SAGN: Chapter Five-The Hamadryad free porn video

Chapter Five: The Hamadryad ================================================== Jim had never seen a car like the one that pulled into Magnolia Circle about an hour and a half later; not that he could remember anyway. It was low to the ground and seemed to be more rounded curves than was the style of auto design he was familiar with. With its narrow profile it suggested to him a stretched elongated drop of water more than anything else and it seemed to him more like something that moved with the grace of a living being rather than a machine. There were few protruding areas that could cause wind resistance on the slick surface of the vehicle and even as it slowed and came to a stop before being admitted to the quarantine area; it seemed to still be moving. The engine made no sound as it glided to a final stop and parked just behind where the three detectives had gathered next to their car. The three detectives manned what was the de facto command post since the last civilians had been evacuated from the area that now included Magnolia Circle and stretched to three adjoining streets. There was an official one established on the edge of the perimeter as well. That one handled the moment by moment actions that orchestrated the sealing off of this area. But any major decisions needing to be made were done so from here by Singh, Brighton and Travers. They waited alone in the center of the road until now. The only three men allowed this deep into the containment area. Shortly after the bulk of the other officers who had responded to Singh's code bravo three-seven-four had completed the evacuation they had been withdrawn from ground zero and were now redeployed on the perimeter they had established around the neighborhood surrounding the nascent Grove. The three detectives watched them from their position in the cul-de-sac as they moved along the line ensuring it remained isolated. The entire time since they had finished coordinating the sealing of the area they had been waiting for this envoy to arrive. After the terror of their escape and the frantic rush of activity afterward, it had been just the three of them here afterward with only the sound of the radio traffic to break up their own quiet conversation. The car itself had a set of state government plates mounted in a recessed section with a rounded clear cover over the shallow hollow in the nose of the frame. Jim hadn't really expected that detail, although there was no reason for him to think otherwise. That bulbous rounded cover enclosing a flash of color from the bird marking the reflective white tag was the only thing that even slightly marred the aerodynamic beauty of the machine. "It's a beautiful piece of engineering isn't it?" Singh said in response to their unspoken question about the car. We'll be seeing a lot more of these in the next few years I think; most of the major automakers have been incorporating Fae designs into newer models to a greater or lesser extent the last couple of decades; but this latest model is already making them stand up and notice like you wouldn't believe. Jim figured that it had to have some form of electric motor from how quiet that it was when it was moving in to park. Except for the faint hum of it as it approached there was little sound emanating from under the hood and what sound there was had been mostly drowned out by the heavy falling rain that had returned with a vengeance shortly after their escape. "I remember hearing something about Fae not liking iron much for some reason," Jim said. "So how are they using any cars at all, even ones like that?" "Cold iron is what you're thinking of," Singh commented. "Most Fae have an aversion to cold iron. That is one of the reasons Pantra gets carsick so easily even from just a short ride. Most people are not aware that even ordinary cars have a partially shielded area specially built into the dashboard for those like her. For a long time, back when people first started building and using cars, Fae couldn't even get near them because of all of the iron in them; now it's not quite the same. And while there may be less iron in cars made today than there used to be, there is still enough to cause great discomfort to the Fae that ride in them if they stay too long. This model however has no iron in it." "I didn't think they could do that yet," Mitch said. "What is it, some kind of plastic then?" "No, not entirely," Singh said, "the majority of it is a welded cast aluminum frame with a carbon fiber body. The engine is an electric design based on one that Fae engineers developed decades ago. The batteries help ballast it and offset the lightness of the frame and body. Most of the technology the Fae use now is pretty much what we would consider cutting edge." "So dryads use a lot of green tech then," Mitch said his brow furrowing as he considered the implications. "They do," Singh replied. "For them, being in tune with the entire world is a big part of who they are as a people. I understand they have a solar farm as well near their Grove that powers their fleet of cars and provides for all of their other modern needs, but it's not massed together so you just don't realize just how much of a capacity they have there. I've never seen more than a few panels in any one place during the few times that I have visited them, but they do very well out there; well enough that they make a nice profit off of selling their extra generating capacity each month." "I wouldn't have put those two together," Jim said, "I would have thought them more like the Amish than what you say about them." "Not really," Singh said. "They may have not used as much technology in the distant past; but that time was centuries ago and the Fae today are completely different breeds than their ancestors. Sometimes their potential really scares me." Singh didn't volunteer any further information to explain the last part of his statement and Jim decided to let it slide for now. With the Hamadryad here now things were going to start moving much more rapidly after the last few hours of almost nothing happening. The door opened and a tall very thin man with dark tinted sunglasses got out and moved to the back of the vehicle to open the door for his passenger. He didn't say anything to the detectives who had quietly ceased talking about their arrival and he seemed not to notice them. The lightly tinted windows of the car itself only let you see the occupants within in profile at this distance and Jim had no idea of what kind of being had been delivered to Magnolia Circle in these last few hours before sunset. Jim supposed he had some preconceptions already in mind when the door to the car opened and the woman stepped out onto the pavement. Like everyone who passed through the public school system, he had