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I am Fern Redleaf, I am the last of my clan, the ForestWalkers. I am a Golden Grasian. I am writing this journal for many reasons, to have a written account of the atrocities committed against my race by the greed of ignorant humans, as an account of who and what I am for other races, should I not survive, and mostly as a catharsis for myself. I feel if I do not put to paper all that has happened to me...for I feel such rage at times, I fear I shall be poisoned by bitterness and hatered…something that would be abhorrent to my people. Though I want justice for my clan, and will always feel some hate for those responsible, I have no wish to be consumed by such emotions, nor do I wish to hate all humans. I know not all are evil, greedy souls.
As I said, I am a Golden Grasian, we are well known in our homeland, and well hunted. In times long ago, we were mere humans, living simply in the forests, worshipping Mother Earth, living off of her bounty. Then the dark times came, hoards of roving barbarians started invading our lands, slaughtering our people, stealing our women. Soon we were a people decimated, we were few, only about one hundred or so of us left. We settled into some caves we had found, trying to stay hidden from those who would kill us, and for a few years we managed. But we were found, we managed to get out of the caves and were on the run, the barbarians on our trail. We thought we had a chance, but we did not know the area that well, and soon we had run ourselves onto a high bluff, with a steep rocky incline that only the most nimble of foot could traverse. We thought ourselves doomed. The Barbarians were only a few minutes behind us, and we had no escape route. We then knelt there, on that bluff we thought would be our grave and prayed to our Mother Earth. We prayed our deaths would be swift, especially for our young. We prayed our women would be spared the lust of our slaughterers. And we prayed that Mother Earth would welcome us after our deaths.
Mother Earth did not answer our prayers. At least not the way we expected. As we knelt there, waiting for death to arrive, a bright golden light started to form around us. T’was warm and wondrous, it filled us with a sense of love and peace and we knew it could only be coming from Mother Earth. Then we felt the change, a tingling starting in our toes and working it’s way up our bodies. And we changed, our human bodies transforming into what looked like an ordinary deer of the forest. We heard the Mother’s voice in our heads. She said that we, some of her most devote worshippers, would not perish this day, but instead live on! We would have use of both this new form and our human one as well. She said that we were now to call ourselves Golden Grasians! For she had made our hides the color of burnished gold. And it was beautiful to look upon…we were beautiful to look upon. And soft! Oh, how soft and warm we were. She had also turned all our eyes green, the color of the trees of the forests.
She then urged us to flee down the side of the bluff, she assured as that along with beauty of our new form, she included such practical things as swiftness and agility and the ability to speak with one another as she was speaking to us, by thought alone. We then felt her benevolence, like a big hug surround us, then she was gone.
We knelt there for a few moments in stunned silence, then we slowly got to our new feet, a bit unsteady at first, but quickly adjusting. The sounds of the approaching barbarians urged us into action, and the rocky incline that would have been impossible for us as humans to traverse, became our escape route in our new forms. We were all at the bottom of the bluff by the time the barbarian arrived. From scrolls kept by our people, and from which I recite this history, our people took great enjoyment in watching the bafflement of the barbarians as they tried to figure out what had become of their victims.
And so we began our new life. We were now Golden Grasians. For the first year we simply lived and adjusted to our new forms. A majority of the time was spent in our Grasian form, as we still greatly feared the barbarians and it was easier to hide and flee when we were in our Deer form. After about a year or so, it was decided that we should split ourselves into to two clans, one staying in the mountains, the other moving down into the plains, where the barbarians were not as numerous and where the people were becoming more civilized. That is how we became the Mountain Clan and the Plains Clan.
Over time, our number grew, and as they did small groups from both clans would break away, forming new settlements. We still were not as numerous as before the time of the barbarians, but at lest we no longer faced extinction. And so we lived our lives very much as we did before, with one main exception. Before we used weapons, and simple ones at that, to hunt and fish, now we started to use them for defense. All Grasians, male and female, start training at around 10 years of age. We were never going to be as defenseless as we were before.
