He could have just stayed in the Forest, continued on with his meaningless existence. Lost himself in the familiarity of those trees, the winding paths between them but he didn’t. Druid was plopped unceremoniously back to where he had begun, his life sacrifice ended prematurely and abruptly. The endless winter indeed had ended but that didn’t matter, it was already winter in his world. She would be dying again soon,he thought with a frown and a pang deep in his chest as he walked.
It didn’t take much for him to choose this place, it was so much like what he was already used to. Here the trees towered in thick columns racing upwards forever to the skies. The trunks were thicker than any horse, their roots breaking the earth like branches of any other tree he had ever seen. Could he climb them he was sure that on a clear night he might touch the stars but horses are not meant to climb. Beneath them were a centuries worth of pine needles, red like rust and they made a surprisingly soft bed. And warm, they were warm in the night when the fog rolled through, the chill of night air kissing the heat of the ground to make a child of mist.
He left them in his hair, the needles, tangled in his rusty colored tresses because they were home now and he needed something to belong to. A purpose, a reason to carry on and Time had not given him one- so he sought to forge his own.
She was graceful as she moved, perhaps even in an overthought way. She was unfamiliar though that was not saying much, Druid had taken to once again secluding himself from others, a great divide of his own making. She was like a river, twirling between the trees to find a new path when another was blocked by a boulder or a root too big to cross. A time passed as he stood in silence just watching her, carefully tucked away in the trees he had become ever so good at hiding in. Then he shifted, throwing his weight around to find comfort and in his doing so he stepped back, just a hair and cracked a fallen twig.
It was enough to make him jerk, surprise at his own self taking him and his ears laced carefully against his skull. She asked after him, or who, or what it was that made the sound and he didn’t answer. Not right away. It wasn’t until she called once more that he found his voice, emerging from his cover and offering her a solemn, “Sorry, I did not mean to frighten you.”
druid
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