taken the world mythology course back when he was in middle school. To the child that he was then it seemed that the instructors were trying to make something as exciting and exotic as the beings and creatures in those stories as dreadfully boring as possible. He had never considered then that they might have been doing so on purpose. But ever since his first meeting with Singh it had remained a nagging idea in the back of his mind that discouraging interest in their subject was the real purpose of that class after all. He had tried to put it out of his mind after his first brush with Singh's world, but it still lingered afterward as disquiet within him. After today's experience he found he was spending a lot of the time since the quarantine of the area went into effect, racking his brain for half remembered details to fill in the blanks about what they faced. What had happened to all of them was still too recent to broach in conversation just yet, but it was something that was consuming his thoughts amidst the stilted forced conversation they indulged in between coordinating the cordon around the Grove and waiting for the Grove's representative to arrive. He still found it hard to credit that, after Singh had told them that a dryad was responsible for what had happened to them in the woodlot behind the houses. Despite what Singh had said it still seemed to him a deeply out of character action that she could launch such a horrendous attack on the three of them. For the moment Jim was dealing with it by treating it as another example of theoretical knowledge colliding with facts on the ground and falling short in favor of reality. And he had other concerns that preyed on his thoughts. Chief among them, knowing that an even more powerful version of that being was coming to join them. That idea left him still having some difficulty envisioning just what was going to step out of this car. He was almost dreading seeing what was behind those tinted windows and at the same time consumed with curiosity as well. Jim became aware that he was holding his breath as she moved from behind the car door and stepped fully into view. She wasn't what he thought she would be; even so he thought she was going to be different from what she was when Singh told them she was on the way. One of the things that he recalled was that nymphs were reputed to be incredibly beautiful, but in some ways she was unremarkable and if he had passed her on the street what would have stood out in his memory would have been the long oaken staff she carried rather than how she looked. He had thought that, foolish as the idea was, there was even a small chance that perhaps she would be mostly naked with leaves in her hair. Some of them perhaps placed in strategic locations on her body as well; just as the old woodcut illustrations he remembered had depicted them. But the woman that stepped out of the car was tastefully dressed in what Jim suspected was clothing more fashionable than he could even identify; although his ex-wife probably could do so with ease. She was taller than he expected her to be as well, but at the same time she exuded an air of waiflike essence that seemed to be perfectly natural to her; on someone else her appearance would have signaled that there was perhaps something wrong with this woman. She was too thin in places and there was out of sync sensations when you looked at how long her arms and legs were compared to the rest of her. On her though, it looked right and proper and the eye did not completely alert the mind that something was out of place here. Her face was angular and her flowing dark hair crept around her neck and hung between her small breasts like some women would wear an expensive scarf. It was impossible for Jim to pick an age for her just by looking at her. One moment she seemed in her late teens, another in her thirties and the next some time in her twenties. Her appearance was an exercise in subtle shades of difference. It shifted each time you looked away, but it was the same woman each time the eye returned to her. Like her driver she was also wearing a pair of dark sunglasses, although hers had a larger, rounder design and actually suggested to Jim something from the 1980's rather than what was commonly marketed today. Perhaps it was a retro look that Jim had not noticed because women's fashion was not something that he thought about until it was right there in front of him. Singh was already moving away from them to meet her before the door had finished opening. As the woman stepped around the open car door and moved to meet him, her driver closed it behind her with silent efficiency and fell in behind her maintaining his distance just a few steps away. "Detective Singh, so good to see you again," she said to Armin, greeting him warmly in a soft silken voice. "M'Tehr," he replied. "I hoped they'd send you. Can you hear her?" The woman closed her eyes briefly for a moment, turned away from Singh and then responded. "She's like a flame. She knows I'm near, but until I make physical contact I doubt she will begin to calm for some time. She's too deep in her nature right now for me to calm her from here. All I can sense from her now is primal desire. Your department said that there is firefly down as well when they contacted us. Which Fae officer has fallen and what happened to them?" "My associate Pantra; she was knocked away from us when she moved to protect us as we made our escape from the Grove. She may be badly injured. She hasn't returned and we couldn't return there to look for her. " "The pixie," M'tehr said. "I remember her from our last meeting. I like her; she has a nice sense of fun that I appreciate. Be assured that I will make every effort to find her when I enter the Grove and return her to you," she turned to her driver and motioned for him to remain here. "Detective Singh will escort me from this point Jacen," she said to him. "Remain with his companions until I have need of you." "Of course, Lady M'Tehr," he answered with a slight bow and stepped off to one side to join Jim and Mitch where they stood beneath the hastily erected open sided tent in the middle of the street. The two of them began walking through the rain toward the open yard where Singh had escaped from the wood with Jim and Mitch. As they walked away Jim heard him begin to briefly outline the details of their encounter with the dryad with M'Tehr, their voices growing fainter as the distance increased between them. "You said she was injured while defending you," M'Tehr said as they walked toward the fence line, their shoes clacking in muffled tones on the pavement. "What was she doing exactly?" "She burned the roots and vines that the dryad was using to attempt to capture us with," Singh answered quietly. "That could be very bad for her," M'Tehr said. "I