The forest was alive around her. The shadows twisted at the edge of her vision,
the trees lurked, even the strange breeze pushing through seemed to speak to
her, whispering to turn back, to go home, to find somewhere safe. She smiled,
an odd little half-twist to her lips, and thought, I -am- home. Safe. A small,
slender hand reached out to stroke the trunk of a blackened, twisted tree,
soothing it with a thought. The tree seemed to visibly relax, its branches
swaying slowly in the restless breeze.

A fleeting movement drew her eyes, a starving deer running for shelter. The
half-smile on her face didn't move - she'd let it be, this time. She had other
things on her mind.

As she moved around the forest, she stopped in each location, kneeling to place
her forehead on the ground and send a small message to the land around her.
"Come to me," it said, "meld with me and we shall keep this place safe." A
ripple the colour of emeralds swirled across the ground, and she felt the
'otherness' in her swell, feeling every tree and every bush and every stray
touch of the breeze as her hold on the forest grew.

Laughing, she fluttered her wings, lifting her off the ground to hover among
the branches of her trees. "Speak to me!" she cried out, a hint of laughter
edging her voice. "Tell me who goes." Images flitted through her mind, only
long enough to imprint a name and an image on her thoughts. Satisfied, she
descended to the ground slowly, and went back to her task. "No more
distractions," she scolded herself as she moved along.

Day broke, and the sun rose, and still she worked. As night fell once more, she
knew from the otherness inside her that she had the whole forest in her nimble
hands. Laughter bubbled up inside her once again, but she quelled it. She asked
the otherness to tell her what happened at the edges where she could not see,
and felt its assent.

Shedding her body, she let her spirit flow to someone she knew was waiting at
the Master Ravenwood. Resuming her physical form, she settled back on the
ground to speak to her communemates. There seemed to be an uproar, voices
spitting out left and right and in between, and she blinked, taken aback
momentarily.

Finding her voice, she spoke out. "What is happening?"

"Mistress," cried one of the Blacktalon novices, "We're going to be attacked!"
He seemed rather excited by the idea, and she sent a silent prayer to her
Father. Always, the young had no idea of the real world.

One of the elder druids spoke out, naming several well-known Serens.
Shadowdancers and Ebonguard still chattered, until she called loudly, "Quiet! A
person cannot think in all this." The talking died down to a few whispers.
Thinking of the army clan she was part of, she grimaced when realising how few
members were presently available. "Listen," she told those gathered around her.
"I have the forest melded, and we know they are coming. Do you all," she said,
speaking to the Shadowdancers now, "have your fae ready?"

One quietly pointed to the base of her totem, and she took note of the
shadowbound fae, resting there listlessly, some trembling and some slumped with
despair. "Good." She nodded. "And are you all ready for a fight? All bonded to
Night and camouflaged if you can?" Several whipped out potions, pipes, elixirs
and herbs, called upon their power reserves and readied themselves for a
battle. She looked around her, her face carefully blanked to hide her thoughts.
What a force, she thought, little more than novices and those too fresh from the
portal of fate to really know what they were doing. She only hoped they would
not all kill themselves too often.

She stiffened, a message from her otherness warning her of the forest's newest
arrivals. They have come. Everyone follow him," she said, pointing to one of
the elder Shadowdancers. She knew he did alright with his skills, and
hopefully, their numbers would count for something. She closed her eyes,
watching from her inner third eye and discerned where the invaders were. "The
moment you arrive, you novices use your talismans and trap them with vines. The
very moment, you hear me?" There were several nods as the druid and wiccan
novices showed their understanding, and she only hoped they would do as told.

"Quickly, flow to them, and remember, vines, right away!" She urged them on,
and watched as they all took to spirit form to travel silently through the
forest. She let her thoughts follow them a moment, making sure they had arrived
with the new attackers, and curtly nodding to herself, settled back to her own
work.

