Bramblepoint Darjeeling Express

When Wraen's eyes first met Dwin it was like looking at a very young version of her littermate Sarah. The way she carried herself, the stance and the way she looked at her, when she spoke. She noticed the slight frown lines as well, telling her that she was a person, who had viewed the world with caution. Or she simply had a reason to be more frowny than happy, which - in her ghostly opinion - did not fit a young person well. On the other hand - it was never easy to be young and she could safely say that she had become a lot happier and content later in life. So there was a hope that those lines would disappear too.

"No, not at all," she shook her head, smiling, glad to have a company here. "I was visiting an old tree friend of mine," she told the girl, beckoning to the willow. "It was once the quiet, wise old man of this forest. I always liked to imagine that he had once been a wolf - a mage perhaps - turned into a tree either by a curse or by his own free will," she mused, letting the thread of the story form just as effortlessly as it had been, when she had still walked among the living. "Kind of like in the story of the grass plains dragon. Once as a powerful magical creature it had aided kings and warriors in their battles, wishing to change the world. And then... as all aging people do, he had grown disillusioned with the idea, because the people there are hell-bent on making the same mistakes over and over again," she told. 

"Therefore he found his peace here, by becoming a tree. His branches offered home to many birds and a cradles to their offspring, in his shadow, where soft grass grew by the creekbend, crawlers and grazers of the forest found a place to eat and rest. His roots kept the earth from going with the waters during the spring floods. And inside his trunk, hollowed by age and rot, one could hide from the winds and rain," she said. "And one day it gave an opportunity for an earth-crawler climb its branches and see the world from above," she smiled at the memory of the first time going up and the sheer joy of having found this secret place. 

"While mages live longer than the regular wolves, inevitably a day comes, when they have to meet their Maker as well. So - the tree died and fell, freeing the mage's spirit to make the journey towards stars. However, even after him leaving, his shell here still keeps the life going for many smaller critters. And will do so for a very long time to come," she checked in with the girl to see, if she had not grown bored and was still listening to her. "So - in a way, he had changed the world for the better. No matter, how big that world is - even in this small corner every good deed matters."