more than others understand the need to take such measures, but the very thought of it hardens my heart to her. My sister will not easily forgive that action. She will be seeking her. She may already have found her by now and if she has it may not be easy to restrain her at the moment." "Try to bring her back if you can. Retrieving Pantra before she suffers further injury has almost a high a priority as tamping down this Grove. She's one of ours after all. If you can't find her after you have been able to pacify this nymph, we will need to enter the Grove right away so we can start looking for her as soon as possible regardless of consequences," Singh said. "I understand that, of course," M'Tehr said quietly, "But I have no idea how long it may take to release her from this feral state. It may be several hours before it is safe for your kind to enter the boundaries of the Grove." "I expected as much, M'Tehr," he said. "Just do what you can. I can't go very far, but I'll take you as far as is safe for me to go. Unfortunately for us that won't be much further. She has staked out a large portion of the woods here already and it seemed to be expanding even as we made our escape. Other officers on the perimeter have already been reporting what seems to be subsequent movement in the forest as well." M'Tehr nodded to him in acknowledgement and Singh continued walking with the Hamadryad toward the Grove. Jim and Mitch watched the pair until they passed out of sight around the edge of the fence that marked where they had tumbled out of the woods onto the street bare hours earlier. Even from the middle of the road in the center of the cul-de- sac they could feel the air around them seem to flex as the Hamadryad approached the Grove's boundaries with the shaman alongside her and as it did Jim was glad they had remained behind. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "Her essence is all around us," M'Tehr said as they passed out of the yard of the empty house and into the strip of woodland behind it. "She is enraged that you and your companions have eluded her. I taste it in the air. And even more so that you wounded her Grove while doing so. I taste her rage and I think that will make this task more difficult." "I feel it too, I can't help but feel it, but we need her calm and rational as soon as you can manage it," Singh answered. "And we need to see to relocating her to the Grove reservation as soon as it can be done. She is too much of a threat to remain here as she is." "Agreed, but that may not be an option, Detective Singh," she said. "You know as well as I do that things are in great flux just now. And even you should be able to sense the depth of her connection already." Singh did know it. It was something that he and other sensitives had felt quietly growing in influence very recently. When it was just him and Pantra in their sanctum that steady increasing change was the source of more disturbing conversations between them than he would like to count. What made it worse was that Pantra herself was just as disturbed by the implications as well. "I have sensed it," He admitted. And for all of the cordiality between him and M'Tehr he was not sure that she would share his misgivings about the possibilities that he and Pantra had discussed. M'Tehr kept her own people's interests first; she always had. "The question now is how did she even get here?" he said. "What tree did you see her come from? Which one is her Phar' ador?" she asked. "We never saw her emerge, but I'm fairly certain it is the large elm in the center of the Grove," Singh answered. "But I can't be entirely sure of that. By the time I was aware of her focus on us we were already under attack." M'Tehr looked through the vibrancy of the green spread before them. Her eyes passed from the trees to the verge below and lingered on all points in between. She felt the churning of the life snarling within the boundaries of the Grove now that its dryad was returned to it. The woodlot was almost as feral as she was and as M'Tehr looked she could see it growing thicker and wilder with each raindrop that soaked into the soil. It had been a long time since she had felt a Grove as awake as this one was and her connection with it, even as a visitor, struck her with its difference. The Grove she came from had not fallen during the Withering. True it had dwindled and shrunk, but it had not faded into empty silence and its sound was a soothing melody to her very being. This Grove though was roaring at the very skies that slaked its thirst. "Elms are long lived trees, but I think even this one had yet to raise a leaf to the sky the last time she walked in this Grove," M'Tehr said. "She may have lain dormant all this time. This may be one of the Groves we counted as lost during the Withering. She may have slept for centuries here already. A deep sleep. Deep enough that when time took her sisters from her she didn't feel their loss until her own awakening." "I didn't think that a dryad's hibernation could last so long," Singh said reverently as he considered what she said. "A lost Grove here after so long. It doesn't seem possible." "This may be just the beginning my friend," M'Tehr said to him in hushed tones. The pendulum is turning back. Even you must be sensing it's waxing. But even with that something more was needed to awaken her. There is a missing portion to this meal that we don't yet see." "I think that a man nearby who was experimenting with black lotus may have awakened her," Singh said. "He disappeared almost a week ago and what I have gleaned from examining where he was taken from suggests that whoever took him was ruled by their primal nature." "Is this man the only one who has vanished or are there others as well?" she asked reaching the edge of the thickened underbrush. Singh stopped back, just out of reach of the quivering rootlets that rose from the earth and writhed slowly into the air at their approach. He eyed them uneasily as he would have eyed the raised heads of a brood of vipers. The questing tips wavered in his direction, but with M'Tehr beside him they did not venture to strike at him again. "No, there is another man we're sure of, who lives on the other side of the Grove; he disappeared last evening. There was a witness. A neighbor who heard his cries as he was assaulted while passing through here as he often did when coming home at night. I think we may have stumbled over him encased in vines and roots earlier. We were going back to examine the cocoon when this dryad struck at us." "I will do what I can to convince her to release him once her mind has returned," she said. "Are there any others in addition to these two?" "Possibly," Singh said. "The department has had a wave of missing persons over the last few weeks with no real connection to what could