She lands in the middle of the field, and turns from a bird back into an elf, and raises her staff. A sudden breeze whips her silver hair into a tangle, and the end of her staff burns brightly with the verdant green light of (the appropriate kind of) life. There are witnesses to see her do her work, but this is mostly by chance than purpose on her part. It's probably for the best.

"O, great bountiful earth," she sings in Sylvan, because if she's going to be dramatic she might as well go all the way, "I bid you, bestow upon us your splendor." And then she slams her staff into the earth, and the fields all around her remember what it's like to truly thrive, again. It's been a while since anyone's blessed this land with anything even vaguely resembling a Plant Growth. This means that the results are stark, even though she wove her spell for length instead of power. Oops. Well, no one can doubt that she did it, at least.

"Though they do not deserve it," she murmurs very quietly in the same language, to no one in particular. Maybe herself.

She's tempted to pick some strawberries to be this day's set of Goodberries, but humans are stupid and will probably call that stealing, even though she's already paid back a hundredfold what she'd be taking. So she doesn't, and instead just stows her staff and heads back to the damnable city. People are staring, and she doesn't care.

After the first day of the convention Feather feels tired. She's trying to do an incredibly important thing and she's doing it incredibly badly and the best humans are barely sympathetic and the worst ones are outright attacking her. Maybe a real very wise and old druid who spent their life studying Chelish humans could have made much better progress, but none of them are willing to leave the Forest because they don't trust the humans not to attack them or not to attack the Forest while they're away, and after having to tell people for the hundredth time that peace is better than war and we haven't really tried yet, stop dismissing the possibility and of course you can hunt, hunting is great, that's why others will hunt you too, the thing you mustn't do is pointlessly kill lots of people -

Feather is beginning to get a visceral understanding of why they feel that way. She's all alone here with Greystripe, and he could hoot at them for her but she knows it wouldn't help so he stays quiet while she struggles. And in the evening they fly away from the human city and back to that nice old tree they found, and Feather spends a while snuggling under Greystripe's wing and trying to make the world go away, but eventually she has to find another branch to shift human because her owl shape won't last all night, and try to sleep.

Morning comes and she meditates on peace and war and nature in between them and very firmly not on the side of only war, hugging her preserved feather and staring at its familiar vanes until she convinces herself peace is real again. And then it's time to hunt for breakfast, before they go in for another day of Outsider-humans.

They're in the middle of their second rat (it's easier to eat the big ones if two owls tackle it from both sides and pull) when the grass around them - shifts, in a wind that isn't there and that sings to them softly, of nature and of home.

...it takes Feather a few fascinated moments before she realizes it's not just the wind in the grass. 

A few very hurried gulps later, they're on the wing again and there - there is a nicely dressed elf woman walking towards the city, and she's not singing or casting anymore but from a distance of barely half a mile it's easy to tell which way the wind was blowing. 

Feather feels she ought to be more careful before approaching a stranger mage of an unknown disposition. They're still a little bit outside the human city, she's not sure if the protection for the convention delegates holds or if everyone would know and respect it. But as far as she knows only druids and clerics of Erastil cast plant growth, and anErastilian is hopefully not going to attack her on sight without even asking if she'd let them log her forest?

So they fly a bit ahead of her on the road before landing, and Feather shifts human to say "Hello!" in Sylvan. (She's been practising speaking as an owl so, so hard for the past year but it's just. not. working right!)

Blink blink.

"Hello," she says, also in Sylvan, tilting her head in acknowledgement. "The Itarii mentioned other druids on the Forest Committee, are you one of them?"

'Nicely dressed' is perhaps an overstatement, though what she wears is certainly well-made. It's well maintained dark brown leathers, with a deep green undershirt whose collar peaks out over the unassuming looking armor. The woman herself had her white hair tied carelessly back into a ponytail, and her skin bears both scarring and tattoos of leaves.

"I am! Bright Morning Feather, druid of Ravounel Forest, and this is Greystripe." (Hoot hoot, says Greystripe amiably from Feather's shoulder.) "Did you meet Liushna? She's the only itarii here I know."

She gives another amiable incline of her head towards Greystripe. "She hadn't mentioned her name, but she's also on the Forest Committee, so I expect we speak of the same person. I'm Voshrelka, of the Barrowood."

