THE PARLIAMENT OF TREES

[wildestmods]

THE PARLIAMENT OF TREES

[]It happens after most things have been discussed at Elrond's Council, but before anyone has left.]

[It is unreal. Reality warps and trees shoot up from the ground around the meeting area of the council. They don't destroy Rivendell but it's as if Rivendell is suddenly shoved away and off in the distance. Civilization retreats at disorienting speeds and suddenly the squad, Elrond, and his guests, in the middle of the woods, under massive trees that stretch up into the sky. The trees are taller than skyscrapers and thicker than the average lighthouse. Their branches intertwine as they reach up to the sky in a way where the branches seem to form almost a natural cathedral.]

[The ones immediately circling them also have gnarled faces. They chant in an unknown language, in deep musical tones with voices nearly indistinguishable from the creaking of branches, then speak to them in weathered voices.]

You have been summoned by the Parliament of Trees.

[Elrond stands, almost imperious in his expression. Though his voice is calm, he clearly has taken issue with the sudden abduction.]

A summoning we would have answered readily, if asked. It is considered courteous among our peoples, if messengers have been sent, for one to send word of agreement to a meeting first. [A tilt of his head and a slight narrowing of his eyes] But the Green truly does prefer to offer little forewarning when drawing others away from their homes, it seems.

OOC DETAILS
❧ Free-for-all Post: This event will be in "free-for-all" format, meaning that threadhopping is encouraged and that threading should be treated in the same conversational way as network posts with branching threads. This post will only contain the part with Elrond and others. The agents of the Green will be set up with their own Q&A post after they've had time to talk to Elrond and co.

❧ Joint network Post. Due to the magic mirrors having the ability to be widened and set to float, any characters that don't (or can't) attend the meeting will be able to still participate. The mirrors will have been transported too and still broadcasting.

❧ Post in bracketspam format. We're trying to keep a brisk pace and allow a network vibe where speech matters more than action, for some talking heads rp.

❧ NPCing. The mods will handle all the fantasy npcs and some may show up that aren't specifically listed in this post. There are many people at the Council.

❧ It's okay if the conversation gets messy. It's a giant group that's going to be talking here. That means it's natural if side conversations happen, interruptions happen, or things get missed because people are talking over each other and switching conversational partners.

❧ A private discussion will happen later. A crossroads post and private conversation among the squad will happen after the Council, and after the meeting with the Green, so they can decide for themselves what to do next and how to handle what they've learned.

❧ Please only post to the sub-threads below and not to the main post. This allows the mods to add some if we need to.

❧ Please treat each appearance in chronological order. It may be good to spend some time talking to Gaia first or reading her answers before moving on.

Comments

MOD QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/REQUESTS ETC

[wildestmods]

Ask anything here!

[the_hit_list]

If a character had left the council room early, would they still get yanked, or should the timing of the leaving log be adjusted?

[wildestmods]

Whichever works for you!

You can handwave the leaving was at the end-end. Technically Elrond's council isn't actually over over because the Green hijacked it and it could be handwaved that after they're sent back to Rivendell someone can have left early while they were still wrapping up talks.

Or you can treat it like people left and then eventually got suddenly yanked.

GAIA

[parliamentoftrees]

[In the space of a breath, in the center of the Council circle, a sapling shoots out of the ground and grows into a small tree, only just larger than a woman, with creaking branches that reach for the sky. Her movements are jerky and unnatural. Trees are not supposed to move, they're supposed to stay still in the green earth, soaking in sun and water and minerals in soil.]

[She looks around at them all, faceless for a second, then shifts through forms. One of her faces is familiar to Bunny, and for a moment she looks at him with a conflicted expression but also gentleness, a mother looking at the one who carries her lost daughter's light. Another is a form impossible to truly view, shrouded by a bright light - the only part of her truly visible is a glyph slashed into the air. With her, comes a brief gust of wind with the sharp yet dreamy smells of the Summer Country.]

[The last is a woman who seems the most human among them. The face she/they is choosing, of her/their many faces, a personality among her/their many personalities.]

A necessity, Lord Elrond. You have been drawn into an in-between place, where neither side of this discussion can attack the other's true home.

[She holds a hand to her chest.]

I am Gaia. We are Gaia, the spirit of many Earths, and other worlds beside, joined as one. We did not used to be one. We used to be many, the souls of many worlds - including many of your own. The catastrophe that created the Wilderlands changed us, merged us, and now we are forced to cooperate in concert and must fight to prevent Ourself from going mad.

[She looks around at them all.]

We speak for the trees, for the spirits of everything that grows in the Earth, root and twig and flower.

