Survival

Drusilla looked at her reflection in the still pond.  She looked old - older than she was.  She didn't normally notice, but she did today.  It was her eyes - they looked tired.  She sighed.  She'd adapted.  She didn't doubt she'd done the right thing, but she was the last of her order, the last remaining druid in this forest - what did that say about her?  That she was better than the others?  Wolves adapted and became dogs.  Was that survival?  Becoming something other than you are?  The priest made a good point: better to die as what you are than to live as a hateful, corrupted creature.  Drusilla had seen the mutated rats from down in the caverns, she'd seen dire wolves with poison dripping from their oversized fangs.  Was that survival?  Was it really?  How could you claim to have survived if you had changed so much that you no longer retained your inner nature?  All things would eventually pass, that was the way of the world.  Was it human arrogance to think it better to die as you are than to survive as something less?

Ripples across the surface of the pond broke her reverie as one of the wolves came down to the edge to drink.  The moonlight flickered in the disturbed water, bathing her face in the white reflected glare.  She would keep on.  She had survived, and she would continue to survive.

The wolves were on point, their ears pricked, when she heard a cry in the distance.  Making their way stealthily up the brook they reached the clearing.  This was where Drusilla had found the priest several days earlier.  The cry came again, and she looked.  There, on the boulder overlooking the water, stood a roc.  It was a juvenile, barely as large as the wolves, and albino white, its feathers as pale as the moonlight, its beak and talons tinged pink.  Rocs were not native to the Mosswood, but Drusilla remembered there was a fiendish crow resident in these parts for many years until the people at Calaelan drove him off.  He'd been a threat to the wolves and the larger animals of the forest, but had found more sport further north where there were cattle, horses and other domesticated beasts.  The druid moved closer, cautiously.  This bird appeared to be a natural creature, there was nothing fiendish or magical about him.  She watched it shuffle around, at which point she noticed the arrow jutting from its breast.  It looked like it had been there for some time; the bird must have flown here and taken shelter in the forest as the last of its strength gave out and it could no longer fly, hoping the forest would provide sanctuary.

Drusilla brought her hands out and spoke gentle words, calming the creature as she approached it.  The wolves sat in guard around the clearing, their eyes keenly hunting for any intruders.  The roc was still agitated, so she channeled the tenderness of a wolf for her pups and let the radiance of nature wash over the bird until it settled, content that she was not a threat to it.

As she worked to extract the arrow and tend the wound she remembered Agamemnon.  He had sat in this same spot, draped in a cloak of white feathers, hoping the forest would help him, just as the roc had hoped.  He'd carried the mark of Darach-Albith - a birthmark in the shape of a bow - on his breast, just as this bird carried an arrow in its.

Drusilla thought.

When the roc was healed and settled down to rest she called silently to one of the wolves, who padded up to her.

"We will need an escort," she said to him.  "The forest has a gift for the people in the castle.  Can you arrange it?"

The wolf whined a yes and went to talk to the pack.  Drusilla stared at her face in the pond and thought.