"O try," Dad said, stepping back, a cy pot in his hands holding the st dregs of the ritual paint he'd mixed up. "It's a longshot, but... It's worth a try."

  I nodded solemnly, although... I was rather more pessimistiy ces than he was. We'd tried this before, and it had never worked. It wasn't a case of me saying, at the young age of 18, that if it hadn't happened yet then it never would- that reposterous nonsense, given just how fug long elves lived- but rather, a case of me saying that if the st five attempts over as many years didn't work... well, then this one probably wasn't gonna work either.

  If it did work, if I really did mao uh The Livih and attune myself to the rhythms of nature, then I'd have a brand new ace up my sleeve: the primal magics of the druid. Even if I wasn't a very good druid, and I would absolutely suck at druidcraft with only a day or two in the woods with my dad to learn it in the few spare moments where I wasn't drilling my riding and shooting and swordpy, a greenhorn druid would still be capable of some tricks that her a wizard nor occultist could properly match.

  And if this didn't work... well, I was already more-or-less out of magicka for today, and in fact really appreciated having the ce to rest my sore and weary muscles. I might as well use this time to try uning with nature instead of just napping.

  So, I just... sat there. Listening to the chirping of crickets, the soft beating of a songbird's wings... The sounds of nature.

  Well. Something approximating nature. The forests arouer were well-traveled and well-maintained by the local Ranger's Guild, and this stretch of it where we'd made our camp was hardly wild. It wasn't our house made of bricks and steel, though, so... hey, maybe that was close enough.

  I frowned. It wasn't that I didn't uand the Path of the Druid, what with being raised by Napoleon Iro and growing up with Antiope and Talia Johe Livih was a metaphor; you attuned yourself with the many distinct yet interected magical forces that flowed through the natural world, where men did not make their homes. Once you were in tuh those forces, once you were enmeshed iural world, you could act upon those forces, gently nudging them to produce great magical effects.

  A, I couldn't do that. It was strange, was it not? I erfectly capable of teag myself the occult magic of story and song simply because I thought it a worthwhile path of inquiry, a here I was, with a fug master of primal magic trying to teach me, and I couldn't do it.

  It was almost as though I didn't uand the Path of the Druid, and was fually wrong about it.

  I was starting to uand, now- while it was the case that a Druid was not a Clerid The Livih was not a Divinity, there still remained some simirities. A Druid needed siy- a genuine, good-faith desire to uand the dynamics of nature, to live alongside nature, and to promise with nature when flict arose. Druidcraft wasn't a field of study, a vocational skill you could just learn with a few hours of study a week. It was a sacred calling, every bit as holy and life-defining as the divine.

  And that left me in an awkward spot. Druidcraft was a useful tool, and I'd like to be able to wield it, but I 't, because I'm just fually not that kind of person. I'm not a naturalist. I'm not an herbalist, a huntsman- hell, I don't even like camping. I'm a city slicker. Worse than that, I'm a maist. I built a steel horse with a beati of iron, and 't imagine why the spirits of the natural world might take offeo that.

  It was... This ointless. Why the hell was Napoleon b here, anyhow? Is he just in denial about how little of a shit I actually give about hugging trees and toug grass? Is he hoping that I'll spontaneously develop a desire to go fishing with him? Or have I somehow mao arrive at a different misuanding about how druidcraft works?

  "...I'm not learning anythihat I didn't already know," I said, sighing after a good few minutes and failing to uh nature. "I just... I don't think I have it in me."

  "That's..." Dad sighed, shaking his head. "...I expected that, holy. But... I had to try."

  "I'm just... not any kind of nature-lover," I admitted. "I'm a city boy, I'm a maist, I'm a wizard, and the dwarves all call me Shathur, which means something like 'tall dwarf' in their nguage. I keep approag druidcraft like a skill to be studied, rather than a retionship to be built, and when I do think of it as a retionship to be built..." I shrugged. "...well. Hard to build a retionship with something you don't really like, isn't it? Ially, I think Talia might have a thing for Faith, and I'd rather Faith not stick around like that. You got any advice for that?"

