[From 3.1] Her River, My Blood; Her Rock, My Bone

[Philomel]

FOUR YEARS AGO

"This is my home it's where I belong
From the clouds in the sky, to the roots and stones
See the sun in the sky make me feel so high
I see the full moon shine, make me feel so fine

Her river, my blood; her rock, my bone;
Her earth, my muscle; her heart, my soul
Her children my children, their freedom my goal
I'll be fightin' fightin' fightin' fightin' fightin for them all."

Omnia - Earth Warrior

People say that the Red Forest, or Lindequalmë, is a deadly place, full of horrors and terrifying twists of manipulated nature. Within its leafy walls lies a myriad of life-seeking plants that will strip a man's flesh from his bones, poisonous vines that have no other want than to intoxicate, and monsters of behemoth proportions. They say that once it was the greatest of the great forests and the envy of every nature goddess and saint, but then after the Tap was cut off the Forgotten One Pode sickened it with her ill magic. Apparently no one can enter the forest and hope to stay sane, for the blood-thirstiness of its nature has become so much that it has stained the very bark of each tree a deep crimson.

They say this, with fear lingering on the tips of their tongues and the points of their pen-nibs, cataloguing all the experiences of a thousand and one beings - yet. Yet. They never seek to approach the idea that, perhaps, other creatures, aside from the accepted sentient species, may indeed be at home in this most evil of places.

In the steadily reconstructed great halls of the Grand Library in Eluriand, Veridian Ryuusan, a fox by form and Earth Spirit by species, lay on his belly reading the Chronicle and Aftermath of the War of the Tap, by an obscure scholar called Marquis Meaden Garth. Apparently this High Elf had been just a child during the great rampage that had bled the world dry of magic, and he recalled his memories on the pages of the Chronicle. It spoke of Forgotten Ones and briefly of Xem'Zund and then went on for great many pages of how seemingly overnight Elves in particular lost the ability to even summon a light. It gave a detailed construction of how Meaden Garth supposed how magic might now occur, through various means. His suggested such things as Aleraran progressive science, new gods and Hadia. He gave authority towards saints, technology and alien races, as yet undiscovered. He considered ghosts, secret organisations and gruffalos ... but.

Veridian was horrified to read that the man did not give any attribute to nature spirits. So angered was he that he sat up, bold and tail swishing madly, and used both paw and muzzle to slam the book closed. Once the back cover had slammed down on all the pages, then he pounced and trampled on the book, hissing for all he was worth.