"I'm not asking you to change before we have. I think this kind of thing would require a lot of careful planning and talking between everyone, and then probably changing together. Like this convention, where you want to decide on new laws, and after everyone has spoken and agreed everyone will start following them at the same time. And I'm just one person, I'm young, I can't tell anyone else in the Forest what to do. You're just one person. But -"

(Wow, she's completely failing today at being impartially-Neutral and carefully listening and understanding other people like a proper druid, she's just being Feather! After this conversation is over she's going to meditate so hard until she can get through talking to an outsider human without saying one word about her own feelings!)

"Until today every human from outside the forest I had talked to just wanted to destroy the forest. They didn't want to be good neighbours, they didn't understand that everyone matters, that the forest should also exist and making the world all farms and cities with only humans in them would be bad. Or they didn't care because it wouldn't be bad for them."

"That's an Evil way of life. And there are always Evil people but - it's just one-fifth of nature. It shouldn't get everything its way, there's a balance. Good should care about everyone. Law and Chaos and Neutral shouldn't all want to destroy the forest just to make room for more humans."

"So I want for us to understand each other. If we can't agree that it would be Good to make peace, then I want to understand why, what I'm missing, so I can make it work. I'll never stop trying. And I hope - if one day we, or someone, figures out how to do it, and has an idea that solves all the details - that you, and people like you, who live outside the Forest, will agree to it. Not because we would force you. Because you would be happy not to be at war anymore."

"This is a lot of alignment talk. Most people don't even know what alignment they are. You can get some folks to do some things by saying they're Good, or they're Lawful, but only if those folks believe you, and why should you be an expert? Particularly why would you be an expert if you think all those things ought to balance, when most people have pretty strong opinions favoring some over others! A world without any forests in it would be fine in my book. Getting there would be a heck of a thing, I think your vision's prettier by a long shot, but the place itself would be fine, if there'd just never been forests. Farms are good."

"It's not about knowing what alignment you are, it's about - knowing what the alignment is, and living life that way? Don't you, I mean all the humans... know what Good and Evil and Law are? Wasn't Asmodeus trying to make you all Lawful Evil, how'd that work if people didn't know what Law or Evil are?" Feather is very confused by the proposition that the humans outside the forest don't actually know what the alignments are! The ones she talked to in the villages close to the Forest always swore they were trying to be Lawful Evil!

"The balance is about - it's something druids care about in particular. And some other True Neutral people. The world is full of people who are - sorry, who live life by different alignments. And there always will be, unless you kill everyone who's not like you, which you won't because everyone else would fight someone tried that, and no-one's stronger than all the people who live by other alignments put together. And the -" life-webs, she can't explain that in Chelish - "the world is very big and complex, and if you take out everyone who isn't Good or everyone who isn't Lawful or something, what's left won't work."

"So we work to maintain the balance, and to keep the - complexity working. The druids are also of all different alignments, and we need to work together on the things the druids agree about. It would be no good if Evil druids fought Good ones all the time, you might as well not have druids! So we agree about many things and how to work and live together."

"That probably doesn't matter to you. Which is fine! If you want all humans to be Good or Lawful or something, that would be fine! As long as they're not all Evil and all want to destroy the forests for power."

"I think you're saying that if there's war, you want to win it and destroy it. But it would be better, prettier you said, to have peace instead. And - I understand that. I can work with that. It's better than what I had before. If that's what you think then if all the humans were like you we could probably make there be peace."

"Asmodeus was sure trying that, but you can do evil things without thinking twice about them. The Crown's trying to phase out paper money because it was evil, turns out, and I sure didn't know that and neither did my wife who handles the money. Before Erastil chose me I never, ever thought 'I should do what's Lawful here' or 'what's the Good option' and I wouldn't say it comes naturally even now. I thought 'what do I owe my neighbor', and 'what will be best for my children', and 'how can I make my marriage work', and 'what will get the peas to grow and the goats to give milk'. Does that all add up to something by Pharasma's reckoning, sure it seems to! But that didn't come first and the more you talk about it the more you sound like you're trying to slip some trick past me.

