Drow's Dilemma Ep. 120: Return

Once the initial surprise was over, the two lept into action. Since Caleldir had shot down Althaia's suggestion of using tantric magic in the purification, the two of them instead began channeling their magics and shaping the forces of the curse to remove it. The basic structure was a massive, divinely powered healing and curse-breaking spell similar to those little spells that had cleaned up the 'dust' those many months ago, now channeled from Aelsuna and Risa to Althaia, augmented and shaped by the nymph to Naliira, and then from Naliira the accumulated curse energy would be dissipated by running it through Caleldir, and from Caleldir back to Risa who would destroy/dissipate/reform it.

And so the ritual went on in earnest, in a swirl of power upon power grasping and gasping and gushing, pulling and pushing and prodding.

The massive oak tree home gradually looked greener and healthier as the three nymph-kin worked to destroy the corruption. For a while, nothing unusual appeared as the rot crept backward from the most recently infected areas. Then some abnormalities showed themselves. Especially in the lower trunk and roots, it appeared as if a strange sort of nature-tech had been grafted onto the living structure. Along the outside, there were a couple of semi-translucent, completely mechanical roots that were covered in corruption, but were themselves pure. Those seemed to be what were nourishing the part of the tree that had yet to succumb to corruption.

Nature-tech soon showed itself everywhere in the main grove that they worked on cleansing. The trees of Naliira's sisters were similarly grafted with technology. The weaker, smaller trees, however, still could not withstand the rot like Naliira's oak could. But, with each tree that was freed, another spirit of nature rose to assist the dryad queen. Momentum was gained and inexorably rolled through the rest of Grand Oak. It was a long, exhausting process, but eventually the whole city stood without corruption choking in. Finally, only the ravages of time marred the once beautiful city. Even still, Caleldir might not have recognized it; the fight with corruption forced the citizens to meld their city with that strange technology until it was just as natural as it was manufactured. Perhaps even more so.

Given how quiet the ruins of the city of Grand Oak were Caleldir had thought that the entire population - and the other dryads - had either been killed rather than cursed or managed to escape. That was only partly true. Naliira's little sister dryads gradually emerged, looking dazed and broken, but for the rest of the population there were mostly ghosts that rose from the ruins of the techno-tree city, saluted, and passed into Eternity. For the most part.

Grand Oak looked different than Caleldir remembered it. Oddly beautiful with the corruption gone, but much less like the residential retreat it once was and much more like the grim fortress of desperate magitech that it became. There were clearly hundreds of years of doomed stories here that Caleldir would have to talk to Naliira about.

Back at her tree, Naliira was herself again. The body that she had been using melded back with the trunk of her tree and her real self stepped out again. She proved to be just as augmented as her tree was: an elegant mesh of glowing, throbbing tech that flowed seamlessly into more traditional dryad flesh and bone. The Dryad Queen was exhausted to the point of unconsciousness, though, and did not make it far into her living quarters. She collapsed onto her couch with a dazed expression and became completely unresponsive.

That was when Aurae appeared again, freed of corruption just like the rest of the city. She immediately curled up with Naliira. To the magically perceptive eye, it appeared as if the unborn child was lending strength to her mother. Despite this, Aurae remained conscious. With tired eyes, she looked out at Caleldir and Althaia - and then the two drow and the catgirl, who finally made their appearance by way of telekinetic flight (a trick that Selene recently mastered).

Caleldir and Althaia gave the two drow and Ylene tired smiles. "Meet my daughter, Aurae," he told them, gesturing at the unborn dryad. "Aurae, these are my..." He sighed. "My wives, as you said." That was awkward to admit.

Both drow stared at the unborn dryad with confusion. They weren't familiar with the reproductive process of such creatures. To them, she looked like a slightly incorporeal eight-year-old. Which couldn't be the case, since she couldn't have even been in existence for that many months. "A-Aurae... Hello," Ashyr managed to greet the young one. "We- uh, we aren't exactly wives, but that's close enough. We've both had or are carrying children by him."

