CHAPTER 1.12 - THE WOMAN OF THE WOODS: II
Anuk’s eyes fly open as she whips her head round. The small man, Hugo, is standing over her. He’s offering a metal cup from which gentle steam is rising. As ever, he’s the picture of charm. “Here you go, Anuk.” He gestures to the ground nearby, but a polite distance away. She sits up, takes the mug, gives the halfling a grim nod. He looks confused for an instant but plonks himself down bonelessly.
The halfling doesn’t rush to fill the silence for once. For a moment, anyway. Anuk takes a sip from the mug, is surprised at the strength and quality of the dark coffee within. Despite herself, this brings a tight smile to her lips. Hugo seems to take this as an invitation to chat, dives straight in. “Weird night, huh?” He sees her responding scowl, seems to mistake this for agreement. “Yeah. Anyway, we’re the last ones up.”
She scans the clearing, spots Rian cross-legged on the ground. His back’s turned to them. He seems to be focused, working on something, but his bulk blocks her view. “Thaesurala’s off in the woods with the…baby.” Anuk catches the discomfort in the halfling’s words – seems like he too has reservations about the child. Can a baby be evil? He pushes on “Kid didn’t cry once through the night but seems like his mum was in and out of the tree every couple of hours…for…you know, feeding.” Hugo seems uncomfortable picking around the topic. Of course he does.
He gestures to another edge of the clearing, where Thae is kneeling over the brown bear. Its attention is fixed on the half-elf, but with less suspicion or aggression than she might have expected. Thae’s hand is on one of the bare patches of skin, golden glow suffusing, and Anuk can see that another of the bald patches looks fully healed. Hugo chuckles at her expression “Heh. That’s Thae: just wants the best for everyone. Mind you, only if the person’s ‘redeemable’. Might as well be dead if you’re not.”
The halfling frowns. “Not seen Wiln this morning, I suppose he’s around here somewhere. Unless she let him go?” Anuk finishes the coffee, looks around the clearing more closely. Most is as they left it: Hugo’s bedding patch remains, unwilted, as does the child’s nest. There’s some evidence of digging partway around the trunk of the tree, and beyond this a sheathed dagger has been propped against the trunk. Hugo catches her gaze, shrugs with a guilty look on his face. She can tell he wants to investigate this, but either politeness or Thae’s rules regarding hospitality have held him back.
Hugo reaches for the empty mug as she gets to her feet and heads towards the stream. He seems a bit offended by her brusqueness, but she doesn’t acknowledge the muttered “you’re welcome” from behind her. Such an attractive trait, petulance.
-x-
As Anuk returns from the stream, feeling better for cleanliness and caffeination, she sees that Rian has put away whatever he was working on. He and Hugo are sat next to the firepit, probably just as a place to be, as no fire is burning. Seeing her, Rian raises a hand in greeting. Thae, too, is approaching, followed by the bear. Anuk pauses mid-step, keenly aware she was the source of most of the beast’s injuries, watches as it approaches the big man. Its massive head is bowed, steps hesitant but determined. Rian eyes the creature warily but makes no hostile motions.
Anuk prepares to strike, but doesn’t want to initiate anything, tenses pointlessly. Then bursts out laughing as the creature’s shaggy head nudges Rian’s shoulder. He too bellows with laughter, before reaching up and digging his fingers into the beast’s fur. Thae’s grinning with delight, and while there’s amusement on Hugo’s face, his eyes are turned to her as though surprised that she can laugh. Fuck him, let him simmer.
She steps up to Rian and the bear, hands spread and open as the beast stop nuzzling, turns its eyes to her. Hears Rian making low calming noises, sees him nod in her direction as his hands move under the bear’s chin, still scratching away. The animal extends its neck, leaning into the attention, but its gaze remains locked on her. She gathers her bravery, extends a hand and strokes behind the beast’s ear. The whole group fall into laughter as the bear expels a deep grunt full of pleasure. Hugo and Thae begin scritching the animal’s ribs, careful to avoid the patches of naked flesh.