Opening herself to the otherness, letting it become the larger part of her, she
reacher her hands out, and gesturing her fingers sharply, felt thorny vines
creep all over the trees. Twining her fingers together, she clenched her hands
together tightly, till her knuckles turned white and she felt the tiny,
colourful mushrooms sprout all over the forest. Detangling her fingers, she
raised her fists to the heavens, and letting her fingers slowly uncurl, watched
as bright, mottled flowers burst out in the gloom. Lowering her arms to point
out to the trees on either side of her, she wiggled her fingers once more,
feeling rushing back into them as she sang a dark melody to forest. The
branches and leaves creaked and rustled around her, more alive than before and
ready for action.

Crouching down to kneel in the soft, loamy dirt at the base of the Master
Ravenwood Tree, she drew her fingers through the dirt, tracing spiral patterns.
The ground spat out little clumps of dirt around her, from each little clump
emerging a bloated spider with a stinger dripping green liquid of a sort.
Rising up again, she ignored the dirt left on her knees and threw her arms out
again, making a deep buzzing noise by pressing her tongue against her teeth.
Swarms rose around her, bees, wasps, all sorts of insects, filling the gloomy
forest with the ominous sound of millions of angry insects. She laughed, a
light, sweet tinkling sound, as her eyes gleamed a dark red in the minimal
light of the forest. Flitting her wings again, she rose into the air, above the
trees, and throwing her head back, shouted at the sky. Arms still raised, she
twirled in the air as dark clouds formed to cover even the minimal starlight,
thunder rumbling in them and shooting down forks of lightning.

She checked on her communemates again, having heard nothing on deathsense yet.
It had been only moments as far as she knew, but she could have missed
something. Raising the forest like this always exhilarated her, filled her with
an abundant energy and joy. They were all nearby to the invaders, she knew, and
wrapping her cloak of crow feathers closer around her, she tracked her
communemates. Landing before them, she listened as they spoke.

"They're too big, too hard," said one of her novices quietly. She spun around
quickly to face him, forgetting momentarily that none of them would be able to
see her. Putting her temper on hold a moment, she waited to see how the rest of
them would deal with this. One of her druids was pointing his cudgel towards the
invaders, shooting splinters towards them every few moments. She knew her own
work from moments before would be affecting them too, poisoning and tangling
and moving and zapping them. The Shadowdancer she'd appointed 'leader' spoke
up. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that we try to stop them. This is our
forest, our home." One of the Ebonguard spoke up, several times larger than
most of the defendants due to his bearlike tae'dae ancestry. "He is right.
Nothing matters but Glomdoring." The others, quiet for the most part, nodded
slowly as he said this, till eventually they had all repeated him. "Nothing
matters but Glomdoring."

She spoke up. "Lady Viravain would be proud. You do your forest well. Now,
there is no point letting them sit there - this is -our- home. Let us scare
them away, running back to their own forest."

The rest blurred in her mind - she knew nothing more until she was laughing,
yelling at the backs of the retreating Serens. "Back to your own forest,
cowards!" Those around her cheered each other on and talked in high spirits,
letting it seep over to the commune aether as they made their way back to the
nexus.

The voice of their Matron echoed across the top of them, demanding to know,
"What is going on?" Still laughing out loud, she answered, "Lady Viravain, the
Serens were simply... beating their chests and letting wind out in our forest
again," and similar words followed her own on the aetherwave. "I see," came
their Matron's voice once more, and then on the aetherwave reserved for the
commune's Shadow Court, She asked, "Who deserves My favour this month, then?"

They kept a list of those deserving favours, and it had run empty once more.
Speaking on the Court's aetherwave, she suggested the Shadowdancer she'd
appointed leader of their defense party, and added the rest of the group's
names to the favour list after favouring the tae'dae who had spoken so timely
before.

A few moments of silence ensued before shouts echoed across the basin. "F'ai
Glomdoring!" "Nothing matters but Glomdoring!" She grinned and settled herself
into her nest above the nexus to go back to more mundane work.