Eirlathion’s POV

 

It was far easier than expected to get the two sides to agree to stand down. In fact, the hardest thing about it was getting them to stop crying. The events over the night seem to have been so terrifying to them that these grown men, experienced hunters of the village, broke down in tears as soon as they heard that they would be able to stop. Some were angry at the deaths of their friends and family, but these few were quickly talked down by the rest in the group.

 

This scene had repeated almost identically with each side feeling the same. The ones from the other village were a little harder to convince. Not only was he not from their village, but they also felt quite wronged saying that it was the people of this village who had attacked them. Ultimately though, rather than press the attack, the ones who were the most outraged among this group simply scaled the wall upon learning that they were no longer bound by Dryad’s decree that no one could leave. After that, they simply ran off by themselves into the forest and did not look back.

 

There were only six among those from the other village who stuck around. During the negotiation with them, someone had mentioned about their magus Sainel having run off and disappeared some time near the beginning of the chaos. When Eirlathion had told them he knew where she was, that she fled with Calanor to a corner of the village and walled themselves off, they said they wanted to meet up with her before leaving. He could see resentment from them toward him, the magus of this village that had done this to them and the one who lived in the tree of the very Dryad who set up this situation, but they still showed an outward appearance of respect as they filed in behind him to follow to where Calanor had fled together with the magus of their own village.

 

He had already been told they had camouflaged themselves in a corner of the village behind a wall designed to look exactly like the outer walls. It was a pretty good plan, and from what he could tell of their voice he thought that Dryad actually sounded impressed over it. It was an easy matter to pass the camouflage wall they made. As the group approached, led by Eirlathion, the vines simply disentangled themselves and retreated under Dryad’s command. A dryad could manipulate plant life within their territory as easily as an elf could move their finger. In other words, the only reason this protection of theirs was still up in the first place was simply because Dryad had allowed it.

 

Several people within the protection of the vines jumped in a panic upon seeing their protective wall drop. Four hunters ran out in front of the group and were struggling to pull their bows from their backs as they eyed the approaching 7 with suspicion and fear.

 

“It’s alright,” Eirlathion advised with a calmly raised hand. “It’s over. Dryad just… released me. They sent me out to tell everyone still alive that they didn’t have to fight anymore.” Eirlathion had an extremely bitter expression. His tone had been more forceful at first when he dealt with the people of Cundo who had started all this. After he saw the way they simply broke down and cried, his tone softened with the group from outside the village. Now, his tone was almost weak and closer to the true meaning of everything that happened, and the words tasted like acid in his mouth.

 

Behind the four, Eirlathion saw a welcome aged face raising up to a sitting position on the ground. The entire group seemed to have been asleep until just moments ago. Eirlathion gave a nod to his friend, but his attention was quickly diverted to the sight of a familiar woman approaching him. A moment later, Sainel, the magus of the other village who he had become rather familiar with over the last few days, stood before him and gave a respectful nod.

 

“Master Eirlathion.” She says, not meeting his eyes. Despite the slightly awkward mood though, her voice seems to have a fair bit more confidence to it than his own. Well, unlike him who was too much of a coward to face the reality of what was happening, she had successfully lead 17 others to safety. “So, how bad is it?” She asked, glancing around at the 6 hunters from her village who were standing in a group behind him.

 

“Not counting children, but including the people in your group, there are only 77 survivors.” Several faces in the former “safe” area had dark expressions upon hearing this news. Eirlathion felt the same. With such an extremely small number, it was very unlikely any of the loved ones of the people in here were among those survivors. There were no tears in this group, no anger, not even any surprised expressions. For the entire group, the only expression was just shocked and grim silence.

 

“Well,” a voice that made everyone cringe came from the nearby tree as the projection of everyone’s tormentor stepped out from it, “now that everything has been settled and you lot know about what has happened, it’s time we all had a little talk.”

 

Everyone, even Eirlatihon by this point, turned to look in fear at Dryad’s form. Eirlathion’s fear may be slightly different from the others who very well may be fearing for their lives, but even he was terrified at what Dryad may have in mind for what they were going to do next. After everything he had seen, how the horrors of last night had affected these poor people, all the horrible loss of life, the very fact that Dryad could have instigated and condoned such a thing filled him with horror.

