"They're even shorter lived than you," Tuimfane says. "Who knows what they'll be doing in fifty years."

She really hates to bring up this example, but if the Whisperwood wants to go for it she supposes she can't in good faith tell them that fighting a war is better.

"The humans to the east of the Verduran Forest, I think they're called Taldane, made a Lawful agreement with the forest centuries ago so they don't fight over trees and land, and ever since then they don't. The forest gave them something that the druids in my forest won't agree to but maybe the other forests will, or ideally you'd do it for something else instead. I don't know the humans' side of the story though. It does show that humans can live with a forest in peace over many generations. And when everyone is at peace, hopefully they can work together to stop anyone from the forest attacking humans outside it, but I don't know the details of what the Verduran does about it."

"...and why wouldn't your forest agree to do what that other forest is doing that's working out peacefully?"

Sigh. "The Verduran Forest agreed to grow trees for harvesting - I mean, they grow trees specifically for that, and then they cut them down as soon as they're fully grown, and give them to the humans. They do it in the forest, I assume because trees are just - easier to grow in a proper forest with druids helping, otherwise the humans would just do it at home and not bother the forest about it. And they make sure to plant as many as they cut down."

"Some druids thought that was - not good, but - acceptable. In return for peace. Others thought it wasn't, and a lot of them left the Verduran for Ravounel Forest, and even though that was centuries ago it's still remembered and retold as - something we're not willing to do. I don't think I can explain why, or convince you that we're right about it, not in just a few hours."

"But if you ask the other forests in Cheliax and they agree to it and it works, then even if we in Ravounel Forest think it's wrong we can't actually stop you from doing that. I hope to find a better way for us but - the different big forests and their druids are probably going to make separate deals in any case, there's no single druid ruler like you have one queen, so you should know about it."

"Okay. So that might be something we can copy for the other forests but Ravounel's not going to tolerate it. Is there anything we can copy that might work for Ravounel Forest, or do we have to make something up totally new there to avoid just doing the same thing as always?"

"If the druids of Ravounel forest consider themselves at war with us and consider any peace terms that include logging to be so far beyond the pale there's no point in proposing them then it sure sounds to me like the solution to Ravounel forest is to send them a return declaration of war."

"Well, let's hear her out, druids care about things kind of sideways and maybe some logging would be all right and it's more specific to what they're doing in Verduran."

Feather slowly turns her head and gives the horrible woman her best owl stare, her blood pounding in her ears.

The thing is, she knows not all humans are like this. Most of the humans she's talked to in the city and the convention aren't like this. So why is this one behaving like a prototypical Outsider-human?

These humans don't know how to live together. They don't just argue or do selfish things, they don't agree and often don't understand how to live in a shared community. They called a convention to decide on a new way of doing that, but it's still made up of people who don't have an existing way of doing that.

Who is this Eulàlia? She's dressed like a rich person, maybe a noble, but she didn't introduce herself as one, so she can't be anyone really powerful or important. The top human nobles have really long names and a title like 'archduke'. She' just 'Eulàlia de Seguer,' which is probably the weakest kind of noble there is.

She attacked Feather on sight, and keeps attacking her at every opportunity. What does she have to gain? Maybe she doesn't care about the forests at all. Maybe she's just asserting dominance in the eyes of everyone else here, and attacking whoever she thinks is the next weakest person after herself, targeting whatever she thinks is their weakest spot.

Feather knows about dominance contests. You puff yourself up, look them in the eye (for most creatures including humans) and attack back, and never back down in compromise. And since this woman invoked the power of others and not her own, she has to outmatch her in that, since she's not allowed to simply peck out her eye.

"You are not doing the best thing for Cheliax," she says flatly. "You are doing what you think is best for yourself and don't care about anyone else, either from Cheliax or the forests. And because you're selfish, you don't have real allies in the war you're promoting."

"You're some kind of noble. Where is Seguer? Is it near Ravounel forest? Should I find the top noble, the archduke or whoever, of Ravounel and tell them you refused peace talks on their behalf, while promising it to the rest of Cheliax? Will you go and fight with them, or should I ask the Chelish nobles of Ravounel if the Forest should make war on you, personally, where-ever you may be?"

