<Why do you prefer to befriend a wild horse and not take one from the king? Is it for the horse's benefit, or your own?> Tora is thinking along the same lines, but is rather less cautious in what she says.

<I need a horse I can trust, and who can trust me - and if I can, one who can outrace all Sauron's riders.  And when I saw Shadowfax, I knew no horse would be his equal if I can befriend him.>

This man is definitely presenting as a ranger, and not a wizard at all, whatever he may call himself. She'll be more frank, then.

<Who are these 'we' you speak of? How do this Saruman's plans reflect on his hypothetical attitude to me, a stranger, were I to visit him? We druids do not involve ourselves in most mortal wars; there are never enough of us to tend to the tasks only we truly care about, and we must not squander our strength or make ourselves a target for other powers.>

<You say the king of Rohan may soon be at war. The villagers I spoke to said Rohan might be at war with other humans called the Dunlendings. I am not powerful enough to impose eternal peace, not without dedicating my life to this border between two countries, and I would need a very good reason to pick a side to help defeat the other.>

<In the past thousand years in Avistan - the continent we come from - only twice have all druids agreed on a cause to fight for, and in both cases most druids could not afford to join the effort.> The Shining Crusade was won without them; the fight at the Worldwound is still ongoing. No druid wants Urgathoa or Deskari to rule the planet, but they are not willing to let their forests burn, plundered by greedy humans while they are away.

<You have made it clear you and others are Sauron's enemies, but why should I care about your war?>

Ah, she is used to standing back out of conflicts like the Ents or Entwives.

(And yet the Entwives and their gardens were destroyed ere the end.)

<No one is powerful enough to impose eternal peace,> he sighs, <even if it were good to impose it from outside.  The gods tried, once, but it did not turn out well.>

(faint memories of Feanor drawing his sword on his brother - and all the hoarded treasures of Formenos which vanished in a single hour) -

<You are a stranger to Saruman; if you visited, I fear he would not believe that you would stay out of his war; or he might try to force you to join him anyway.  Or, perhaps, try to discover the secret of your shape-changing...  What are the tasks you care for?>

<Everyone asks druids that, and almost everyone walks away unsatisfied. Not because it is a secret, but because we find it so hard to explain without the years of training that candidate druids receive. It is a philosophy, a set of beliefs, as much as knowledge and a goal.>

<Of course I will try.>

<We want the best for all people. We recognize all sentient beings as people, equally deserving of our care: humanoids, animals, sentient plants and many other creatures. We value the diversity of species. And we attend to people's lives, rather than their afterlives.> Not that the afterlives aren't important, but they have more than enough attention already. <These principles are simple; the way to promote them is very complex.>

<All people are at war against each other. Not just human tribes, or predator and prey; people compete for territory, for the very air and sunlight, and of course they compete to breed. Life is a struggle. It is almost impossible to help people without hurting their rivals, and so we rarely try. But we recognize that that life, with all its pain and struggle, with everyone's profit coming at someone's expense, is still an enormously good thing, worth fighting to help and preserve however we can. Not to help any one individual or tribe, but to help the web of life itself, which we call Nature.>

<The world is a vast and intricate network of - connections. Chains of causality, webs of food and energy, ways of life that create room for more life to flourish instead of devouring it. Ways in which a forest supports a million kinds of life, instead of a million individuals of the same species, or just one that eats all others and grows a million times bigger.>

<It is perhaps impossible to convey in a few words the beauty and the incredible complexity of nature. We spend all our lives studying it... And it is very hard, to improve on what nature has built over the history of the world. So for the most part, we work to prevent others from tearing it down, and unfortunately that work is never done.>

<In Golarion, other people think of druids as protectors of the forests. It is not that we wish to see the entire world one great forest; but there are far fewer forests now than there used to be, and humans want to destroy what is left, so we fight them, just as we would the turning of land into a desert, or the drying of a lake. Because what exists is worth preserving, and what people want to put in its stead is clearly worse. So when we do take a side, it is often the side of the forest.>

<At the same time, a druid might spend years helping a rare kind of insect flourish, or bring in predators to control a foreign species that is breeding too fast, or fight a blight attacking the humans' crops. There are so many things to attend to, in peacetime, and never enough hands. In the Verduran Forest, my first home, the druids signed a treaty with a human Emperor long ago that protects the forest, and so we are freer than most to attend to less urgent matters. But not being urgent does not make them less important.>

<You always overthink things,> Tora grumbles. <You rescued me, when I was being hurt and being made to hurt others. You took me away, and killed some of them, and made the rest afraid to do it to others. You do help individual people.>

