In her youth Nalai’Dormata had presented the judges with a tier 45 kiwi tree. It was a favourite fruit of the Cloven, but while a tier 45 tree was good for a test like this, it was not enough to ensure a win.
They had expected more of someone so highly touted by an ancient family.
So Nalai presented them with twenty more. All grown within the past five weeks and of unblemished quality.
This was not the kind of plant you just mass-produced, this presentation from an amateur still being schooled begged questions.
Nalai had gloated, feeling even then that this period of her results being respected may turn out brief. Seeing the looks that her display produced, it was enough to cement the truth which she pursued in her mind.
Before delving into her methods; Nalai had explained carefully, deliberately, how her results could get them every prize of true importance at the Interstates.
They had all nodded along with every word, right up until she detailed her process. The philosophy made it obvious where she had been learning–it was just not done–the results were suddenly beside it. No matter how they exceeded every expectation of Human craft thanks to Nalai’s addition to the process.
The issue was that the Cloven believed in the spirits of plants, and that no short-term gain was worth compromising their long-term ideals for how plants must be developed.
Yes, Human methods sometimes produced improved, replicable results.
But at what cost? At the cost of the very soul of the plant, of that one individual who would have met unique circumstances, mutated and potentially given rise to a whole new branch of hortology.
Nalai was conservative in her methodology and still preserved the Cloven core; she just put enough effort into moulding the result to perfection, and noted surrounding conditions to a scientific degree, with the use of druidic Skills. It all depended on the kind of measured analysis and planning that Humans were so fond of.
It had taken her years, but by this point she could replicate her results in any normal Cloven garden.
It was not enough. It was not art.
Competing with this method among the other Cloven institutions was a fool’s errand, as it turns out. Ultimately it would gain them nothing but ridicule unless they hid the methods, something that could only be done for so long; before they were assuredly discovered, possibly even before the next competition–leading to even greater ridicule then instead.
Of course while their competition would gladly, unashamedly enjoy the full yield of their efforts among their own Realmlands. Not even Nalia having performed her deed with the kiwi, an old Cloven favourite, could change the underlying facts.
And so, despite her passionate arguing, and the full support of her family; Nalai was not chosen.
In the coming years she would lose herself in a great number of debates, becoming a civic voice, one that turned abrasive in the ears of the leadership.
Nalai lost more and more of any remaining patience with every year. Spilling more and more of her true thoughts: She had come to loudly argue about ‘Why, if the spirits of our plants are so sacrosanct, and the plant that prevailed in the wild was so clearly superior, why then did Cloven insist on driving predators from their lands?’
In the end, was that not also providing artificial advantages, just in a different way from the Humans?
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Why would these methods be permitted unless we had strayed from our ways?
Her questioning did not go unnoticed, but neither did it make waves among the general public. She was just a [Druid].
Within years she was relegated to acting as a glorified [Gardener], wielding little to no influence and keeping company with nary a soul outside her own kind.
It was enough to make a Cloven go mad and habitually volunteer for clearing out predators in Doc Forrest.
Of course, while there she also ensured the Humans were still taking good care of the ancestral lands her family had once gifted them. It would sadden her when they did not recall any longer, the day when someone in her family came there and they had truly forgotten.
Even now they had to search records to validify her claims of ownership in her remaining estates. It was a frustrating thing, how hard could it be to remember the Dormata family?
They once named their capital in our honour for bark's sake.
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When Nalai’Dormata returned to Cloven lands, to the southern capital of Wapiti, after having cleared out the last of the starving and rabid mosswolves she could find, she reported straight to the [Druid] headquarters.
The building was no building at all but a huge tree that had been petrified on its demise and even prior to that–been turned into a massive fortress to prepare for the day.
A proud Cloven bull was manning the reception; one who Nalai recognised unfortunately.
“Returned just in time I see, how convenient,” Nalai walked right past him, refusing to rise to the bait. “Last strike and now she suddenly knows how to show up on time,”
She was almost down the horticured corridor.
“Guess you really were taking some extra time for mommy when you needed an extra week those other times, or did you finally learn to let a pack go,”
Those words went deeper than anybody but the two of them could know. They had her marching right back before any conscious decision was made.
She spoke through gritted molars an inch from his muzzle. “I am actually back because for once I got lucky, you’re right. Rather than walk into a clearing of mosswolves and barghatz, finishing up swallowing the small ones after catching a train of Human families,” She slammed her hand on his desk. “For once the wolves rather ran into trouble themselves instead, leaving everyone in a young party injured but alive by the skin of their teeth. Saved by a strange girl, that you especially would find interesting, and who I might have even told you about, since you will hear of it eventually,”
He was looking stunned, he had meant to provoke a reaction, but one so strong was out of character, even for his ex. Certainly in the workplace.
“Might have, if you were not you.”
With that she turned her hooves right around and marched to the office of their mutual boss.
[Archdruid] Gello’Naceii. Nalai was about to tell her everything she had learned of in Doc Forrest.
[Druids] were simply no longer in a position in Cloven society to afford to keep secrets from one another unless stringently necessary, it was too important that they act in tandem.
And this was big. Potentially.
First we just need to establish some things for certain.