RP:The Attempting Recruiter

Part of the An Ascending Dryad Arc

Spring of Vitality

Hildegarde clanked and clicked on her way over to the Spring, her mithril armour glimmering in the light as she moved. Her halberd 'thumped' gently against the grass as she moved, almost pulling her along and keeping her steady as the short-sword clicked quietly against her leg with each steady step. The knight had chosen to descend to the Spring, to leave her nest and family after a short break to find the better features of the land. Hilde was more determined now to be a knight, particularly with what seemed to be evil seeping into the world again. She stopped at the edge of the water and exhaled with a cheery smile on her face; a small veil of frost leaving her lips as she did but one could pass it off merely as the cold air of the day. Grey eyes streaked blue flitted around in time with the Nymphs, watching them curiously as they darted about the radiant water.

A miniature Poppy-Jasper dragon runs goofily toward the woman, falling over his own legs a few times. As a freshly hatched dragon, he still hasn't gotten a hold of his footing. The hatchling is small enough to not be seen and get himself stepped on, what with being small enough to fit in a human's palm, but this doesn't keep him from getting as close as he can to the stranger. He squeaks at the womanly presence, turning his head from side to side to look at her through each purple eye. Half his face is marked in white while the other half is covered in orange, red-ringed spots. This particular dragon has a very unusual scale-coloring, for sure. He spreads his wings and stands up on his hind legs, hissing and cawing excitedly before suddenly losing his balance and falling onto his back with a loud yelp.

Hildegarde, given that she was once a hatchling, recognised the familiar hissing and cawing of a hatchling which is why she didn't raise her halberd defensively at the oddly coloured creature. She turned and eyed him over with a lofted brow, obviously intrigued by the peculiar scale-colouring and pattern, having never seen it before. She crouched and offered a smile to the hatchling before making a very throaty sort of growl. The growl itself was not intended to be threatening, merely a sort of saurian greeting.

The little dragon seems to grin at the other saurian's greeting and rolls over awkwardly to stand up. He shakes himself much like a dog and stretches his wings, whimpering at the ache. Turning around and facing the woman, he bounces in place without lifting his body from the ground - jumping is a skill he has not yet learned. In that moment, Madigan emerges from a nearby brush. "Ajani~," she calls, looking around with bright, moss green eyes. The dryad is a mere four feet and eight inches with a skin that's been deeply tanned by years of sun. Her snow white hair is dreaded and has been picked up into a high ponytail. The egyptian-esque collar around her neck hangs over her breasts but leaves the rest of her abdomen and arms completely exposed to the elements. From out of the brush she steps and calls the name again. Her white hem-tail skirt's tail gets caught in the brush and she pauses for a moment to unattach herself. Getting frustrated, she curses in a strange language. "Ajani, come here!" The little dragon had turned to watch the dryad silently, but he said nothing as her worry grew. Finally, she gets the skirt free and throws the tail toward the floor, frustrated - not that it'd do much good. She pauses once more to sigh heavily and try to relax herself. The vibrant, glowing firelily near her right temple seems to react to this gesture, growing brighter as its petals spread further outward. "Ajani~," she calls again, though more softly. In that moment, she notices the woman -- how'd she miss her before? and then she spots her little Ajani. A brilliant, affectionate grin spreads across her lips as she moves quickly toward her baby. "Ajani," Madigan practically sings. Not wanting to get too close to the woman, the dryad crouches a short distance away in an African crouch, straining the roman-esque leg straps that wrap up to her mid-thighs, and waves the little dragon over. He happily trots to her with his head held high, and she lifts him from the ground, pressing his hard little body against her cheek.

Hildegarde heard someone calling a name of sorts, but she didn't know who the name belonged to. She smiled, though, at the hatchling and continued to watch him with a quiet interest. She wondered if she acted much the same when she was that age, but those days were long old and she was now a young-adult, making her way in the world. As the other woman became visible, the knight tensed which was indicated by the creaking of leather gloves as they gripped the shaft of the halberd a little tighter. But her tension dispelled when she saw the hatchling trot on over to Madigan quite happily, receiving warm affection and care. She understood that some hatchlings were raised by humanoids and being a silver simply made her curious about it. Hilde rose upright and offered the woman a polite smile, lifting the halberd up, "Hail, m'lady. I see this young one is your ward?" She wouldn't call the dragon a pet.

"Ward?" Madigan asks curiously, unfamiliar with such a word. She wraps her arm around Ajani to hold him under her arm. "I care for him and raise him. He doesn't have a dragon family so I'm his mom until he can take care of himself. Then he's free to live like any other dragon." It's suddenly apparent that the dryad has a strange, foreign accent. It was a flattering mixture of African and Spanish accents. She looks down at Ajani and strokes his head with her finger as she mumbles, "He's my little baby and my little friend; aren't you, Ajani?" His eyes close as he tilts his head toward her finger, enjoying her affection.

