The two druids walked the talus dunes surrounding the mushroom mountain’s enormous stump.
Their way was lit by the lonesome moon.
The celestial body was stained a gentle shade of pink by the ozone scattering its light.

The coarse mountain chips sloped down and slowly blended into the steep forest below, forming a vast ocean that rustled in the late-night breeze.

“Ordinarily, a druid is serendipitously protected by nature. Once enrobed, the illusion of adherence to causality makes it impossible for harm to come your way,” he explained.

Clover narrowed her eyes quizzically as she tried to wrap her head around the idea.
She sniffled as her nose stung from the harsh ozone in the air.
After a minute of stubborn silence, Clover spoke up: “I don’t get it…”

Aspen gently scratched his chin as he searched for a suitable metaphor.
“Let’s say you planted a seed in every possible place a plant can grow – however briefly and/or prosperously,” he began.

Clover nodded along attentively.

“From the moment you plant the seed, you seal its fate. We are beings of the past, but nature already spans the length of time,” the ancient elf explained as he navigated around the occasional shrub bold enough to stake its claim to the poorly irrigated pile of brittle mountainside gravel.

After another while in which Clover attempted to digest the impenetrable notion, she reluctantly sagged her shoulders.
“Didn’t you want to tell me about the la-… the second-last druid who…?” She left her weary voice trail off.

Aspen nodded almost immediately. “Yes, of course.”

Clover felt like she was detecting a hint of reluctance. For a moment she considered backing out, but as his student, Clover felt entitled to know this story, even if it wasn’t a topic Aspen enjoyed teaching.

“It happened just over ten thousand years ago, less than five hundred years from the collapse of the elven civilisation.”
“Her name was Cassia – she was a human like you…” he began before coming to an abrupt stop before turning to look at his pupil. “Now that I think back to it, she was a human from ten thousand years ago; she wasn’t anything like you…” the elf reasoned.

“I’m sure we would have had something in common,” Clover smiled empathetically.

“Oh?” Aspen cocked his head in half-hearted acquiescence. “Have you killed many people before?”

“NEVERMIND…!” Clover shuddered and folded her arms defensively.
“I hate history…”

“That has been a popular sentiment ever since the advent of written language,” he replied with a softening smile.

Clover nodded and resumed walking after Aspen.
“So, what happened to her? How did Cassia… die?” Clover asked, breaking a brittle branch beneath her slipper.

“She was tasked with protecting a then endangered plant; it’s a small species of trees sometimes called ‘red cinnamon trees’.”

Clover’s eyes widened in surprise. “Red cinnamon? We used that to make pH indicators at the alchemist guild…!” she said with an ephemeral flash of professional excitement.
Clover said a quiet thank-you in her head to the ancient human who made her lab work easier.

Aspen nodded in a politely indifferent way that didn’t endorse what he saw as an intrinsically gross craft.

The sound of rushing water filled the air as the druids came upon a stretch of braided streams rushing from the nearby mountain’s mycelial caverns down to the river that hugged Clover’s village.

A pack of feathered bipeds gossiped at the water’s edge, sneaking arched glances at the passing druids.

While Aspen braved the frigid, knee-deep water that still recalled being ice, Clover confidently traversed the scattered isles of rounded rock.

As the sound of rushing water faded into the background, Clover glanced over at her stoic mentor.
“So… if druids are supposed to be surreptitiously safe, then… what happened to her?”

“Serendipitously,” Aspen corrected her calmly.
“At the time, a little grove north of Gutterfen was the last patch of red cinnamon growing in nature’s kingdom.”

When Aspen looked at her, she nodded along in polite agreement.

“The territory in question existed between the human, dwarf, and elf kingdoms.”

“At that time in particular, the elves were transforming a nearby mountain into a statue of a then-famous – now dead and unnamed – sorcerer.”
“Simultaneously the dwarves wanted to harvest it for its resources.”

“After days of trading dwarven artillery fire for elven magic, both sides were growing weary of fighting.”

Aspen effortlessly scaled a cliff-like hill before glancing down and holding out a hand for her to take.
Clover was always surprised by how physically strong elves were; this was especially the case when she took his hand only to be hoisted up as though she weighed nothing.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile as well as a faint blush that came as a result of being forced to witness her species’ relative squishiness.

The elf nodded with an easy smile as he turned back to the way they were heading.

“So, what actually happened to her?” Clover prodded her mentor to keep telling his tale.
Clover could have sworn she saw him breathe the littlest sigh before he spoke once more.

“The elves launched an unfathomably powerful spell that melted the nearby dwarven fort. The next morning all that was left was crude glass that cracked and twinkled for days after it cooled past the point of glowing…”

Clover struggled to conceptualise that strong an explosion - as an ex-alchemist - this bothered her more than it probably should. The explosion being magic in origin was just salt throwing her wound.

“In response to this, the dwarves sent even more of their own to drown the elves in their dwarf blood, I suppose,” he scowled ever so briefly.

“The elves responded to this by sending two dozen of their own to erase the dwarves.”

“But the battle never took place, because the marching armies converged on Cassia who still defending the red cinnamon grove.”

Clover’s eyes widened in shock and a bit of admiration at the balls it must have taken to stand up to not one but two armies – even with the druids to back you up.

“What did they do?” Clover asked, entranced by the tale.

“Both sides demanded the druid let them through, but it was the elves who made good on their threats first,” he explained with a bitter look, “Which would make perfect sense if you were around to know some elves at the time.”

“One of the elves used magic to force a fissure to open up below the druid. In an act of very on-brand mockery, the elves then shut the fissure with enough force to make the ground quake.”

Clover paled as she imagined the sensation of the ground falling out from under her and the fractions of a second of pressure – surely followed by immediate oblivion.
She shuddered.
“That’s horrible…” she said, only to find the words insufficient.

Aspen nodded wordlessly.

“The land lashed out in response,” he continued in an icy tone that sent a shiver down Clover’s spine. It sounded like fresh vitriol.

“How?” Clover asked, her morbid curiosity getting the better of her.

“They were reintegrated in the soil… by clews of tearing roots and kneading boulders. To the choir of a mournful gale.”

For the short remainder of their walk to the henge, neither of them spoke.
Clover had a lot to think about, a lot to consider.

She wasn’t certain that any of what she had learnt eased her mind even remotely, but figuring it out would make a valiant distraction.