"Do you mean - from the Barrowood? Are you here as a delegate? I'm sorry, it's just that there's someone from the Whisperwood here and for a while I was confused if he was from the forest or just lived near it. And - are you a druid or a ranger? I felt that spell but I didn't actually see you cast it."

A druid delegate from the Barrowood would be wonderful if she's a normal, sane druid, and... probably still good even if she's another Tuimfane. And if she's a ranger or something and not a full druid, the humans might actually treat her better.

She literally has leaves tattooed on her face. There were a couple reasons she had this done, most of which are personal and which she doesn't particularly want to get into, but one of them was so that she'd be very obviously a druid. Druids are usually better at recognizing other druids, even with her own animal companion long lost. Hm. So this druid isn't on her second life with reincarnation, probably? That's interesting.

"Druid, yes. And from the wood itself, as a delegate. I arrived last night, there was some last minute research I needed to accomplish and I'd mistimed things a little."

Her tattoos are very pretty, which is why anyone might want to wear them! Half the rangers Feather knows are still hoping to become druids anyway. Druids in Ravounel Forest just, well, know each other, and anyway you can tell when you see someone's shifting, and she showed the elf hers.

There is an ancient and hallowed tradition for strange druids to identify each other. They can't talk in Druidic before making sure, of course, or where someone might overhear, but there are a few phrases of not-actually-Druidic which kind of sound like it but aren't made of real words and whose meaning is assigned entirely by convention. They're not as secret, because the whole point is using them with someone who might not be a druid before you actually verify.

Not that Feather is particularly inclined to disbelieve anyone who shows up and plausibly claims to be a druid. To be honest the idea didn't even occur to her before she met Tuimfane, and she's seen him shift last evening. But, uh, maybe she was taught those phrases for a good reason? 

Asper casper asfodel, she says. Greetings from one druid to another. (And wow, it's been years since she last heard that, hasn't it?)

"Well I'm very glad you're here now! We flew over the Barrowood on my way here, but we didn't have time to linger. The other druid who came with me stayed to talk, and I got a local to escort us east." She names a few names. "I don't really understand the humans and they don't understand me and most of them aren't trying. They're just making demands or threats and - even the nicer ones are acting like if we don't give them what they want, that makes it alright to take it by force and kill everyone in their way. Even the cleric of Erastil is completely selfish and barely Neutral. And the really horrible woman is I think just enjoying hurting people and making trouble."

Atrada ilaniel caspa, replies Voshrelka, which is of course the traditional reply. We druids are as one. (The implications for this are 'as one ecosystem' more than literally being one.)

This... is mostly not a very useful summary.

".... Well," says Voshrelka, after a pause failing to digest that explanation into something she can understand, "did you offer to cast Plant Growth for them?"

"Yes of course!" Feather assumes she is referring to negotiations, not to just casting the spell on a random field that nobody in the committee is going to care about because they're fractious humans. "And everything else I could think of! Even help with stopping creatures from leaving the forest and attacking humans! And the Erastilian just went, 'but we need trees to burn, if you can't give us trees then the rest is not enough, you have to find a solution for our every need.' At least I got them to agree to continue talking - not just at the convention, to send better-chosen negotiators to our forest - I hope that will work better but I guess it will depend on who they actually send."

They have some time as they walk back to the city and the convention building, which Feather can spend describing the other people on the Forests committee.

"Narcis Soler is a cleric of Erastil but he says he's Lawful and not Good, and he's the committee chair. I'm not sure what the chair can formally do but he - guides the discussion. He's a reasonable Chelish human but that's really damning with faint praise. I met him the day before convention started, we talked for a while, but I couldn't get him to understand that killing people for no reason is against Good. There's this Chelish word 'monster' and I feel every time they want to make an exception or don't like a particular non-human they call them a 'monster' and then it's fine to kill them but there's no rule about who's a 'monster' other than 'whoever we want to kill'. When I came here I really hoped that I could convince someone to cooperate as Good should with Good, after they rebelled against Asmodeus, but if even a cleric of Erastil doesn't understand Good I don't know if that can work. Anyway, he's at least agreed to keep talking and hopefully if there are more people like him will keep their word once there's a deal, since they're Lawful."

"Liushna you've met. She's nice but I think she doesn't understand the Chelish humans any better than I do. She's an ally because the humans who hate forests will also be the ones who hate the itarii and probably all non-humans, but I think she's a friend too."

