Chapter Text
The Northern Lights illuminated the sky in a curtain of blues, greens, and violets, moving in a carefully choreographed dance to a melody of their own creation. The snow-covered ground refracted the light, crystals of ice joining in on the elaborate display and swallowing all sound in its echoing silence.
The hour was still early, the sun beginning to peak over the far off mountains with the lightest touch of white light reaching into the blue darkness that served as the canvas to the Northern Lights.
Nearly fifty years spent beneath this spectacular sky and it still left her in awe. The sight of it after weeks of endless travel only left her more eager to return to her Grove, in the meantime she would bask in the comfort she found in the unnerving silence.
A near-desolate, frozen wasteland such as High Ice was a completely different world from the coastal city of Baldur’s Gate where she had been born and raised. As fondly as she remembered the city, it had not been her city for a long time and her recent visit had solidified just how much she had changed over the last decades.
Pulling the fur collar of her coat tighter around herself to block out the snow surfing on the breeze, the Druid let out a small prayer to Rellavar Danuvien for safety during the final legs of her journey to the Rift of Stars.
To her left, one of the dire wolves in the pack escorting her stopped walking to paw at his face, whining dramatically and drawing a small laugh from the druid.
“Did you get a flake in your eye?” The dire wolf whined, sounding like the small pup it had ceased being months ago. “So dramatic. Come on, it won’t be long now.” She held out a hand and the wolf eagerly trotted to her side, brushing his flank against her thigh.
Her wolven entourage had been a surprise both leaving and returning to High Ice, but they were not unwelcome. It was nothing short of a miracle that she’d managed to travel to the coast and back unaccosted over the course of weeks. Upon returning to the Moonstone Grove, she would be sure to make a generous offering to Silvanus and the other gods to express her thanks for their protection.
Gliding along on her skis it only took minutes to reach the stone spiral that was the last landmark before finding the hidden grove, but while approaching it, something felt . . . incredibly off. The silent stillness held an undercurrent of wrongness, no longer natural to her sensitive ears.
Throwing her hood off to better see, the druid approached the stone spiral and dusted at the snow with her ski to reveal the stones beneath. Or rather, the distinct lack of stones.
“The spiral’s been disturbed,” she muttered to herself. Not even a novice of their lowest ranks would make such a mistake as to disturb the spiral. Further digging revealed that the stones had been moved, kicked around haphazardly, leaving the spiral half-destroyed.
Brow creased in concern, her thoughts were broken by the wolf who’d talked beside her tugging on her sleeve. He whined, a sound she could understand as distress, as he tugged on her sleeve.
She put her free hand on the wolf’s head and gripped her elder wood staff in the other. Her thumb quickly found the ancient notch in the wood - a result of an all-too-close encounter with a wild Remorhaz looking for a meal - and rubbed at the spot to ground her building anxiety. She kicked off her skis and ran to the hidden entrance to the cave system where her grove lived and slept.
The stone gate had been smashed to oblivion, chunks of rock scattered all over the ground and half-buried in the snow.
Feeling her throat squeeze tight in fear, the druid ran into the cave and came to a short stop. Despite the lack of light and color her darkvision could not provide she could still identify the dark liquid spilled on the cave floor.
In a lake of blood lay two of her junior acolytes and the winter wolf bonded to one of them. Their bodies lay mangled and hacked in pieces in their own frozen blood, dead long enough for their bodies to have collected frost.
Inhaling sharply assaulted her senses with the iron tang of blood and the powerful scent of burning pine and juniper.
The elder wood staff fell from limp fingers as the druid stood there stunned for a moment. Before her mind could catch up her feet were running to the various caves where her brothers and sisters lived. Every room was the same, long-frozen bodies scattered in the caves, some with their weapons still in hand. Sometimes there were lakes of black oil, usually areas where the cave walls had taken the most damage.
Pushing through her building despair, the druid ran into the deeper parts of the cave where the archdruid’s chambers and the communal spaces were. What met her was a massacre of a sickening scale. Clinging to a pillar of ice for support and covering her mouth, the druid surveyed the scene with abject horror. She stumbled through the field of slaughter, fighting back the tightening in her throat as bile threatened to rise.
Finding the archdruid - her master - was not hard. Her lifeless body was held fast to the ground by her frozen blood, covered in a light dusting of snow from the open ceiling above the circular room.
Falling to her knees, a sob escaped from her as she tore off her mittens to touch the blue, frozen skin of her master’s cheek. Her eyes were still open, devoid of the light and warmth which once shone so beautifully in them with love for her grove and nature.
Choking on her breaths, she pressed her forehead to her master’s, tears beginning to fall in angry hot streaks down her cheeks. A scream of anguish tore from her throat, echoing in the silent caves of the Moonstone Grove. She screamed and sobbed over her master’s body until her throat was raw and begging for relief from her pained sobs. Her tears ran dry, bathing the frozen, dead skin beneath her in her grief. She slumped over her master’s body, losing the will to use the strength needed to stay upright any longer. She lay there, curled against the lifeless body of her master like a child as her own body shook with dry sobs.
Humid warmth gently pulled her out of the ocean of blackness she had slipped into at some point. How long she had laid there or when she had passed out was not something she could be sure of. When green and gold-flecked eyes blinked open she was staring at the muzzle of the white direwolf. Raising a numb, freezing hand she scratched the canine behind his ear, humming a soft, despondent noise to tell him she was awake.
With more probing from the dire wolf she stood and followed its direction, allowing herself to be herded by the faithful creature.
The vegetable stew she forced down was bland, more water than vegetable stock, but it was nourishment and warmth her body needed after her long journey. Numbed as she was, enough awareness lurked beneath the surface to turn on autopilot and secure her self-care and survival.
What could be salvaged was taken outside, bodies laid side by side with one or two items of their belongings, their staffs - some broken, and a single gold coin each. Molding the earth to cover their bodies was done with a word and gesture with her elder wood staff, covering the grave where her brothers, sisters, and master were to return to the frozen earth together.
Slowly she knelt, prostrating herself to the grave while she uttered a prayer. “Look not upon our sins, Master of Scales, but measure the worth of your most grateful dead.” A sob caught in her throat. “Lord of the Dead, Master of the Crystal Spire, please receive my grove into your care and judge them with compassion. And . . . please deliver my love and farewells to them.”
She sat up, resting on her knees as she looked at the burial mound.
“Master, I need to leave the Moonstone Grove now. I can’t stay here alone. I will go back to Baldur’s Gate unless the Oak Father wills me elsewhere. If he is merciful, I will find my wandering siblings and they will welcome me, or maybe I will find a new grove to call my home and family. But first I must find those who attacked us and take revenge for the Moonstone Grove. Please guide me in my hunt.”
A second prostration before she got to her feet, eyes cast to the south west, feet unwilling to make the journey back to Baldur’s Gate a second time.
The dire wolf nudged her hand with a sympathetic whine, urging her onwards.
“Hoar, Lord of Three Thunders, hear my plea: guide me to my vengeance. Let me take eye for eye, may my enemies never know peace. Sharpen my fangs and claws into weapons worthy of my foe’s demise. Stoke my fires so that I may make my enemies know my rage and fury. Make me into the storm that will be their undoing and the blade which shall be their end.”
As the druid began her long journey, the echoing silence was overtaken with the mournful howls of the dire wolves. Their chorus resonated in the druid’s chest, drawing out her sorrow and resolve. Those responsible would be made to suffer by her hands, she would be sure of that.