Hildegarde listened to the explanation the woman offered, nodding and offering a warm smile once Madigan had finished. "Yes, well, that makes him your ward. You care for him, he is your responsibility which makes him your ward." Given that Madigan's hands were full, the dragon simply settled on speaking rather than offering a hand politely, "I am Hildegarde the Silver. Who are you?"

Madigan returns her attention to Hildegarde and smiles, "I'm Madigan." She looks at her skin and adds, "The Brown. Where do you come from?" The dryad makes her way toward the spring's bank and takes a seat, taking care not to disturb Ajani. She lays him gently onto her lap and slowly strokes the length of him. He clearly wants a nap.

Hildegarde watched as the woman approached the banks and took a seat. She felt obligated to do the same, but she had been told to stand in the presence of a lady or lord unless directed to do otherwise. "Xailous, my brood has a nest there, sort of between Xalious and Frostmaw." She cocked her head and eyed the woman over; the woman with her odd accent and somewhat scant clothing. "Where do -you- come from?"

Madigan chuckles lightly as she turns to look over her shoulder at Hildegarde. "There are things no dryad would ever share and birthplace is on the top of that list." Unaware of noble etiquette, Madigan simply assumes Hildegarde doesn't want to sit. "So, you have little dragons of your own? How big are they?" Her attention returns to Ajani. A water nymph jumps out of the water and plops back own, causing ripples. A nearby dragonfly buzzes past Madigan's nose but she doesn't flinch. Her mannerisms are very much like a tree's: stillness and patience come naturally to her.

Hildegarde's eyebrow twitched as 'dryad' was said. It wasn't an angry twitch or anything of the sort, it was a twitch that said: I have to learn more about you. A curious little twitch indeed. At the mention of having 'little dragons', she snorted, "I'm too young for children! Besides, my Oath comes first." However, Hilde lacked the patience and stillness of a tree when the dragonfly zipped past her face. Her head jerked back a bit, silvery scales rippling across her face with surprise, "Hmph."

Madigan glances at Hildegarde and decides to turn her entire body slightly so she doesn't have to do so much turning. "Oath? Too young for children? How old are you? You look old enough. I thought girls went through puberty before your age." Madigan is obviously confused by Hildegarde's words. She was sure a brood meant a family with young.

Madigan nods, "I think I knew you were a dragon. I just don't honestly know much about their bodies and how they function. My people tended to avoid them since a majority of the ones back home were fire-breathers and dryads don't get along very well with fire." A sudden thought and she asks, "What do you breathe? I don't sense fire in you." Then, "Sit next to me. Tell me about dragons so I don't die ignorant." Ajani lays fast asleep in her lap, his torso rising and falling evenly as he makes low, lazy whining noises.

Hildegarde gave a small nod and 'oh' of understanding, "To be honest, shapeshifting is second nature to us. It's very difficult to explain." But at the comment of fire, she nodded with a little proud smile, "Frost, m'lady. Or a paralysing gas." She carefully dropped down into a sitting position, halberd placed carefully upon the ground next to her. "Well, what do you want to know, m'lady?" Her eyes drifted off to Ajani with a little curious smile, his lazy whining noises a source of amusement.

Madigan nods dramatically, understanding. "Frost," she repeats. "Can you manipulate the gas' form? Or does it come out as a cloud and spread on its own? And at what age can dragons start making baby dragons? A dryad - at least an oak like myself - can start as young as 5 years old. It depends on the tree, but by 5, an oak tree is ready to release acorns."

Hildegarde shrugged her shoulder, "Control comes with age. Certainly, I do not have the skill of a cryomancer or what have you, so it would typically funnel out lest I try to specifically aim it." She snorted at the baby-making question however, her cheeks tingeing a faint red, "Well, uh, you know. Young-adults can reproduce, so... what, about sixty or so onwards. I've heard whispers of younger, but still..." At the mention of releasing acorns, she frowned slightly and asked with a highly curious tone, "Have you done that?"