And yes, the Green brought many of you here against your will, and changed you, and now guide you down the path to our mutual salvation.[She shakes her head.] Not every spirit of the Green agrees with choosing you, changing you, or seeking your help in this way. Even many versions of myself find it contentious. Each had to render their own vote.

But the Parliament of Trees has spoken, and there is a quorum among the spirits of the Green. Like it has always been in the past, the rest of us follow the way set down by the majority of us.

The path is now set. It will not be changed, this will not be negotiated, but you may ask questions. The spirits of the Seasons will then each say their piece.

Re: GAIA

[millenyal_pink]

[Being addressed by Gaia like this is far too familiar to Elle. A sick, furious feeling settles in her gut. She clenches her fists and steps forward. Her voice is cold and even as she sets back her shoulders and looks the great Spirit directly in the eye.]

What right do you have to set that path for those of us who have had no say in the matter? You have taken warriors and children alike-- does your quorum give you comfort as you put them in harms way?

You have shown yourselves to be willing to alter the core of our beings without concern for our consent. What reason do we have to accept your terms as you have set them? If this is non-negotiable why shouldn't we walk away?

Re: GAIA

[credit_not_blame]

[Stacia glances at Elle out of the corner of her eye. That's an interesting reaction to meeting Gaia herself(ves). Her choice of questions is curious as well, given that the Gaia of their world already takes children and puts them on various paths in the way of various harms.]

[That'll be fun to ask her about. Later, though. Right now is the time to question the representatives of the Green.]

Re: GAIA

[parliamentoftrees]

[A shift into the faceless form.]

We are not all-powerful. We have the power to only reach into so many worlds, and only those nearby. And many in those worlds would fall, including the powerful, because this world lays out snares that would catch some of them, due to their own hubris or self-righteousness.

For some, all that we can say is that it is necessary for the survival of all. We have foreseen many paths, and many people walking them, with many powers, and very few have led to victory. Even the paths where the wanderers were given instruction and knowledge of the future, have failed.

As for the children, this is a world of magic, and in some places innocense and imagination hold greater strength than any adult can possess. The children will save you. Without them you'll die.

[There is a voice that is slightly more familiar, there is an edge to it that is sharp as teeth and as life-giving as spring. If they blink they'll see the glyph like a white afterimage, even if Gaia is still a tree.]

[Her voice is more halting, like it is difficult to speak, like the mind engaged in it is half-sleeping.]

You should also not make the mistake. Of thinking these children are Kinfolk.

You must walk the path. Because it must be walked. As it has always been, as it will always be. Until the corruption. In all its worst forms. Is eradicated.

This is a new form. This path is harder to walk.

But this fight still. Requires. Teeth.

Re: GAIA

[credit_not_blame]

[Stacia hadn't spoken much at the council hosted by Elrond. Their hosts didn't seem to have much more information than they did, and seemed willing enough to share what they had. Her compatriots were willing enough to ask the obvious questions, so she'd largely sat and listened and watched, turning things over in her head. Also watching Elrond specifically, both because he's in charge of the thing and because he conducts himself like she wants to be able to someday, and that's worth absorbing.]

[Now, though, they have representatives of the Green itself. That's much more useful.]

So what, exactly, did you bring us here to do? We've got some ideas from those who have graciously taken us in and cared for us, ['When the Green itself couldn't be moved to do so' remains unspoken, for now.] but I'd like to hear it from you, directly.

Re: GAIA

[parliamentoftrees]

Stop the dark powers from further destruction of the Green, which would destroy its spirit in your worlds. Stop them from destroy Myselves, or the worlds each of us belong to will die.

Unentangle the worlds.

This can be done faster if you undertake a quest to empower the Seasons. Or you can walk this path alone.

Re: GAIA

[wheyoftheadept]

[Saturday bows to the tree-lady, formal and precise; neither an inch more or less than she's due]

Ma'm. I got no reason to believe you give a good god-damn about our feelings or the fates we'd chosen before you rewove us. Folk like you never do.

Two questions then. First question: what the hell are we up against?

Second question: anything stopping us from taking its side?

[parliamentoftrees]

[The Faceless:] Some of us do not care about your feelings, only survival.

[She shifts to human Gaia:] Others among us do. The worlds should not just be preserved for green life, but also for the other life that walks among it.

Some of us have protested your involvement; it is cruel. Intervening against destructive powers and facing grave danger should be a choice.

[The faceless again:] We are not a monolith.

[The human face again:] But those of us that disagree lack the power to oppose the majority.

As for your enemies, the trees listened in on your meeting with Lord Elrond: you are facing the enemies that Elrond told you. Sauron and the Unfinished Princess are the greatest among them. You have met many of their lackeys already: the Nazgul and the Nightrenders serve and are allied with Sauron. The Sisters in crowfeathers and the Shadowhunters that tried to capture you are servants of the Unfinished Princess.