"Tuimfane Ascathel is the druid from the Whisperwood. They have a portal to Hell and he wants the archmages to close it - the archmage said they're working on it - and to kill their dragon, I don't know why. He thinks this is so important that he doesn't even want to talk about normal forest business. I guess it must be really hard for them with the Hell portal, I wish he'd support me more but maybe he thinks that if he does the humans will turn on him and won't help him with the portal."

"Anna Tomàs is a warrior from something called the Order of the Pike, which is from Cheliax but they're apparently working with Tuimfane to fight the devils in the Whisperwood. Except she also told a story about killing a nymph who killed  Asmodeans while trying to rescue her friend, and her point was that nymphs who leave their forest should be under the laws of Cheliax whatever they are at the time. I guess at least she didn't insist that the laws of Cheliax apply to nymphs who stay inside the forests."

"Eulàlia de Seguer is a human noblewoman and she is absolutely horrible. I have no idea what she actually wants except presumably to hurt people, or maybe to hurt non-humans. She spends her time insulting people and winding them up to make them look bad. Don't trust anything she says."

"And Lluc and Taís are... not nobles or clerics, I don't know if they're elected. I think they mostly want to kill all 'monsters' - or to have them killed for them - including anyone who might ever theoretically harm a human being."

Okay, this is at least more substantive and informative, if very.... very.

Gods, she's not going to be able to keep any of these people straight, and there's only, what, uh. Seven of them? And if she can sign up then presumably others could, and she wouldn't put it past humans to mysteriously add more people to the council/committee thing in order to more easily get what they want.

"I see," she says, mostly to make this person please stop talking.

Then, after a long pause of attempted digestion of this absolute massive meal of words words words: "...... Which trees did the Erastil cleric want to burn? New ones, or was he speaking of cutting old growths that had grown proper dryads?"

"I... think he just wanted big trees? I suggested growing bushes and shrubs with plant growth, maybe something very fast growing like I hear they have down south, but he said only logs from big trees burn all night. Nobody mentioned burning dryad trees!" There are never enough properly big old trees to go around and most are occupied already; if the humans wanted those where would all the poor dryads go?

"Humans can't tell the difference between an empty* tree and a dryad tree," says Voshrelka, flatly. "It's a problem."

*In Sylvan, this does not mean empty of all life, just empty of sapience.

Fuck. "We don't let them anywhere near the dryad trees. Well, and there aren't many dryads on the outskirts outside the defensive zone. I guess there must have been some deaths there at one point or another. If a dryad appears there I hope there's somewhere better protected she can move on the inside - no, another dryad's going to appear in that tree, it doesn't help anything." Sigh. "To be honest, I'm not sure most humans care about the difference. If they start cutting down a tree and the dryad screams at them to stop they probably won't. They don't really - think nonhumans are people. Most of them don't, anyway."

... Yes, that is indeed how humans work, why is this surprising to you?

"Is... this the first time you've been away from Ravounel?" she asks, attempting to aim for 'sympathetic' and instead hitting squarely into 'incredulous.' "What I know of them is that they're very... isolated."

"I've been to Chelish villages around the forest, many times now. I learned the language and I tried to understand them. Because I think - we can't keep fighting a war forever. It's terrible, and also we're probably going to lose one day. I've been taught that - forests keep shrinking. Just in Cheliax, over the past few centuries, all the forests except ours have shrunk. We put everything into defending ours and we're very proud that it works but - if everyone else can't do it then one day we'll be left alone, and then they'll come for us too. And even if they don't, losing all the other forests is - an unspeakable tragedy. I don't know how to stop it, I'm trying to understand humans well enough to convince them to stop it and I know it's a stupid plan that almost certainly not work but I don't have a better idea and I can't do nothing. Maybe if I understand the humans better, I'll find a better way than just convincing them about it."

"You know, when I started out I thought all I had to do was learn a weird language and to understand a type of humanoid. I know humanoids are very hard but it's been done before, it's not impossible, right, I'd just have to be a better druid than anyone alive in Ravounel." She laughs bitterly. "My teachers told me even humans don't understand themselves and I'm starting to see what they meant. And just when I thought I was maybe getting somewhere they changed their god and their queen and they want to change all their laws but they don't know what the new laws should be. Even if there's a human somewhere who understood Chelish humans as they were a year ago they wouldn't understand them as they are now."

"And of course they also don't understand anything about druids. Or almost anyone else, really, since they don't think anyone else is people."