A minute passes, the huge beast rolling over for tummy scratches like a petted dog, before the whole group turns towards the tree. A high laugh drew their attention, joyful and free as Thaesurala emerges from behind the trunk. The child in her arms has opened its eyes, looking towards the noise, but Anuk doesn’t know if the baby would perceive more than a blur. The newborn’s expression remains solemn, humourless. As the bear rights itself, manages a very decorous amble away from the scritching circle, Anuk hears Thae’s throat clearing as the cleric moves towards the dryad. Anuk follows. No sign of Wiln nor the too-black hound.
The cleric performs a decorous bow to Thaesurala, greets her and her son in Elvish. Anuk can see the woman is focused on the obvious language barrier, attentive to bridge any gaps of understanding. The priest kindly translates the conversation for the remainder of the group. Hugo pipes up, suggests Thae thank her for allowing them into her “Teril” – the dryad’s eyes fix on the small man at the word, her smile widening. Emboldened, Hugo passes on to his friend that they should complement her “Eb..ryn?” Before a confused Thae can translate, the dryad giggles, says “Ebwyn”, pointing to the giant oak.
“Ebwyn?” The halfling grins. “There’s a word without its teeth in.” Thae uncertainly passes this remark along, is rewarded with a full, hearty laugh from Thaesurala. She reaches out boldly, ruffles the short man’s hair. Anuk reads a prideful pleasure in Hugo’s eyes, mixed with a hunger. She feels her lips twist with distaste.
The dryad’s now beautiful, autumnal leaf-hair jerks as she focuses on Hugo’s chest, a questioning look on her face. The halfling reaches under his armour, returns with his little red squirrel sniffing around the air from his palm. Thaesurala gestures towards the tiny creature, still questioning. “Three!” Hugo states proudly. The squirrel does a little dance on its hind legs, sniffs adoringly at the dryad’s proffered finger. Thaesurala giggles in delight “Tree!”
Suddenly, Hugo and Anuk start in fright as, unheard, the huge head of the bear leans in over the small man’s shoulder. Rather than dying from fright, the small rodent stands on hind legs again, tiny paw propping it against the bear’s wet nose as it sniffs at the monstrous beast. The bear gives a gentle snort, lopes away. As the group look on in surprise and delight, Three turns a circle on the small man’s palm. He leans towards the ground, the rodent jumps down and scampers off after the bear. As Hugo stares after his tiny companion, Thaesurala places a gentle hand on his upper arm, smiles and nods.
The dryad motions her hands, raises five knotted wood stools in a circle around the firepit, gestures that they should sit. As they move towards these, she is speaking urgently, appreciatively, to Thae. Between translating, the half-elf is obviously waving off the woman’s words; she is thanking the group for their efforts on her behalf, for saving herself and her son. Once Thae assures her that it was their pleasure, Rian asks the holy warrior to enquire as to Wiln’s location. The dryad responds that she spoke to the bandit through the night. “He was an evil thing, but at least he could dig.” As the group look towards the disturbed earth, it settles on them that the patch is much larger than the small bundle against the…Ebwyn’s…trunk. A silence descends, the companions eyeing one another uncertainly.
The dryad seems unperturbed by the group’s discomfort. “He will nourish the great tree, thiss is better than hiss life would have been.” Thae seems appalled, however Rian offers that this is very in keeping with nature. Hugo, nodding slowly, reasons “Nature isn’t just pretty flowers; it’s blood and survival and protecting your future. I guess she judged him to be beyond redemption.” Following their conversation this morning, Anuk catches a slight twitch from Thae, who does not press the issue.
