Here's a person! He's on a horse but he stops it in the middle of the street for reasons that become apparent when the horse vanishes abruptly, dropping his bags such that he catches them out of the air.

Feather does have detect magic, so she's not totally surprised by the vanishing horse! 

...So this is a wizard! Or a cleric or something. But not one powerful enough to teleport. Talking to a (non-terrifyingly-arch) wizard seems like a great start! She'll walk right up to him. (Chelish personal-space cues are really hard to parse because everyone she's ever tried learning from assumed that, as a powerful scary person, she should be standing where-ever she cares to!)

"Hello! I am Bright Morning Feather, a druid from Ravounel Forest. I'm here as a convention delegate and to learn to understand the humans. Can I ask you a lot of questions? I can maybe pay for it with a spell!"

Feather's Chelish is fine, in that she can make herself very clear; implications and subtext tend to suffer the same fate as personal space, and for much the same reasons.

"Well hello there. I'm a convention delegate too. Raimon Pages, pleased to meet you but not so pleased I need you in such friendly proximity. Not that I wouldn't be flattered if I fancied girls."

"I probably didn't understand all of that just the way you meant it," 'fancy' is a hard nut to crack, "but that's why I'm here, to learn to understand you people! Will you tell me about yourself? What you're doing and living for, how you see and understand the world, why you think other people do various things."

"Take two steps back, why don't you, and then sure."

All... right? She takes two precise steps back. (She catches herself trying to swivel her head like an owl to see where she's going and makes sure her body does the right thing instead.)

"Sure! I don't know why but it's probably not as urgent." She'd smile, but Outsider humans almost never smile and she's given up on understanding why for now. "Are you a wizard?"

"Technically no. Wizards are lots like sorcerers, but they have books they value as their souls."

"I know about sorcerers! And I know wizards have spellbooks, but if they literally value them as their souls then that's novel and interesting and I might not understand how wizard souls work after all, are they all like liches? No, you probably didn't mean that, this language doesn't mark jokes like I'm used to." (It might mark them with intonation, but the people Feather learned from did not joke much in her presence.)

"Anyway! What are - the big things you want to achieve in life? The kinds of things you think are good and important? How would you like the world to be? What are the biggest problems that you wish would be fixed?" A wizard sorcerer will hopefully say something interesting here, beyond 'I'm just trying to bring in the harvest so my family won't starve this winter', which is very understandable but (perhaps for that very reason) not very enlightening.

"Spellbooks and souls are different things but you're about as likely to catch a wizard selling either. Here, anyhow. I think the market for souls is worse outside Cheliax. I don't know that I want to achieve a big thing? I want to get along through my days till there's enough of them. Things might come up but I don't go looking for them so much, I just hope to be ready if they find me. I'd like... hm, safer roads. I can manage myself but if anything gets me early it's going to be a monster or a bandit on the road. - I'm a mail carrier."

A message carrier is actually very understandable and useful work!

"We mostly send messenger birds. Few things bother birds, except bad weather. And predators, but you can send several. I've heard humans have messenger pigeons but I guess they're not as good without the spell. But if you need bigger things carried then a messenger makes sense!" She glances at his bags; those would definitely need the big birds, ones she's not strong enough to send yet. (Except, you know, by asking them, like a normal person.)

'Monster' is one of those tricky words. She thinks it means 'a creature that could easily kill me if it wanted to, and that is not human' (or one of the few other races humans tolerate, elves and dwarves and halflings), but there seem to be exceptions. Is a big bear a monster to most people, but not to a sorcerer? That seems like a strange way for a language to work but Chelish can be very strange.

Feather decides to simply check. "What do you call 'monsters' exactly? I think humans don't all agree about that. Is a bear a monster? Why are the bandits not 'monsters'?"