Sweet Cernunnos, this druid is more a child than even most humans, and furthermore is looking to her for comfort. She is really, really, really not qualified for this. At all. She absolutely should have just stayed a bird and had a nice peaceful flight back to the argument building, but she felt like being dramatic.

"I'll. See what I can do to convince them. They do care about - government and theology changes, and I expect them to make a point of wanting to be different from what came before, just." This girl was clearly expecting the whole wide world to just make friends and get along forever and always, and, uh, no. No, that's not happening.

"... They have a lot of trouble having perspective. Especially to a wider world. Peaceful balance has been made between wild and civil before, but, they." She's trying really hard to break it to this girl gently, but there's really no way to manage it. "... There's no guarantee their children's children will keep to them. If their government doesn't disintegrate into civil war, which, it might."

"I know even if we make peace it might not last. Maybe while there's peace, it'll let us figure out how to build something better, I have to keep hoping. We have to somehow do it so that - neither side profits by breaking it, so it's not relying on Law. And so that if they do break it, at least we won't be sorry for having had a period of peace."

"I don't even know how to do that yet, because they want there not to be anyone who might decide to go out of the forest and harm humans, but half the reason it happens is that we encourage people dangerous to humans to live on the forest edges to stop them from going in and then sometimes there's overcrowding. And if we encouraged them not to live there we'd be weaker if the humans broke the peace."

"Ugh. I promised myself I wouldn't call them 'the humans'. Back at home the teachers frowned on that. My birth family is mostly human! And here I am, four days in this city and doing it already." Sigh.

Yeah, uh, she doesn't really have a response to this girl's hopes and dreams and whatnot. She would really like if she could stop being this person's emotional support object. This is uncomfortable, and she has enough to do already. Besides, what's she going to say, 'Cool story, sucks to get your heart broken, welcome to the club'? She can't really phrase things diplomatically, but she's at least smart enough to know what will not go over well.

"... I understand the casual gloss. Sylvan doesn't really have a good word for people that are... cut off. The elven tongue does." It is admittedly mostly used as a gloss for 'human,' but, well, if they want it to stop applying so near-universally to them, they really need to stop acting like they do.

There. She. Said words. She can say words. ... Is this going to mean the baby druid is going to say even more words again. Because she does not want that. Please do not keep saying words, you have already said so very many words and the arguing for the day hasn't even started yet.

"So. Um. What do you want, or - hope will happen with all of this? The people I met in Barrowood didn't know there'd be a delegate, but I got the impression different parts of your forest do their own thing? I only got here on time because the circle in Ravounel decided to send someone before we even got an invitation, and I still wish I'd had a lot more time to prepare."

Oh, that's not another set of paragraphs filled with someone else's hopes and dreams. Good, good, that's more workable.

"The Barrowood is..." she trails off, trying to find the words. "We are split apart, spread thin, by design. It is best if most of us do not really know what the others are doing, or where they are, at any given time. Better still if we don't even know each other's names. It's safer, that way. But I know what awaits us," and she uses the word here for all life, not just druids or elves or people of the forest, purposefully including the very stupid humans, "if we do not break away from our current path."

Fields lain fallow, death caused to cause it, the horrors of starvation and war and pain carved ever deeper into the very earth until all the world is broken and bare. She knows how it feels to stand in a living field and tell it to die. It is awful. She does not, will not, promise no more, but. ... Other options first.

"I suppose I decided I'd rather fight for something better, instead of all of us killing each other some more. So. The same as you, really."

That's - about what Feather was expecting, really. The other forests are bigger, but they are worse off in terms of defense. She doesn't know why the druids of the Barrowood think it's best not to even know each other's names, but - that might mean she shouldn't ask about the thing they don't want even themselves to know.

But then - "how will you negotiate with the Chelish humans? If you don't all work together... If you can't speak for the forest, what can you promise them?"

"I'm planning to give them a history lesson," she says, a little darkly.

Feather waits for an explanation of that, but apparently one isn't forthcoming?

"Um. I - can't tell you what to do, obviously, but. Yesterday Tuimfane didn't even tell me he was a druid before the committee met. And then I think we were uncoordinated and looked bad in front of the, uh, the Chelish, and some of them take any sign of weakness as a reason to attack because they fundamentally don't think it's a negotiation, or not one for mutual profit. And when I tried to confront one of them about it the others sided with her, even the Erastilian who'd been pretty nice before then. So I'd rather know what you're going to do and not be surprised."