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Morrigan was a whirlwind of tumultuous feelings as he found himself abruptly expelled from the confines of Valeran's abode. The portal slammed with finality, the sound reverberating, Pierre’s jeers followed Morrigan like persistent shadows while he descended the steps in disarray. Rage blinded him and with it fueling his actions, he surged toward the door, his body crashing against its steadfast form. Fists balled, he unleashed a barrage of thumps and a litany of oaths spilled forth. Yet, those ensconced within stood as cold statues to his vehement display. In time, the icy fingers of despair began to sap the heat from his wrathful blaze. Could there be wisdom waiting in the whispering leaves, solace nestled in boughs? Weighted by sorrow, he dragged himself in the direction of the encroaching woods.
His pace diminished under the oppressive weight of his defeat, a forewarning of the calamity that lurked over the forest sanctuary. Nature’s sentinels —the birches— stood immobile; their foliage hung despondently, succumbing to an unseen yet palpable resignation. Edge-bound of this sacred grove, Morrigan halted to regard his timepiece and was met with astonishment at the revelation: it was already midday. The little wood’s time-thread was thinning rapidly.
Penetrating the grove’s boundary, Morrigan was greeted by a hush that blanketed him like pall mourning attire; it seemed even the coppice itself mourned as a sentient being drowning in gloom. He navigated the stillness until he faced the lustrous sentinel—a tree whose polished bark gleamed beside the solemn fir and cradled an expiring birch within its roots. Here in this bastion of silence, he laid his palm upon the tranquil surface of nature’s monument.
"Allow my eyes one more chance!" he pleaded, his voice barely above a hush. "Convey your words to me!"
Yet the thicket remained eerily silent. He roamed, his murmurs became calls into the void, but all was futile—no gesture returned, no whisper acknowledged. The birch trees stood sullen like heartbroken nymphs; the spruce trees loomed as if they were warriors subdued in battle, all wrapped in an overwhelming gloom.
Morrigan mulled over when Valeran would unveil his strategy. A full hour had slipped away since the mysterious rendezvous at the lodge. What was causing the delay in the woodsman's impending onslaught? Resting upon a bed of soft moss and propped up against the steadfast base of an ancient tree, realization dawned on him in a sudden, insightful flash.
Morrigan, too, may have been ensnared by delusions as befell Valeran and his lineage. He replayed the elder's diatribe denouncing the woods, discerning the intense abhorrence that blazed within his gaze. It reeked of lunacy. For when all is said and done, the forest consisted simply of trees. Yet Valeran, along with his offspring, had transposed onto this flora a bitter grudge inherited from forebears, once beleaguered by oppressive feudal masters; they lashed out at the trees as surrogates for antiquated tyrants, engaging in a symbolic defiance against a fate that had doomed their lives to perpetual hardship.
Meanwhile, could it be Morrigan's innate affinity for the woodland that tainted his judgments, painting an illusory sentience where none existed? Might he be gazing at a phantasm born from his own concoction? It was his melancholy he perceived—not the trees'. They held no capacity for grief, our natural kin were incognizant of sensation or knowledge. The echo he felt was not from the arboreal entities but a reflection of his own sorrow.
After all, the trees were simply that—trees, nothing more than silent sentinels in an enchanted land.
In the very moment Morrigan grappled with his revelation, the grove around him echoed palpably. As he leaned against a sturdy tree, it suddenly trembled, setting off a chain reaction as the surrounding thicket stirred into a quivering ballet. Leaves shook as if ensnared in an invisible tempest—a dance without a breath of wind to choreograph it.
Morrigan stood, a picture of bewilderment, as a tide of doubt flooded through him. His logical mind clung to the notion of a natural breeze behind this anomaly; but the air’s eerie calm suggested a different truth. Then, softly at first, the hush of the woods gave way to something like sighs—the lamenting whispers of an unseen spirit resonating among the branches—swelling in volume, entangled with the dim echoes of anguish.
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“They come! They come! Farewell sisters! Sisters—farewell!”
These murmurs filtered through the soundscape to Morrigan, lucid and haunting. No longer could he dismiss the eeriness as mere play of nature; there was something unaccountable at work. The forest itself seemed to be vibrating with an unseen sentience or soul. A mournful bond with the trees revealed itself—a premonition stirring within their midst—a collective foreboding that something dire was imminent in their realm.
