Rites of our Bitter Meetings

[Persephone]

"When I am done collecting my samples, we can go out Roane. IT was good seeing you again."

I walk toward the woods to collect some more samples.

[Coyote]

Coyote looks over his shoulder at Grove and shakes his head, "My people do not hate. We grow angry, we become sad, we feel pain, but we do not hate. We believe that to hate is to lose a piece of your soul."

[Coyote]

"Hey, hold up Persephone, I'll come with ya!"

[Persephone]

"Very well then. I am only collecting various plants for future ruwai projects."

I sit on a mound of moss and look at the specimens I have already collected.

[Coyote]

"I love learning about samples and plants, I'll be happy to help."

[Grove]

Grove looks into the woods, growing ever greener in his presence. His face contorts slightly before returning to normal as he walks toward Roane.

[Persephone]

"I suppose it would not hurt to have some help. But are you not a member of the Green Party?"

[Coyote]

Coyote smiles, "No." He follows Persephone, looking around the trees, "So what kind of plants are we looking for?"

[Persephone]

"I am looking for plant combinations that would make for good warriors. Thistle works well, but exotic plants give an exotic quality to the Ruwaii. I would like to find a Showy Lady's Slipper. They grow in bogs, so we will have to locate some bog lands."

[Roane]

She sees them walk away. It was a shame that she had to leave. Or had Roane been rude? She was not good with being frendly. Well up until this very week she had not been to nice to anyone except her horse and her boss. SHe saw his features and knew he had been angry. She smiled to him and took both hands in her own.

It isn't true about fairies not hating. I hate sometimes. I hate an aweful lot of the time. I just hide it though. Do you think that means i have no soul?

[Toivo Koivisto]

I head back to my cottage outside of Tapere and chop some fire wood. I haven't seen Swan in a few days. I wonder what she is up to. I stack the wood and whistle an old tune to myself and to nature.

[Grove]

Grove looks into Roane's eyes, his own appearing almost sad, disguised under his stoic expression.
"No one with eyes as captivating as yours can be without a soul, do not even think that."
Grove pulls her closer and hugs her with his head down and his eyes closed.
He thinks about mother, the pain he and her endured for so long, and how she still endures the ever growing pain, a pain that cannot be pinned down to any one thing. It was a growing sickness that corrupted your whole body. Your soul...

[Coyote]

"Bogs eh? Well, let's have a look then." Coyote walks up to a tree, his body suddenly shrinking, turning into a chipmunk. He rushes up the tree and stops near the top. Pushing off the tree, the chipmunk becomes a red hailed hawk and sails above the trees. After a moment the bird touches down, returning to human shape. "There's a bog about a mile east. Shall we go?"

[Roane]

((Goodnight Grove...Goodnight Forrest/Tovio...pleasant dreams you two ...also goodnight Persephone and Coyote...*didn't mean to miss you guys at first*))

She holds him close and can feel the pain and sickness he feels through the earth. She begins to weep because through him all feelings from the earth are magnified. He did not know how much he could effect her. He made her feel things she shouldn't be able to. The earth spoke to her at this moment like it never had before. She felt it all.

Grove i know i have a soul...but it feels black and impure sometimes. With all of the wrong i have done in the name of my cause....i wonder sometimes what she thought of me. What the earth could want me to do more. And now i feel it. I need to love. I need to stop the hate. I need to make her well by setting examples not making other peoples deaths the examples. I don't want her to hurt like this anymore.........

She was sobbing by the end. Her shoulders and body trembling under his embrace.

[Persephone]

"Thankyou for your assistance. You are really quite powerful. Red Infinity could use someone like you."

I follow after Coyote for this bog.