have happened to them until now." "Then these disappearances you mentioned. They are all young men?" she asked. "Yes," Singh answered. "That is the one unifying element that we have identified in connection to them all until this Grove was found. This subset of missing young men is an outlier. Most of the time its other demographic groups that disappear; but not this time. This time it was healthy young men. All races, all creeds, all levels of society. Males between twenty to forty years old were the only pattern we had that was clear until now." "I don't think this dryad is connected to those disappearances. You're looking in the wrong place," she said with hushed conviction before kneeling to the earth at the edge of the underbrush. The rootlets there rose to caress her wrist and then fell away lightly. "How can you be certain?" asked Singh. M'Tehr looked up at him from the rootlets moving gently along her wrists. "She is awake now, but her awakening is recent. I can feel it in the rain and the growth. She is only aware of these last few days, there is nothing before that time in her touch here that I can sense," she said. "The men we know she took. Barnes and Phillips. Can you get her to release them? To stand down and allow us to move her to the Grove reservation?" "I may be able to do this," M'Tehr said rising from the waving rootlets. "But it may take some time for the grip of her nature to slacken and to release her. When she is more rational I think that I may be able to convince her to do so. But it will take time. How long I cannot say." "Then I leave you to do so, M'Tehr," Singh said. "Good luck." "I thank you for your intentions, but I won't need luck," M'Tehr said stepping into the thicket. "My sister wants me to be with her." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The technicians from Stafford Electric and Gas had erected the large open sided tent for the detectives in the center of the macadam of the cul-de-sac at the same time they set up their diversion. There was a long folding table in the center with some camp chairs set out beneath it. The rains that had been dispelled into the mist by Singh had returned when Pantra had unleashed her flame on the Grove and had quickly smothered the wounds she had inflicted on the smoldering wood and some of the drops were driven in by the force of the wind to pool on the surface of the table. The rain had been steady before, as it had to a greater or lesser degree in the days leading up to today. Now though, the water was coming down in heavy sheets, as if the injury done to the wood was causing the sky to weep with fury. Perhaps it was in some way Jim thought. It made about as much sense as the rest of what he had experienced so far today. Mitch was seated in a camp chair next to him, dark bruises from the length of root that had seized his neck discoloring the flesh there. Their handsets were sitting on the table itself, squawking intermittently in the background. Singh had returned shortly after escorting the Hamadryad into the Grove but there had been no sign of her in the hours since she had entered. Jacen, her driver, had kept off to one side a little apart from the Stafford P.D. detectives. Even when they had invited him to take shelter beneath the waterproof fabric he had politely declined their invitation and only said that the rain did not bother him and that he needed to be ready to attend Lady M'Tehr when she called for him. He was still standing apart from them, just outside of the tent, seeming to not even notice how the rivulets of water already streamed down his body. He kept his eyes focused, not on the open yard of the house that she and Singh had walked toward, but on the forest beyond the houses. Singh had only been gone a short time, but it felt like it was longer to Jim. He half thought that the dryad in the wood would drag him back into the depths of the forest even with the Hamadryad beside him. But he had returned. He was alone, of course and Jim was relieved to see that he appeared to have not been attacked this time and that was a mark in the Hamadryad's favor as far as Jim was concerned. When Jim asked him if she was able to find anything out yet, he had slowly shaken his head no and said that the only vague theory the two of them had at the moment was that this dryad had been in a deep hibernation and had recently awakened. He told them that he had suggested to M'Tehr that she might be responsible for the recent disappearances that so preoccupied the department, but she was of a mind that dismissed that possibility outright. That seemed to Jim like a very possible line of investigation and to his mind it would begin to explain the rash of disappearances that had occurred. But when Jim asked the shaman how she could be so certain that wasn't the case they all heard Jacen loudly scoff in a dismissive tone at the idea. When the three men turned to face him, he merely stated that the taste of the rain argued against that idea and would say no more in explanation. Jim asked Singh what he meant by that since Jacen was obviously not going to be more forthcoming. Singh grew quiet and told him that M'Tehr suggested before they had parted ways that this dryad's awakening was too recent to be connected to all of them. Like the rainstorm that had been hovering so annoyingly over the city the last few days, the idea that the bulk of the missing men being seemingly connected in some way with this dryad's awakening from her sleep was a convenient explanation, but that was a false lead; only the closest and most recent disappearances could be truly laid at this dryad's feet. Jim though wasn't inclined to entirely trust the Hamadryad's word on the matter and as soon as they were away from this quarantine he was already planning to quietly see what connections from the other cases intersected with these ones. The minutes passed as the sky shifted from leaden gray to an inky black outside the glare of their lights. The dark houses around them walled them off from the city around them and the only lights other than those they had with them came from the dim glow over the rooftops that crowned the edge of the trees in the distance with a glimmering halo of distant light. A uniformed officer had entered the area briefly just before dark and brought with him several thermoses of coffee and a bag of sandwiches. Jim had even managed to choke one of them down a bit. They were convenience store specials and Jim looked at them as he always did when he was on a department operation; it was something to just eat rather than to enjoy. Mitch didn't have that problem though. He swallowed one of the pasty abominations almost with a single bite and reached for another even as he was still chewing on that one. Singh ate a little, but like Jacen he seemed more focused on what