Tora's upset with clerics and their gods and very legitimately so, but, well. "It doesn't work that way," Aria sighs. "I can't just put a druid in every tribe and village..."

"Well it should!" Tora's more passionate than resigned about this. "You can do anything you set your mind to. This could be your big chance!"

A land run by druids, without clerics... it's a nice fantasy, but ultimately just that.

"Clerics are like an invasive species. You can't have people without gods clericking them, and they give them enough power to shape the societies they're in." By healing, yes, and by tyranny and passing laws and interfering with others' work, but above all by teaching people to follow their gods. "So I want to know what's stopping them here." 

'Here' might still turn out to be just one or a few villages of seriously deluded humans, even if they didn't seem enchanted to her.

"Alright." Tora nods, a habit she picked up from human-shaped Aria and thinks is hilarious because it used to vaguely embarrass Aria in the company of other druids. "Then you'll find out."

Indeed she will, and she'll start by casting another spell - a very limited one, only a few miles in range, but she'd like to make sure she didn't miss anything. She settles down comfortably, and slips back into meditation.

Presence and absence, light and shadow. Hearing and sound, the hunter and the hunted. Spells and spell-slots, for another quarter-hour.

Then she shifts into a different, lighter trance. She is more aware of the world around her; indeed she is hyper-aware, letting herself be subsumed into it, wind and scent and sound and light carrying news to her. She is this part of the world, right here, and so she knows (she is, she cannot be without knowing) about everything else that is here. The plants and animals, the rocks and clouds, the streams of water. 

Who lives here, walking and growing and flowing downhill? Does anything powerful or unnatural trouble them? 

Did she miss anything, with her merely mortal eyes and ears?

In ten minutes, she will know the answer.

The grass (and, closer to the village, wheat and barley) is rippling in a slight west wind.  The grass and clover and bushes did well earlier in the spring, but now they've started to dry out.  It isn't yet to the point where a fire would be threatening... but if it were earlier in the season, it might be.

Several brooks and streams are scattered nearby - a few have run dry in the summer, but many of them are still running with snowmelt from the mountains to the south, running north and then west to flow eventually into the Isen River.  Both the mountains and river are outside the span of her spell - but inside it, the fish are lazing happily.

Many of the small animals are underground now against the summer heat.  Aria is only a few yards from a rabbit warren, with a dozen rabbits curled up grooming each other.

On the Road, she can feel a few riders - two humans trotting west on horseback - and an ox tiredly lumbering east unhappy at the heavy cart it's pulling.

Further to the northwest, the herd of horses she'd seen before is galloping back west toward her.

Those horses have been doing a lot of running today! Are they just full of energy, or easily spooked, or are they being pursued? Aria is curious what animals prey on horses in these lands, besides presumably humans.

She rises, and stretches. "Tora, dear? Would you like horse for dinner?"

"Hard to ambush them in this flat land," Tora remarks. "And we're upwind."

"They're unlikely to fall for it," Aria agrees. "But it's worth trying. Go for that tall grass, I'll spook them towards you."

It's normal for most hunts to end in failure. Aria isn't going to tip the scales with her magic; if they can't make a living catching prey, with all their supposed wisdom and experience, they might as well eat berries.

The lead stallion of the herd, Shadowfax, is galloping at the side of the herd now, veering back and forth to keep the younger colts in line.

It's a good day for a gallop.  Well, most days are good.  When it's dry.  And when there aren't any Humans or other Two-Legs interfering.  But this's a good day, and the herd agrees it's a good day.

He can't hear the strange Grey Wandering Two-Legs behind him anymore - maybe the Grey Wandering Two-Legs has finally gone away?  Or maybe he'll show up again in a bit.  But Shadowfax won't worry about him now.

Suddenly, Shadowfax gets a sniff of Danger!  Two big Cats, coming right for his herd!

They're still a ways off now, but he won't stay to judge how fast they're coming.  He rears, whinnies, and starts turning the herd north away from the Cats.

A few of the mares and colts are confused; they haven't smelled the Cats yet.  But most of them trust Shadowfax and quickly make the turn.

... leaving a rather confused Gandalf waiting, hidden, a little ways ahead of where the horses had been going.

Has Shadowfax decided he really won't let himself be tamed after all?

Or has something else interfered...

... ah, there is something else moving on the plains of Rohan.

It looks like some big predators?

Is this some new devilry of Saruman's?

Gandalf starts heading over to get a closer look.

That was an interesting-looking horse! It looked like it might be of a different subrace from the others, though it smelt ordinary. Unfortunately she didn't get a very close look.

"Oh well. We can start walking east, there's still daylight left. There's no other prey near us" - no suitably large prey, that is - "but maybe we'll find something farther afield."

Large plains often have big herds of grazers with huge empty spaces between them, with the only way to catch someone is to follow their trail a long way, which would be inconvenient. Horses are better than bison, in that sense; the herds are smaller and more numerous.

