The child is found to have wandered off deep into the woods. The ones that had her held other intelligent beings, though these were mostly adults, in cages as a traveling freak show. They demand Wraithvine give their "exhibit" back. Wraithvine shows just how peeved off a parental, even if the child is still new to them, can get at such cruelty.
@internutter/challenge-03514-i226-mine-now -- Anon Guest
The music lead Wraithvine to the carnival, but the very sight of the motley tents made little Adabaki whimper, cry, and cling to Wraithvine. There were large and muscular toughs prodding the bushes with staves. Not a sign of an anxious guardian calling for a missing babe.
There were too many cages with curtains. Too many hucksters promising the wandering traveler that they could see a real live freak of nature.
Wraithvine didn't need to ask if this was where hir Adabaki had come from. There was plenty of evidence. Ze soothed hir new adoptee and hid them in the folds of hir cloak. "It's all right, dear one. They won't harm you or anyone else ever again."
One might expect the wrath of the gods to descend. It was, all things considered, technically possible. There were people out there who worshipped a form of Wraithvine and hir kindness.
Ze didn't need wrath.
All ze needed was a swift dose of kharma.
There were things under the earth that ate forged metal. There were things in the land and sky that ate magic. There were things in the Plane of Magic, Nanogh, that could do both. And, more importantly, they could be directed to where the feast was.
Call them... Sylphafish. Tiny, scuttling, crawling beasts with unlikely anatomy that could, under the right light, glow. Mostly, they blended in with whatever they rested on, and so evaded the detection of the jailer carnival.
Not until they had chewed away at the magical restraints, gnawed the bars hollow, and devoured the locks and bolts whole.
That was when all of the jailers encountered a sudden but inevitable betrayal.
Wraithvine was safely on a nearby treebranch when it happened. Cages and chains and even the shocking staves crumbled to dust. The captives took a few seconds to realise their freedom and did what captives do best when encountering sudden liberty.
It was a bloodbath.
When it was nearly done, Wraithvine cast a gentle blanket of calm over the entire scene. The last of the surviving jailers wouldn't live much longer anyway. The scurrying Sylphafish had long since fled back to Nanogh.
Carrying the smallest of the captives in one arm, ze made hirself known to them.
"You understand who I am?" Wraithvine asked.
Many nodded. A few shrugged.
"You must understand that I have to be certain that you will enact no further vengeance against the world that was cruel to you. I have sworn to make this world better, and I cannot allow you to make any of it worse. You are free to make choices. The first choice is, can you choose to be kind?"
A large and scarred bugbear stepped forth. "I was the one who broke her collar. I could not break mine. I would sooner live life in solitude than harm another soul. I would sooner blind myself than witness another cruelty."
Wraithvine blessed them and helped clothe the poor fellow. "You may pass."
It would be a long winnowing, but there were very few who needed help to mend their ways.
[Image by Laura Louise Grimsley on Unsplash]
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