Madigan shrugs at her question. "I never noticed. Trees don't need each other to grow. We don't have the ideas of family like most mammals. We're kind of like turtles where we'll drop our little eggs and move on without another thought, only dryads don't need to be as involved in the acorn-dropping as turtles need to be in the egg-laying. Plants are self-sufficient, so we don't really raise our young that way when we wander away from our tribes. It's different when we live together in the same region for centuries, though. That's when we form our own versions of family." She points to the first three lines of white beading on her collar, wrapped around her neck. A single vertical line of black beads runs down the length of the white row. "These three lines indicate mother and the black stripe indicates number of known siblings. The color of the row is the identity of mother based on hair color. So, if the dryad mother is redhaired, then the three rows would be red and if she has four young, then the young would each have four vertical lines on the red strip. I'm an only-child which is why I only have a single black line. If a sibling dies, the black beads that represent that sibling are bleached to a lighter hue." She sighs heavily, reminiscing. "It makes sense when the tribe is closely knit. We traced lineage based on our collars. Every row and every color represents something. The older and more experienced the dryad, the bigger her collar. All dryads of my tribe start out with three rows which link her to her 'branch', of sorts. I belonged to our Matron. The Matron is the wisest of us all, the oldest with the biggest collar. She didn't rule us the way queens rule kingdoms, though. She simply had the most respect and her opinion regarded more than anyone else's, but a younger dryad in another branch could easily challenge the Matron's word and all the dryads would consider her words, if she was known in good character."

Hildegarde nodded eagerly every so often, body leaning forward to soak up all the priceless information that Madigan was offering her. "Wow," she breathed with a soft 'click' in her throat, causing a little veil of frost to part from her pale; almost blue lips. "It's very interesting, m'lady. I must confess, I know so little of dryads. I merely know some, erm, myths and rumours propagated by some of the young men who fight for our brood," her cheeks began to tinge a little red with embarrassment. Hilde looked at Madigan, however, and asked, "So... I'm assuming you've wandered from your tribe here, what brings you out here?"

Madigan smiles a sad, crooked smile before answering. She inhales deeply as she begins, "My tribe disbanded a long time ago. Our Matron was killed, so we chose to part our ways, thinking there was no more point in sticking around, endangering ourselves and each other." She looks at Hildegarde in that moment and says, "That's why most dryads you meet are a long way from home. The wisest thing for any dryad is to not be so close to her Tree of Origin."

Hildegarde offered a quiet nod of her head, "I see..." she spoke quietly, trying to be compassionate and offer some condolences. "Well, you're here now, hm?" she said with a valiant smile, moving to pat her hand upon Madigan's shoulder, "It is never wise to dwell too much on the past, m'lady."

Madigan grins and nods her agreement. "Never wise for too much of anything. You spoke about an oath? What is that about?"

Hildegarde grinned at the statement, finding a sense of honesty and truth about it. At the mention of her oath, she nodded, "Oh, yes, I am a knight you see." Hilde barely managed to conceal her own pride about the statement, it simply filled her with this sense of accomplishment and pride; of value. "My Oath, yes, I protect the people of these lands when and where I can -- if I can," she said seriously, "but I am honour bound to find a Lady or Lord to serve."

Madigan nods with an understanding smile. "I don't know what it's like to be a knight or what it means to be under oath, but I can hear the kind of loyalty you are capable of in your voice. That is what my tribe was like to the Matron and their mothers. When our Matron passed, we had no sense of purpose anymore, and that's why we all left." She bites her lip thoughtfully. "To be that loyal, to dedicate yourself that thoroughly to someone - it doesn't come to many people, but for those that it does come to, it is the easiest thing to bond yourself in that way with someone. And when that someone is taken away, a part of your soul gets lost with them... I won't advise you to hold yourself back and to be careful, because people like you and me fall in love with the right person, always. It comes naturally to us. You will find that person to serve and they will serve you as kindly as you serve them." Madigan smiles then, "I'm sure of it." Maybe it wouldn't be clear to most people, but the dryad's use of 'falling in love' seems to refer to something different from what is read about in old fairy tales. It is very much an unconventional use of the word and could easily be misunderstood by most.

Hildegarde had picked up a little bit of what Madigan had meant by the term 'falling in love', but she did apply some of it to romantic feelings, causing her to splutter; scales rippling across her face with embarrassment. "I don't, er, think I'm to bond with people that, uh, way," she paused, hesitant, "but that is the level of loyalty I will give to the worthy one. Whoever he or she may be, I will offer them my very life in their service to see that their good work can continue." She looked to Madigan and offered a little shrug of her shoulder, "But I'm not sure who will have need or want for a silver dragon like I."

Madigan smiles mysteriously to that, a smile that seems to know a lot but what of is the mystery. "Whatever happens, it can't be helped and it shouldn't be helped because what comes naturally to us serves a fundamental purpose in the Order." Madigan is now referring to all creatures when she says 'us' but again with the ambiguity. Damn these people who have other languages as their native tongue instead of Common. "And perhaps there's more use for you than you might think. Something horrifying has been brought to this plane recently. I don't know who leads the righteous side, but perhaps Satoshi knows. She might be involved, what with the Eyrie." Her eyes open in realization. "That's it! The Eyrie. They take care of dragons who don't wreak havoc. It's a place where orphaned dragons go to be cared for and where flyers are united together to fly the sky." She glances down at her sleeping Ajani. "Ajani and I are members. When he gets older, they'll help me train him how to fly and protect himself and they'll teach me how to ride him. We'll be teammates for a long time." Madigan gives him an affectionate stroke then. "The Eyrie serves the kingdoms, I believe. They protect those that are under attack, I think. Flying warriors, really. You'd fit right in, probably. You should meet with Satoshi and ask her more about it. She'll know how to get you started."

