Rolled 12, 16, 6 = 34 (3d20)
>>5828108“Hm,” he vocalized noncommittally, and plucked another piece of candy to chew on. “Some children visited us last year. I’d thought the humans were finally learning respect for the spirits of this land once more, but instead…” He gestured with branch-like fingers, which you followed to the side of the tree, where the bark had been vandalized—scarred with a carving of the names ‘Clara & Luke’ within a heart, and filled in with red paint, which by now was flaking.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” you said, cringing a little at the poor impression this made for your father’s race… And, more immediately relevant, for Izzy’s.
“It is what it is,” the spriggan sighed, and stretched his limbs. “The tree will be wounded, and thus I will be wounded… But it will live, as I will live.”
He gestured to a near-identical heart-carving upon his own flank, and you carefully did not laugh at the absurd, tattoo-like impression it made.
“It is good that you’ve come, though. Some of us have been waiting for you for some time…”
“Ah, before all that,” you interrupted anxiously, “there’s actually… Someone who’s been wanting to meet with you as well, if that would be alright?”
The fairies laughter and chatter around you quieted, as the spriggan regarded you carefully.
“More jackalope friends? Or friends like Muffins?” asked the Spriggan. “Better yet, friends WITH muffins, to eat?”
“Well, cookies,” you noted, a hopeful note in your voice. “You remember the treats I brought tlast time? It’s the, ah, eprosn who baked those.”
“What sort of person?” asked the spriggan, his tone grave.
You gulped, and shouted down to Izzy… Who stood up from where she’d been seated, behind a somewhat-large rock near the base of the hill. The fairies peered down at her curiously, clustering around to watch her huff-and-puff her way to the top of the hill; she wasn’t in much better physical shape than you, you noted.
“A human sort of person, then,” the spriggan said, voice now with a dangerous edge. “We had spoken about this…”
Izirina, awkward and antisocial as she could be, must have recognized the harshness in the whispers of the True Fey, and their teasing, jeering laughter. Unreadable and craggly though the face of the Old Mapel Spriggan could be, his posture and body language had something of the human or elf about it, and she surely read that much. She slowed down, reached into her back, and held aloft the package of cookies…