"Hickory!" Fernilda screamed for the dozenth time, trying to get the changeling to listen. He continued to staunchly ignore her, focusing on the Arch Mage, their wards breaking and tearing like the clashing of swords as the two magics sparked with disagreement. It made Fernilda's head feel like it was being ripped apart to be so near the onslaught.

Changelings were true fae. Their power raw and primordial, but never had a changeling used their powers to this extreme. Why would they? Being born a mortal was akin to taking a holiday, a chance to exist a new way and experience things they could not in their natural form.

Hickory was the first of his kind to attempt to shape the mortal plane and it was wrong. Fernilda gripped her shield tighter, she had to make this right.

When the old Solis Empire had burned the Great Forest, dozens of fae had lost their tethers. Groves, trees, and even simple flowers, such things tied the fae to En and when they disappeared, so did the fae. Hickory and his people had entrusted the High Druids to protect their tethers, given them magic, prosperity, and even love in return.

They failed a hundred and fifty years ago, and when Lyra's empire had grown, they had waited too long to take the threat seriously.

The High Druids should never have left the forest. Shouldn't have attempted to claim new land. Their intentions had been good, hoping to cleanse The Desolates and give birth to another forest, but their divided attention must have been what called the hurt and wary Hickory to mortal form.

Fernilda felt ready to cry in frustration. They never meant disrespect, would still have died for the fae...or so Fernilda had thought. When word had reached her that The Great Forest had fallen she had mourned for her lost fellow High Druids, had cursed herself for not being there. To learn that some had survived, fled even from their responsibility, had opened her eyes to the corruption and selfishness Hickory must have been silently judging for years.

If she could only make him see that she still cared about the ancient promise...but the fae wouldn't listen! Like a stubborn child he was ignoring her!

A child.

Fernilda started. That was it. Hickory acted like a child, lashing out and running to the nearest person with an easy answer. The fae did not experience death daily as mortals did...to lose so many fae, so many siblings...Hickory simply didn't know how to process it.

He was hurting and Fernilda and her circle had been too preoccupied to notice. She sucked in a breath with realization. He hadn't been born for vengeance, he'd been born to try to understand—and when those with the ability to help had left him, he'd turned to someone new.

"Hickory! I'm sorry!" Fernilda focused her magic, trying to push her words into the fae's mind. The magic was slippery and tenuous but she poured herself into it.

"I understand that you're angry. The lost fae are gone and that pain won't go away. Changing the world won't bring them back.” Fernilda spoke earnestly and steadily, “I promise you're not alone, I won't let them be forgotten or turn away from you."

Her heart caught in her throat when, for the first time, Hickory glanced at her, his eyes swirling like fall leaves. "Liar! Oath-breaker! If that were true, you would have been at the forest edge with me when the queen came."

"I should have been there and I'm sorry I wasn't. We wanted a chance to grow, to make things better. I understand why you didn't trust my brothers and sisters to protect you. I understand that you did what you had to so you could protect your own, but you don't have to keep doing this alone."

"I am not alone."

His face twisted as his lapse in concentration let some of the Arch Mage's magic through, ice raking his arms, leaving dark angry marks even after they melted.

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"Look around, Hickory! Lyra is not your ally, she's only interested in your magic, she would as soon enslave you as protect you."

"It's no different from your people," he hissed, "or have you forgotten where you druids come from."

Fernilda spoke softly, trusting now that Hickory would hear her, "I haven't forgotten, have you? The human soul you carry right now, did they bargain with you? Demand your obedience?"

It was almost imperceivable but Hickory slid back and Fernilda continued, "It's true, often our magic comes from our promise, but how many fae grant magic out of love and affection? How many more of my people live at your side, love you, offer gifts and gratitude for what you provide with no intention of receiving anything more in return? Your people and mine make each other's lives better, not because of the ancient promise, but because of who we are and it's our differences that draw us to each other."

She managed to take a step closer. "Don't throw that away. Stop trying to be what you're not. You have no place fighting a mortal's war, you're a fae, a being of creation and joy. Surely this isn't making you happy, isn't worth the time you've taken. Is this what you will tell stories of when you leave that body? Will that child feel blessed for having been used so?"

"I have to protect them," Hickory panted, the plants dying at his feet.

"Not like this." Fernilda stepped again, this time able to push forward closer to the changeling. "Let yourself be stained with anger and you'll lose your ability to be free again. You're not human, don't let yourself hurt and die like one. You're not meant to stay like this, grow past the pain."

Fernilda reached out and touched Hickory's arm. Communing with fae was always a strange experience but as Fernilda reached her mind into Hickory's consciousness she used every experience she'd had with his kind to communicate.

His mind was cold and raw. A trunk with it's branches chopped off, a tall proud tree rotting from the inside, a stone shattered by a blast of lightning. Fernilda spoke. The branches would sprout and grow even longer, the tree decay into soil to be born again, the stone crumble into the sands of the sea. All this was inevitable and beyond the scope of mortalkind, was free and part of a cycle that existed separate from the wars and lives of the children of Primus.

Her thoughts entwined with Hickory’s, words turning to feeling and memory. Primus, the creator of mortals. How Hickory had laughed at such a passing creation's sense of importance. How he and his siblings had found amusement at their joy in the gifts of nature. How strange and alluring it was that they kept returning, somehow always having something to catch the eye of the fae who rolled through the ages on the turning wheel of the seasons. A promise made, an agreement to share in each other's happiness. How they'd looked forward to the occasional taste of sweet life, the difference and pleasure giving their own natural cause brighter purpose.

But there was pain too. Mortals left and died, they lied and betrayed. Still the fae loved them. What were a few mistakes in the face of eternity? So his siblings had laughed at his anger. Laughed even though there were so fewer voices to join in. Gone. Gone. Gone. An emptiness that would not be filled. As empty as the space between the stars. Mortals understood pain. Maybe they would understand, would be able to tell him with their songs and their stories how they managed such things.

"You keep living," Fernilda whispered, Hickory's face in her hands. "That is something you can easily do. Keep living and keep being happy in spite of the pain. There is no ending for your kind, no need to be afraid."

But he was afraid. He was afraid the way Magnolia had been afraid when he'd found her in that garden in Aryus. Afraid of being alone or losing what he knew. Lyra had saved his sister, promised to save all his people.

"I don't like her," Magnolia had whispered, "she is like those that brought me here. She has nothing to give, only eyes to take."

Lyra was not kind. Was not like the mortals he had sung and danced with through the ages. She was a mortal of fire and steel, like....like....those who'd burned and killed his brothers and sisters. Like the Empire.

Iron Queen Lyra. Empress Lyra. How had he been so foolish? Why was he playing the worst of the mortal's games? The druid was right, this wasn't what he was. He didn't want to be here, bargaining with words for relief from pain. He was a fae and that meant he was free.

Fernilda pulled back, the wild surging images of countless lives flashing before her, trees dying and giving seed to be born again, over and over across the ages. It was beautiful and incomprehensible, and so very fae.

Roots grew from Hickory's feet, digging down into the stone and reaching up to twist around his body. The onslaught from the Arch Mage continued but as Hickory disappeared, sealed beneath wood, it seemed to glance harmlessly off. In a matter of seconds a tall hickory tree stood proudly from the top of the Arch Mage's tower.