Rose drifted across the sky, flapping occasionally to keep her position but mostly letting the late-afternoon updrafts hold her in the air. The feel of air playing across her wings was like nothing else she'd ever experienced. Morrigan and Skyflower were down in the trees somewhere, making their own way with bestial companions to protect them if they needed it. Either of them could handle herself, but if some of the gnolls surprised them it would be better if the deaths looked like animal attacks.
Her mother was a priestess of Amun and her father was god -- no matter how minor -- but Rose had only truly come to understand herself as a druid. She'd never shared her parents' fixation on weapons and battle. She'd humored them, learned enough to hold her own, but she'd never be a deadly blade. On the other hand, she could take the form of an eagle and fly, or go unseen as an ordinary dog, or tap into the power of the land to cast her spells.
She hadn't known her father as well as she knew her mother, but both of them had supported her decision. Her father, in particular, had frequently said that he only wanted her to find a place of her own, where she was happy and fulfilled. And her father had had a certain attachment to the druids, and not just Alnira among them -- though their connection had certainly made it easier for Rose to find her way to them.
Her mother had been disappointed, perhaps, that Rose hadn't followed her into the priesthood of Amun or at least Corellon, but Rose had simply never felt that calling, that attachment. When her sister Sun, the golden half-dragon, had stepped into that role instead, Rose had been nothing but relieved. Even so, her mother had never said a word against the druids, or her choices, or...
The thought trailed off into the silence of pure shock as she drifted close enough to see the gnoll camp. They're weren't taking captives for sacrifice; she could see the wooden pens, currently empty as humans and half-elves and a pair of dwarves and even some of the gnolls worked with picks and shovels and ropes.
They were excavating.
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