[Acacea]

A Penned Past/Magic is Thicker Than Blood - Connor's Epic

((Poor Dorg had a stop/start WLDQ that was picked up again and slightly redirected... I wanted to start from the beginning at some point (despite the bumpy detour), but for now I only have what I wrote for Acacea's CDT however long ago, from the visit to the Fairy Shee in the Forest of Fog to make the cure to Desolation's Spire. If nothing else, I would at least like to finish the fey section because it pertains to my character (and this is after all a CDT of a kind) and Kobal blushing at the fey and dancing with Acacea should certainly be noted. On the other hand, I want the memory mixing and the end-game to be written too...I guess I'm greedy!))

The Shee of the fabled fey of the deep mists was no longer in a good mood. Its queen had left in a beautiful temper for lack of immediate entertainment, and the whole of her chaotic realm reflected it. One of the beasts that guarded her flowery throne before the stream, with a body like that of a lion and a head like that of some great bird of prey, growled at the halfling as she grinned and playfully batted at its swinging tail. The former glimpses of many impish faces peering at her from the water were now less interested in her comings and goings.

From the bridge she frowned at the ripples as the others discussed the contents of the vial that countless others had prayed for while they had lived their years with each breath taken only by the grace of the dark elves that held so many lives in their hands. It was for that they had come; for decades others had held the ingredients for the impossible cure to Desolation's Spire, the poison that had been the gift of Ca'duz to his people, which was rare among the poisons of the realms in that as a divine gift, it had no antidote. No slow deaths or necrosis awaited the affected, however - its only outward sign was the mark of the spider.

But from below...miles below... they could decide who lived or died. There was no struggle, no hope to fight an illness - one afflicted would simply die, and entire towns had been poisoned with their wells. Most recently, Melizaphei, well known and loved Caller of Lucinda - often called the Mad Sparkler - had been brutally run through with a blade coated with it, which was odd in itself. Why bother with the poison if she was meant to die, if they only sought the Tome she carried?

She glanced up when hearing Connor walking to search for the treeman-that-was-a-healer, and waved to the other sphinx as she crossed, herself. "Can you tell your friend I said sorry for playing with his tail? It was irresistible!"

She scampered to catch up and fell in beside Jennara as they both looked around at the trees towering above them, ending somewhere in a misty veil. "Is he the only treeman?" asked Jennara in her quiet voice, of the healer who had surprised those meeting him by being...well, a tree. Those who remained unable to leave in the Shee, as he had, tended to conform to what they truly were, the queen had said.

Acacea squinted to the surrounding trees and in reply scratched her head and commented, "I don't know..I have a hard time telling them apart..." She poked one's trunk just to make sure as the others approached the one identified as the healer, nodding to herself.

The healer's branches rustled as if stretching, and its "hmmmmmmm?" was a low drone that seemed to last a few moments.

Connor held up the vial the treant had given him, and asked, "Can I ask you a few things about this?"

It seemed to consider that with a serious expression...or perhaps not, the thoughts of a tree being somewhat difficult to decipher, and then gave another long "hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...." that might or might not pass for agreement.

Jennara whispered beside Acacea, "I would wave, but it might distract him and cost us an hour."

The other small one laughed at that, her mood already having leaped back to merriness despite the queen's anger, unable to stay dampened in such a place of chaotic magic, and she shook her head at Connor with a grin. "Why waste a question on a question?"

She turned her occasionally flighty attention to across a short space where the land fell away, to the centaurs roaming just within her sight, while the sorcerer finally decided that the noise was the only invitation he was going to get. "Alright well...it seems rather...at home here. What will happen when we take it out?" he asked, voicing his concern that the 'cure' may not function properly outside of its home.

The creaking of wood served as the first answer, as it ponderously lifted its branches in something resembling a shrug. "Iiiiit iss ooof..." it rumbled slowly, the pauses between its words stretching out before it finished, "...thee feeey..."

"...Which means?"

Again leaves rustled in the shrug of the treant: "It means...it couuld... or could not... It maay... orr may not... As is... its naature."

"It's up to the fey, then?" Connor asked, as if trying to understand, but the healer seemed confused by the question and did not reply.

From behind the halflings came an owlish yawn and the sudden shower of leaves and flowers falling from stretching branches onto their heads, as the tree Acacea had poked earlier came out of some deep slumber. "Huurrrhh...?"

The colorful one giggled and shook herself out, a few flowers sticking in her hair and leaves clinging to her clothes, and whispered to the other, "Told you." More loudly she apologized to the tree, saying, "Sorry for waking you up... ! I was just passing by..."

There was a long pause that stretched an age as a frown slowly shaped on its barky features, branches swaying in different directions before they finally settle downward and discover the source. "..................Weelll... thaat is juust... ruude..."

Deep vibrating hums and small sounds of the wind rattled reassuringly to it from the healer to its awakened compatriot as they looked up at it. "I'm sorry! My name's Acacea, I didn't know you would wake up."'

Low grumblings answered her as its leaves shook around, while all the while Connor looked expectantly towards the healer, waiting still for an answer. Bark slid slowly over the knotholes of its eyes before it at last asked, "Do youu...neeed to knoow?"

"I need to know that if it leaves here, it will work, yes."

Small crinkles appeared on the bark in a similarly confused expression as the last, as Kobal suggested that perhaps Plenarius, as a man of nature, could carry the vial himself and sense if anything went wrong with it along the way. "Aldough dis be soundin' a bit teh chancy fer meh taste."

Acacea's own brow wrinkled slightly as she lifted her hands and shrugged. "Chancy...fey," her voice trailed off as if that explained everything.

The rumbling voice sounded again as if not understanding the question. "It aacts to its natuure...of thee fey." Its head bobbed slightly in the direction of the halflings, saying of Acacea, "Liisten...she is heaaring...wheere otheers aare but...deaf."

The visitors voiced different comments and opinions to one another for a time, until the branches again swayed back and forth as if sweeping the point of the discussion gently aside. "Assuraances...I caannot giive you."

Resigned to the unknown, Connor nodded. "Then to administer this...it is consumed by the intended? Applied some other way?"

With seemingly infinite patience it responded again, "Maade to be... consuumed, it couuld heeal from withiinn."