Both of these great powers know of your coming and the Green's intentions for you. It couldn't be helped; too many in this world hold the power of prophecy, including servants of both.

Something unknown even to us broke this world, and now it slowly unmakes the worlds around it, as the new world it made grows more and more unstable.

[She holds up a hand and an illusion is visible of what looks like a world of plant life swirling with unnatural color and beauty.]

What was here before the Wilderlands was the realm of the Green. It was once a spirit world, not a physical one, where the soul of the Green of many worlds, could commune, rest, and find spiritual respite from the environmental destruction in many of their worlds.

It was never meant to be a realm of the physical, and it was never meant to be directly exposed to destructive powers like Sauron and the Unfinished Princess. Something unknown to us broke reality, and pieces of physical reality, of the worlds the spirits were attached to, were pulled into it, merged into a new world.

Now, with every bit of environmental destruction, the spirit of the Green continues to weaken and die, the destruction worse for the destroyers killing the very spirit of the Green and not just the plants they inhabit.

In nature, in the physical world, the destruction of the body need not destroy the spirit, due to cycles of decay and regeneration. It is different here.

[The illusion shows the withering of the plant spirits, ethereal forms falling and fading out as armies hack and burn at the plants they inhabit.]

The worlds these spirits are attached to will start to die along with the Green, as the plant life withers and the environment collapses in each world.

[She shows the cascade in a world of plants dying, then grazing animals and prey animals, then their predators, all starving to death.]

[Humans, at the top of the chain, are not immune. They start to wither and starve and fall down dead. She closes her fist and the illusion stops.]

Most of you are from worlds reliant on the environment for survival. Entire food webs will break down and all life reliant on other trophic levels will die, including humans and many other species.

[wildestmods]

[Elrond has a question and as he stands there, commanding an answer from beings far more powerful than himself, it's easy to see why he'd been chosen to be be at the side of the last great king of the Noldor, daring to face the Dark Lord in his own realm.]

[He's used to refusing to bow down to powers greater than him.]

I have a question of my own. [He doesn't bother to hide the book Ange gave him. After all, they said they were spying from the trees. He also doesn't hide his anger.] What did you remove from my memory and why?

[parliamentoftrees]

We did no such thing.

Re: GAIA

[ferengineer]

Thank you for agreeing to meet with us.

[Nog's not happy about any of this, but he's a Starfleet officer. He needs to observe at least a amount of decorum.]

With all due respect, how do you know our being here won't make matters worse? You said it yourself, you don't know what caused all this in first place

[slowmotionbuscrash]

[ Decorum is a four letter word. ]

They can see the path like the Elves and the other elves.

[ Tommy means the Gelflings. ]

They don’t care if it makes it worse overall as long as it’s better for them and maybe nature. But like 51% good, 49% bad still leaves a lot of shit dead.

[ He’s flunked trig, but Tommy’s pretty good at shitty superhero choices math. ]

Re: GAIA

[konman]

[Kon's fingers are steepled like he's at a business meeting and he points them at Gaia like someone pointing in a complimentary way at someone else for dropping the word "synergy" in the right place.]

[His voice is faux casual.]

Cool. Cool. So there's some big world-ending threat. Not really that shocking because why else would you kidnap a bunch of people not hesitant to punch evil in the teeth, right?

Weird cosmic powers grab heroes all the time.

[If anyone thinks this means Kon's cool with it, they're mistaken, though, he's really just being kind of a smartass, pretending like this is all totally reasonable.]

One teeny tiny question, though...

[He practically erupts out of his chair and stomps threateningly towards Gaia. Not all the way, not in a way that suggests he's going to throw down, but in a way that suggests he's barely holding himself back from doing it, regardless of the fact she's a powerful being or not.]

[In his anger, his eyes swirl black and plants mere feet away start to die around him. A butterfly drops out of the air and lands twitching near his feet and then is still. The black at least doesn't vein over his face like before. It's just the eyes.]

What the hell did you do to some of us?!

Why was making some of us go all Village of the Damned part of your stupid plans? Even if you needed people to have powers, before this I could fly! I had super strength, and was invulnerable, and could shoot lasers out of my eyes?

How is this better than having a kajillion other infinitely more useful powers?

[He gestures to the Elves.] You broke something in some of us so bad they were terrified of it. What did you do?

[He points at her.]

I don't have the right eyebrows to be a Disney villain and you know it.

[the_hit_list]

[ Tim likes very precise language when it comes to anything magical or tricksy, because there’s a sense that they are always trying to get one over on the uninitiated.