 

“Well then, I want you to all think about something. What were my exact words yesterday?” Dryad said, looking at them with a degree of expectation that baffled everyone. “I will speak back my exact words as I said them. ‘I would like for all of you to decide who is guilty and who is not while I’m putting my attention toward more important matters.’ I said nothing at all about dealing out a punishment or fighting a miniature civil war inside the village. So, why exactly did you go so far beyond what I was requiring of you?”

 

“Dryad!” Eirlathion spoke up with a dark growl to his tone. He was furious now, seeing that smug look on their face as they were preaching a lesson using his own rhetorical methods over such a horrible thing. “You know exactly why this happened, don’t you!? You instigated all of this!”

 

Dryad did not even flinch at his tone. They merely turned to look and shake their head at him with a smirk. “Oh, but master, you should know after getting a good look at those bodies next to the foot of your house. What did you think when you saw them? I was not the one who decided to bash and stomp those people until their chest cavities split and their faces were bashed in. It takes a special kind of viciousness to go to the extreme extent that those bodies were left in. I did not put that viciousness there, I merely took the lid off of it. The people of this village are the ones who did the rest.”

 

“That…” Eirlathion froze, trying to find something he could say to deny Dryad’s words. He couldn’t find anything. It’s true. Even if Dryad’s words were a direct order to start killing each other, they would not have gone anywhere near as far as to do what he saw. He couldn’t deny it, but… there was something that just seemed wrong about what Dryad was saying. He just didn’t have the words to say what it was.

 

Dryad had a satisfied look on their face at Eirlathion’s lack of ability to find a response, and they looked out over the rest of the gathered crowd. “Now, I will tell everyone here the same thing I told my master back in his house. Elves seem to have a habit of looking down on humans as a barbaric war-loving people. A people who will simply start killing and torturing one another for no real reason. Well, what do you call what just happened here last night? You disgusting elves think far too highly of yourselves. You are not better than humans, or anyone else. You are the same. The circumstances of your lives are the only thing that’s any different. With the right incentive, anyone’s most brutal and vicious tendencies can come out.”

 

With these words, Dryad walked forward toward Sainel, smiled, and began reaching out their hand toward their cheek. Sainel jerked back when she saw this coming and looked back at Dryad with caution, and several of the hunters started to move in toward her side. They all were looking at Dryad’s hand with fear. Eirlathion did not know what that was all about, but he could take a guess.

 

Dryad withdrew their hand and had an expression that would look tender, but given their mocking attitude and expression from just before it was very hard to take their current expression as entirely sincere. Instead, it only seemed sinister. “Ah, sorry, of course you are afraid.” Dryad said. “Don’t worry, I meant nothing by that. I just wanted to say, there were a small number of people who behaved very differently under the pressures of last nigh. A tense situation shows a person’s true nature. A few of the people in this group were the few in the entire village who showed kindness and heroism instead of brutality and cruelty. That goes for the hunters here as well.

 

Dryad’s gaze lingered on the hunters standing in protective positions around Sainel, and then they smiled toward the ones standing farther back in front of the civilians. It seemed Dryad had a good opinion of them, but none of them seemed entirely happy about being on the receiving end of Dryad’s positive evaluation. However, everyone seemed to become slightly more relaxed over this.

 

“You as well,” Dryad said, looking over toward the hunters who had followed Eirlathion. “You fought only to protect yourselves and your townsmen, and after my master told you that the battle was over you felt the sense of duty to stick around and see to the safety of your village’s magus. So far as I’m concerned, every hunter standing in this corner of the village is worthy of praise. I hope you understand after all you’ve seen, you are not the norm for your people.”

 

Everyone was clearly quite confused. First Dryad was condemning their entire race, then they were calling them in particular the exception and praising them. The sudden shift was enough to leave the group feeling very uncomfortable. Deciding to take Dryad at their word though, Sainel seemed to become more bold and stepped forward with some confidence.

 

“Is that all you have to say?” She said, glaring at the greater tree spirit that had been the instigator behind this horrible incident.

 

“Oh? Well, it looks like you are a lot more bold than my master. Do you have something YOU want to say?” Dryad responded with an amused smirk.

 

“Well, for starters, what’s going to happen to the rest of the people who are still alive in this village?”

 

“Well, I think they have gone well above and beyond what I would consider enough of a punishment for the matter with Aerien. Even those who are still alive have experienced the exact kind of fear she went through.”