<I do>, Aria acknowledges. <Because I am my own person, as well as a druid. I did it because it was Good, but I do not wish to present it as a central druidic concern.>

<I often find value in helping humans talk to the animals they live with. To let both understand what the others want, to build a better life together. And to stop humans who mistreat animals. I do not spend most of my time doing that, it just - happens that I travel a lot, and meet many people, and it is convenient to do that along the way.> 

Also, it was politically useful to remind the humans in Oppara they had powerful neighbours, and the arena provided her with an audience. Not that she wouldn't have done it anyway, but normally she'd have done it quietly, without putting on a show.

<If only more were like you!  Both as your own person, and as a Druid.>

Gandalf isn't Radagast or an Ent; he himself has a mission.  He was sent primarily for the Speaking Peoples of Middle-Earth, the Children of Illuvatar.  But the beasts and plants of Middle-Earth are also valuable.  And, someone who values them will do little ill and perhaps much good.

<What you say of druids reminds me of my cousin Radagast.  He lives on the eaves of Mirkwood, though he was traveling further west when I last saw him...  Or perhaps an old friend of mine, Treebeard the Ent.  Have you seen Ents where you are from?  They call themselves shepherds of the trees, and tend to the forests.>

He frowns.  He didn't plan to bring up Treebeard as a lead-in to the war, and he hopes Aria doesn't take it that way.  But, the segue is obvious.

<Or more specifically, these days, Fangorn Forest... which Saruman is even now felling, to fuel his forges.  I saw it when I was held in his tower.>

As Gandalf is speaking, Shadowfax pokes his head over a nearby shallow hill.  He's circled back to see what the Grey Wandering Two-Legs is doing with the big Cats.  He can't smell one of the Cats anymore... and now he can't see her either...

<We do have treants!> The mental image he sent is quite clear. <I am very glad to hear they exist here, too. Druids and treants often work together; I would be glad to visit them. And I will certainly not go to an enemy of the forests for advice or help when the forest has caretakers in need of help.> Aria definitely does not miss the implication, and whether or not it is wholly true or a device to turn her away from Saruman, she will check it in dead seriousness. 

<In truth, I would have expected another planet to be much more... alien. The animals and plants I have seen are all familiar; I may not recognize the exact species, but the web of relationships between them seems more familiar to me than even some of the remote regions of my own world, like life in the great underground caverns, or in the far north. We do not know the true origins of almost any of the races on Golarion; who created them and why, and how they might have changed over the aeons. Do you know it, for yours?>

Checking on dangerous predators instead of running away is unusual behaviour for horses. (Perhaps she should not assume she knows animals as well as she thinks she does, on an alien world!) Can she hear or smell the rest of his herd behind him, or did he come here alone?

No, Shadowfax came by himself.

And there's still one Cat here, so - after quickly checking if she seems interested in him - he ducks back behind the hill and trots back toward the rest of his herd.  Or gallops, if she does seem interested.

<The gods formed Arda and most of the life here, but not by themselves; they worked trying to follow a pattern that was Sung by the All-Father* before He made Eä**.>

It's convenient now that he can't actually remember any of this very well, because even if he did, he couldn't say much more about it without hinting too closely at his true nature.  And there's a reason he doesn't do that - otherwise people might treat him with reverence.

<We know very little about the Song, except what we see from Arda following its model; the gods have said they could not communicate it well to us even if they tried.  Perhaps your gods were also trying to follow the Song in part?  Or perhaps - we do not know.>

He doesn't think Ilúvatar had modeled the Song off some other world elsewhere, but he doesn't want to speculate too much about Him - especially not now with his memories clouded.

<It was the goddess Yavanna who took the lead in forming most of the beasts and plants; and the Ents as well.  Though...> (He glances up after Shadowfax) <Some others added to some beasts.  But of the Speaking Peoples - it is said the Elves and Men were made by the All-Father Himself, without any of the gods taking part.>

* Gandalf speaks the Quenya name "Ilúvatar", but the meaning comes through in the nonverbal osanwe.
** again, "universe"

<There a simpler explanation. Tigers are a very good idea, and the gods are smart, so they all had the same good idea without having to copy! And to have tigers, you need to have all the other things tigers like, like forests and plains and prey and druids. Like you always say, it's hard to change a part without changing the whole.>

Aria grins. <I certainly can't prove you wrong! And tigers really are a good idea, I would put some on a world I was designing.>

