Mountain, meet Endbringer | Glowfic Constellation

He thinks he got it anyway, and he nods. "I will send someone."

"Good. I will be here."

So the man turns around and starts leaving, and soon his normal-looking bodyguard follows.

And Tenno goes back to repairing his forest. Ironwood trees to resist fire and explosions, so-called bloodroot thorns, carnivorous flowers, all the chemical defenses from before and then some, guessing at the right conditions to attract local insects. It's a lot of effort, actually, and doesn't look very nice but he should have gone all out earlier.

Things might even be looking properly interesting now, if that guy keeps his promise.

He does! Soon someone else comes along, followed by a body guard. That someone looks sad and subdued, not exactly like they want to be here.

Tenno will just have to act as polite and friendly as he can, then. He greets them both, in person, at the edge of the forest, and introduces himself, and offers fruit.

The bodyguard tells the other person something, and the other person says, "Thank you," meekly, and takes the fruit. She stares at it, not eating, until the bodyguard pokes her with a finger and says something too fast for Tenno to understand.

At the bodyguard, "No fight. I just want learn." To the other, "I am Tenno. What is your name?"

"...Phila."

"Phila, I will not hurt. Fight is ugly." And he starts asking vocabulary questions.

She tries to answer them, but she's still fair spooked, and having the "bodyguard" looming over her at the edge of the evil forest isn't super good for the nerves.

This is not maximally productive. He points at the 'guard.' "You! Go away!" He makes a significantly less evil-looking sort of imitating-a-clearing thing at the edge of his 'evil forest,' including convenient places for a human to sit. He sort of- kneels down, sitting not being practical for a quadruped. Nonthreatening as can be, given that he's still obviously very magic and she's used to violence from magic-having people.

"I must ensure she fulfils her duties," the bodyguard says. Phila looks between them and takes a step towards Tenno, and the bodyguard takes a step towards her.

"No. I said, go. Away." A thorn-encrusted tree is reaching out for the 'guard,' now, but refrains from actually striking.

He takes a step back, then shakes his head and leaves.

The woman looks even smaller than she already did, and doesn't move a muscle. Except for the shivering. That probably counts as moving a muscle.

The tree goes back to where it was. He curses a bit in his own language, then calms down enough to ask, "Why so much fight? Is-" Irritating, wasteful, ugly, so painfully human- "Sad."

She looks at him like he's... an alien, or something. "They fight for power. Don't you?"

Well, he is an alien, technically speaking.

Headshake. "I have my trees. I fight for- Defend? Is word?"

"You fight to protect your trees?" she tries.

He shrugs and makes a frustrated gesture. "Fight is ugly. I fight to stop fight, or stop fire, or stop kill."

"Oh." She relaxes, some, then looks at the clearing he opened. "You fight to protect people."

"I think that is almost right. What is word for, make things look good?"

"...improve?"

"Then I fight to protect improve." Nod, nod, clearly there has been no misunderstanding here.