The Vampire & Her Witch

Standing off to the side, forced to observe like a phantom, completely unable to affect the perverse desecration of the Ancient Oak playing out before her, Virve trembled in rage as she listened to the Lothian Lord’s growing excitement at the growing list of atrocities and sacrilegious uses he he had in mind for the body of the once revered Ancient Oak.

Moments later, however, Virve dropped to her knees in agony as the vision moved forward, revealing a veritable army of human butcher weilding saws and chisels, drawing knives and rasps and dozens of other tools as they began cutting into the tough wood of the Ancient Oak.

The sensation of those saws, rasps, and chisels tearing at her flesh overwhelmed Virve’s senses as the Ancient Oak allowed her to feel what the tree had felt as the humans began reducing it to so much furniture and kindling.

At first, when Virve had witnessed the humans felling the sacred tree, her heart had been filled with fury, followed by deep sorrow as she witnessed the Ancient Oak fall. At that moment, as she watched the pieces of the tree being carted away, she had mourned for its passing as a mighty hero who had safeguarded the Vale of Mists for more than a thousand years.

It was only now that she realized that ’dying’ was a slow process as the life within the Ancient Oak bled out of its hard, unyielding wood. The tree had been torn apart and carted away from its roots, but it was still very much alive, feeling the agony of human tools biting into its flesh as they shaped and molded it to their twisted desires.

"Noooo," Virve cried. "How could you? How could you, you monsters! He’s not even dead yet you beasts!" Trembling on the floor of the workshop, the pain faded as the Ancient Oak withdrew the vision, returning Virve to the hilltop where the Ancient Oak resided.

This time, Virve was alone with the Ancient Oak, sitting under it’s branches as it wrapped her in a warm, golden-green aura of soothing comfort and strength. All around her, several small woodland creatures emerged from the tree, rabbits from around its roots, squirrels from hollows in the trunk and even small birds from high in the branches of the tree.

All of them gathered around the trembling Virve, each one offering a bit of warmth and soft comfort as she confronted the horror of the fate that befell any ancient tree humans were able to claim for themselves.

For thousands of years, the Ancient Oak had acted as a guardian for the Vale of Mists. Not only did it shelter the smaller creatures who gathered close to the mighty trunk, it also sheltered the whole of the Vale, protecting it from tempestuous storms or calming the surging floods of the river Luath when it threatened to spill over its banks.