And time passed, we kept mostly to ourselves, but as time went by and our lands became more settled by other peoples and the barbarians had moved on, we mingled. Trading and learning from the new cultures, and though most were honest folk, there was still a strong element of greed and lust in all the new peoples. Thus we moved about them sparingly and always in human form. Our settlements we kept hidden deep in Mother Earth’s forests, away from the settlements of others. But even among our people, there were some that were foolish or reckless, and they went about in Grasian form, far to close to other settlements. Needless to say, they were caught, their hides taken. Over time we become a great prize. Rumors about us spread. There were herds of us, living deep in the forests and we were almost impossible to catch. But if you did, the hides were worth a small fortune. And so we became hunted again. Not in such large numbers as before, but certainly there were enough greedy humans to keep us on our toes.
And now I come to my tale. It has been about one thousand years since we became Golden Grasians. I was born to one of the small mountain clans. At about the time I was one year old, some of our hunters, out looking for game, came across a young pregnant woman, she had fallen and was badly hurt. They brought her back to our village, she said she had been fleeing her husband, who was trying to kill her, because he wished to be rid of her so he could be with his new love. Unfortunately, our healers could not save her life, but they we able to remove the babe and save it’s life. It was a boy, and since the woman had not given us her name, and we did not know her relatives, nor, to be truthful, did we want to send the child to such a cruel father, it was decided that we would raise him ourselves.
He was named Dyan. He was given to the Reedstalker family to raise. Life went on as before, and Dyan, though he could not change into a Grasian, was accepted as one of us. Trusted and loved, we never saw the evil that lurked within. I can only assume that the taint was there from his birth, inherited from his father, but who is to say. In any case, Dyan grew up resenting deeply that he was not really one of us, that he could not change or communicate telepathically. He never let on of course, he kept it deeply hidden. As a young man, be began to spend a great deal of time away from the clan and when he was with us, it was to me most of is attention was centered. He wanted me, wanted to be my husband. But I did not care for him in that way, to me he was like a brother. My rejection of him angered him greatly. I feel guilty about that, as I wonder if by rejecting him, I caused him to do what he did.
After my rejection, he disappeared for two weeks, no one new where he had gone. When he returned, he seemed…content. He thought he had spent that time praying to Mother Earth and that through her enlightenment, found peace. For all our people had been through, we were still rather naïve. Dyan spent the next two days preparing.
All of our weapons were kept locked in a storage shed, to prevent our young ones from playing with them and accidentally hurting themselves. Dyan destroyed most of them. On the morning of his second day back, the village was to celebrate the union of my best friend Leila Redberry to Samuel Grassland. We were to feast and dance and share in the love of these two people. I was not in the village when the slaughter began, I had left to get the gift I had hidden an old tree trunk, a gift meant to celebrate love, not death.
Dyan had tainted the feast’s cider with a potion that made all those who drank it violently ill. He had also been to one of the larger towns down the mountain and made a deal with an evil fur trader. When the fur trader showed up as scheduled, my village was defenseless. Most of my clan was in Grasian form. It is instinctive for us to change into this form when we perceive danger, thus most of the clan changed automatically. This of course was known to Dyan, which is why he planned it that way. He wanted us in Grasian form! Thus to be slaughtered and stripped of our hides! This man, who was as loved and cared for as any Grasian, stood and watched as his adopted parents throats were cut and the hides peeled from their bodies! The few men who were not incapacitated tried to fight, but with most of the weapons sabotaged, they were soon cut down. And the few women still in human form, I shall only say that when their deaths finally came, it was a mercy to them.
I was on my way back, when I heard the animalistic cries coming from the village, not to mention the screams of the women still in human form. I dropped the quilt I was carrying, one I had made for my dear friend and ran towards the village, I stopped just outside it. Hidden within a thick bramble bush. They scratched at my clothes and skin, but I cared not. My attention was focused on the horror taking place in the village. I saw Dyan, moving through the Grasians, they had been herded into a large pen that had been built, and he was searching. I knew what he was searching for. Me. I have a heart shaped birthmark on my left buttock, which is there when I am in Grasian form too. I heard him yelling at the trader and his men, that the one with the birthmark was his, and not to be touched. I then saw him smile evilly and point to a pair of Grasians. T’was my mother and father. Several skinners entered the pen, taking a hold of my parents and dragging them from the pen. My father was hung upside down by his legs, on a device they had brought with them. His two front legs where secured from below. They did not kill him immediately. Instead Dyan walked and stood near him, the men holding my mother dragged her to him. What he said to her, I do not know, but she changed back into human form. She was immediately staked out spread eagle, well in vision range of my father. I knew as I saw Dyan kneel down beside her and start cutting at her clothes what he intended. Through my tears, I forced myself to watch. I wanted to remember everything. Every heinous act, every face involved.