The dryad speaks of a year ago – albeit expressed in characteristics of the seasons – when she found a man in her Teril. Between her and Hugo, this is defined as her area of influence, centred on her home tree. With some back-and-forth, this is confirmed to generally extend a mile or so from the Ebwyn. The man was from “elsewhere” and was “nobody”. Some querying of the latter suggests that this was his literal response when Thaesurala asked for his name. But that was jumping ahead, as the man was near death; indeed, the dryad might not have detected his presence were it not for “Night”, the ink-blot hound leading her to him.
Over the course of the next month or more, Thaesurala tended him and assisted his body to heal. But she couldn’t heal his mind. She’s short on detail of this, and the language gap is at its most extreme. Hugo picks up from Thae’s translation that she refers to “the Mother” a lot, but they can’t ascertain whether this is a person or a metaphor. Thaesurala’s usage could indicate either or both. From her descriptions, however, the man “Nobody” seemed to suffer depression, mania, and a hint of traumas chained together to define his expectations, his reactions. Anuk holds her tongue at this, unwilling to derail the halting progress of the woman’s story.
Then, Thaesurala speaks of them becoming lovers. This again hits Anuk wrong, but she reasons that the dryad is quite alien to them. Part of Hugo’s monologue from the previous night guessed that dryads were split beings. He spoke of a different world, like a bright duplicate of their own. This resonated with suggestions she had gleaned, that elves had previously existed in this ‘Fae’ place. That they were in fact fae creatures who, ages since, had emerged into this world. That maybe dryads were themselves fae creatures bound (or possibly chained?) to trees in the real world. So maybe her race doesn’t conform to human standards for relationships. Anuk shakes her head, visualising the thrall into which Thaesurala encapsulated Wiln. She looks again towards his unmarked burial site.
They lived together for a while; however, Nobody couldn’t truly settle. Dark moods would take him; anger would erupt from him. And then he left. Anuk feels compelled to ask, in Elvish, “Thaesurala. Was he dangerous?” Everyone is surprised by her outburst, Thae haltingly translating for Rian and Hugo. Anuk flinches as Thaesurala reaches towards her face, smoothes the curtain of hair back from her pointed ears. Well, it had to come out at some point, thinks Anuk. At least they seem to accept Thae’s mixed race. She looks defiant, repeats her question.
Her blood is chilled when the dryad happily responds “Yes. Very dangerous!” After a frozen moment, she indicates the four of them. The sense of her gesture is obvious: they too are dangerous.
Breaking the silence, Thaesurala speaks of her sadness following the departure of her lover. And then, her Ebwyn began to reject her. She speaks of not being able to feel The Mother, of trying to merge with the tree, the previously unknown difficulty of accomplishing this. And then, finally, its impossibility. Nobody had promised to return, she says, had left Night with her. The dryad laughs sadly at this. She gesticulates to the items Wiln had disinterred, her expression mixing regret, sadness and…disgust? He left her these things. For protection, she almost spits. The companions look at each other, perplexed, as Hugo, miming a request for the dryad’s permission, gets up and retrieves the sheathed weapon and a small pouch. The leather on the bag and sheath looks…strange somehow. Dark, a little too black to be natural. Hugo remarks that the items feel colder than they should.
He returns to them, pulling the dagger from its sheath. The metal of the blade seems to draw in the light, much like “Night’s” coat, but all of their attentions are dragged away from this as Thaesurala recoils, teeth bared. Hugo apologises, hastily re-sheathes the offending metal. The dryad gathers herself, continues. Over the days following “Nobody’s” departure, she became aware of the life growing inside her.
All pondering the mysteries of the story, Rian fishes in his pouch, retrieves the golden loop. Hugo brightens; the little man has something to say. “It’s a monocle…it looks like a monocle without any glass.” Grudgingly, Anuk realises he might be right. Gods, they really were running on empty: Rian had been looking through the thing all day!
The woodsman gestures towards Thaesurala with the object. The dryad gives a confused smile, looking from his face to the monocle. Obviously, she’s never seen it before. Apparently finished with her tale, the woman of the woods stands and, absently stroking her son’s serious face, moves to put him down for a nap.
