It was hard to believe the Queen let druids into the convention at all. Maybe the archmage forced the issue. No one he's talked to has been foolish enough to think the druids truly want a resurgent Cheliax. He didn't listen to either of their speeches; that time is better spent noting who else is ignoring them. When his valet brings back stories about a delegate druid feeding the poor of Westcrown, he goes to sniff out what game they're hunting. He brings his wizard and a token pair of guards. They don't make him safer than he would be on his own, but appearances matter.

The crowd's bigger than his valet described. He still doesn't have any issues forcing through it - commoners who don't notice his garb and clear his path can get roughly shouldered aside. If anyone wants to risk a wandering hand, they'd better be very good at it.

Voshrelka doesn't deign to notice someone pushing through the crowd. She's reading pamphlets. The archmage Naima has published one on her version of reincarnation, and it seems to work just as Feather said. Which is... surprising, and changes things, and she's not quite sure what to do in response to it. Probably it won't matter, because the married archmages will probably have a lovers' spat of some kind within the next decade and have an archbreakup that may or may not hit Nex and Geb levels of bitter rivalry, but, well. It's good to keep the future possibilities in mind.

He doesn't get a good look at the druid until he breaks out into the open space around her. "You there, dru-" he stops, stuck, mouth still open. It's a face he'll always remember, one he hunted for over a decade, one he last saw covered in blood and disappearing into mist as his axe flashed through it.

She hadn’t had the leaves on her face, then, but the scars underneath are somewhat familiar. Technically speaking, he’s responsible for them. It was a very instructive lesson. It made her realize she had been going about things all wrong. In a way, she was tempted to thank him, because she wouldn’t have survived Infernal Cheliax for seventy years if she was still just ambushing anyone stupid enough to enter the Barrowood.

Except, he should be dead. Long dead, he died almost a century ago, just after Aroden’s death. She checked. This doesn’t make sense. Was it the archmages, restoring the old nobility to fill in the gap their executions left? That’s the only thing that makes any sense at all, no druid would reincarnate this butcher, and there was no one left to care to resurrect him. And it was a century ago. Only very powerful magic could manage that, which smells like archmage meddling.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter in the immediate sense. There is a living man before her that will probably want to try to kill her, again, and she needs to escape before he gets into grappling range and could maybe interfere with her casting, but she’s in a crowded and enclosed space and that favors him more than it does her…

… or, does it?

They’re resurrecting delegates. They executed the one who killed another delegate, even, and she followed up to make sure he went into the Final Blade, and he did. And this butcher is a stranger out of time, a brutish noble surrounded by people she’s been winning the favor of, all of whom have every reason to hate and distrust nobility after their time under the Infernal yoke. What does it look like, a strange brute of a noble shoving his way through a crowd, and taking issue with the druid that had been feeding them?

“… yes?” she says, almost pleasantly, affecting a lack of recognition. “Is there something I can help you with?”

The irony in the offer brings her blackened and shriveled heart indescribable joy. Yes, son of the man I killed, who very nearly killed me, who are you and why should I care, I’m so soft and fluffy and wish only to innocently help. Come, butcher, into the trap your own civilization has made for you.

"You - you - murderous fucking bitch!" His axe is in his hand somehow, he doesn't remember drawing it. He so desperately wants to chop the smug fucking smile off of her face. A century ago, he'd have gone for it. A century in Axis, though, has developed some instincts that used to be stunted.

This isn't the forest and there's a way things are done in the city. He clenches his jaw and forces himself to breathe deeply, ruddy face contorted with anger, then - "You killed my father!" he roars, "I demand satisfaction."

"Satisfaction...?" she says, feigning a lack of comprehension. "Please put that axe away, we're in a temple. Do I know you?"

"OF COURSE YOU FUCKING KNOW ME" he bellows, before the rest of her words register. He had entirely forgotten they were in a temple, but he's not going to blaspheme against Erastil. He slams the axe back into its sheath. "Name your weapon and leave this holy place," he says, in something that could conceivably be called 'close to a normal tone' by someone who wasn't really listening.

"Sir, delegates are forbidden from dueling each other." But she does put away the pamphlets she was reading and stands. "I'll leave the temple if you insist, but for the sake of those you're putting in danger with your misplaced temper, not to duel you. We're in a city. The riots were only days ago. Have some perspective."

"I insist, druid." He spits out the words and waves his guards forward to make a path. He's trying to remember exactly what the archmage said about dueling. He's pretty sure it was limited to the convention, and that's suspended right now. 

"Are you going to continue this farcical pretense of not knowing me?"

Yeah, she's not dueling this guy. Because he might win. Much better to instead:

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I won't indulge you." And then, exactly as she had when he almost killed her, she casts Gaseous Form. She turns into mist and begins to float away. If he lets her go, great! She will go to the palace and say that another delegate tried to attack her. If this further twist of the knife drives him to violence, also great! She will be resurrected and he will obviously be the aggressor and get to deal with the wrath of the archmages. She wins either way. She's learned from you, butcher, and the lesson was 'play a different game.'

"GodsDAMN YOU!" The commoners flinch away from him as he screams at the mist. Fucking druid murderess thinks she can get away with this. He's still not going to commit violence in a temple, but it's a close thing. 

"You've been challenged, druid! You admit your guilt and disgrace your name by fleeing." Not that druids have any fucking reputation worth preserving, but she's in the city for some reason and he won't have it.