"A bear's not really a monster, just a big animal, but it might as well be if you're going to press me to get technical. Bandits aren't monsters because they weren't bandits when they were born and in theory they don't have to be bandits when they die. Monsters are like... owlbears, those are definitely monsters where regular bears aren't. That thing where trees sometimes walk around on their own is very monstery. Dragons're monsters, at least if they're not trying to act like folks."

That doesn't really explain anything!! 

"I don't understand. You're giving examples but what is the rule? And an owlbear is a big animal."

"I don't know that there is a rule. I didn't make up all these words, y'know."

But what does he mean when he uses the word - never mind, different tack.

"Alright. Then, you just want to have a long and safe and pleasant life? Aren't there other things you care about? Maybe you won't or can't work on them yourself, but what do you want the world to be like? This gathering is for people to talk about what the world should be like, right?"

"I think it's about what we want Cheliax to be like, but maybe we can affect the world from here some! I'm the Calistrian delegate - or one, any rate, possible there'll be more - so I expect mostly to be asked about Her pet topic, that being revenge. I think countries take revenge on occasion, if somebody pirates their ships or something, and I don't know that my one cleric circle makes me an expert but maybe it's a hint that my guesses'll be good, who knows. Thing is, till not too long ago Cheliax was exactly the sort of thing one might reasonably want revenge against, so it's a trifle crazymaking to consider the opposite perspective now."

"I can understand people wanting revenge! But I care much more about stopping things that would deserve revenge if they kept happening. Is that something Calistria wants?"

"I think I'd say deterring? Like, the brothel where I grew up has lots of wasps around. They're Her sacred animal, and someone beating up on a whore'll get a visit from some of those as often as not, so they see the wasp nest on their way in, and they behave themselves. That's all to the good, saves the wasps the trouble and the lady the black eye, but you've got to have the wasps, or the knife, or the bigger scarier friends, for this to work out."

"I... didn't understand some of the words. Or the way you used them. But I understand deterrence," because this is an important and useful concept and Feather used to translate dialogues about racial behaviour and traits when she was practising Chelish. "And the wasps themselves are yellow and black to make their deterrence work, too. But - it's not enough. If you're strong, or strong enough, you can display that and deter others, like the wasps do. But if someone is even stronger they will still hurt you, until only the strongest people are left. You can't stop war with deterrence because one side is going to be too much weaker than the other eventually."

"Does Calistria - or you, really, I only care about Calistria because gods give power to the people who do what the god likes - do you think deterrence is good enough? Or just the best there is? Or - do you just like deterrence itself?" Gods can like any weird thing, right?

"So - if you want to kill a wasp nest, you can do that. Wasps can't win against a determined person. You can set their nest on fire and they can't put it out; you can survive being stung, quite a lot. But it's not worth it, see? Maybe you can kill all the wasps and they'll only ruin your week, but it won't ruin your whole week to have a little self-control with the lady you hired - this is the general you, of course - so it's better not to start anything. You can stop war with deterrence as long as the weaker side can still be expensive and painful to fight. I suppose you could come up with a situation where it's not going to cut it but I think as a general rule - be expensive and painful to fight, and easy and pleasant to live politely near, is a good plan."

They. Tried. That. Are trying that, and it's! Not! WORKING!!!

The frustration is going to be visible on her face (because Feather isn't at all Chelish).

Deep breath. "We - I mean. The forests. We've been doing that, for - for ever. And it's not enough. We're very expensive to fight. Almost everyone who fights us loses. But the humans keep trying, every year, every century, until eventually they succeed. And - I want to understand why. If there's anything that could ever make you stop. Not you personally, I mean - there are always, always some humans who want to fight the forests, and all our wasps are not enough."

"I don't think the forests are easy and pleasant to live politely near, what with all the monsters that come out of them? There's some little woods that are safe enough that there's roads through them, but I avoid getting within a few miles of a real forest, if I can avoid it. Because, monsters."