<We do know some other worlds are different from ours. The elves and gnomes on Golarion both originally came from other worlds> - not to mention the alghollthus, not a subject for casual conversation - <and there are also stories about the other worlds around our own sun that say some of them are very different from Golarion. But we don't know how or why we were transported to this world, so perhaps the process - or the caster - chose a world that would suit us, or chose us to suit the world.>

<There used to be prophecy on Golarion. The goddess Pharasma, who oversees the soul-cycle of birth and death, and who is said to have created Creation itself, the... underlying laws of space and nature and magic and so on, without doing the detailed work - She had prophecy as one of Her domains. It let Her and all the gods plan the future in great detail. But then, for reasons I'm not entirely sure about, prophecy apparently stopped working - on Golarion, not in the rest of Creation.> Aria has heard it said, variously, that Aroden's death broke prophecy, or that the breaking of prophecy caused his death, or that it had been broken long ago by Rovagug and wasn't put properly back together. <That seems - at least vaguely similar to your story of Ilúvatar, and the Song that prophesied Creation?>

<The god most closely associated with plants and animals on Golarion is Gozreh, whose domain is all natural life and also the winds and the waves, but They don't claim to have created them. Although I'm not sure we have thought to ask. Some of the mortal races who speak have acknowledged creators: Torag for the dwarves, Apsu and Dahak for the dragons... But none for humans or elves or orcs, so far as I know. Although the elves often keep such secrets from outsiders. In any case it would have been far beyond the reach of the oldest preserved histories, which are at best ten to twelve thousand years long; I have not heard even estimates of how long life has existed on Golarion, and none of the trustworthy gods have spoken about it in public.>

When Aria mentions orcs, Gandalf might notice that her mental orc-concept is more centrally Chaotic than Evil, and does not have a property of being 'twisted' or unnatural.

<That could be,> Gandalf says to Tora with a nod and slight grin.

<Twelve thousand years in your oldest histories?  It has been about seven thousand years here since the first rising of the Sun, and... maybe twelve thousand* since the Stars first rose and the Elves first awakened?  'Tis curious they happened at the same time; I wonder if they might be related.  You say your world's Elves came from another world, and do not attribute their creation to any of your world's gods?  I wonder, could they have perchance come from Arda?>

He couldn't guess how some ancient Elves might have gone beyond Arda, let alone Ea - Morgoth could have sent some of his captives beyond Arda, but why? - but it's not impossible.

<And perhaps Orcs too - do you know if they came from elsewhere?>

If orcs have left Arda for Golarion and turned less evil there - if it's not just that Aria has noticed their evil less - then that would be a very good thing.  Unlikely, but very good if so.

Gandalf pauses a moment, chewing on the notion of prophecy abruptly stopping.  He hasn't thought much about prophecy and the Song in detail lately.

<Some people say that Arda will eventually continue beyond the Song, though I doubt that.> he eventually says.  He doesn't remember enough about the Song to guess that, but he doesn't think it would.  <Others say that humans in general are beyond its guidance, though I doubt that.>  He's fairly sure that isn't the case, but he's not going to say more than "doubt" at least while his memories are clouded.  <Though, I believe it is different from the sort of prophecy you describe - I think the gods were never able to clearly plan the future in detail, even with what they know of the Song.>

If so, why would they have made so many missteps with Melkor, and then with Feanor and the Numenorians?  Though, he's not going to criticize the Powers without need, especially to a stranger he's just met.

* About five hundred Years of the Trees between these events, which is equal to about five thousand Years of the Sun.

<What do you mean, the sun first rose five thousand years after the stars? This world had no star, and then one - appeared? Did this world exist before the other stars as well?> This is sufficiently deeply confusing that she's going to ignore his other comments until this one is cleared up. 

Gandalf is deeply confused too!

<The stars... appeared twelve thousand years ago... because the goddess Elbereth created them.  There were technically other stars before then... which you could say existed before Arda, depending on what you mean by "Arda"... but they're so dim they can scarcely be seen even by the Elves.>

("You could say" depending on whether you consider a mass of nearly-formless dust to be "Arda" given that it's going to become that eventually.)

<And then the sun was created five thousand years after the stars.>

Gandalf is rather relieved the subject's changed away from what the Valar and Maiar know about the Song.  He doesn't want to give Aria the wrong impression of Arda's Valar (when he doesn't know what these other Valar of her planet are like...), but he also doesn't want to let anyone realize that he's a Maia himself.