There's a room full of commoners who do not understand the rules of nobles and dueling, only of nobles showing up to ruin things for them. They quite reasonably think he burst into a temple to yell at their druid and cause her to leave. She could leave the banquet of her own creation, it hardly needs her to nanny it, but it punctuates her point rather perfectly if, while the druid floats away:

The banquet that brought so many poor, hungry commoners here fades into nothing, leaving only empty tables. Behold, what your nobility's temper gets you.

Voshrelka herself returns to flesh on the roof of the temple, turns into a bird, and flies off to the palace to report that someone just tried to attack her at the temple of Erastil. It's a bit of a waste of a wild shape, to just fly in one direction and then return to her natural form near immediately, but she'd already sorted out her Plant Growths for the day with one of yesterday's Wild Shapes. Speed is key in this sort of thing. Get her own story out first, and all that.

The commoners are angry but their good throwing food just disappeared, thankfully. For a moment he considers paying to recreate the feast, but he doesn't have the money to do it regularly. Instead, he'll go make a donation to Erastil and apologize to the priest for drawing a weapon in the temple. He'll have to talk to Archduke d'Egorian and spread the word about this druid and his challenge. 

Two hours later, Vidal has made his way to the Magnificent Mansion just outside the palace. He'll introduce himself to the guards and request a meeting with his liege, the Archduke Alfonso Blanxart d'Egorian. 

"Marquis. What brings you here?"

He's practiced a short summary, he doesn't want to stumble over his words in front of the Archduke. "At lunch I went to investigate a druid feeding people at the Temple of Erastil. I recognized her - the very same elf that slew my father and killed my people a century ago. She escaped justice then, into the Barrowood. I drew my axe and challenged her to a duel. She pretended not to know me, then fled in the form of mist. I made a donation to the Temple and apologized to the priest for drawing my weapon on holy grounds, and then came here to spread the word of her shame and my challenge."

Internal sigh. What is it about druids that makes people do shit like this?

"I have no desire to stand between you and justice for you father," he says, "but I advise you that you will not get it like this. First, the Archmage has forbidden duels between delegates. If you kill her, I expect they will resurrect her and charge you with murder."

"Second, as a matter of my own opinion, duels are between gentlemen of rank. You slight your own honor, by allowing this uncivilized elf a fair fight over a wrong that she did to you. Let the law deal with it, as it should; if she has indeed done murder, I will see myself that she hangs for it, if the convention rules that the forests are subject to our laws, and I will help you in pursuing other satisfaction, if it rules that they are not."

"Third, right now we are engaged in a difficult negotiation for peace with the forests, and she is actually the most reasonable druid here. Stay your axe at least until the bloody convention is over, and you'll save the lives of many good men like your father."

The thing about druids is that they kill people and help their monsters kill people and try kill you if you stop the monsters from killing people.

"The archmage forbade dueling while about the business of governance. Neither of us were about that, and in any case the convention is now suspended." He's had a chance to check the wording to be sure.

"As to the law - I have never seen a druid willingly submit itself to justice - nor have I even heard of one who considered itself bound by the laws of our great land. Which guard will march to the center of the Barrowood to arrest her?"

"As to my father, Archduke, I will not dishonor his memory by allowing his murderer to walk around unchecked. I thought this convention a time to rebuild Cheliax to the heights we once reached - not to compromise with new Evils in the course of driving out the old ones."

"The archmages have also pledged to resurrect any delegates who die. Any justice you attempt, while the Convention is in session, will not stick. I am not asking you not to pursue her. I am just asking you to wait."

"Of course, we saw yesterday that the Crown is willing and able to send murderers to the Final Blade, even if they be delegates. Tell me more of the circumstances of your father's death, and I will lend my support, if you wish to bring the matter to Her Majesty's prosecutors."

"He was the Marquis de Almenar before me, charged with maintaining travel along the Sedna and defending the lands bordering the Barrowood. In the course of that duty, while on an expedition up the west riverbank to deal with two new nests of werecrocodiles, he was ambushed and killed by Voshrelka leading a party of beasts and fey. Over the following twelve years, I sought to avenge him, while she sought to slaughter as many peasants as she could. When I finally grew strong enough to defeat her, she fled my lands into the deep forest before I could finish the job."

"That does indeed sound criminal on her part. There was, as I'm sure you know, a general pardon issued for crimes committed under the old regime, but this in fact was before the old regime, and not done under the influence of Hell at any rate. They might still be loath to prosecute a hundred-year-old case, but with the victim's son still around—"

"I'll speak to the magistrate. Shall we do it now?"

“Yes - thank you, my Lord.”

Then they will walk across the street to the palace to see the magistrate.

They encounter someone just outside of the magistrate's office, heading the other direction.

"Ah, I see you've saved me the effort of finding you! And you must be his liege lord." She inclines her head politely to the archduke. "Two trips saved in one, then. My thanks."

With a bit of a flourish, she produces a declaration with the queen's seal, and without any kind of preamble, begins reading from it. "'For her extraordinary service and dedication to the well-being of Cheliax, the elven druid Voshrelka of the Barrowood is acknowledged as an envoy of the forests, and her person is declared sacrosanct by Her Majesty, Queen Aspexia III. For all criminal matters of anything but those of the highest of state, she is given diplomatic immunity for the foreseeable future.'" Then she smiles, just a little, and glances up at the two noblemen before her. The taste of victory over the brutish fool in what is supposed to be his own domain is all the sweeter, really. That's twice she's beaten him today. It's very satisfying.