Even though the attack on Caelarion Glade had been over for days, the damage it caused was more profound than any burned root or collapsed shelter. The corruption had not lessened; on the contrary, it had become bolder and was working its way toward the Ether Tree. Druid patrols labored diligently to mend the land, their sigils flickering like candlelight in a storm against the rot. However, their best efforts amounted to little more than an extended delay.
After further investigation, the new threat was identified by the scouts as Wraiths, a more aggressive evolution of shadow corruption that targets Ether life. They were more cunning, quicker, and violent, indicating that the darkness was not satisfied with its gradual expansion but was instead advancing with ruthlessness and strategy.
Inside a large druid tent woven from translucent leaves and root-vines, a dozen healers worked in silence, each hunched over creatures stricken by corruption. In the face of so much decay, the ether pools glowed faintly. Sweat, effort, and the smell of burnt moss filled the air.
Myri leaned over a small Ether-bird resting atop a mat of cloth and moss. Its wings twitched as its eyes dimmed. Her hands glowed with a soft, dim light as she worked, slow, deliberate, like weaving the strands of Ether back into broken threads. Her breath was steady, but her eyes wer fearful by the weight of failure.
After letting out one last, rattling breath, the bird became motionless.
Myri sat back, her hands trembling as desperation rushed into her chest.
Flint, who had been standing close by, moved forward and touched her shoulder tenderly. "You're doing everything you can. Please, get some rest."
She slapped his hand away, already reaching for the next creature in a similar state. "Doing all I can is not enough," she muttered as green light flickered from her hands, her face drawn and exhausted. "Every time, I try, but it's all the same. The ether is not responding."
Flint silently watched as she made another attempt, giving another Ether-bird all of her energy, but to the same end.
She clenched her fists and her voice cracked. "These attempts… They feel pointless…they're no different from hiding like the Eldians."
"But at least we're not hiding," Flint muttered.
She didn't answer. Her jaw was clenched and her face was expressionless as she gazed at the motionless bird.
He took a step closer, though the air between them felt fragile like ice. "You can't blame yourself for every lost."
With sorrow, Myri's eyes flickered toward him. "I held Rikuin in my hands, Flint. I watched the Ether slip out of him. And now I can't even save a bird."
Flint didn't know how to respond. He lingered a moment longer, then stepped back and slipped into the shadows of the glade, leaving her where hope was scarce, but where she insisted on standing.
-break-
The following day, a great gathering of druids took place in the sacred vale near the base of the Ether Tree. High overhead, the canopy's massive leaves glistened in shades of deep violet and glowing blue. Spore-dust and glints of light drifted through the air. The ancient and living Ether Tree seemed to breathe with every energy pulse, giving all the nearby forest Quendikin and Sylvankin a sense of meaning and remembrance.
From all over Skyland, species that had been touched by the Ether Tree had gathered. Kinitus, Nymphs, Nyxes, Fwllings, and even Kin from faraway lands. The Tree's influence was responsible for many people's survival or existence. Not only did they come to discuss the growing corruption, but they also had to face the fact that it was gradually consuming the land on which they all relied.
Among the inner guards, Flint stood with a calm demeanor and keen eyes. He silently looked around the gathering as kin and druids engaged in steady, low-pitched debate.
"We must concentrate on strengthening the roots by the East of Sylvanmyr and continue restoring the deeper groves," said a softly speaking elder Nymph with long hair braided with glowing threads of Ether. "Brute force alone is not enough to drive back the corruption." She added.
"We could summon the Thornwoken to stand sentry," Said a Nyx elder with long, tangled horns."Their connection to the forest runs deeper than most."
"No no, what if the Thornwoken fall to corruption too?" Replied a moss-covered Fwlling, with his eyes wide with worry, as he shook his head, "Wouldn't it be wiser to shelter and rescue all remaining Ether life first? Perhaps create a non-sentient barrier instead. Something we can control, something the darkness cannot taint."
Then, uninvited and defiant, Myri stepped forward into the gathering, slicing like a blade through grass.