 

“Most of them had nothing to do with what happened to her!”

 

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Dryad challenged, staring harshly at the woman. “You see, the rumors were correct. Aerien and Gaerien actually are grey elves. If my master had not taken them in, anyone in this village would have killed them and thought they were doing the right thing by doing it. Why do you think that is?”

 

Saenel hesitated. She seemed to want to give an answer, but instead her face clouded with something that looked closer to shame. Instead of her answering, one of the men from among the hunters flanking her stepped forward.

 

“It’s not like we want to kill some innocent children.” He says, “we have to! If we don’t, then the tainted elves will come and kill everyone. It’s the only thing we can do in order to keep everyone safe.”

 

“No.” Sainel interrupts him. “I see what the dryad’s trying to say. I never really tried to think all that hard about this, but they’re right.”

 

Dryad nodded with satisfaction at Sainel’s admission, and then turned toward the man who had spoken in order to explain. “The dark elves, tainted elves as you call them, absolutely hate all normal elves. They will slaughter everyone in a village just because the village is there. It is not like they have some power to find grey elves. They would kill everyone in any village they happen to come across whether there are grey elves being harbored there or not. The thought that grey elves attract the dark elves is nothing but a baseless superstition.”

 

Sainel’s face looked quite bad as Dryad finished thoroughly explaining the basis behind their real anger. “So, are you saying you are holding our entire race accountable due to the fact that we hold this superstition?”

 

“Everyone from both of the two villages held that superstition. It is enough for me to implicate every person who was here and who is still alive in the guilt for what happened to Aerien. The children are innocent, that is why I protected them, but every adult who has ever held to the idea of killing grey elves or who has silently condoned it without protest was worth being targeted whether they were directly involved with what happened or not.”

 

Thus, the dryad had made their decree. There was no real arguing with it either, the logic was sound. The issues of morality and proportionality could be made, you could say their methods were a completely inappropriate method to use in addressing this issue, but at the same time it could also still be argued that Dryad had not directly killed anyone other than the fey dragon.

 

“Well then, once again. What is going to happen to the other people in the village? I don’t suppose you expect them to go back to living within the boundaries of your territory after what has happened here?” Sainel asks.

 

“You are correct,” Dryad responds. “It would be difficult to think they would be able to stomach that. And, honestly, since Aerien and my master are both leaving, I really would be glad to see them go as well.”

 

“Very well then. I will invite them to come to our village. It seems our numbers have decreased, it would be helpful to get us back up to our full fighting strength for the days ahead of us. I will also make sure the word is spread that there is a dryad here who is hostile toward elves. Does that sound acceptable to you?”

 

“Hmm… You’re every bit the leader I thought you were magus Sainel.” Dryad said with a grin. “Bold, decisive, and dutiful. If only you were the type to have thought through the bit about grey elves, you would probably be the perfect picture of what a leader should be.” They gave a taunting grin and pointed their chin toward the woman. “Very well. I approve of your offer completely.”

2nd Arc: Capital

Act 1: A Village in Chaos

End

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Author's note

Well, the heart-pumping open to this arc is now finished. My pace is still probably going to be a bit slow, but this slowed and less structured pace has been working for me and putting on a lot less stress. I kinda liked the idea of having such a formal schedule, but I have to do what works for me and right now I'm not able to keep up that kinda thing.

So, new plan. Rather than any kind of long hiatus, I might just stick to this informal schedule of "whenever it gets done" for a little while until I have recovered a little more. I do have the desire to go back on a formal schedule, but that's just going to have to wait.

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Subscribers' quote of the chapter

"Ooh getting som yin yang shit going on with the two Magus."

                                                                                                             -meowingLexi

"banishing all the people in the village a set up for dryad to run off after dropping those leech's."

                                                                                                             -Roy

"That was a good ending for the matter! Sainel is badass, talking back to Dryad like that. I wonder when will we meet Dryad next if Aeriel and co. goes on a trip now. I am sure this village will be an impregnable fortress with Dryad and the otherwordly knowledge they have!"

                                                                                                             -Lord Fufundra

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Yeah, I'm weak. I couldn't choose which comment I liked best, so I chose them all. I would be doomed as a harem protagonist.

Also, Fufu, It's Aerien, not Aeriel!