Briar Sávírië

Elf / Druid

Submitted character story

EXCERPT FROM ARGUMENT AT CAMP:

"You want to know why I’m angry? Why I cant stand those men? That city? Because they killed him for those towers and I have nothing but violence left in my soul for them.

I watched my mate die- saw the flames lick up his body. His skin peeled back, black and red and glowing, melting from the heat like he had been coated in oil.
His hand outstretched towards me, with scorched bones and dying embers left for fingers. Heavy smoke covered his face so thick I couldn’t even see his eyes... He used all the breath he had left to cough out that he loved us both. And all I could do was run. 

The ash fell from the canopy above me while I tore through the cinders on our trails below. 
Ash- do you know how it falls? 
So. 
Fucking. 
Slowly...

I ran through it for two days straight. Up the mountain. Coughing up nothing but reminders the whole way of what they did to him. Did to us.

For the next month it was like finding little grains of sand everywhere... pieces of him were everywhere. In my clothes, in my hair, under my finger nails, crunching under my boots with every step.

I got to pick them off of my son while he cried for his father. 

I can still feel a layer of it coating the inside of my lungs.
It scratches my insides when I scream… I can still taste it.

So when I say that one day I’m gonna burn that fucking city to the ground, please understand it’s a promise. They’ll see the ash too- get to pick it from their children’s skin and teeth like I had to. And maybe when that day comes, and if I’m extra lucky, the smoke will be too thick. They’ll cough too much- they won’t get to speak their 'I love you'-s.

Just the roaring rage of my flames as it devours them.

So, moving forward, you have two options: 
You can stay out of my way, 
or you can see ashes too."


DRUID CLAN - THE VÍRIË ORIGINS:

There was a tribe of Eladrin called the Vírië, which loosely translates to 'born of the land.' The land there was a microcosm of the Feywilds- lush, vibrant, free- a little mischievous, too, so I’ve heard.

We watched on from afar as slowly the lands on the horizon changed- trees fell, smoke began to billow in the evening sky, the hills stayed alight even in the twilight, now speckled with small flames peeking out from their little hovels. 

At first it was ok, the people that had taken up residence thanked the land for their home, cared for the ground that gave them their food, and were grateful to the wildlife that left them safe.

But over time, they stopped thanking and took to taking instead. The forest line receded further and further, their smoke stacks poisoned the sky and drove away the birds. We watched large wild herds dwindle from the plains. Our scouts found them trapped instead within their gates; from birth to slaughter those poor things knew nothing past their confinement. Some of our scouts attempted to free the creatures in the night, but I'm afraid their empathy, however pure, was the first spark of their curiosities. 

Soon after, the people began scouting us as well. For a time, our fey magics allowed us to blink out for a short time to avoid being found when they came looking. But we couldn’t hide all the wildlife and flora that piqued their interests. 

Over the next 20 years or so, the small village grew to a town, and then to about a third of the city you see before you. They never stopped expanding- scouting and harvesting and stealing from the lands. There were a few of us that felt for strays that wandered from their city. But just like when we first noticed the newcomers, the trust of those few were misplaced. Their choices led to the coming destruction some of our tribe had feared from the start. 

When the mages started pilfering, we saw what had become of those intrepid villagers- hungry, violent greed adorned in fancy robes. They tore through the woods worse than vultures, sensing the foreign magics of our people and this place and seeking it for themselves. 

Since a few of our scouts at the time had not come back, we had all kept away from the city for a few weeks. 

We didn't see it coming when they stormed us that morning. They killed our sentries first. Methodically. They knew where they were. They set fire to the giant kapok we called home. Leveled the patches of trillium and foxglove. Picked clean the castor and cacao. Defiled the cinchona trees for their bark. They couldn’t have known their uses without one of us. They captured or slaughtered the wildlife that took to our defense. 

Many of us didn’t make it out. The rest of us ran. 

But that was the end of the Vírië. The tribe split in two that day. Some ran toward the coast- they channeled their magical reserves to split a part of the coast off from the mainland. The rest of us took to the mountain. We watched the intruders build over our lands a large sprawling fortress of towers. Over the next 15 years, some of us in our rage tried to light the towers up- just like they had with the kapok trees. But their mages had built protections we didn’t understand; we couldn’t get close enough. 

My tribe hid within the mountain, and the misguided trust we once had for the intruders simmered into a low rolling rage. The land grew angry, too. But just like us, it waits.

We call ourselves the Sávírië, or 'born of the flames.' And just like a wildfire, someday we will burn those towers down, and the land will rise with great kapok and cinchona once again. But for now, we bide our time and we learn. We get stronger. We learn to be stealthier, faster, more convincing. We slowly started to integrate ourselves into the society we had learned to loathe. And slowly, slowly… they have unknowingly repaid us with misplaced trust of their own. We are the intruders now. 

The other tribe, which built the island there, took on the name Ulvírië, 'born of the flood.' They don’t share our goals in taking down the towers. They find comfort and solace in what they’ve built away from the world. They’re resilient; only those from the tribes can find the island [DM NOTE: it resides on the back of a dragon turtle]. We aren’t allowed to speak of where it hides, but one of the city's boats has been able to breach the shores when it reveals itself. And they’ve begun to heal, I suppose- in their own way. But we don’t exactly see eye to eye anymore.