"You say you have three archmages to give you victory in war. Has one of them told you that? Archmage Naima Cotonnet personally came to Ravounel Forest, not to burn it down, but to ask me to attend this convention. Archmage Élie Cotonnet told the delegates to build peace for their children, and you will ask them to vote for war and tell them peace-deals about safety from 'monsters' are not worth it? Should I find the Archmage and tell him you are proposing to write into the new constitution that he must personally make war on your behalf?"

"The Archduke Antoninus Blanxart" - of the Heartlands, and she's not sure where that is except it's not Ravounel but hopefully being an Archduke is scary enough on its own - "is with me in the committee on nonhuman rights. He has already agreed to give nonhumans in Cheliax equal rights and their own governance. Should I tell him when we next meet that a noble from Seguer disagrees?"

"This convention is for discussing the highest laws of Cheliax, that you hope will hold for a long time after yourself. Will you write in your constitution, 'we are eternally at war with Ravounel forest'? Will you write in it, 'the Queen is forbidden to make peace with Ravounel forest under any conditions other than mine, Eulàlia de Seguer?' Will you call a vote of all the delegates to say your Queen is not allowed to make war or peace without changing the constitution?"

"We are not here to negotiate a final peace-deal with the forests and make it the highest law of Cheliax. It will probably take much time and effort from people from both sides to make a deal. The first thing they will try won't be perfect, so they will try a second thing, and a third. No one deal can be your highest law before we've even tried."

"What we are here for is to write in your new constitution: Cheliax does not want war on the forests for its own sake. Cheliax wants reasonable things, like wood and food and safety from 'monsters'. Cheliax prefers peace and trade, and will negotiate before declaring war, and if it is at war it will still say what it wants and will negotiate to get that in peace. Knowing examples of deals other forests made, coming up with deals we might make, those are useful, they give people hope so they will try. You're not trying. You're just finding excuses to make war. Maybe you should go to the committee for War and have them propose it."

Now she just needs to keep staring her in the eyes. Feather has an unfair advantage in never blinking first.

When quelling gestures don't help, Soler stands up. "Feather! That's enough. Neither you nor Delegate de Seguer gets to decide what Cheliax wants or how it'll get it, that's for everyone together to do. I'm sure Archhealer Naima invited you because she knew you'd have something valuable to say but you've got to say it in smaller pieces without looking like you're about to eat somebody yourself. Calm down."

She's very calm now, see, she's just sitting there staring Eulàlia in the eyes to make her look away.

Oh no why are the scary people yelling at each other. This is terrible.

"It would be fairly entertaining to see you try to figure out who I'm sworn to and complain to him. I encourage you wholeheartedly to attempt it. I would probably encourage you a bit less wholeheartedly if you were not a walking advertisement for burning your forest to the ground. You are oblivious, childish, fantastically ignorant, swing back and forth wildly between claiming you just want to have a reasonable conversation and braying that monsters eating people are the true victims and talking about how many trees and squirrels there are in the forest. And most importantly you keep saying that we are at war and expecting that to have no meaning.

In Cheliax, telling people you're at war with them does have a meaning. It means that we're at war with you. It is a serious matter, and not one you can take back by immediately declaring that actually you just meant something stupid about squirrels. If you are retracting your statement that we are at war, I am delighted to hear it. If you claim that you are in fact a polity not at war with Cheliax and you want to enjoy the privileges of such, great.

If you think that I will ever be ashamed that I called for your forest to be burned to the ground, you badly misunderstand how many millions of people would rejoice were your forest burned to the ground, and how much I care about their opinions next to yours."

When they escalate, escalate back. (Also, still not blinking.)

"Ravounel Forest was at war with Cheliax under Asmodeus, because Asmodeus's humans attacked us." Don't mention Aroden and hope they've forgotten all about him. "I hear other places that made war on Cheliax under Asmodeus are now called heroes. Perhaps you have not heard that Asmodeus's wars were not good for Cheliax."

