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High above the world below, Melora watches from her garden.
The Divine Gate prevents her from interfering and she has been forced to watch as time and time again her faithful follower, the descendent of that champion from a time long forgotten, is taken advantage of by this terrible island, like the fake-god that claims ownership can sense her influence on him in particular, like a target on his back.
It has been aeons since Melora has stepped foot on the Prime Material Plane, too long since she has done anything other than peer down through the clouds to those who called for her and cursed the occasional greedy green dragon or two, but she has never forgotten its splendour, its wonder, its beauty, its innate ability to clutch onto whatever seed she provides and grow it into something spectacular. This island has none of that. It is twisted and dark and broken in more ways than she can even hope to describe. Center of Exandria it may be, but it does not hold the same beauty as the rest of the world, with its unnatural environments and misplaced wildlife and suffocating atmosphere, with the benevolent sea-beast and its greed and it’s punishments, always watching from its place below the volcano.
Melora had watched Fjord thrive on the ocean voyage, returning to his birthright, escaping and out-smarting the pursing Dragon Turtle from the depths, and she had swelled in pride in his success and his performance.
But on this island, surrounded by nature and life and all things living, Caduceus has struggled, and he has pained, and he has tried his hardest and failed every time. A part of her longs to be by his side throughout this endeavour, but she also has faith in him, that he will succeed, that he will overcome.
She watches as her Caduceus changes, from the sturdy, confident yet kind adventurer that he once was, to a timid, reluctant fracture of his former self, a shadow who sits back and lets the others take the lead after being burned one too many times before. She tries to help him as much as she can beyond the gate. She answers all the questions he asks of her with gentle caresses of warm winds and a point in the right direction, but this island scares her for its unnaturalness. There is not much of an answer that she can give him. But she helps as best she can.
This place has been cruel to you, she wants to tell him in more ways than just warm winds and lapping waves and waving blades of grass, but I shall be kind.
It’s only when they arrive at the boatyard hidden within the volcano by a geyser and a false wall as fraudulent as the creature it protects, that she sees that familiar Caduces come out, and she embraces his quest for knowledge, even when that quest takes him below the waves and towards the mouth of that cave.
She watches as a bubble of air leaves his lips and his face goes slack as the beast below the waves made of fire and menace and greed drills its intent into Caduceus’s mind, and she screams her fury and dismay as he swims his way through the underwater tunnels, illuminated only by the glowing flowers with unfurling petals and the only light Caduceus has to make his way through the water.
Melora watches from her bed of flowers, looking down into her pond that reveals the world below like a shimmering silver mirror, as Fjord follows after Caduceus, and she feels as desperate as he looks as he pursues him.
She screams, but they cannot hear. She reaches, but she cannot touch, and Fjord is left on his own as Caduceus shrugs off his novice spells, spells Caduceus was taught as a child, and though Fjord tries, he is no match for Caduceus’s natural skill and experience, practised ease.
Come back to me! she wants to scream through the ether, scream past the gate and into the world below until every tree and every wave and every weed quakes and trembles with her rage, her despair. Come back to me, come back-!
There is no response from Caduceus as he grapples with Fjord in the darkness below the waves. Fjord reaches and grabs and connects, and with his arms wrapped around Caduceus’s torso, arms intertwined with his friends flailing ones as his feet struggle to kick them backwards, and he screams for help, but his voice has no carry in the water, and the waves disperse his voice like sand.
My boys, she weeps, aching something fierce as tears like waterfalls drift down her face and land in her pool to send rippling waves through her water, her anger like a thunderstorm, her pain like an earthquake. My poor sons.
Caduceus brakes away from Fjord’s hold after precious seconds of wrestling in the tides and, blinded, Fjord is forced to retreat to the group as Caduceus swims forward and disappears in the many, unmapped tunnels. Her son, so afraid of the sea, so unfortunate around the ocean, now forced to follow the will of a faux-diety through the heated waters and dark toxic swell of its volcanic lair on this unnatural island.
She screams so loud that the very fabric of the universe vibrates, but still, they cannot hear her. She reaches as far as she can through the Divine Gate, sends her influence down to the very air that they breathe, forces the bonds that bind her to this realm, to her garden high above the plane to bend just a little, to give just enough for her to reach them, to help them, to help them all that she can. She gives them everything she has and more, and still, she fears it may not be enough.
She is not Sarenrae, with her disciple who rebuilds total temples in her name and leads the remembrance of her worship in such a way that she can appear in person to wrap a gigantic titan in vibrant chains. She is not Kord and his follower of faithful desperation who always comes when he calls and travels with his stormcloud as if she knows that he will speak to her through them, sending her dreams and advice and encouragement. She is not that beast that lurks beneath the waves who works in threats and punishments, sending cryptic nightmares and bestowing dark abilities and dragging Fjord to the bottom of the ocean with its wrath. She is not even that fae fool Artagan, who befriended a lonely child and followed her into adulthood and in his desperation to figure out who and what he was, put her sons and their friends in danger in this cursed land. No, she is just Melora, and though she tries, she cannot break through the Devine Gate and help her boys who travel the world and spreads her love behind them and do good in her name.
Melora begs, she hopes, she wishes. She wants to pray, but who do you pray to when you are already a god? Erathis comes to mind, and though she cannot help her, cannot help her children lost beneath the waves, she prays to her lover, prays to the woman who has been by her side for centuries and hopes against hope that she can hear her.
I hear you, comes Erathis's voice like chimes on the breeze, I shall do what I can.
And so, there is nothing more to do than wait, and she sits there, goddess of the wilds, mother of nature, as she watches her children struggle in the greedy claws of a monster.
Melora sits in her garden by her pool with images that shift like seafoam up above the plane below and watches with a tear-streaked face as war wages. Her children will be in the middle of it. The thought causes her no end of pain. There is nothing she can do. So she sits back and watches.
Melora watches her children in strife, and fears that watching is not enough. Not anymore.