Sammy quickly decided she would save any further downtime actions for when she had her second Avatar airborne and en route to Caneboro. She instructed Jeeves and her general ‘crew’ to make ready for her departure.

Dematerializing as her primary Avatar, and apparently — thankfully — not waking the sleeping Azure, Sammy popped over to the other one still in Brackenhome, which she thought of as ‘Greenleaf.’

In fact, she decided to rename it from the old one, which was ‘Stillwater.’ It would be easier to give it something unique since her deific personas would not actually be restricted to one Avatar or another. She decided to just call it ‘Green.’ The Green Avatar.

Color-coding for the win?

She proceeded to gear Green up with the stuff she’d had delivered by Zephyr to the Inn room before she’d taken the trip to Lake Yura. It was mostly protective items. She identified them one after the other.

To start was a Bracer of Shield Growth which produced a +1 Magical Armor shield after making a specific runic hand sign — the material was Ousenbauch, a shiny wood-like material as strong as steel. Then there was an Amulet of All Defense and a Ring of Quickheal, which would on command heal a Major or Minor wound of the wearer on a 12-hour cooldown.

And another thematic item, a belt of connected together, polished wooden plates:

Cool! Not as good as the Relic armor, but it’ll do.

She didn’t need a weapon, since her Bound staff was always accessible. Furthermore, it could be altered in physical appearance between Avatars, so Green’s staff was a gnarled thing like a druid would have. Or maybe Gandalf The Grey.

Old School, baby, old school. But no dual-wielding a staff and sword. That’s just crazy. Unless I find Excalibur. Then maybe we’d have to dual-wield. Anyway. Let’s do this!

Greenleaf walked through a mirror to another prepared one, out to the old clearing in the forest where Dart had taken her for her first flight. In this case, Gabriel was there, ready to high-speed blast her across the landscape. She felt somewhat bad for occupying two of the fastest in her order, but ultimately Michael did not typically ferry people in the first place and it was definitely still off-hours for most people.

The Pegasus greeted her with a neigh as she walked up. “Your Majesty. Quite a trip to conduct tonight. I’ll go as fast as I can! I even have a buff. Sadly I can’t reach Michael’s record.” She spoke quite sullenly. “Not without that ridiculous buff he found or by leveling and utilizing the weightless carriage…”

Greenleaf rolled her eyes. “It’s perfectly fine, Gabriel. I’m sure I’ll be satisfied with the time and speed.” She began strapping herself into the harness and such. “No doubt you’ll beat him inevitably.”

“Exactly! Thanks, Madam. I’ll do it for sure!”

“And don’t get too excited for this romp, huh? I need a nice and steady pace because I’m going to be projecting back to the realm for most of the journey. Crazy stuff will distract me. Simmer down on this racing attitude.”

“Oh. Yes, Madam. I will.”

“So the plan is to move a bit south and east of the Yura route, then cut across water, correct?”

“Yes, which will take about five hours total, if I relax the speed slightly. Or a bit less if you want to stop short of the actual city.”

“So early morning arrival… that sounds fine.”

Momentarily they took to the air and out across the wilderness and scattered farms, an invisible winged horse and its strapped-in goddess payload. Soon that deific body went limp, as she retreated to her demiplane domain with practiced meditation.

Soon thereafter, Redberry pinged her, now with the imagery of a bountiful rainforest overgrown with plants and trees of all kinds, vines hanging, birds flying, small creatures jumping to and fro, and the feel of a great, inner heart of heat and fire lying somewhere deep within. “Moth! Samantha. I invite you to my realm to speak. Can you come now? It’s urgent.”

“Yes of course — what is it? I’ll come!” She took the offered invite and found herself in the swamp once again. Only it was a cross between that and a jungle, the life somehow grown over and doubled from before, and instead of fog and eeriness there was the brightness and richness of a record summer. Dragonflies swarmed, crickets and birds chirped, and butterflies were legion in a dancing rainbow of color.

All life within seemed to be celebrating.

In front of her were the simple stone disks over water she remembered, but the tree beyond was another thing entirely. The trunk was blatantly on display and magnificent, red-tinted and almost glowing with health. The branches and leaves sprang out far and high above, all of them different but for the commonality of green, summery bloom. Moreover, fruits were legion: apples, plums, cherries, pears, figs, apricots, lemons, peaches, persimmons… other stranger things she didn’t recognize.

The throne at the base was no different, formed out of the roots with the red berry vines thick like bushes making the backing of it. The goddess seated on it was similar to how she always was, but her countenance was much altered — this was no winter queen now, but one that had fully embraced her season. She smiled brightly and radiated the life that she represented, and no wound marred her beauty and regality any longer.

How awesome is this?! I think there are more flowers in her hair. And some are blue! My color. And- wha?!

Sammy soon realized there was a horde of fae gathered all around in a semi-circle fanning out from the throne in either direction, with even more dryads standing solemnly upon tree trunks. There were pixies and sprites, satyrs and treefolk, even the rarer brownies and leprechauns. Some black-furred pooka. Together with them were a few of her own Servitors… Constance, Athos, Porthos, Uriel… a couple of her Cat Siths…

All were staring right at her as she approached.