"We are only at war in the sense that you still keep trying to attack us. I would be happy to say we are at peace and put that in your constitution, if it lets the committee talk usefully and not just make threats. And I do not think millions of your people would be very happy to hear you are sending them, personally, to burn down Ravounel Forest or die trying."

Fuimfane turns to Liushna. "Humans are really very stupid. Are strix less stupid?"

"Feather. I said to stop." He waves his arm in between the two of them in case breaking eye contact will help. "Lots of things are changing, and you make a very, very bad advocate for your forest when you act like this."

She turns to look apologetically at Soler. "I apologize to the chair. I do want to make one point that I think might be an underlying confusion here...Cheliax is not trying to attack Ravounel forest. There are probably starving farmers risking it for food, and there are probably bandits fleeing pursuit who go there, but Cheliax is not currently attacking Ravounel or any forest, is everyone clear on that?"

"We've just learned today that the elves aren't the catfolk's friends, so it stands to reason somebody in a forest might not know that the farmers and bandits aren't acting under orders from on high, too. There's no formal state of war. Feather, it could get worse, you know that, right? The thing now isn't really war."

"Well, they were last year. The Chelish army with all their armor was going into the Whisperwood to try and kill everything they saw and chop down trees and build castles. Not very far, but they were trying. Then they stopped and told everyone their god wasn't giving them any spells any more. They shouldn't try again."

It's not that the Lady de Seguer is worse than the druid-girl, but that she doesn't have an excuse.

"A state which permits its citizens to raid across the border with a neighboring state and does not reliably punish them as criminals is generally not considered to be at peace with that neighbor, though certainly a formal declaration of war is more hostile. I think by a strict interpretation the lady's statement is false."

"I don't think forays of monsters out of the Whisperwood have stopped at all, though I don't border it, and ultimately the reason that Cheliax has on occasion seen fit to push back the forests is that we are treated the same by their inhabitants whether or not we've offered any provocation."

“Humans so stupid!” Liushna agrees quietly to Tuimfane. “Strix—Itarii—much less stupid. Have met a few human not seem stupid, but,” shrug, “some so so stupid.”

Damn it, now Soler is demanding she back down. ...She'll act contrite to him, not to Eulàlia.

"...I apologize to the chair. I don't mean we're being attacked by a big force right this moment. The last big attack was three years ago, and only much smaller ones since then. But no-one came around to tell us we're at peace now, and to - arrange that. So I came here to tell you that we want peace, and that we think we can have it if we try, and try to give you the things you want, for peace or in trade. It would be stupid to say that the reason to keep being at war is that we are at war."

"Dangerous creatures sometimes leave the forest and attack people - humans outside it, yes. As I said, we encourage them to be there - on the outskirts of the forest, not deeper inside - because they help defend it against humans who go in. We don't usually encourage them to leave but sometimes they do. We could make there be less of them, and stop or chase down any who try to leave, or stop those who manage to leave anyway and then come back. But we can't do it unless we can trust that we won't need them to defend against humans going into the Forest, now or in a decade. And we can't do it anyway, or go around giving you plant growth and other things, if we need to spend our time being ready to the forest."

"So neither of us can make things better by ourselves. We need to talk and do things together, or it won't work. Neither of us are happy with the way things are."

"The government that you had issues with is overthrown. You acknowledge the new government has done nothing except invite you here peacefully. So now you'll do plant growth and stop the monsters from escaping the forest to eat people, right?" Of course they fucking won't.

"One thing at a time, please, Delegate de Seguer! So it seems to me that if it's important to the forest folk to be told things, there should be a way to tell them things without having to walk into the forest, which you've just said you made dangerous on purpose. You don't have a mailbox, do you?"

"That's a good question. Strong mages can go in safely but most people can't. This one is easy to solve though! We can keep a low-circle ranger or druid on duty outside the forest who can send in animals with messages, or go in themselves if it's urgent. Especially if there's something useful for them to do there the rest of the time, if there are things we'd be doing for you anyway other than plant growth, like - giving people goodberries or something."