| |
Derek sat up and asked, “What happened, gnome?” He looked around. “Where’s the ogre?”
Glenn hadn’t been able to heal Derek to full hit point strength without sacrificing and keeping some of the sustained damage. Derek could suck it up.
Kirby was on his feet as well. Ron had used two of his Minor Cures on the thief and was walking over to offer one to Keri when Rocky began barking and wagging his tail. A higher-pitched bark accompanied him, but somehow it sounded distant.
Glenn rubbed his eyes. Running around Keri were both Rocky and Chili. Keri clasped her hands and laughed while Emma flittered above the wood nymph and clapped her hands.
The gnome healer looked closer. The ground had leveled out where the little black and white dog’s body had lain. And the revived dog looked different as she chased Rocky around their owner’s feet. Less substantial? A ghost?
“I have bound Chili’s spirit to my tree,” the wood nymph explained. “Henceforth, she shall be a guardian of my grove.”
Keri wiped a tear from her eye, a tear of joy. “Thank you, Polayney.”
Ron led Stephi and Kirby over to Glenn and Derek. The warrior druid offered the big warrior a hand. Derek accepted and got to his feet.
“We should thank her too,” Kirby said. He whispered to Glenn, “Don’t look at her if she drops her veil. Her looks can kill.”
“Gnomes and elves get bonuses to their Saving Throw,” Derek said. “Half-goblins get a minus two.”
“Maybe Marigold should do the talking,” Kirby said.
“I believe I may have appropriate words to accompany our thanks,” Ron said, and led the party over to the wood nymph.
The beautiful wood nymph watched the party approach, Ron in the lead. Glenn couldn’t determine if her visage was haughty or regal. Or if they were one and the same.
Ron bowed his head. “Polayney, most gracious of wood nymphs, might I offer a song to show our gratitude?”
Polayney, behind her gossamer veil and gown, nodded once.
Glenn decided it was regal.
Ron cleared his throat and began to sing.
––––––––
“Bonny Portmore, I am sorry to see
Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree
For it stood on your shore for many's the long day
Till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.”
Ron’s voice was a combination of singing, representing who he was now, and lecture, carrying the tone of who he really was. But somehow, the duality proved both majestic and appropriate.
Standing straight, looking up, his arms stiffly at his side, the warrior druid continued.
––––––––
“O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.
––––––––
All the birds in the forest they bitterly weep
Saying, ‘Where shall we shelter or shall we sleep?’
For the Oak and the Ash, they are all cutten down
And the walls of bonny Portmore are all down to the ground.”
Glenn wasn’t sure but, at the mention of the weeping birds, behind the veil he thought he saw tears begin running down the wood nymph’s cheeks.
Kirby whispered into Glenn’s ear, “I didn’t know Lysine was a Highlander fan.”
––––––––
O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the Lords of Old England would not purchase Portmore.
––––––––
When he finished, Ron bowed his head once again. “That is a song from our home. It expresses the loss of a forest there, as yours here has been decimated.
“May your grove one day return to its former majesty.”