucking paid you good money for! We need them, and I’d rather not tell headquarters about this. If I do, we may decide your shitty little operation is worth taking over, by force. It’s the end of the fucking week, I needed the food last week, so deliver a double shipment to me tomorrow. GOT IT??”

“Yes…” the elf groaned.

Ike threw him down and signaled to the others. “Come on, we gotta run,” he said.

“That was so cool!” Tim whooped.

“Shut the fuck up and close your cloak…”

Diana wheezed in the darkness of the dirt, even as they disappeared from sight, she was paralyzed with fear. She had been feet from the enemy after all this time. They could have turned and killed her with a flick. Or worse, they could have captured her and she would be in Blodwyn’s hands.