[H3][centre]Thalorian Kessler[/centre][/h3]
[right][i][color=gray]The night before[/color][/i][/right]
The forest above Saint-Léonard was quiet by the time Thalorian arrived, dusk slanting through the pines in long golden bars, the scent of moss and wet bark hanging in the air. Mist clung to the trees. Beneath his boots, the soil softened, still holding the melt of a recent snow.

He paused at the ridge, where the treeline opened just enough to see the faint scatter of village lights down in the valley. The underground lake slept beneath him somewhere. He could feel its stillness, cool and resonant, beneath the slope.

[color=2E8B57]“This is it,”[/color] he whispered. [color=2E8B57]“The pull ends here.”[/color]

Tuthail padded silently to his side, barely disturbing the underbrush. The spirit’s leafy fur shifted like wind-touched reeds, his presence more felt than seen. Together, they moved inward.

Thalorian’s campsite was a modest hollow tucked between three old trees, each grown at such an angle that their roots had formed a natural cradle in the earth. He placed one palm against each trunk, eyes closed, listening, not to words, but to rhythm. The way the mana rose and fell with each breath of wind. The way the roots whispered across stone. It was old here, slow, alive.

He unshouldered his satchel and unpacked what he needed, the components he'd carefully chosen for turning this space into a sanctuary. Ritual stones, polished seed-charms wrapped in his mother’s scarf, a bundle of horn-blades and chalk. Everything had a place, and everything he placed had a purpose. This was only the beginning. The forest wouldn’t open itself to him all at once. Tonight, he’d lay the bones, quiet work with careful rhythms.

He wouldn’t finish tonight, not properly. That would come after the summoning. After he knew what kind of presence the forest was being asked to shelter. Laying wards, tuning the leyline, completing the field. He knew the order of operations by heart. The plan had been forming for days, long before the scale had begun to sing.

The firepit he made was small and circular, built of old river rocks carefully chosen for their lichen patterning, sun-sleepers, Tuthail had called them once. Before lighting the flame, he laid out three stones: one carved with [abbr=ᚂ]Luis[/abbr] (rowan, protection), one with [abbr=ᚉ]Coll[/abbr] (hazel, insight), and one blank. He placed the blank one between the other two and pressed two fingers to its surface.

[color=2E8B57]“Luis to watch. Coll to know.  
Stone to remember. Let this place learn.”[/color]

As the words sank into the grove, the stones took on a faint gleam, and the air quieted. The triadic ring was meant to be subtle, a low hum of order and memory. Not a true barrier, but a circle of stillness, something to help the land recognize what did not belong. It was also the first anchor in a larger spiritual lattice he would finish tomorrow.

While Thalorian worked, Tuthail moved along the grove’s edge in wide arcs, a small pouch slung around his neck by a loop of braided reed. From within it, he retrieved thin rune-etched tokens, wooden slats and flat stones that Thalorian had pre-carved and imbued with his mana. With quiet care, the spirit buried them into the earth at intervals between roots and under moss, placing them where they would harmonize with the grove's rhythm.

With the fire lit, Thalorian began the grounding chant, not sung, but intoned in a breath-like cadence. He knelt, pressed his forehead to the soil, and recited:

[color=2E8B57]“By ash and thorn, by wind and moss,  
Let this place forget its noise.  
Let roots grow inward.  
Let breath fall low.  
Let nothing here be found.”[/color]

Each verse was paired with motion. One hand drawn through soil. One circle carved around the firepit with a bent ash branch. Three pebbles moved clockwise around a lichen patch. It took an hour to complete.

Afterward, Thalorian walked the grove’s perimeter and buried three seed-charms, hazel, ivy, and willow, at points that formed a rough triangle. They weren’t to grow tonight. Only to listen. Later, he would awaken them.

By moonlight, he carved [abbr=ᚇ]Duir[/abbr] into the fallen tree nearby, a straight line intersected by two slashes, like the gateway it symbolized. He traced it with fingertips soaked in creek water and whispered a silent promise.

When at last he unrolled his blanket beside the roots of the old ash tree, the forest was still. Tuthail curled nearby, nose tucked beneath his fern-fringed tail. Thalorian stared up at the canopy and watched the branches sway. Sleep came slowly, but without fear.

[hr]
[right][i][color=gray]Morning – The First Day[/color][/i][/right]
[centre][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/3678d1a2-a391-4897-a1cf-2346088087f7.jpg[/img][/centre]
He woke with the first light of dawn seeping through the trees, casting everything in pale gold. Fog clung low to the soil. His fingers were damp from dew and his breath visible in the cold air. Thalorian sat up and took a moment to breathe. The birds sang, and the wind stirred the leaves overhead. He placed a hand on the soil and felt the threads he’d woven the night before. They held.

He moved carefully, checking the stone ring, refreshing the glyphs, and whispering quiet harmonics into the hidden charms. Tuthail moved with him, planting his paws deliberately, releasing quiet waves of natural stillness, coaxing the grove to hold its breath and mask the disturbance in its own rhythms across the grove’s spiritual surface. Together, they veiled the space.

Once everything was still, once the forest held its breath, Thalorian stepped to the center.

From his satchel he withdrew it, the scale. Green-black, slick like polished stone, and strangely warm. Veined like leaf marrow. He had always assumed it was from a forest beast. Something old. Something aligned with the wilds. He knelt and placed the scale in the exact center of the cleared circle.

Tuthail padded to the edge of the ritual space and lay down, nose to the earth. His leafy tail coiled around a tree root as he exhaled slowly, syncing his breath with the stillness of the grove, urging the trees and undergrowth to hush in sympathy. 

Then, quietly, Thalorian knelt on hands and knees at the edge of the ring, fingers splayed against the soil, eyes closed. He began the summoning, voice low, steady, tuned to the grove’s rhythm.

[color=2E8B57]“Spirits of strength, of skies and roots.  
I offer life, I offer shelter.  
I ask, not for power, but for help.  
Let one who walks with will… walk here.”[/color]

The glyphs around the stones lit faintly. The air thrummed. Leaves spiraled upward without wind. The scale brightened, brighter, and then broke into light.

Thalorian held still, hands pressed to the earth, eyes gently clasped shut. He felt it before he heard it: a cluster of impacts rippling through the soil. Fast, heavy. Four... no, five. Only then did he lift his head and open his eyes, as the light was fading. The pressure eased. The ground stilled. The air quivered.

And when the light cleared, a girl stood in the centre of the ring.

A small, dark-eyed, and unassuming girl. But the air bent strangely around her, as though the grove itself couldn’t quite decide how to hold her shape. Thalorian blinked, stunned, but didn’t move immediately. Slowly, he shifted back from hands and knees to kneeling, lifting one hand from the soil, palm open, fingers loose. It took him a moment to speak.

[color=2E8B57]“…Welcome,”[/color] he said softly. [color=2E8B57]“You’re… not quite what I expected.”[/color]