Redberry called, “This lot would not relent in honoring you, Goddess of Fate and Light! So here I’ve brought you to suffer their praises! A cheer for the humble healer, oh gathered — a cheer for the Breaker of a New Dawn for Fae-kind and kin!”

As Redberry thrust her hand up, a riotous cheer blasted out, deep bass sounds from treefolk and excited satyrs reverberating in tandem with the sharper and more feminine contributions. After a round of jumping up and down (though the more solemn refrained), clapping, and general cheerful utterances, there was a slow gathering around her and a synchronous call of “Samantha! Samantha! Samantha!” over and over, to the motion of many upthrust fists.

Uriel probably started that one…

Sammy could only shake her head in bewilderment and embarrassment, but it was impossible not to smile at the same time, from the exuberance of their good mood. Fae after fae after fae walked up to her to thank her personally… Satyrs with big grins using the excuse to get a hug in… dryads doing the exact same… crying pixies overcome with emotion… treefolk leaning down to pat her shoulder gently and croak, “Good job, Ascendant.”

Jam-packed into the mass around her, music began to play from a band of satyrs, and soon the mass became that of merry-making dancers with no way out. Unsurprisingly, she was goaded into dancing, too…

Getting a hold of sudden panicky feelings, Sammy invoked [Bard] and [Goddess] which worked wonders for getting her virtual body to respond gracefully. In short, she danced with them, and it wasn’t long before she was laughing in glee along with the fae and enjoying every moment of it. After a while, she suddenly realized she’d even dropped her invokes entirely.

She took the opportunity to ‘show off’ some Earthgirl moves. Single Ladies by Beyoncé. The Floss. Gangnam Style. The Griddy, of course. She neglected Twerking, however — she wasn’t sure Calrenazzod would ever be ready for that one.

Her eyes wanted to pop out of her skull when she saw Redberry herself down among them dancing, smirking right at Sammy once she caught her eye. Sammy had to pause, blink a couple of times, check the throne, and slap her cheek once before she accepted that she indeed was looking at a real thing that was happening.

And then Red was in front of her, holding out her hand to the slightly taller woman. “Will you do me the honor, Your Majesty?”

Sammy shook herself and finally shrugged it off with a laugh. “Yeah. Why not?” She put her hand in Red’s.

The music changed to something definitively medieval. Or is it Renaissance? Fuck if I know. It was oddly familiar to her body, but she had no word for it… a waltz maybe, or a tamer tango… super old school, for sure. She had to invoke [Goddess] to move correctly as Redberry led her through. It was pleasant, even relaxing once she got the hang of it.

They ended the dance on the outskirts of the crowd near the tree roots, where there were also copious amounts of refreshments upon living tables — wine, mead, and beer, with numerous glasses. Red and her found some seating on stumps and sat down to speak. Sammy took a glass of golden mead after gaining assurance from Red that it didn’t have an ‘ambrosia’ effect. Red meanwhile had some sort of dark purple wine.

“I guess I should’ve expected this,” Sammy muttered as she took a sip of the honeyed drink. It was excellent. Super sweet, which was right up her alley. “You must’ve noticed I was avoiding it.”

Red cocked an eyebrow in a mysterious expression as she sipped some wine. “I respect that sort of thing, Moth. This was the badgering insistence of our Servitors. Your Constance led the charge, egging on the rest. Before long, I had to relent to the horde of dryads and satyrs begging me to draw you here for proper honors and thanksgiving.”

“Constance! Of course, it was Constance…” Gremlin. Nothing but gremlins, all of them!

“Even a couple of the more social treefolk said it was ‘a good plan.’ You’ve done quite well to gain their admiration, you know.”

“I admit, I did feel extra special from that.” As she gazed out on all the entities still dancing and hollering, she got a sense of the scope of those who had been in jeopardy. “With the way things are now, can you… rebirth them into the world?”

Red shook her head soberly. “One life for a spirit formed in our way, Samantha. Anything else is necromancy and costing greatly in too many ways. This is why it was a grave choice to accept my sanctuary. You understand? This was their afterlife, to fade with me. Some even did so out of love for me, though I did not ask for it.”

“They kept you sane. You would not have made it to here without them.”

Redberry looked off, processing that for a few moments. Finally, she nodded acceptance and acceded to the point with a tip of her glass before taking another sip. “I would have failed them all if not for you. But I will not get too much into endlessly thanking you all the time.”

Sammy smiled. “I really appreciate that.”

“Lest you feel too bad for them, take note that many desire reconnection to the world by other means, now that I am whole and my powers are restored. I can create new things, something like their children or descendants. So who they are will in fact live on.”

Redberry leaned forward and fixed Samantha with an intense gaze. Watery depths drew her in, dancing with lively, tumultuous currents. “We can usher in an age of such restoration together, sister — humanity and fae shattering the walls dividing them and aligning together once again! And the first step of such an alliance is obvious. You and I must forge a Pantheon.”