"I bet you're an expert on forests and how they work inside. But in Heaven everyone's Lawful Good, and there's farms upon farms where the blackberries have neither thorn nor seed, and if it's not 'working', then who cares if anything's working? You can't convince anybody you've got to keep the forest around because otherwise things'd be too - samey? Too extreme? Those are druid worries and you've already convinced yourself."

Wait, the paper money is Evil? She was so happy not to have to handle worked metal coins! ...never mind, that's probably not important right now.

"I don't want to trick you!" Anyone would say that, wouldn't they. "I mean - I thought you already had an idea of what Good is, because you follow Erastil, so I thought we had something we both understood, and I tried to use that. I don't want to tell you what Good is if you're not sure already, I'm not a proper teacher!"

"I don't know much about Heaven. If it's good for people to live on farms, then I expect they have farms, I just don't think they got their farms by burning down forests, that wouldn't be Good at all. Nirvana definitely has forests and it would be weird if no-one Lawful Good wanted any forests." Maybe all the Lawful gods don't like forests for some reason? If the gods make blackberries without seeds then she's very suspicious of whether they actually understand how anything works.

"You're right that - I need to convince you, convince people, for reasons they care about. The reason I thought would matter to someone pursuing Good isn't everything not being the same, it's that the forests already exist and so Good shouldn't harm everyone who lives in them, all the animals and plants as well as the humans and other creatures who can talk to you. But if that's not obvious to you, then we have different ideas of what Good is and I should probably - find some people here who do think they know what Good is and ask them what they think." There are temples to some other Good gods here, surely someone here actually knows (or at least thinks they know) what Good even is?

"I can check with one of the fellows from abroad who can read and are probably themselves Good and suchlike, but I will be pretty surprised if they tell me it's Evil to cut a tree or cull a monster."

It's not Evil to kill one tree or animal if you want to eat them or burn them for fuel or you're afraid they'll hurt you or someone you care about! Just as it's not Evil to kill one human to eat them! Both actions are equally (non-)Evil, and in fact both are Neutral! Feather is really frustrated at her apparent inability to get this very basic premise across, but it probably won't help anything if she just says all this again.

"I don't think those things are Evil," she says eventually. "If you're doing them for reasons like wanting to eat or wanting fuel or to protect someone. Just like you have different words for killing and murder, some killing of animals and trees is fine, and some is wrong. I don't know if I can explain what I think to you any better than I already have. I'll try to find some other people to talk to, until we'll maybe understand each other better."

"Thank you for talking to me. Do you want to ask me anything? I can also cast a cure spell for you if you want, or give you three magical berries that each replace a whole meal if eaten within three days," et cetera.

"I have my own cure spells. I'll try the berries, though, that sounds useful."

Feather will give him three berries, with care instructions! It feels nice to be of use, even if it's to strangers; it's not as if she needs nearly as many goodberries herself as she can make in a day, even if she doesn't hunt.

When evening falls, Feather and Greystripe fly out of the city, just far enough that houses and farms don't entirely dominate the landscape, and find a tree to sit in for a while. And Feather calls out to the birds, and asks if any of them are strong flyers and don't have a family to feed and can afford to leave for a few days, in exchange for seeing new lands and eating good food and doing a Good thing for the world.

Animal messenger can compel a bird, but she hates using it that way. She will take the time to fly over and talk to her few maybe-volunteers, to make sure she didn't overlook anything, before she casts.

And then she'll hunt for a suitable rodent to give this falcon, one who just recently became an adult and has lost his would-be territory to her sister. She'll give him a goodberry also, and tie a message to his leg, written on a piece of very thin paper wrapped in a bit of oiled cloth (the humans do have some useful ideas!); and then she'll tell him how to find the ranger who'll be waiting for him three days' flight northwest, to pass on the message to her contact in the Barrowood, and so by stages home.

41 days since left. In city, are well. Understanding hard! Outsiders don't understand even each other themselves.

Things random ppl don't understand: Good, trees, owlbears, Erastil, blackberries, notkillingeveryoneism, their own words sometimes!!!

Hope to find better wiser humans to talk to tomorrow.

Love to Mama, Papa, & Great Hoot

  Fthr

And then she'll find a crevice to nest in, and sleep while Greystripe keeps watch in the night.