“Forgive me.”

The steady sound of running water nearly drowned the soft-spoken apology. The source was a lively stream not even thirty feet away, nestled at the bottom of a small ravine. It was carved over hundreds of years as the flowing waters ventured from the top of the mountain to the bottom.

A pair of pointed ears rose to show that the message had carried.

They belonged to an elven woman who looked to be in her mid-adulthood, with the auburn hair framing her face coming to a stop just short of her shoulders. She set down the fallen branch she’d been in the middle of carving with only a dagger and ran her hands over her brown clothes that were smeared with wet, green stains and bark shavings. Then she fixed her emerald gaze onto the young man kneeled across from her on the hard stone, clothed knees stained from pressing into the wet moss layering the surface.

He was a human just entering into the age of adulthood for his kind, his brown skin, and firmly-set jawline, being his defining features. His red eyes were hidden beneath the shadow cast by his locks of black hair, even though entire body was rigidly set into a formal posture with his back ramrod straight. He was intentionally avoiding looking at her.

It was clear something had left him bothered enough, but the context only became clear once she spotted the trinket around his neck. It was a necklace made of animal teeth and claws and hempen cord. She could tell from a glance they all came from a Brown Bear.

“…You don’t need to apologize if that’s the choice you’ve made,” she finally told him. “I can’t begrudge you for choosing to walk the same path as your family, and at least nothing will go waste knowing them.”

The woman before him was a druid who acted as the custodian and warden of the forests that made up the mountain range. She believed that nature provided everything one needed to live, no matter what the terrain or hardships, so long as one could connect to the world around them and grasped the wisdom it offered. It would not be a life of comfort or luxury, but it was still a place where one could flourish if they didn’t expect nature to go out of its way to coddle them.

His family, on the other hand, followed a martial tradition where it was taught that one’s position in life was what they could manage with their own hands. They believed not in relying on the whims of nature, but instead their own ability to survive it. Because of that hours were spent every day honing the body to be as strong as possible and connecting to the inner strength within, rather than being attuned to the world around them.

She and his family weren’t exactly close, but they’d known each other in passing for more than two decades now since the mountain his family had taken residence within were under her protection. Nature did not conform easily to those that ventured so deeply into the forests, and so very few people lived in the higher sections of the mountain due to how dangerous the wildlife and terrain was. The fact that she and his family lived in these dangerous pockets of land without complaint had resulted in them having a somewhat distant, yet begrudging, respect for one another.

Even so, their ideologies were too different for them to become anything resembling friends or close acquaintances. She valued embracing oneself as a part of the world. His family valued being able to stand on your own strength.

But between the two of them, it was… different.

Different enough that the soft rattle from around his neck stirred a sense of guilt in his chest. It was a weight that pulled his head down, leaving him unable to face her. “I really am sorry for wasting your time.”

A slight humming noise left her mouth as she brushed her hands together and then she set them down on her lap. “It wasn’t a waste. You needed help. And while I would have loved to see you flourish as one of us, I will respect the choice you’ve made for yourself.”

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Druids were very selective in who they chose to teach their arts, which had been around since the very first time the Spoken beseeched the sky for rain and the land for a bountiful harvest. They were secretive, down to having their own language and arts only known them. Yet, she’d still extended a hand to him when he’d needed it.

And now, when her offer to lay bare every secret that had been guarded carefully was rejected with two words, she simply accepted the rejection.

All while wearing a soft smile.

“…At the very least, let me repay you for what you taught me.” If he could at least remain on amicable terms with her, that would be enough. To want more than that would be overreaching. “If there’s anything I can do, just ask and I’ll do it.”

Her brows furrowed for a moment. Her emerald eyes closed as she took a soft inhalation through her nose. Then she nodded her head, a placid serenity gracing her features. “If you insist, then I will ask a favor from you.”

Rising onto her slender feet, the stool woven of dirt and moss sank back into the earth as she crossed the mouth of the ravine using a fallen trunk that stretched over the six-foot gap. The moss-covered surface was treacherous enough that a misstep would send you falling into the river below. And since the stone walls of the ravine had been polished, smoothed out, and left slippery by the rushing water, there was no way to catch yourself on the way down.

It wasn’t the only hazard within this isolated section of mountainous forest, where vines dangled from the rich canopies as the filtered light cast a shade of viridian over everything beneath it. The untamed wilderness was difficult terrain to cross freely due to a myriad of long-lived trees with sprawling thick roots that crawled over every surface and formed an uneven network of natural tripwires that could lead to a stumble. Fallen branches that hadn’t been able to weather the passing of time and rough outcroppings of stone, both of which were riddled with green and white growths, made for an unpleasant landing… to say the least.

All the same, she crossed it without fear or even breaking her stride. The moss didn’t seem slippery beneath her bare feet and anything that could catch or injure her was avoided without so much as a glance, leaving her unharmed and unhindered. “Are you aware of a city called Maui’niwet?”

“I’ve heard of it in passing from people at the bottom of the mountains,” he answered while following her, albeit at a slower pace and with far more caution. He wasn’t attuned to their surroundings to the degree she was, so he lacked the heightened awareness that allowed her to traverse the land she was the custodian of without trouble.

“One of the temples there has commissioned me to create something to assist them with a ceremonial ritual that they will be carrying out shortly,” she said, entering into an ancient, hollowed-out tree that she called her home. “I’ve done work with them in the past, so when they asked me to make an effigy in the image of their patron’s sacred animal, I couldn’t say no.”

The insides of the tree had supposedly rotted out when she arrived. But the tree itself was still alive as the sapwood still carried the abundance of life needed to flourish. She’d used a fire to hollow it out, controlling the flames through her druidic arts so that it didn’t grow out of control or harm the healthy parts of the tree. Now it served as her place to live—or at least a convenient place for her to store things and for the two of them to meet.

“I want you to deliver this on my behalf and then observe the ritual, so you can report back to me what you took away from the experience,” she finished after exiting it with a pouch that had a series of etchings on it. “But, whatever you do, do not open the pouch. Only the head priestess and I can do so safely.”

He was cautious as he took it, recognizing what the etchings were. It was a magical alphabet that only the trained druid could decipher and thus imbue with magic. Since the etchings themselves held their own power, if one who wasn’t attuned to the primal magic were to try and grasp it, they would fail.

In truth, he never had any intention of letting his curiosity get the better of him. Not when it meant betraying her trust. He felt as though he’d already disappointed her as it was, so delivering it in her place was the least he could do. “Is it really alright for me to take it in your place?”

“I will prepare a letter for you that will explain the circumstances,” she assured him, resting her hands on his shoulders. “You won’t be participating in the ritual itself, but I do hope that the experience will help settle your heart.”

Ah…she noticed. Because of course she would. “I’ll see it through. I promise you.”

“Good boy.” She pulled her hands free and then her smile shifted to a slightly more mischievous one. “Still, it’ll be a long trip. Let me give you a few things to help you out along the way. Call them gifts for your coming of age.”