Fate was never to be trifled with, not in Jigano’s experience. He preferred to believe that the future was fluid, changing with each choice – that it could be made better (or worse) by dint of will and action. That said, his own mother had been an augury of modest skill, and he had been raised to respect that some things did seem to be harder to change than others. That had been on a different world, though, a lifetime ago in many ways. A world with different gods and different forces at play in the lives of its people. Here…
Here was a very different story. It wasn’t until last year that he’d learned of the Wonder Puddles, when he’d found Loren staring into one, leading to a rocky first meeting between the two men who would eventually become friends. Of course, the Blight had distracted him from pursuing them then, but now? This year he finally had a moment to breathe and to sate his curiosity, and that curiosity had brought him to the Wildwood on this rainy day in early Leafchange. The rain was still warm, Longheat lingering into these first few days of autumn, and it was no hardship to hike through the steady shower as the earth greedily sucked down the sky’s bounty after a long, dry summer.
The trouble was that the puddles disappeared so fast. There was hardly time to seek one out before it dried up or lost its magic, which left Jigano with a bit of a conundrum. Then again, if he couldn’t guarantee finding one… maybe he could make one? Within the shifting trees of the Wildwood, now nearly as familiar as the Hollowed Grounds, even if they still treated him as an intruder, he found a small clearing where a forest giant had fallen in Flowerbirth’s rains, roots loosened from the soil until the wind could knock it over. The rain fell from the grey sky steady but beginning to lighten as the bard reached out with his earth magic, mixed with his creation magic, to pull a slender, elegant pillar from the ground, topped with a shallow bowl with a design of leaves and vines patterned around its edges and down its support. A twist of fire magic burned through the creation, hardening it so that it wouldn’t melt in the wet. A second application of that same magic created a seat resembling an old tree stump while the rain fell into the bowl. Settling himself down despite the damp – he’d been wet before and wouldn’t melt – he leaned eagerly over his slowly-filling scrying table and held his breath as he tried to make sense of the colors and patterns taking shape within.
Here was a very different story. It wasn’t until last year that he’d learned of the Wonder Puddles, when he’d found Loren staring into one, leading to a rocky first meeting between the two men who would eventually become friends. Of course, the Blight had distracted him from pursuing them then, but now? This year he finally had a moment to breathe and to sate his curiosity, and that curiosity had brought him to the Wildwood on this rainy day in early Leafchange. The rain was still warm, Longheat lingering into these first few days of autumn, and it was no hardship to hike through the steady shower as the earth greedily sucked down the sky’s bounty after a long, dry summer.
The trouble was that the puddles disappeared so fast. There was hardly time to seek one out before it dried up or lost its magic, which left Jigano with a bit of a conundrum. Then again, if he couldn’t guarantee finding one… maybe he could make one? Within the shifting trees of the Wildwood, now nearly as familiar as the Hollowed Grounds, even if they still treated him as an intruder, he found a small clearing where a forest giant had fallen in Flowerbirth’s rains, roots loosened from the soil until the wind could knock it over. The rain fell from the grey sky steady but beginning to lighten as the bard reached out with his earth magic, mixed with his creation magic, to pull a slender, elegant pillar from the ground, topped with a shallow bowl with a design of leaves and vines patterned around its edges and down its support. A twist of fire magic burned through the creation, hardening it so that it wouldn’t melt in the wet. A second application of that same magic created a seat resembling an old tree stump while the rain fell into the bowl. Settling himself down despite the damp – he’d been wet before and wouldn’t melt – he leaned eagerly over his slowly-filling scrying table and held his breath as he tried to make sense of the colors and patterns taking shape within.