When Dyan was through, he drove a knife through my mother’s heart and then watched with a grin as my father was skinned…alive. He did not even have the decency to kill him first. My soul was in torment, I could not see past my tears any longer! How could we have nurtured such evil and not have known! There had to have been some sign! Something to tell us what he was capable of! Did we not see? Were we so blind?
They finished off the rest of the village, the fur trader ecstatic over the wealth he collected. But Dyan, he was past furious, his rage was almost out of control because I had not been found. I heard him say that they would continue on to the three other Grasian villages in knew of. I would surely be in one of them.
I knew I had no time to waste, I could not wallow in my grief, I had to warn the other villages. I moved silently away from the slaughter. When I was far enough away, I transformed into a Grasian, and was on my way. By the time Dyan showed up at the villages, they were deserted. I watched the third village from a safe distance. Oh, how he raged. I felt perverse pleasure in that. Finally he and the trader departed, taking their ill gotten booty with them. I made my way back to my village. Silent now. The smell of blood and death so strong it made me ill. I forced myself into the village. I changed back into human form and began the gruesome task of carting carcasses to a pile. When I came to my father’s, I was undone. He was still alive, barely, how I do not know, the pain he was in, had to be unspeakable. I caught his thoughts, so very faint, I knew he was close to the end. He was glad I was alive and unharmed, he told me to live, to survive, and to seek justice for this day’s work. I told him I would, I could sense the peace that came to him as he took his last breath.
I burned down the entire village. I then went into the deepest part of the forests to grieve. I spent months alone, wallowing in despair, barely eating enough to sustain my life, just wandering. I avoided the other clans, although they tried several times to get me to come to them. I just could not. I spent the next six months grieving.
I was alone, as usual, sitting on a rock by one of the mountain streams, sunk in depression, contemplating ending my life so I could be with my people. I felt her then, the presence of Mother Earth, I felt her presence surround me. I felt her understanding. I felt her sorrow, she too, grieved for her worshippers. And I cried, I cried as I had not done so before. I cried as though it were my own mother’s arms around me. And when I finally stopped, I felt…better…not perfect, not at peace, but better. Able to finally move forward. I felt a mental kiss on my forehead and The Mother spoke to my mind.
“You have a job to do Fern Redleaf. Although I would normally frown upon revenge and the use of force to obtain it, I cannot allow what has happened to your village go unpunished. Even Gods such as I, passive as we are, have limits to what we will accept. You, Fern Redleaf, will be my instrument of justice. You must seek out those who committed this atrocity and wreck my vengeance upon them. I am granting you certain abilities to aid you. I can not grant much, for my nature is to nurture and grow, but I will give you what I can”
“First, your telepathic abilities will extend beyond just Grasians to any being with like capability. Second, I grant you the magic of nature, that is elemental magic. This means you have the capacity to learn and use elemental magic. You will have to find a user of this magic to teach you. I can only bestow upon you the ability to learn, not the spells themselves. I would also seek out an experienced fighter to teach you the use of weapons and defense. In this I can not help, as it goes against my nature. I also give you herb lore. Although your people are skilled herb users, this will increase your abilities in that area. I will give you also a bag of gold coins, for you shall need them in your travels, and a change of clothes.” I felt her slight amusement.
“You have been in Grasian form so long, your clothes are but rags now. You must now leave the forest and mountain you know so well and venture into the world my daughter. It can be a wondrous world, but still very much full of danger, be wary and remember, I am always with you” I felt again, her kiss on my head and a gentle squeeze before her presence was gone. I smiled my first smile, small though it was, since the atrocity. I then changed into my human form, and was not surprised to see that my clothing was indeed in taters and that I was filthy and somewhat rank! I stripped and stepped into the stream, washing thoroughly. When I was through, I donned the clothing the Mother had left, picked up the rather large and heavy bag of gold coins. And I started walking.
I made my way down the mountain and stopped at the foothills. Behind me was everything I had ever known in my life, and I was sorely tempted to run back to it’s sanctuary. Ahead of me was the unknown, things I had little knowledge of. But also ahead of me was Dyan. Resolve filled me, and after one last look at what was once my home, I moved on, out into the world.