Aurae smiled tiredly at the two drow. "Hello. I would like to meet my half-siblings one day." Her voice was softer and slightly more childlike than it had been when her body was half-covered by corruption. Her eyes, however, were just as penetrating. It was an unsettling quality in one so extremely young. "Though I already see one," she continued as she stared at Ashyr's stomach.

Ashyr grinned and placed a hand on her still-flat abdomen. "Yeah, you see right through me, girl. But... how? How are you here right now? When were you born?"

"In a few years," Aurae responded dryly. But then she broke out in a very soft, very tired giggle. Her reply didn't seem to make sense to her new guests. "I am unborn; my pod is cradled in those branches over there. When it is time, I will emerge as a sexually mature young adult." She looked up at where her soul was with deep contemplation. "It will be a longer time than usual, I think. It is good my mother had me; she would not have survived this without my strength. But... I think it is temporarily hampering my development." She looked over at her father. "Is that right, Papa? Can you tell what is happening? Mama would know, but..."

"Dryadic gestation is normally eight years," he said. "I think that, due to your mother's condition, yours will likely be ten. So, a small difference, but before too long Naliira will fully stabilize and be able to properly nurse your development." Sitting next to the sleeping dryad and their daughter, he stroked Naliira's hair. "I will let your mother sleep, Aurae," he said gently. "And I will certainly introduce you to your many half-siblings. Including your mother's other daughters, several other dryads, and another half-dryad like you from her first marriage. She is a very powerful mage."

"She is also under this curse," Althaia said quietly. "We will need to go and purify her soon."

"Soon," Caleldir agreed. "But that may be another month."

"Hopefully not more than that." Althaia looked out of the window. "Looks like the corruption outside the city has observed the purification. I need to head back and start organizing the Sunite Military." With that, she ported away.

"Other sisters... yes. I had a feeling I had some of those." Aurae nodded with tired curiosity after Althaia left. "I would like to see them- oh, I think Mama is waking up."

Naliira shifted and mumbled something under her breath. It sounded a lot like Caleldir's name. Then her arms came up to wrap tightly around her unborn daughter. Unlike many times before, Aurae actually snuggled closer into her mother's arms. The corruption that separated and made things tense between them was well and truly gone. Both mother and child's feelings about this were written on their faces. There was deep contentment that had been missing that was now shining in full force.

"Caleldir," Naliira said again, this time coherently. Her eyes blinked open to reveal one that shone oak-green and then other a mechanical river-blue. "Caleldir, you're still here. Good." Her voice was beyond exhausted. The Dryad Queen looked exceedingly tired, but there was a glow of health to her skin that suggested that she would recover perfectly well in time. She allowed one hand to stop embracing Aurae to reach out towards him, beckoning him to sit closer.

"We'll... go see if there's something we can help with," Ashyr said self-consciously.

This temporarily drew the Dryad's attention to the drow. "Yes, I feel the corruption recoiling. But I must say, I apologize for any distress I caused you two when I was... not myself. I hope there is something I can do to make it up to you two."

"Let us focus on cleaning up this mess first," Selene responded proudly before taking her familiar and her cousin away.

Caleldir shifted closer beside the dryad a bit awkwardly. He was not certain how the Naliira he had known so long ago as a mere child would react to him now that they had a child together, and that when a major part of her had been quite deluded. So much so that he had had major difficulty recognizing her. Now, she looked familiar, like her old self. But alien in her augmented form. Well, now that she was healthy, she would be able to regenerate or properly assimilate in time, but for the moment a cyborg-dryad was a bit strange to see.

Naliira looked back to the male once the drow followed Althaia out. "Caleldir. I have used you abominably. And I have a confession to make; I cannot claim insanity as an excuse. Yes, there were some things that I could not help. Taking you into my tree was not one of them, though I knew there would be consequences to tricking my mad self into doing it."

Caleldir laughed wryly and looked down. "I speculated later that something like that might be the case. I was unable to help you, then. I was not strong enough. I am not a god, just the sone of one." He sighed. "I do not resent you." An ironic smile. "If I resented you for your... treatment of me," - His words were circumspect with Aurae right there - "then I would resent pretty much everyone close to me now." Another laugh. "The one who you are really going to need to apologize to is Fedwyn. She was intending on marrying me one day, as you recall."