There's a reason the Valar sent him and his cousins secretly.  He's told a very few people he trusts not to treat him differently because of it, and not let the word slip to others; and a few more have realized it themselves and fortunately not let it slip... but only a few.

<So gods can make stars?>

<That's not the problem; I can easily believe a greater god can make stars, or remove them for that matter.>

A star, including Golarion's own Sun, is a permanent portal to the Plane of Positive Energy. It shines with life-giving energy and provides a location for new souls to enter the Material close to the populated planets that need them.

Creating a permanent portal between planes, on a model copied many times all over Creation, doesn't sound very hard for a god to do, as far as her ability to estimate such things goes. At least, not unless other gods object.

<It's the sudden appearance of a sun on a planet where life existed without it that confuses me. Golarion has ecosystems (*) in networks of great underground caves, inhabited by many races that live well enough without the sun. But they do not venture aboveground, and those who live above do not go below. Neither is well suited to the other's conditions. Similarly, there are many creatures that live in the deep seas where the sun's light does not reach, and they do not usually mingle with those that live in the upper sun-lit waters.>

There's also the fact that creatures on Arda were getting souls somehow before there was a sun, but she doesn't actually know that a far-away star wouldn't suffice for that; this doesn't seem important enough to divert the conversation again.

<Everything I have seen so far - admittedly, in only one place on the planet - is, well, normal to me. I have already commented on that, but one particular way in which it's normal is that everything here is adapted to the sun; most of the plants depend on it, and the animals on the plants. If the sun stopped rising, most of this life would be dead in a decade.>

<Likewise, if Arda was full of life suited to the darkness and the sun rose on it, and now there is no sign of that life... I can only imagine such an event as - cataclysmic.> Like Earthfall in reverse, or worse.

(*) Lit. lifewebs; a concept with the overtones of complexity and above all interconnectdness, like a tower where removing one brick too many might suddenly cause it to collapse.

Gandalf rubs his beard thoughtfully.  He's feeling a little bit uncomfortable about this question again - not that he's showing it; he's got a lot of practice at hiding his discomfort from everyone except Galadriel and maybe Elrond and Arwen.  Not for the first time, he wishes Saruman hadn't stolen all of his pipeweed.

He doesn't remember the plants and animals of the Elder Days before the sun very well.  He's not sure he ever studied them very well; he thinks he was paying more attention to the Elves.

On the other hand, that makes it easier to answer honestly...

<I fear I can only nod and agree.  We have deep cave lifewebs* here too; though I know little about them besides brief glimpses - but those glimpses are indeed very different from the sunlit world.  The Naugrim** would know more, though there are few of them if any near here.  There are still a few Elves in Middle-Earth who lived before the first Sunrise... Lord Celeborn of the Golden Wood, and Cirdan of the Grey Havens... I have heard them sing of the times before the Sun, and some of the plants they name are strange to me, but they also name some of the trees and bushes that are around us today.>

He holds out his hands mutely.

<I know there were chaotic times around the rising of the Sun, at least in the western coastlands - but there was a war then, against the evil Vala Morgoth; perhaps that was why.  Celeborn or Cirdan could tell you more, or perhaps my cousin Radagast - he has studied lifewebs more than me.> ***

* Gandalf recognizes this concept because Radagast has expostulated about it at length.
** Aria might not recognize this as equivalent to "Dwarves" - Gandalf is thinking of them as "famous smiths who live underground" but also "secret people" and "adopted people."
*** If Gandalf were reminded of Tom Bombadil, he might name him too.  But Gandalf doesn't think of him much except when reminded.

<If it happened seven thousand years ago, it is likely over by now, with the world settled to a new balance... I'd like to learn more, but I must keep my focus on the problems of today. And I have not forgotten your warning that a nearby forest is in danger from this Saruman's desire for firewood. Do you think that is a problem one druid and her companion are likely to make a difference to? I would want to visit the treants eventually in any case, and you have also mentioned the elves in the Golden Wood farther north...>

<Speaking of the problems of today>, Tora interjects, <should we avoid hunting one of that stallion's mares, because you're trying to make friends with him, and he has seen us together?>

Gandalf gives a shallow bow to Tora.

<I would take it as a favor if you did avoid it for the next week or two, noble tiger.  He would try hard to protect his herd, and I would not want to be in the position of trying to take him away from that calling.  There are other herds further east, if you wish.>

And then he turns to Aria.  <I know not, but it may well be.  The Ents are slow to rouse by themselves, as trees are slow to grow by themselves... but sometimes one of us hastier folk can move them to action.>