"Very few come out, compared to how many there inside. And I think almost always they're just hunting. But in any case, even if nobody ever came out, humans wouldn't stop going in and trying to cut down the forest or kill people, right? The humans aren't doing it for revenge! ...are you?" It would be kind of ridiculous, given how much more there is to revenge on the forests' behalf, but. "I promise you that if everyone in the forest honestly thought that no-one ever coming out would mean no-one ever came in, we would make sure that happened. And there have been many forests in many places that tried many things, and none of them worked forever."

"- just hunting isn't... not... sending monsters out to kill people? I don't care why a monster wants to kill me if it's trying. Probably if somebody goes into a forest to kill people they think the people in the forest did something wrong, and probably if they cut down a tree they need wood."

"Hunting for food is normal. Everyone does that, everyone has to do that who eats meat. Noone is upset when humans go into the forest to hunt and eat something. Maybe if humans sometimes cut down trees to build things it would be like sometimes killing animals to hunt them. It would be very bad, for the those particular trees and anyone who knew them, but that's life. But actually humans want to cut down whole forests and not let them grow back."

"And - it's normal to not want to be hunted. To protect yourself and your friends and maybe take revenge if they're killed anyway. To kill someone because they killed someone you know, or because you are afraid they will. But it's different from killing so, so many people just because some of them, a very few of them really, might have killed some humans or might kill some human some day! That's - I can't imagine anything worse than that."

"Uh, you can just farm the meat instead. Or buy it from someone who does. Hunting's not obligatory. Also it was absolutely not clear to me that your kind of folks wouldn't be upset if someone went into the forest and nabbed a deer for supper, so, I guess I learned something, maybe? - are druids or whatever you are that numerous? I didn't think there were 'so, so many' to begin with, let alone dying in whatever skirmishes are happening over where the forest ends and pasture begins..."

"Druids aren't the ones who die, it's the ordinary people who always suffer! The smallest and weakest and most numerous. And we absolutely understand hunting! I hunt myself!" (Mostly voles these days.) "When I was helping defend the forest, humans came in and hunted deer and pigs and so on a few times, and that was fine. And one time a lot of humans came in and we thought they were hunting, but they began leaving the dead deer behind, so them we killed, because they were just there to hurt and kill. But even that we wouldn't do - we wish we didn't have to do - if there wasn't a war and we didn't have to defend the forest, because there are so so much more important things that we should be doing! Druids aren't meant to be fighting! We're meant to be growing plants and, and helping people! But we have to spend almost all our time fighting to defend the forest, because you - the humans just won't leave us alone!!"

(Greystripe hoots sympathetically, and wraps her head in a wing-hug. "Thanks," she mutters in Sylvan, and takes a few rapid breaths before going on.)

"Most humans who go into the forest and die, or something bad happens to them, it's just that they run into a dangerous creature, someone who decides to hunt them or is defending its lair. Or they just get scratched by a poisonous vine or fall into a pit or something. The forest is dangerous, but it's not - angry, or evil, or organized. It's not the druids going after you or wishing you were dead."

Feather feels she's not making much progress, and she's too emotional to be a good listener and to learn (and being visibly emotional near Chelish people never helps, in her experience). But she doesn't want to give up on this. Maybe it's just because he's the first person she tried talking to, and by the time she's met ten different people it won't feel as urgent and painful, but - she really really wants to get through to him. To make him understand where she's coming from, so he can maybe explain where he is coming from as well.

"You're very... excitable. Who are these ordinary people who live in forests? I didn't think any ordinary people lived in forests."

"Um? They're - everywhere, you can't miss them? Even if outsiders aren't used to the forest it's full of people, you can hear the birds at least anywhere you go?" She stares at him in confusion.

..wait. Is this that thing where - oh no.

"I was taught once," she says numbly, "that the outsiders - the humans who live outside the forests - don't think anyone is really people, other than humans. And I guess maybe elves, or devils. Is that... Do you really think I'm not a person? Or, or that I wasn't one before I became a druid?" 

Please, please don't let him say he doesn't make the words, Feather thinks. Please, let him give her a clear answer so she can understand something, even if it's the most terrible thing in the world.