"Oh, Fedwyn." Naliira chuckled. "Yes, there was a time when many of us thought that you would marry her. I did my part to encourage that situation. It was a match that would have been wonderful at the time. Right now..." she trailed off, thinking.

The idea of marrying Fedwyn brought a complicated expression to Caleldir's face. "I was not opposed to the idea, but first I was too young, then..." He shook his head.

The dryad sighed and stroked her daughter's hair. The unborn looked ready to drop off into sleep, while her mother appeared tired yet functional. "Thank you for lending me strength, little one. You may go to rest now; I will be fine for a while." She then watched as Aurae thankfully turned back into a cloud of spirit and disappeared off to her pod.

Aurae gone, Naliira turned back to Caleldir. She had a hesitating, calculating look to her eye. "I am glad you do not resent me." The dryad said slowly. "My daughter needs her father - especially after she is born - and, to a lesser extent..." She trailed off, leaving the last of her sentence to implication. There was a deep sadness in her eyes and a longing that had lasted a thousand years. In that look, she almost returned to the heartbroken, desperately lonely plain old light elf she had affected to be.

"But I think you have many wives and many duties." She said, rallying herself to something approaching the cyborg-dryad demigoddess she was. "With the coming months, you will only have more of both. So I only ask that you visit now and then."

With a sigh, she rested his head on his shoulder. Here in her living room with no one around to watch, she supposed she was entitled to partially abandon the dignity of her queenly nature and treat the father of her unborn child with a little more familiarity. After all, the urges and desires of the mad 'light elf' were her own true feelings for the most part, and that 'elf' had been desperate for the attention a husband could give her. She simply wasn't certain how much Caleldir was comfortable with.

Noting her hesitation, Caleldir put his arm around Naliira. "Really, you do not need to be so worried about my reaction. It is very strange to start a relationship with someone so much older than I: since I have some thirty-odd years of memories, and you have more than three thousand years of them, but do not mistake awkwardness and uncertainty for resentment or repulsion"

Caleldir gave her a tender, though not unconflicted, smile. "I can promise you that I will spend as much time as I can with you. I will be obscenely busy. But, I think that I can arrange things so that I do not have to visit. Grand Oak may be our capitol, after all." He was silent for a moment. "Or, it may be time to move your tree elsewhere. Regrow it and reorient it to more fully recover from a thousand years of damage. But that is all a topic for when we have finally purified the country."

"Uproot? After so long and so bitter a battle for where I am now?" Naliira said more to herself than to her companion. But then she looked in the direction of her ruined and rebuilt and ruined and rebuilt city. Multiplied by a thousand years. "Perhaps it would be most practical to begin afresh. Later."

"No need to abandon this city. I think that... never mind. That can be saved until later." He sighed. "Yes, a number of your sisters and older daughters seemed to have survived. We should both go and check up on them soon. After we give them a few hours to rest, of course."

"We will check on the rest of my family soon." Naliira agreed. She curled in closer to Caleldir, clearly happy to be embraced. True, it was slightly odd to think about the age difference between herself and Caleldir. Her previous husband hadn't been quite so much younger than she was. Only a few hundred years. But, looking forward, she could have many millennia more with Caleldir without needing to worry about prolonging his life a thousand years past all sense as she had done with her first husband. It was a complex subject that she needed time to mull over. For the present, it felt better to be held by him than she ever expected.

He changed the topic. "Naliira, remember the Storehouse One project Fedwyn, Rubella, and the rest of us worked on? Well, she managed to avoid the curse. She goes by R.I.S.A. now. She helped with your purification."

"Ah, yes. 'Storwa,' I think Fedwyn called her when she spoke of the project. I had wondered who that unfamiliar goddess was that you brought out. She seemed... well, similar to my current, more mechanical form. But then again not. I didn't question, only felt the power and acted." She smiled. "I am glad there are more who avoided the curse. Though I imagine that she is as changed as my own form."

"In many ways," Caleldir said, "She is quite impressive. Actually, she also sort of forced me into a physical relationship with her, despite my awkwardness due to her greater age and experience and our unique history, so the two of you have a lot in common. She called up the fully-succubized Rubella at some point out of boredom (and to help herself stay sane), and now she is a bit succubized herself. She also made a fully biological divine avatar to house her main consciousness. So... yeah. The two of you should get along, I think."