could be going on in the wood just behind the houses. Jacen politely declined the offer to join them again as well and the three men let the subject drop. There was nothing to do once the bare conversation that they had died away, but wait and as they did so their time was spent in silence broken only by the radio chatter of the units coordinating the blockade of the Grove. Just before nine, the three men saw Jacen suddenly shift his gaze away from the Grove down to the darkness wreathing the far end of the cul- de-sac. He seemed more alert somehow when he did that, though he was hardly at rest since the Hamadryad had ordered him to remain behind. What Jim was really reminded of by Jacen's demeanor was its similarity to a dog he had once owned. That old spaniel had tensed in almost exactly that same way just before bounding toward him in an excessive display of joy to greet him when he returned after any absence. A few moments later the shadowy form of the Hamadryad emerged into the far reaches of where the lantern light spilled into the road. She had one arm drawn tightly to her side with her other hand firmly grasping the oaken staff. The faint tok-tok-tok of it striking the macadam as she walked toward them announcing her approach long before her form hove into sight. "I have found your partner, Detective Singh," she said as she approached. Singh had already risen from his camp chair when Jacen shifted his attention and at her announcement rushed into the rain soaked shadows to meet her at the edge of the light. Pantra's limp form rested against the Hamadryad's forearm. One of her diaphanous wings was twisted and misshapen from the blow that had struck her down. A light dusting of silken strands covering her body had caught falling raindrops and it gave her a silvery sheen in the sparse lantern light. Singh reached for her and gently took her from M'Tehr. "She had already begun to spin a healing cocoon when my sister told me where to find her," M'Tehr said. "The blow sent her outside of the Grove's boundaries. When she allowed me to enter she was preoccupied with her focus on extending her reach toward her. She greatly desired to punish this one who dared to use flame on her trees. It took some time for me to convince her to forsake her vengeance." Jim looked at the limp form of the pixie. The strands had begun to bind her body in a long cylindrical tube with her misshapen wing held firmly against her body. The stands of what he could only identify as some form of silk were thickest there but even as they watched they were spreading to encompass the whole of her form. As Singh took her from the Hamadryad's hands Jim could see her head move slightly with purpose rather than the boneless lolling that someone unconscious would make when they were moved. Singh leaned close to her to catch whatever it was she said and then said simply that no one would do anything of the sort. While he carried her away to the waiting ambulance on the perimeter Jim remained silently with Mitch. Jacen had gone to stand close beside the Hamadryad and they were whispering urgently in hushed tones that Jim couldn't quite hear from where the two of them were standing. "My sister is much calmer now," the Hamadryad announced when Singh returned. "But her mind is just barely aware. She is no longer lost to her nature at the moment, but I will have to return to her as soon as we finish speaking. Her reason is only a thin shell over her nature and until we can strengthen her, this area should remain cordoned off." "How can you even suggest strengthening her?" Jim said evenly even though what he really wanted to do was to shout the question at her. He didn't though and instead kept his tone as neutral and as professional as he could. "After what we've seen her do just as she is, right now that sounds a whole lot like putting out a fire by throwing gasoline on it." "I do not suggest strengthening her as you might think Detective," the Hamadryad said. "What she needs is what she seeks. That is the strength she must have for her to regain control of herself." "She needs a dryad then," Singh said. "I thought that's what she's here for?" Jim said. "The dryad she needs to regain herself is one from her own Grove," the Hamadryad said. "All I can do is help calm the fire of her nature until the fever that grips her breaks and passes from her. Only when she is united with one from her own Grove will the inferno of her madness be quenched." "You said that her doing what she needed to do to get that would kill Barnes and Phillips," Mitch said to Singh, ignoring the Hamadryad. "You know we can't allow that to happen." "She will not take what she needs from either of the men you seek. Neither of them has the strength in them for this," M'Tehr said, ignoring Mitch's outburst. "Jacen will take their place. Only he can ensure that she has what is needed." She turned to the tall man. "She is expecting you Jacen. You know what needs to be done." Jacen bowed to her. "I obey my lady," he said quietly and disappeared into the darkness before either Jim or Mitch could make an objection. As the two of them rose and moved to follow Jacen to stop him from entering the Grove, M'Tehr raised her hand and bid them be still. "Jacen is quite safe from my sister," she said. "By morning she will have what she needs from him and it will be safe for your people to retrieve both of your missing men. They will be safe as long as she is focused on him, but she and Jacen must not be interrupted until what needs to be done is done." Jim and Mitch still moved toward the darkness after Jacen in a wary halfhearted manner. If this dryad was as dangerous as what they had seen so far, as what Singh told them she was; they didn't see how her driver would be safe and neither of them wanted to put the life of the man at such risk even if they barely knew him. "Detective Brighton, Detective Travers," they heard Singh say to them. "Please sit down. There is no danger for Jacen. A satyr is in no danger from a dryad, even a feral one." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "A satyr?" Mitch said looking at the tall form of Jacen merging with the distant darkness. "Short creature? Horns? Hairy legs? Enormous..." "Ego," Jim interjected. "Yeah, that too," Mitch said. "He looks nothing like that. Are you going to clue us in on why her driver looks like an underweight string bean of a chauffeur and not..." "A satyr?" Singh finished for him. "Yeah," said Mitch. "Fae routinely adopt glamour when they venture out into our portion of the world," He said. "Pantra uses her shimmer to refract light around her so the eye just doesn't see her. Easy enough for one her size to do. Jacen and others like him just shift the eye to see what it expects to see. But he is indeed a satyr. M'Tehr would not have brought him with her otherwise." "Why bring a satyr at all?" Jim asked. "How does making her stronger make her less of a threat than she is right now?" "She must spawn a sister before she can emerge from her nature," M'Tehr said. "This strengthens her, but it is strength she can use to control herself with. All her strength now is undirected, wild and without reason. With a sister of her own Grove alongside her she gains reason and control. Things she has lacked since she has awakened." "You really believe that she was in deep hibernation then?" Singh asked. "All that you have shown me, all that I have seen here tells me that must be the case," M'Tehr said. "If only another of her sisters had survived I could have ventured into the Aether and sought to awaken her as well. But there was no trace that I could find there. And that is the seed of this Hamadryad's madness." Singh started in alarm. "She is the Hamadryad of this Grove?" "Yes," M'Tehr said. "If she were not so before, then she is so now." "This is a complication," Singh said worriedly. "Will she still be able to be moved? Can your Grove even take in another Hamadryad without conflict?" "We will do what is necessary for our lost sister to heal. Whatever the cost," M'Tehr said slowly. "But that is a path we cannot walk until she is herself again." "And is she? Can she be healed from this?" Singh asked. "I will share with you part of what I have gleaned from my sister, but when Jacen returns I must re-enter the Grove. There is a long path for both of us to walk together before she reaches her true self." "Of course," Singh said. "Whatever you found while you were there we need to know. It may still shed some light on answers to question that we can't see yet." M'Tehr took the camp chair that Singh had pulled out for her. She eased down into it seating herself with the liquidity of water flowing across stones, but as she did so Jim thought he could detect some of the strain in her shoulders that she had incurred while dealing with her wild sister. She closed her eyes, gathering her thoughts a moment and then she started to tell them about her encounter. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- M'Tehr stepped gingerly past the boundaries of the Grove. As her feet sank into the wet loam of it, she felt its vibrancy course up her calves and thrum through her. An ecstasy of life that battered against her and made her halt for a moment to gather her strength before continuing. *Sisters, can you hear me?* she asked. The staff in her hand throbbed in response. It was a thick six foot long straight branch dropped from her Phar' ador. Although to men's eyes it appeared as nothing more than a length of polished wood, it was much more than that. It was a still- living connection to her tree and as long as she had contact with it she was not bound to the wide radius around her faraway oak. Right now every sister in her Grove was there clustered around her Phar' ador, lending her their strength. Each of them had merged some part of themselves with the living wood she had bound herself to and were as close to her now in spirit as if they were here in the flesh. They saw the raging forest of the Grove around her through her eyes and like her; they were struck by the sheer rawness of it. She felt them urging her forward and their trepidation over what had happened to their lost sister was only matched by the hope they had felt when they first sensed her awakening. *Call to her again sister* they urged her. *Let her know we are here* M'Tehr tried to reach out for her nearby sister, but there was only silence muzzled by the pure raging emotion gripping her mind in response. *We've come to you sister,* she thought as soothingly as she could, allowing all of her Grove's own emotions to flow with the thoughts. The words may not make it through, but M'Tehr knew that those feelings of welcome and reassurance would even as her sister's strength anchored her against the whirling chaotic nature of the Grove around her. *We felt you awaken,* she continued. *We felt you, but we couldn't find you. You were so far away, but we're here now. We've come and you are not alone.* It had been a shock to the whole Grove actually. Something she was not willing to share with Singh. Even though she was mostly sure she could trust him with this, she had kept that information carefully shielded from his Esper abilities. He had some idea of how important this was to them, but not its full extent. The effort of the entire Grove had been relentlessly focused on uncovering the location of this lone sister ever since they became aware of her. But there were limits even so. The dryads of her Grove were not inclined to share this discovery with their human counterparts until they needed to do so and as her location eluded them day after day they were having to seriously consider that there may be no alternative to doing so. *Who?* The single word hung in her mind and M'Tehr felt all of her sister's joy mirroring her own over that first solid response. It was the first clear connection to them other than the torrent of emotion that had alerted them that one of their own was here. She had been feeling that emotion washing over her from a distance for days now. On the trip down here she had shared with her sisters its increasing weight as she drew closer to the source. Even now that pure depth of feeling was driving the explosive growth of the Grove along with it. M'Tehr stood still as she felt her sister's gaze fall on her. Roots snaked up from below her feet. Cradling and caressing her legs and lower body as her sister sent part of her Grove to taste her. She stood still and allowed them to move over her touching her form, tasting her essence in the Aether. *Not him,* the voice whispered. *Another.* Then rapidly behind the thought came another as well. A panicky unexpected thought. *Send her away! Danger! Hide! Protect!* There was fear infusing the second line of thought; confused fear, terror even. The roots around her tightened for a moment and M'Tehr had a brief thought that her sister may still be too wild for even her to approach. *There is no danger sister. No need to hide. We are here for you. Taste me and know I speak the truth.* M'Tehr extended her staff into the thickest knot of roots that she could reach and willed it's connection with her oak; with every sister back in her Grove to reach out to her and reassure this drowning sister of theirs that there was only what she was blindly craving waiting for her on the other end of it. *No.* The thought was not directed toward M'Tehr, although at first she thought it was and the abject refusal was confusing to her. *Not him,* the first voice insisted. *Danger!