"You speak of how to protect what remains," she spoke loudly, interrupting the elder's gathering in mid-discussion. "However, you're still speaking only of self-defence. The Mother Tree and this land are not exclusively for us. It is Skyland's heart!"
After her words, murmurs blossomed through the gathering like ripples on water. One elder raised a hand. "The Ether Tree made us. Protecting what has been entrusted to us is our sacred duty."
"It didn't create only us," Myri replied. "Many of us standing here were shaped by the Ether Tree, but she is necessary for the survival of even those she did not create. This land belongs to all of Skyland's kin, and the Ether flows through all living things. How are we any different from the Eldians if our only concern is self-preservation?"
Louder murmurs rose through the circle from those words.
From the edge of the gathering stood a tall, silent figure, Master Al'Duwyn, a Groven druid whose bark-like skin and vine-woven hair reflected the natural essence of his kin. The Groven were ancient forest dwellers, their origins stretching back to an age before even the rise of the Mother Tree. Al'Duwyn himself was said to have lived since the earliest days of Skyland, making him one of the oldest beings still walking its soil.
He wore a flowing robe made of glowing Alborian leaves that shimmered subtly with age and Ether, and he had antler-like branches that curled from his crown. He had a huge wooden staff in his hand, and strands of Ether floated about it like silent fireflies.
The spores in the air appeared to remain around him as he moved forward in a respectful manner. His voice was heavy with age, slow and deep. He looked at Myri and said, "Then tell us, young druid, What do you think we should do?"
Myri looked him in the eye and spoke steadily. "We must bring down Drako."
A hushed gasp echoed among the assembled kin. Even the ether spores in the air seemed to pause.
Unnaturally, the Ether Tree shimmered, its roots and branches rippling with a slow, throbbing uneasiness.
"You dare speak that name here, before Master Al'Duwyn and the Mother Tree?" snarled Elder Tharnok of the Velkhar, a mountain-born druid whose curved horns and cracked hooves marked him as one of the fierce guardians of Duragzund's peaks. His vine-wrapped staff struck the ground with a sharp crack as he leaped forward in outrage. "This is sacred ground girl! Your words stain the very air we breathe. Guards! escort this insolent girl out at once."
Flint stepped forward sharply, placing himself between Myri and the advancing guards. His hand rose with obvious urgency, not in defiance. His voice was tight as he said, "I'll take her," his feathers rippling with tension. "There's no need to escalate this."
For a moment, the elders hesitated, their eyes flicking between Flint and the still-shimmering roots of the Mother Tree. Master Al'Duwyn then nodded modestly and solemnly. With the weight of innumerable seasons, his voice was gentle and serene. "All right, Dawnbind Flint."
Flint muttered under his breath as he led Myri out of the circle, taking her by the arm. "That was reckless."
"You know I'm right," Myri replied. "Someone had to say it!"
The air was colder outside the sacred circle.
Flint exhaled sharply. "Just because they are druids and believe in the peaceful balance of our nature doesn't mean they won't hesitate to throw you into a Wildmaw Bloom.[1]"
With a firmer but quieter voice, Myri turned to face him. "Oh yeah? Well, I won't stand by while everything keeps rotting away."
"And then what?" Flint snapped. "You're going to do something reckless again? Like in Caelarion Glade?"
Myri's expression wavered. His voice sounded more painful than he intended.
"I didn't mean..." Flint began.
But she looked away. "No… Maybe I'm simply searching in the wrong place for sense.. If my own kin and the druids won't listen... then I need to go where someone will."
He stepped in front of her. "Hey hey! What does that mean? Where are you going?"
"Somewhere else, where someone may see things the way I do... or care as much." She didn't stop walking away.
"But I care," he said quietly.
After a brief pause, she continued to walk. "Tsk, Kind words don't stop rot, Flint. Action does."
She didn't wait for his reply. With her cloak rippling behind her and her jaw set in quiet defiance, she moved into the forest, leaving Flint in the dim light of the glade.