  "...Well, you could tell Talia that you don't like Faith and don't want her around," Dad said, a bit nonplussed by the sudden ta. "Just because we're elves doesn't mean you have to accept everyoo your bed that Talia brings before you."

  "Fair enough," I said, before pushing myself up off the forest floor. "Right. Well... I have another idea. Don't suppose we have any dles, do we?"

  The Living Gods of the Hikaano Pantheon were hardly the only divinities around. The High Elves have followed our own gods siime immemorial, and even after the War Of The Roses, with their worship outwed, the faith was still carried on, just... in private.

  "I give my thanks to The Father," I recited, kneeling before a trio of lit dles, all set into a carefully-carved wooden block with copper filigree. "He has taught us of the world as it is; of the stant passage of Time, of the iability and y of Death, and of the loving kindness of Fatherhood. May we meet in truth when my time es; I hope to make you proud.

  "I give my thanks to The Mother," I tinued. "She has taught us of the world as it should be; of Freedom for all peoples from oppression and trol, of Justice to set right that which has been made wrong, and of War to enforce Justice when all else has failed. May you protect me from those who would colr and bind me, may you give me the moral crity to avoid c and binding others, and may you give me strength to protect others from oppression."

  A gentle breeze picked up, ruffling the dle fmes, but not quite putting them out. In a forest, though, there wasn't really a way for a breeze to be felt at this level. That was diviervention, just as surely as the rumble of thunder overhead had been when I bsphemed Hano. The breeze went away, but I was certain they were still listening.

  "Mother, I beg of you," I whispered, moving past the standard prayers. "I am on a quest to make things right, to return to my family the funerary effigy of my father's hearth-mother, and to thwart whatever evil is being plotted by the King of Thieves. Please, Mother, I need your help- lend me your strength, so that I may see justice be done."

  The breeze picked up again, but this time... I could hear the fai impression of words within the breeze, if I truly focused.

  "I hear you, child," a gruff voice whispered in my ear. "You've e to me, hat in hand, asking for help. I'm not unsympathetic; that statue dhtfully belong to your family, and the King of Thieves really is cookin' up somethin' rotten. But, kiddo... you're wrong."

  "...About what?" I all but demanded, before catg myself and trying to reel it ba.

  "You don't need my help," The Mother whispered to me. "You're strohan you think. You do this on your own, I promise. You don't o go cutting deals with some celestial busybody t Justito this world."

  "I- but-" I blinked, struggling to process that. "Look, I want to work with you! I want to bee a force for Justi the world, tht wrongs and make life better for everyone I e across! All I need from you is a little help, and I do so much more!"

  "You're doing enough."

  And with that, The Mother dismissed me, the breeze finally blowing out the dles.

  I sat there, still and silent, for long moments, turning over what had just happened. A lifetime of prayer, every night before bed, and this was when I finally got my answer from The Mother. Where she said she didn't want me as one of her Clerics.

  "The gods," I said, at long st, and a bit more loudly than was strictly necessary, " fuck themselves."

  "Tried to pray to The Mother for strength, I take it?" my actual mother said, stepping into the clearing. "And theold you that you already had plenty?"

  "Has she dohat to you as well?"

  "She has. And it was the most infuriating thing I'd ever heard, for all that it's supposed to be encing." Mom sighed, ing to a stop beside me, and squatting down to my level. "But kiddo? You're a fug wizard. You throw fireballs and lightning bolts just by thinking about it hard enough. The gods wanna tell you that you don't need 'em? Fine, fuck 'em. You'll prove 'em right, and y low everyone who stands in your way. Not because you've got the blessing of some fragmentary personality ed around an abstract idea and a fuckload of power, but because you have power all of your own."

  "Sure, but... Is it going to be enough to overe the King of Thieves?" I asked.

  "You look me in the eyes and tell me that you, someone who snap bs and burst blood vessels with your will alone, have anything to fear from a glorified pickpocket who has to go running to daddy every time he wants some magie."

  I grunted wordlessly. "I... I mean, I get it, I'm just..." I sighed. "...We'll see if you're right, ohe dust settles. I sure hope you are right."

  "Hope is o have," Mom said, before standing up. "Preparation is hat's what I'm here for."