Also, she'll detour a bit to harvest some berries for her daily goodberry casting, replacing the ones she gave the villagers in the rotation. (And hope she won't be asking Tora to eat any. There's a mystery afoot, but no hurry.)

Before too long, and before they see another herd of suitably-large animals, Gandalf comes into sight.  He's walking with his stick, but surprisingly quickly even for someone who doesn't look as old as he does.

He's keeping one eye out for Shadowfax (he expects he hasn't gone too far), but mostly studying these new creatures.

... They're tigers.  How in the world did two tigers get to Rohan?  Did Sauron bring one all the way from Far Harad or Far Rhun?

And one of them is a surprisingly large tiger!  He wouldn't have thought there were any tigers that large this side of the Sea!

What's that surprisingly large tiger doing sniffing at a berry bush?

She's checking if the berries are ripe! The spell has exacting requirements, and she's not familiar with this exact variety of bilberry.

The berries can keep, though; she'll need to shift human to harvest them, and she wants to talk to the man first. She walks towards him, and Tora follows.

Most people out on their own would give two great tigers a wide berth, but he's looking straight at her and might have followed her trail. He seems to be old, and isn't conspicuously armed. That makes him potentially of interest.

She'll hail him when she's in a comfortable loud-voice range, which is (for good and for bad) much greater than detect magic range. Unless he chooses to run away after all when he sees two tigers start heading towards him.

Gandalf doesn't run away; but he shifts into a position that looks clearly ready to fight.  He doesn't want to fight some tigers with Saruman suddenly a traitor and Frodo hopefully on the road to Rivendell, but he's not going to just run away with all these questions unanswered.

(Aria can see he's treating his staff like a weapon.)

And then - she talks.

He didn't think there were any skinchangers in Rohan?

"Good afternoon!" he answers.  "Are you also travelers in Rohan?"

"We are. In fact, we recently arrived here in a teleportation accident. Are you a traveler yourself, and familiar with other lands?" This is encouraging!

His bushy eyebrows go up at her strange answer.

"A... magic quick-flying accident?  That sounds like an interesting story I haven't heard!  I'm not sure what that would look like, unless the Eagles count you enough of a friend to give you a ride?  But I haven't heard of them having accidents in a long time."

(No need to mention now just how long that time is.)

"I don't believe I've met any speaking tigers before.  Where are you from?"

"Not flying. Perhaps the translation is wrong? Teleportation is - the class of magic that instantaneously transports creatures elsewhere, usually practised by wizards."

"Which is all I can tell you about it, as I'm not a wizard, I'm a druid. Aria, at your service, and this is my friend Tora. I'm not familiar with the local eagles, but I could turn into one myself if I wanted to fly the ordinary way. Although, if these Eagles are big enough to give a dire tiger a ride, I would very much like to meet them!" A roc could do it, but rocs aren't traditionally called eagles; another translation issue, perhaps?

"We're from the Verduran forest on the continent of Avistan, north of the Inner Sea. You may have heard of the country of Taldor which borders it, or the city of Absalom to its south."

"And I would like to include Tora in the conversation, but she only knows Taldane and Sylvan, not whatever the local languages are called. Do you have a way to bridge this? I can prepare share language, but it would take me a quarter-hour."

"I'd be happy to include Tora if I can!  Given she speaks a language...  Are you, and she, comfortable with osanwe?  Or perhaps I should explain, given your doubts about translation - speaking words into each other's minds, or perhaps concepts to someone you know well?  With all of us standing right next to each other, I think I could osanwe words with both of you even though we've just met."

It's been a while since he's done it with anyone except Elves.  Most humans speak Westron or some other language he knows, so it wouldn't do anything except make them more shocked at his magic, and that doesn't help anything.  Here it might help.  But he still won't actually do it unless one of them says they're fine.

"We call it telepathy. And we don't mind; I've met some telepathic creatures before." She does tell Tora to expect it before he goes ahead.

(On Golarion, telepathy has nothing in common with detect thoughts.)

<Well-met, I hope,> Gandalf osanwe's to both of them.  He's sending words as well as the wordless thoughts - Tora won't understand them, and Aria only through her language spell, but it might help.  At least, he wants them to hear names as well as the concepts behind them.  Besides, words are the less-unusual form of osanwe; most Elves consider the wordless version to be inelegant.  <I am Gandalf, a visitor to these parts myself - and a wizard, but I don't believe I've encountered any instant-transport magic for those of us who have bodies.>

(And he's rather surprised that other wizards are able to do it.  Even in places that aren't in Arda, as he's starting to suspect these visitors might be from.)

<Also, I've never heard of any of those places Aria names.  And this surprises me, as I've traveled a long ways, and spoken with my cousins who've traveled farther still.>

("Cousins," of course, is the usual term he uses for his fellow wizards.  The languages of Middle-Earth don't have better words for their relationship.)

<Hello! It's nice to be included. Usually Aria can let me speak to people, but I have to know their language!>