Morrigan sprinted with breathtaking speed across the trembling woods, on a desperate beeline for the trail that promised escape to Valeran's open fields and the solace of his lodge. But as he surged forward, a peculiar dusk began to settle upon the grove, impelling a darkness not carried by night's approach but that of an enigmatic, shadowy veil wrapping itself around the woodland—a shroud seemingly cast by colossal, unseen entities that unfurled their ghostly wings above.
With every stride he took, the woods shuddered more violently, their branches entangling in frantic might-have-been-embraces. The trees’ lament escalated into a haunting requiem, reverberating through the forest as an elegy of leaves:
"Farewell sister! Sister—farewell!"
It was as if the trees were murmuring final adieus, their sighs etching a narrative of kinship and interconnectedness in the looming shadow of obliteration. A tangible air of parting soaked the atmosphere; Morrigan found himself immersed in their song of unity and anguish—an ethereal chorus fraying the edges of what one thought it meant to be sentient. Bound by an otherworldly connection, the trees exuded a collective mourning so palpable it surpassed the grasp of mere mortals.
Pushed by this revelation, Morrigan's legs pumped harder against the ground; propelled by a mission interwoven with every fiber of his being. As he blazed across the forest floor, his soul was laden with their shared sorrow, a harbinger bearing witness to an unfolding tragedy rooted deep within nature’s very essence.
Morrigan stood defiantly in the clearing, his intense gaze locked on the approaching figure of Valeran and his sons. The steel of their axes caught the sun's mocking rays as they moved forward. As they closed in, any remnants of rational thought in Morrigan were stripped away, consumed by an ancient, wild rage that drove him inexorably toward violence. His muscles tensed like coiled springs, he was the embodiment of readiness, his consciousness wiped clean by the inferno of anger roaring within him.
From the encircling hillsides came a resounding tumult, an overwhelming surge of sound that seemed to burst forth from the forest's very essence. It was an orchestration of fury and threat, as if a myriad of trees had lent their voices to a gusty chorus, propelling Morrigan's wrath to blistering new heights.
Oblivious to the forest's frenzied symphony, the woodsmen advanced with jests on their lips and their deadly instruments brandished. Morrigan, disregarding the perils that loomed, launched himself towards them full tilt.
"Retreat!" he bellowed at Valeran, his voice devoured by the wave of derision and disdain that washed over him.
But Valeran grasped him with a strength that seemed wrought from steel itself, hurling Morrigan effortlessly into the hands of his awaiting kin. With semblance ease, they sent Morrigan spinning into the dense thicket at the forest's fringe. Regaining his footing with a bestial cry, his fury knew no bounds as it broke free. The sound of the forest had swelled to an authoritative roar that pierced through leaf and bark alike:
"Destroy!"
As Valeran's unblemished son swung his axe with force into a birch trunk, a chorus of lament sprang up from within the woodland. Utilizing this momentary distraction, Morrigan lashed out abruptly with a ferocious hit to his assailant’s visage. In the turmoil that erupted thereafter, man and son plummeted into the welter of timber debris on the ground—their twisted forms ensnared amidst branches that reached out as though possessing their own will to capture Valeran's offspring.
Valeran and his one-eyed offspring were reluctant to step between them, their voices lost in the forest's impassioned plea.
No longer did the thicket grieve quietly; it seethed with a pulse of untamed vitality. Morrigan alone seemed attuned to its call, keenly aware of its tempestuous dance, while the others remained blind to its profound spectacle.
"Slay him!" implored the copse, its voice thunderous. "Let his life ebb away!"
Shadows took form around Morrigan—ghostly warriors donned in hues mimicking the woods, murmuring sanguinary encouragements.
"Slay him!" they whispered urgently. "Release his crimson essence!"
Amidst the tumult, a blade's hilt slipped into Morrigan's liberated grasp.
"Slay him!" coaxed the phantom battalion.
"Slay him!" bellowed the copse anew.
"Slay him!" commanded the entire forest.
Surrounded by calls for retribution from both vengeful timber and apparitions alike, Morrigan found himself ensnared within the tempest of hostility. The knife he held became an extension of the woodland's desires, a grim tool destined to deliver its vengeful decree.