#i just love the idea that Halsin spent so much time in that library he started affectionately calling them *his* books

[ride-a-dromedary]

Also, unrelated, but I love how Halsin refers to the druidic library (or at least parts of it) as "my books", though he doesn't seem otherwise personally attached to physical objects, and the library is obviously shared communally by all the druids. It's such an affectionate little thing; he probably spent a lot of time in that study and library, adding to the collection over the century, keeping the key with him at all times.

What I'm saying is give Halsin a little library in Reithwin.

[too-destiny-panda]

Wyllvember Day 16: Halsin

A/N: I had so many ideas on how write this, but eventually I settled for a more broad spectrum than I did the other companions. I'm a little disappointed my love for Halsin didn't come through the way I wanted it to, but that's okay, I'll have other opporutnities to explore that. Prompts belong to @sagscrib, with additional tags being @commander-yinello WC: 732

The Emerald Grove, a place of great importance to druids, proof to them that good can and will prevail over corruption and evil. The First druid Halsin, or Master Halsin, is the leader of this place. He welcomes all if their intentions are noble, or at least neutral, always willing to enrich his library and already vast wisdom. He was a strong leader, a figure of authority few doubted. Or at least that was what Wyll was told upon his arrival to the grove.

Halsin had already gone off with Aradin when he stumbled through the gates, and it was palpable in the way tensions were growing, aided by the ceaseless chanting to complete a ritual to close off the local druids from the rest of the world. The Blade of Frontiers did his best to aid the refugees, his mere presence lifting the spirits of those that knew of him, and those that didn’t still appreciated his efforts. The druids kept their distance, as they have been doing as of late, their supervision in the taking a bird-like form, which did not go unnoticed by the folk hero.

As the days progressed, it became clear to him that despite Halsin’s strong character and incredible charisma, he was focused on different issues than leading the grove. He wouldn’t learn of his deep-rooted guilt until much later on, but it was clear that whatever he was researching, it took up a lot of his time, time that likely should have been spent looking after the grove and establishing a stronger sense of unity in its inhabitants. At the very least, that was what was observed with the small amount of information one could acquire.

When Wyll finally met the archdruid, he had to take a double take upon looking at his humanoid form. Despite doing his best not to have preconceptions about others, he still couldn’t help but picture him as and old elf with a white beard long enough to sweep the ground and more wrinkles than a sand dune, since no-one gave him a description of the man other than a ‘presence of a bear’ adjective he wasn’t sure how to interpret. So, when he was presented with that thick hunk of an elf, he was very glad he wasn’t the spokesperson for their little group, because for all his suaveness, sometimes it took him longer to compose himself than he liked to admit.

Once the goblin issue had been dealt with and Halsin joined their camp, although without accompanying them further than that just yet, it became clear that the heavy cloud of unanswered questions that hung over the elf’s head was their eventual destination and the surrounding land. Moonrise Towers, standing in the Shadow-cursed lands as a bitter reminder to the druid of his (self-perceived) shortcomings. Despite his and other’s efforts to tell Halsin he did all he could and that it was not his fault the place deteriorated, he still insisted on taking the blame.

It was oddly humbling, seeing such a powerful and skilled man blame himself for things out of his control that happened before he even had a prominent role in the Emerald Grove. Wyll did his best to take his mind off things after that, especially when they entered the cursed lands. Very nature was twisted and corrupted, killing and taking everything daring to reside within it. The young man understood why one of the few druids still alive to remember this would blame himself for not being able to restore nature’s balance to such a place. He made sure to ask Gale to make something with honey for dinner on that day.

Halsin was someone the young Ravengard respected immensely, for his skills and wisdom, as wells as his character and sense of balance, and of course the way he was unapologetically himself. All those traits were rare to find in one person, but he supposes having been alive for over 300 centuries accounts for development in one’s personality. And so, the two would engage in lively conversation as they travelled, and although Wyll occasionally regretted asking him about such things, he would seek the archdruid out under to cover of night to ask about well, wooing, though the other’s answers only served to fluster him beyond words and forced him to dunk himself in cold water. Over 300 centuries of knowledge indeed.