* the second one repeated even more fervently. M'Tehr cast her thoughts around them to the extent that she dared seeking the source of the second mind. In the Grove her sisters heard the discussion and were staggered that it existed at all and more so that they could not locate its source anywhere around M'Tehr. *No danger, like us she is,* the first voice insisted again. Stronger now it seemed to M'Tehr, more sure of itself. The clearing of her sister's mind from the storm of raw emotion evidenced to M'Tehr by the growing complexity of her responses. *None like us! Alone!* the second voice howled in M'Tehr's mind, a banshee wail of frightened certitude. *Her taste like us,* the first voice said soothingly. *Not alone.* *Alone! Twisted!* the second voice repeated even more firmly. As if the author of it was refusing to accept the reality of M'Tehr and through her the voices of her sisters transmitted by her Phar' ador's finger. The twin lines of thought winged back and forth at each other circling like a pair of corks in a whirlpool. The first continuing to argue that the second should accept it was mistaken. M'Tehr tentatively reached out. Was it possible that this dryad was not actually alone? It sounded like it, but there was only the single essence of her that she could sense and the second voice was the more limited of the two now. M'Tehr didn't know what to make of it, but it was clear that she needed to gain the acceptance of both of them before her mission stood a chance of success. Too much was depending on what happened here now. *Hide! He'll find us! Send her away!* The second voice had changed its course of thought abruptly. She was no longer wholly concerned it seemed with whether M'Tehr was like them or not. M'Tehr felt the fear swell up from the direction of the elm in the center of the Grove. It was as the shaman had suggested. That was her Phar' ador. Her heart tree. That was where M'Tehr would find her. *No need to hide anymore sisters, you are safe. We found you now. We will protect you. We need to protect you. We are one.* She directed the thought at her with all the force she could muster from herself and her Grove. *Others! Danger! Protect! Punish! Hide!* The second voice was a conflicting maze of warning, fear and desires, each one to be acted on with equal fervor. The second voice is the key she reflected to herself and in the link to her Phar' ador she felt her sisters agree with her assessment. *Not this one, she is us,* the first voice again. Calmer now, perhaps tinged with a hint of wary relief that they were no longer alone. *Yes we are one. We are the same.* M'Tehr thought soothingly at them feeling the link between her and her Grove swell as the colony back there sent the full weight of their shared connection to infuse their confused terrified drowning sisters with that reassurance. *Others! Not the same! Pain! Find the fire starter! Punish! Hide!* The second voice's desires were flowing more quickly now, clearly locking onto what had happened when the humans had strayed into her Grove earlier. The two patterns of thought were looming up through the maelstrom now, clawing at reason just within their grasp. Clawing at it and barely latching onto it, while the raw emotion swirling within them teetered on the brink of drowning them both. *Make her leave! She'll bring him back! He'll find us!* the second voice shrieked at the first. *Who will find you? Who do we need to protect you from?* M'Tehr asked. *NO! She stays! She is us! We need her!* The first voice's thought came again stronger, more coherent, and more insistent. *I am your sister,* M'Tehr told her again. *I'm here for you. We all are.* In her Grove the sisters bolstered her with their own affirmation that what she was telling them was so. *We need sisters! More sisters will make us strong! We need her, we need them!* the first voice again. M'Tehr sensed that this one was already willing to allow her to help, but the second one was still afraid. She was not allowing the possibility of hope to extinguish her fear. *No! He'll find us!* the second voice rose in her mind and M'Tehr felt awash with the fear that drove her. A root tightened around her foot. *Need our own sisters! Need this one!* the first voice repeated refusing to abandon her point. *No! Hide!* the second voice seemed to weaken in its insistence slightly. M'tehr pushed her Grove's emotion into her feelings to try to break through to them. *We've come to give you your sisters.* She said. *You need them. We need them. We need you all.* *Sisters of our own soon! Don't need her! Send her away! Not ready! He'll come! Not ready!* the second voice bleated plaintively. *Let us help you.* M'tehr thought to her. The men you've taken are not enough; they aren't strong enough to give you a sister. But we are here now. We brought one who can give you what you need. Let us help you and I promise you will feel a sister of your own tonight.* The voices grew quiet. M'Tehr knew they had both felt the truth of her intentions. *Protect? Hide? Sister?* It was the second voice, the frightened one. M'Tehr sensed it was more a question of her than of the first voice. That she was finally opening up her now. *Allow me to come closer,* she thought. *Allow me to touch you. You will see I speak the truth. Please sister. Allow us help you.* *Come* the two voices said blending together in shared permission. M'Tehr felt the roots that had wrapped around her fall loosely away. She stepped out of their coils and moved slowly toward the elm. The undergrowth pulled away to allow her passage until she was within arm's length of the thick trunk. She reached out and laid her palms on the rough bark. *Let me see you sister,* she said. *Come out and embrace me* M'Tehr dropped her glamour now that it seemed that their lost one had accepted her at last. She sighed in relief now that energy drain of maintaining it no longer was necessary. The image of the attractive human woman she wore faded and left behind it her natural form. Few humans ever saw a dryad in her own skin. Her kind instinctively knew that their natural appearance was disconcerting to them at best. M'Tehr's skin was smooth like the polished wood humans saw her staff as. The pattern of her Phar' ador's bark layered on her criss-crossing over her body and suggesting the thick covering of her heart tree's oak skin. If she were to stand in her natural state unmoving, a passing human would easily think her nothing more than a finely wrought wooden statue that had only the general form of a thin humanoid with no indication of either masculine or feminine traits to identify which one she was intended to be. All they would see would be a bald icon of some sort and would most likely stare in confusion before dismissing her and moving on. She saw the small soft human hands of the dryad emerge from the tree and reach for her. The slim form folded into her embrace and M'Tehr clasped her tightly to her solid chest. *You're safe now.