A Chilly Reception

[Alegretto]

On a lonely fire-blasted hill in northern Le'raana, there stands a tree. A tall, healthy, and strong white pine. It stands alone. Around it are the burned husks of hundreds of trees. They must have once covered the entire hillside in green needles, but now they stand dead and barren.

The tree stands alone, solitary in it's position. Of course, the tree isn't actually a tree. It's a dryad. Well, and a tree too. It's complicated. However the dryad was just as alone as the tree. Silent and unmoving, almost as if in hibernation.

Until something disturbed.

A change, in the feel of her hill. There was an intruder. Wood creaked and groaned, and pine needles, shrunk and re-formed. Slowly, laboriously, the tree changed into a human-like figure. Winova stretched her newly formed limbs, and the same creaking sound the came from the tree was audible in her joints.

Once she was limber enough to move once more, she set off down the hillside, intent on finding out who disturbed her sacred place. Whoever they were, they had to go. No one could be here. Not anymore. No one could.

[zozee9]

Kayala drifted through the dead trees, feet crunching down on fallen bark. Her nose twitched as a brisk wind passed by, not because of the cold but because she was searching for a scent. Any scent. But there was nothing except the smell of the burned trees.

Even still, she kept her bow at the side and mentally prepared herself to be ready to shoot at any second. The silence disturbed her and her senses were on alert. Something just felt... off. And after years of traveling, Kayala had learned to trust her sixth sense.

The forest had been burned badly. There were no animals, no green, no movement. But even with all the depression that surrounded it, it had a sort of unique and serene beauty gained from the life of the sun. Death and life. Those two things always played with each other, creating a weird but stable balance. Until, that is, someone decided to mess with the nature of the earth.

Kayala kept moving, one slow and cautious step at a time, to reach the top of the mysterious hill.

[Alegretto]

Winova moved from burnt husk to husk, searching for the intruder on her hill. It didn't take her long from her higher vantage point to identify the source of the disturbance. There, about halfway up the incline, a hint of movement.

From behind Tellnia's burnt body, Winova watched the interloper. It was a human woman, by the looks of it, though her skin was as white as the snow lightly dusting the ground. Interesting.

It looked like she hadn't seen Winova yet, though there was no way to tell, and the dryad considered her options. However she looked at the situation, however, it appeared that the best thing to do was direct confrontation.

Winova broke cover and stared down at the stranger. She made sure that the girl had seen her, and then she let loose a shout. She used her body to amplify her call, letting it reverberate underneath her wooden skin and allowing it to grow in volume before releasing it as a massive burst of sound that shook the branches on the burnt trees, "LEAVE HERE NOW!!!"

[zozee9]

Movement. Kayala's body snapped to the side, bow arched and arrow prepared. She hardly processed the words, instead gazing in amazement at the girl. With that light green skin, dark green hair, and brown eyes, Kayala had no doubts about what she was seeing.

Quickly changing the direction of her bow and shooting the ground, Kayala slung the magical weapon across her shoulder and dropped to her knees. Bowing her head down, she responded, "It is an honor to meet a forest dryad. To have one present themselves to me is a respect greater than any other, and I hope to be able to repay the favor to the gods and you yourself."

Indeed, this forest was special. It was miraculous—a dryad was probably the closest she would ever be to meeting a goddess.

[Alegretto]

Winova looked with disbelief down at the human. Had the foolish girl not heard her? No, that was impossible, her words had rattled the whole hillside. That left only one answer. The girl was ignoring her. And that wasn't to mention the weapon she was carrying in her hands.

Very un-dryad like rage was building up in Winova, and it exploded as violent action. The spirit lunged forward across the distance with surprising speed, closing in on the girl. She tucked her shoulder, intending to give the human a shoulder check that would send a bear flying.