-Break-
The glade was silent later that evening with a gentle drizzle pattering across the leaves. As Flint made his way back to his treetop home, each step felt heavier than the last. The room was dark, motionless, and painfully lonely. His chest felt equally knotted as his bed, which was a jumble of tangled covers.
Hidden under his bed, he pulled a little wooden chest. Although hesitant, he slowly opened it.
Inside, wrapped in an old festival cloth, lay a child's bluebird mask, hand-carved, roughly painted as if with no much care, its surface etched faintly by worn patterns of feathers smoothed by time.
Flint held it in both hands as he sat on the edge of his bed. The memories poured in like a slow flood as he ran his thumb over its surface.
When the memories became more vivid than the present, he was just ten years old.
He recalled once more his parents, the first Dawnbinds guardians of Skyland. In his little innocent eyes, they were legends wrapped in light. Fading memories of a home bursting with the warmth of love, laughter, and unshakable strength.
He then remembered that one morning. His mother gently brushing his hair and feathers. The way she hummed a lullaby he never quite forgot, her fingers parting the tangles with such care it made the world feel still. Her warmth sat behind him like a protective breeze.
"We'll be back before the stars bloom," she whispered, placing a kiss on the crown of his head.
His father's confident grin from the doorway. The familiar weight of his Dawnbind green cloak hanging from his shoulders. "Keep the house warm for us, bud. And don't eat all the honeycakes." always ending each sentence with a wink.
The night then arrived. Music permeates the glade as lanterns dance in the trees. Joy filled the air.
Until the Dawnbinds returned, but only half of them.
Flint vividly recalled Rajak kneeling in front of him, voice broken, face shadowed. "I'm sorry, Flint. They didn't make it."
He had drifted to the edge of the firelight, weightless and silent. A boy who has no one to return home to.
He remembered sitting alone, curled near the base of an old tree, the glow of festival lights casting flickers across his face. While others danced and laughed, he was a shadow among joy.
Then she approached.
Myri, small and scrappy, with large messy ginger curls that looked like a wild tangle of sunlight. Her face was smudged with dirt, but bright freckles still dotted her cheeks like scattered sparks. She had no antlers yet, just that funny, fearless look in her eyes. She didn't say much at first, just held out a carved wooden mask far too big for her hands.
"Hi! I'm Myri," she said, her voice small but steady. "You looked sad. So I made this for you. Birds can fly. They're always free. Always happy."
Flint grabbed the mask and used the back of his sleeve to wipe his eyes. He held it tenderly, as though it were a priceless and delicate object.
The memories swirled, of Myri's laugh echoing through the glade, the two of them darting through trees, skipping stones, chasing firelights. Her whisper once, by the Ether pool:
"Flint, you're my best friend."
And his answer:
"I'll always have your back. No matter where you are."
He had only ever known silence back home. cold spaces. voids where voices and laughter once echoed, but no longer did. The kind of silence that feels like the walls are farther apart and seeps into your bones.
But with her, there was laughter. Constant, pure, and wild. The kind that made the world feel small and safe. With Myri, everything felt alive, like there was no space left for pain to settle.
Beautiful memories until the present swallowed it whole.
Flint clutched the mask tighter as his shoulders shook, and for the first time in years, tears broke free. They fell silently, dampening the mask.
"How did I turn into this?" he muttered, voice hoarse, the words barely more than breath as he sat there, sobbing, questioning, unraveling.
And outside, just beyond the soft drizzle, someone watched him from the trees.
[1] The Wildmaw Bloom is a massive, carnivorous plant species found in the darkest, dampest pockets of Skyland’s forest underlayers, particularly where Ether pools remain stagnant. In full bloom, the plant’s petal span can reach over 12 feet across, and its central maw is capable of consuming a full-grown Kin whole.
Despite its size, the Wildmaw remains eerily still for most of its life cycle. It lures prey by exuding a soft, luminescent glow from its petal edges and releasing a pheromone-rich vapor that mimics harmless Ether-fruit or flowering moss. This aroma grows strongest in mist-heavy air, often leading travelers to their deaths when visibility is low.
— Entry from the Skyland Flora Registry, Annotated Edition, Vol. II