"A mechanical part succubus made biological. Interesting," the dryad commented. "I sensed her soul, of course, and saw nothing in it to be alarmed about. So perhaps you are right; we may get along well. Just, ah, maybe not because we share a similar sexual history with you." She actually blushed at this. "I have to be driven to ridiculous amounts of insanity, corruption, and desperation to even approach being about to... force someone."

"That is fair." Caleldir acquiesced "Though your race and sister-races do tend towards such behaviors a lot. I have been around several nymphs, succubi, and rusalka, and been... err... well... 'pinned' by quite a few of each of those races." He sighed. "Just need some valkyries to stop by to complete the collection." Caleldir mostly seemed resigned to all this. Maybe a little excited. His manhood certainly was.

The dryad let out a disapproving sniff. "Well, I'm not surprised by the succubi and rusalka treating you as they have. But, though I am more like a nymph than either of those, I am not one. Sort of. Trees are supposed to fulfill me, not copious amounts of sex whether the participant chose it at first or not."

"Trees are supposed to fulfill you, eh?" Caleldir chuckled. "I will refrain from making a 'wood' joke."

Naliira gave Caleldir a flat look, though there was amusement hidden at the edges of her eyes. "Fulfill me spiritually. Not physically," she corrected him, though it was clear that he was making a joke.

"But with most nymphs, it is either having poor impulse control or just being alien enough to not understand refusal. You have had millennia of interacting with mortals, so you understand their emotions and desires," Caleldir explained.

"Indeed, for me personally - even factoring in the higher than average libido for a sentient creature - I am certainly old enough to be able to control my urges and recognize willing versus unwilling." She looked up at his face, eyes searching. "But you really don't seem to fault me - or us - for it. I am humbled by your forgiveness and understanding." A half-smile graced her features before she shifted upwards to brush a hesitant kiss against his lips.

As surreal as this was, Caleldir felt that Naliira could use some intimacy. Besides, she was his 'wife' now. She had claimed him as such even before Ashyr. Caleldir returned the kiss.

Naliira twisted and carefully straddled Caleldir's lap, facing him. She smiled softly, mentally shaking herself off that topic. Her apology had been made; it was only her guilty conscience that kept compelling her to explain her true guilt. "Anyway," she said with a sigh. "Next time I will listen if you say 'no.' But for now..." A soft smirk twitched at the corners of her lips. "Would you like to inspect the upgrades I've made to myself? The creator of something like Risa would be fascinated by such things, I would think."

"I would be inclined to inspect those, actually. Now that you are healed, you can regenerate them eventually, I am sure, but in the meantime, the technology must be fascinating. I would love to hear about the story behind all of it as well."

The cyborg dryad gave him a slightly mischievous look. Then she shrugged out of her diaphanous white gown and let the light fabric pool around their hips. Her torso now bared to him, Caleldir was able to see most of the connections between her natural form and her mechanical. All were runic lines a mere shade or two lighter than her natural skin, artfully placed to be as decorative as they were functional. Life or death situation or not, clearly the dryad wanted to preserve as much of her beauty as possible.

She glanced at her left arm, decorated with elegant lines at her shoulder. "That was the first I did not electively replace, but that is technology that existed before the Fall. So it shouldn't be as interesting to you. What you'll want to inspect, however, is this." She explained. Gently, she took one of Caleldir's hands and placed it on her ribcage just below a perfectly sloped breast. He'd be able to sense the inner workings as well as just brush his thumb against the smooth, soft flesh above. "My air filtration system - my lungs - were the first to be electively replaced, and one of the most complex systems. Extended exposure to corruption spores was the main source of early metal decay in the weaker-minded. Assuming they didn't fall into a pit of ooze or something first. That took years, however, so I wouldn't worry about you and yours. After observing this, most of us decided to take preemptive measures. Then, naturally, most of the rest of my organs were augmented in some way during the next couple hundred years." Her eyes lidded slightly with lust just as her voice took on a breathy quality. "Go ahead. Inspect me as you wish. I will answer any questions."