"Uh. - you kind of sound like maybe Chelish isn't your first language so I don't know if this is a problem with what you learned 'people' meant or something else. I think humans and elves and devils are people, and probably so are... angels, and dragons, and halflings I guess, and - most things that can talk are probably people. You seem like a person. Are there a ton of... kobolds or something, in the forests, that I didn't know about, or... fairies are probably people, I guess there's probably fairies? But not birds. If you mean like, regular birds, and not... monstery birds, or familiars, or wizards who have turned themselves into birds, or whatever."

Right, alright, fine, this is a language problem. She can solve language problems. Fine.

"You're right. I learned Chelish from - Chelish humans - my first language is what you call Sylvan. The language of the forest. When I say people I mean - those who can feel. Those who can be happy, those who can be hurt, those who can do things and make choices if you let them. If you're Good, you want to help people and not to hurt people. If you're Chaotic, you want people to be free, only people can be free. If you're Lawful, maybe you want to make a law for all people, although not all people can understand every law. And if you hurt and kill and torture people, just because you enjoy it, that is Evil."

"Nobody cares if you kick a rock, or a dead body. It's not Evil, it's not Good, it's not Lawful. Nobody is going to stop you. But if you kick a people, the people wants to stop you, their friends and family want to stop you, or to take revenge. Because a people is someone who hurts with pain when you kick them."

"If you find an owl - just like Greystripe - and you kill them, then their friends will be sad and hurt. Most owls don't have friends who can take revenge on a human. If you kill Greystripe, then I will hate you and probably take revenge, and if you kill me, then my friends - not just Greystripe - will hate you and take revenge. But the only difference between Greystripe and most owls is who their friends are. All the owls are the same people. If you don't care when you kill people, unless they have powerful friends who can take revenge, that's - really just saying you don't care about killing anyone, I guess."

"Also I still don't understand what you mean by 'monstery birds'. If one day I become a very powerful druid, and learn spells to make Greystripe so strong that he could kill most humans, would you then call him a 'monster'? Is it just a word for strong creatures after all?"

"I think instead of 'people' you want 'creatures' or something for that if you're really not making a difference between a totally normal bird and a human or a dragon or a fairy... 'Monster' is a really vague word, it kind of means - some but not always all of bigger, meaner, scarier, more magical, less social I guess, than a regular animal or person is. So - I guess you're gonna tell me owls all have the same number of friends and it's just that you happen to be the kind of owl-friend I can talk to, but I can talk to you, and that makes your familiar not as monstery as he would be if he was just flying around by himself being gigantic and terrifying, yeah? Sort of the same way a bandit isn't a monster. I could talk to a bandit, I could talk to you about your owl. So your owl is more social-to-me, than a regular owl, so less monstery, though you could sure magic him up enough to make him more monstery.

"- also take half a care about kicking dead bodies, some are sensitive about that when they liked whoever lived in it."

"Are you saying that - if you could speak with everyone - you'd need a spell, I don't know if you have the right spell but - if you had it, or telepathy or something, then you would - treat everyone as people and not want to kill them or destroy the forest they live in?"

It can't be that simple, right? The older druids wouldn't have missed a solution that was so, so stupid. But - it's obviously important, important enough to ask insistently about while ignoring everything else he says for the moment, like that humans aren't 'normal' (???)

"Does telepathy even work on animals? I thought you needed, like, druid-y-er magic to get anything out of an animal... anyway it would not necessarily help if we thought birds were people, we know humans in other countries are people and that doesn't stop there from being wars. Tons of folks shipped out to the Worldwound, before it closed, to fight demons for leaving the Abyss where they're meant to go, and those talk. Also you - said you hunt? Apparently you hunt stuff you think is people? That's, uh. Us not druid types usually do not hunt and eat each other, that's crazy serial killer stuff."