What he doesn’t like is an uncertainty due to magical translation, and he’s not sure if what he interprets as logic gaps in her language are the result of that or slips of the tongue.

So Tim asks his other question first, while he debates the difference between will not and cannot and why guidance is needed on a completely set path. ]

You’ve done this before on other worlds, haven’t you? Created avatars to do the work for you. Some of them even know about it.

[ He’s thinking of Poison Ivy, but why limit it there? Ivy has plant-based powers, but Tim doesn’t. And his powers are more certainly from the Green than hers are. ]

And we’re as replaceable to you as the roots, twigs and flowers are to us. Even if you think we’re best suited to help you - if you understood us or valued us, you’d ask us to volunteer.

Re: GAIA

[unbeatablesg]

Psst.

[Doreen, carrying a travel mug full of coffee, sidles up to someone near the back and whispers.]

I showed up late and I think I'm missing, like, literally all of the context? Who are they, why are we here, and where is here?

[Tippy-Toe chitters from her spot on Doreen's shoulder.]

<Also, what the heck?>

Good question Tips. Also, what the heck?

Re: GAIA

[dwitch]

This is all a lot to take in. But behind the fantasy backdrop, the talk of prophecies, marks, magic, and saving all of nature throughout the multiverse, there's something frighteningly familiar at the center of this mess. Some kind of unknown force weaving pieces of worlds together and gathering people and creatures, with the possible intent to destroy and devour everything.

As he listened to Elrond, Kira, Jen, and Gaia, that familiarity sunk in deep. A chill crawled up his spine on insectoid legs, the mocking memory of a harsh otherworldly whisper skittering around inside his head as he fought to take it all in.

It takes effort to shake the feeling off and meekly step forward some.

"Uh...The thing that broke your world, do you know if it's controlling or collaborating with the people we're going up against to some extent? Or are they just taking advantage of the situation?" Dwight lacks the conviction, annoyance, or indignation that a lot of the others seem to have, even if he empathizes with it. This was a man who had long ago resigned himself to being pulled along by strings he had little control over, why should this situation be any different? At least unlike the last omnipotent creature to kidnap him, they were willing to answer some questions. Might as well take advantage of it.

Re: GAIA

[greyerrant]

[ the still wounded astartes glowers at the gestalt form ]

And what does salvation mean, to the Green?

[ the elves seem more trustworthy than this cryptic tree. ]

[garmr]

Shoulda figured all this would come down to some grand Destiny. I've been gettin' real sick of hearing about those.

[ Guts is not expecting any clear answers from grand mystical entities. He knows better than that. ]

THE QUESTS

[parliamentoftrees]

Our discussion is finished. The quest is laid before you. You will have to discern the moments the requirements will be in play. Though the path will be laid before you, you will have to choose what to do and when to act.

And there will even be times you must choose the path forward.

[She fades out and each of the Seasons briefly appears and disappears.]

Re: THE QUESTS

[parliamentoftrees]

[Old Man autumn appears, branches creaking, voice somehow warm despite the creaking.]

The quest of Autumn requires a harvest, the gathering of something valuable.

[wildestmods]

A choice does indeed lie before you. Whether you walk the path they set before you, find your own, or seek to return home, those gathered here wish you a safe journey.

The prophecies recorded about you will be transcribed and given to you for your examination.

Should you need help on your journey and you come across my people, tell them Lord Elrond of Rivendell bids them to offer aid. Even those of other Elven kingdoms will still help you if they can.

[He looks to those around him.]

And more besides.

[wildestmods]

[The young witch that had rolled her eyes at the Wintersmith speaks. She looks to be about twenty.]

I'm Tiffany aching, a witch of the Ramtops. I guard the steading of the Chalk, but now all witches guard a greater Steading.

Several schools of magic are there, as well as a camp of refugees from the lands Sauron and the Unfinished Princess have destroyed. We've taken in many people, including many from the kingdom of Agrabah.

The witches of the Ramtops guard and tend to them, but we're scattered all throughout the Wilderlands as well.

If you run into one of our kind, to be sure they're one of us and not a witch that might cause harm, keep an eye out for cackling. If they're cackling, it means they have gone or are going to the bad.

Ask if they know a Granny and don't offer a last name. If they know of Granny Weatherwax, and especially if they have sense, they're likely one of us, and willing to help you.

And if you decide to fulfill the quest of the Seasons, mind yourself around the Wintersmith and the Summer Lady. Autumn and spring are temperate, they bring harvest and new growth. Winter and summer kill through cold and heat, and the two of them can be true to their nature.

Especially the Wintersmith. And you can trust me on that.

[She rolls her eyes again and looks faintly embarrassed. Embarrassment is not an expression that looks natural for her.]

He's my ex.