Hildegarde frowned at the use of 'us'. She was an educated woman, yes, but sometimes ambiguity was something that couldn't quite be shaken off, she thought it best not to really question it lest more confusion arise. "I had heard whispers of such... I was with family for a while, but then heard bad things were brewing in the lands." Satoshi! A name she recognised. She grinned, "I know her! She was quite welcoming," she said absently. "The Eyrie... Hm. So, these people, they ride dragons..? Solely for combat or..?"

Madigan grins at Hildegarde's reaction to Satoshi's name. "She's quite wonderful. Very powerful, as I gather. A true Matron in her own right." Madigan seems to swell with pride at the words even though she's not responsible for Satoshi's greatness. "They fly all sorts of sky creatures like griffons and I saw an angha just a couple of days ago with the Queen. I'm sure it's not only for combat. Satoshi never specifically referred to the Eyrie as being solely for combat. She always explained it as an organization where perfect mates are matched to fly the skies together, but Rynvale was looking for flyers, as well, and knowing him, he's trying to build up protection. Much like how we trained all our dryads in the art of Body and Balance to protect ourselves and our people when necessary. It's important to be capable. If you can avoid becoming a vulnerable target, then it's your duty to do so and ensure your survival. Those who die are ill-fitted for survival."

Hector appears from the south.

Hector said to Hildegarde, "Have you seen a scary black dragon without a unicorn?" The monochromatic dryad points behind her to what she has attached to a rope. "I think I found it."

Hildegarde said to Hector, "No, sorry."

Hector said, "Drat."

Hector exits north.

Hildegarde found her thumb and finger clasping around her earlobe, rubbing it gently in thought. It was a habit of hers, when she was deep in thought -- when she had the time to actually be deep in thought. "Oh... Well, maybe I'll talk to her. I don't really, er, know how to get in contact with her though. I mean... She's a Queen, after all!" Hilde glanced over herself quickly before offering a little shrug, "I'm not often in my natural form, I suppose. Never flown with a person, either. But maybe I'll talk to Satoshi about it, maybe."

Madigan considers a solution for Hildegarde. "She's usually at the Mage's Tower in Xalious or somewhere posing in Frostmaw. She might be hard to spot in her white clothes, though, if you go looking through the snow. You can also send her a note via courier. That's how I first got in touch with her, even with my poor writing skills..." She chuckles lightly to herself at the thought, recalling drawing pictures for the Queen in case her Common wasn't easily understood.

Hildegarde said to Madigan, "I suppose those are options... But what would I say to her?"

Madigan replies, "That you want to speak to her about The Eyrie. She will be more than willing to meet with you and answer all your questions. She's the one who told me where to look to find the type of dragon I might be looking for." She cradles Ajani gently in her arms and lifts him up to show Hildegarde, "I found him where she suggested, and I found other things of interest that she also thought I might find. She is really very helpful to those who seek her out. You need only to ask. If you can do that, then you have a wonderful relationship with the Queen."

Hildegarde listened carefully to the woman, nodding once the information was given. "Oh, well, I'll be sure to get in touch with her, m'lady." She smiled, before moving to get upright, taking the halberd with her as she went. "I should be off now, m'lady. It's been lovely meeting you, though. I would like to think we could make good friends," she said with a cheery little grin.

Hector shouted, "That's not a dragon!!!"

Madigan grins in return and says, "I think we're already good friends, Hildegarde." Madigan stands then, still cradling the undisturbed Ajani. "Are you leaving now?" Her attention is suddenly caught by the shout, but her attention returns to Hildegarde soon after.

Hildegarde smiled at the woman, quite happy to hear confirmation of their newly formed friendship, causing her to confess, "Oh good, I've never... actually had a friend before..." her words stalled and began to halt, obviously embarrassed but unable to cease. She looked away for a moment before giving Ajani a delicate little pat, "I should take my leave, yes. Find Lady Satoshi and speak to her about this Eyrie business."

Madigan smiles understandingly and nods. "Take care, dear friend. I hope the next time we meet, you'll be my clanfriend."

Hildegarde said to Madigan, "Take care, m'lady. Should you have need of me, let me know. Safe travels."

Hildegarde exits west.