"That is a good point. If we had met before I learned Chelish I could not talk to you. Why would you think I was more of people than Greystripe, if you couldn't talk to either of us? Just because I look more like a human? I look like an owl for half the day! You're a wizard - no, sorcerer - you know looks are, are only the surface!"

"And yes, telepathy works on animals, why would it not work? Maybe there are different kinds, I don't know, maybe wizards have a bad version of it, just like wizard language spells don't work on animals. One of my best friends is a giant owl and she has a telepathy that works only on animals."

"And - hunting is, well, Neutral. Anything you have to do all your life in order to live, it is not Good or Evil. Everyone has to eat, and for people who eat meat that means hunting, and yes, hunting people! Even when you eat plants you eat people sometimes! Only in Nirvana can everyone live without hurting anyone ever! Most races don't eat each other, and humans don't normally eat each other, you're right that it's not natural and a human would probably have to be pretty crazy to do it. Or very desperate. But - it's not unnatural for an owlbear to kill and eat a human, just like a human can kill and eat a deer. If you're very very Good, I don't know, maybe you refuse to ever eat anyone and just go to Nirvana already. But not doing that, and eating people, does not mean there is no right or wrong in the world anymore! It does not make it alright to go and kill the forest!"

"I'm sorry. I wanted to learn from you, and I'm talking too much about what I think. I - really do want to understand how you think about it, and I don't understand yet. Is the thing about being able to talk to people not it?"

Feather feels there was something else important he said. There was a lot of stuff she ignored, to be honest, she can't respond to everything weird he says, she can barely keep track of everything... 

...wait.

...waaaaait a minute.

"The Wourldwound closed?!"

"- yeah, I'm pretty sure the new Queen and her adventuring party finagled it. You might need to - calm down or at least slow down, if you want to cover lots of stuff and remember any of it."

Calm down, he says! This is the best news she's heard all year! It might honestly be the best news of her lifetime, depending on how the new Chelish rulers end up behaving towards the forests. 

...she should still verify it somehow, before throwing a party. She doesn't even have anyone to throw a party with except Greystripe! But still! The Worldwound closed!!!

She'll do her best to calm down, though. He's right. The Chelish humans don't show emotion and don't respond well to seeing it, and she needs to become more like them in order to understand them.

She's not really sure what to ask now, though, the conversation really got away from her. She'll ask other people later, to check if the theory about people being only those you can speak to (or who look like you? or aren't scary monsters?) holds any water.

"...All right. Um. That did help me some, I am still confused but now I'm more" - she doesn't know how to say productively - "more profitably confused, I think. Maybe I'll think of other questions later."

"Is there something you'd like in return? I can cast a cure spell, or give you three magical berries that are enough food for a day and also cure you a tiny bit when you eat them, those are good for three days from now. I don't know which other spells you might want. And of course I can tell you more about myself, if you want to - exchange understanding."

"I don't know what spells druids get! I can cure myself, but the berries sound good to me, food's never been pricier in these parts. Which forest're you from?"

Oh, did she not say? "The Ravounel Forest, in the west. And I know many spells. Ignoring those only useful for fighting, and those that last only a few minutes -" and those that are slightly secret - "I could... let you carry a lot more weight or move a bit faster or not leave any tracks for a few hours. I could talk to an animal for you, or check which if any disease someone has so you know how to treat them, or... hmm... dig or move some earth quickly."

"Huh, some of those sound like ones clerics get but not all of them. The berries still sound best to me."

She counts out three goodberries from her pouch. "Each one's good for a meal, so no need to eat them all at once. If you don't eat them in three days, counting from... a few hours from now probably, they'll stop being magical."

"Gotcha. Lasts better than a raspberry, at least!"

"It does! So - I don't know if we'll meet again, maybe when the convention starts? If you see me you can ask me more questions if you want." 

And with that she'll leave and try to - arrange everything she's heard in her head, for later, because she doesn't think she can make much progress understanding it right away. Maybe she can find someone else who'll make more sense to her, or maybe after talking to enough different people she'll see some pattern.