Frost clings to the roots of ancient trees, and the air tastes of rain long fallen. Paths wind through forests that shift when unlooked at, and rivers murmur in tongues older than the stones they pass. In this land, magic does not announce itself — it waits, patient as winter, until the moment it chooses to rise. Those who travel here will find beauty and peril braided together, and the choices they make will echo far beyond the sound of their own footsteps.
The Scrollkeepers Archive
Chapter 14: Home of the Pogonariel
From the rippling wall of grass, a figure emerged, tall as the tallest reed, slender and supple, its body a seamless extension of the living grass blades. It glided forward, each movement fluid and silent, green skin shimmering with dew, hair a silken crest undulating with the breeze. The air seemed to still around it, and the faces in the grass leaned in, their forms dissolving into the creature's wake. Light caught on its limbs, scattering in fleeting rainbows, as if the dawn itself had woven this guardian from the marrow of the meadow.