* She whispered. * We are here now, you're not alone anymore. We are one.* Even as she did so, in a small sealed off portion of her mind, the thought hammered her. The thought that what she was seeing now that her sister had emerged from her Phar' ador was wrong. They were not the same after all. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M'Tehr had not told the three men all of what had passed between her and the strange dryad. Of them all, only Singh would be able to take it in and understand it almost as well as M'Tehr did herself. That was very little though. She confined her account of making contact to the minimum. All they really needed to know was that she had contacted her and within a few hours much of the urgency posed by this Grove will have begun to pass. "So you were able to get past her primal mind then?" Singh asked after she had related the abbreviated story to them. "Yes. After I was able to get her attention focused on me I was able to draw her out in a fashion, but she still will be awash in her nature for the next several days." "And Jacen?" Jim asked. "Will he be able to cope with her? Will he even be able to do what you promised her?" "Yes," M'Tehr said. "While the men you believe she has already taken may eventually allow her to be successful, it would have taken days for her to do so. And in that time she would have in all likelihood killed them through sheer exhaustion. Jacen is Fae though. In her present state with him as a partner she will have her new sister by morning. Or at least the beginning of her new sister." "Will that be enough?" Jim asked. "I know that you seem to think it will, but I'm having some difficulty believing that an embryo would be able to have that much influence over her if she is this wild." "If it were a human embryo yes, it wouldn't make that much difference. But this one will be pure Fae. She will sense her sister's presence and within a few days Jacen and I will assist her in choosing a Phar' ador for her sister." "Phar' ador?" Jim asked quizzically at the unfamiliar term. "Heart tree. The prime connection a dryad has with this world and the Aether. Her Phar' ador will allow this new sister to take form in the Aether and enter this world when she is ready. But her presence there will allow the hamadryad of this Grove some reassurance now and with that she can escape the rule of her nature." "This will not be over soon will it?" Mitch asked more as confirmation then a question. "No. Even with Jacen giving her a sister before morning it will still be several days before she fully regains her senses. And even more time afterwards for her sister to emerge from her Phar' ador for the first time." "We'll need a long term cover story then," Singh mused to them. "That would be a wise move my friend," she said to him. "I can't know just how long it will take until we can prepare the two of them to be relocated to the Grove with me." "Toxic dump," Mitch said quietly. "What do you mean?" M'Tehr asked him. "Before Alagosta closed its doors one of the things it got hit with by the E.P.A. was illegal dumping. It's happened before in this area so reporting it like that won't raise too many suspicions that another site has turned up." "Revealed by the earth tremor that caused the dangerous gas leak," Jim added. "Not the worst cover story," Singh said. "But it won't hold for too long. They'll be public outrage over it happening. But nothing that those in the local oversight offices won't be able to handle for as long we need to get the real reason for closing off this area of Olympia taken care of." "So rig a conspiracy to cover it up then," Mitch said. "Get the people who would dig into this looking in some other direction and then by the time they hit the wall with that as they eventually will this will be long gone." Singh slowly rose from his folding chair. "I'll go and start arranging it with the Fae liaison office then. You two should let the lieutenant know what we have found and what the full scope of the situation is here." Jim and Mitch stood up slowly. The long hours of waiting had made their legs cramp from sitting immobile for so long and they both needed a moment to stretch to work out the kinks. After they had done so, Singh began walking with them to where their car remained parked. Just as they started to pass out into the wet of the still falling rain, M'Tehr asked to speak with him alone before he left. Jim told him that they would have a black and white waiting for him if he needed to stay for more than a few minutes. Singh nodded in acknowledgement. As they ducked into their sedan, Mitch asked just how badly Pantra was injured and what it was that Singh had agreed to when he spoke with her. Singh told them that she would be out of commission for several weeks, but that he could already tell that she was not as badly injured as they feared. "She told me that if she found out that anyone was clapping for her to get better she would personally arrange to give the clap to that person." "She really hates Disney fairies," Mitch said with a low whistle. "You have no idea of the full scope of her hatred Detective Travers," Singh answered before closing the car and walking back toward M'Tehr. Singh heard the engine turn over behind him. The headlights switched on illuminating the street around him. As he entered the shelter he heard the crunch of tires on gravel and wet pavement as the two men turned the car around and headed out of the cul-de-sac. M'Tehr was still standing just as they had left her a few moments before. "We have a bigger problem," she said in a quiet serious tone. "Is it that bad?" Singh asked mentally bracing himself for the fall of the next shoe. "She is not one of the lost ones and she is not alone," M'Tehr said. Singh listened as she expanded on what she had shared with them a few minutes earlier. As Singh took it in he couldn't help but to look over the darkened rooftops and at the Grove behind them. "You realize this changes everything don't you?" he said after she detailed to him the greater extent of what she had found there. "What can we do under these circumstances then?" he asked her. "I will return to the Grove for now," M'Tehr said quietly, turning her gaze toward the distant trees as well. "When Jacen has completed his task she will need me close as her minds begin to clear. In the morning I will see to having her return the men she has taken." The Hamadryad turned toward the darkness and left without any further discussion. Singh watched her walk away until the darkness swallowed her and then reached for what little he needed to take with him before turning and walking through the rain toward the entrance of the cul-de-sac and the waiting black and white. "This was going to be trouble," he thought grimly.