Hear the words of augury.

" Something must occur... The blood names
the tithe of consequences spiraling
outward. There will be a cost to knowing...
Death is what we follow, to get closer. "

To the Grand Clutch of the Aerie, the children of the sky, I understand the confusion, the fear. When the Red Sand Empire made their march upon you, our Witch of the Wilds took knife into the gut of a burrowing owl and read through its entrails, casting bones to ask the world and the spirits of things we sought. Haruspicy is a delicate thing. It requires deep introspection, turning omen and reading around and around and around. When these words were said, and I sat with the measure of things, of the lessons of Life Herself, the will of our magic, the desire for Her growth, and truly, the possibility of striking back against Vorostran saboteurs, I understood what the spirits bid.

It is fate, children of the Aerie, that your mountainhome will fall. Manu of Lifeless Earth ride upon you to conquer you, kill you, enslave you, turn you into husks. SWEEP refuses you, demands you fend for yourself, and so too, does the Hammer. You will die, one way or another. This is the fate of things. The grisly red omens have named it so.

When my people commune with our Green Mother--your Green Mother too--She whispers a greater truth, however. She wants you back. She is afraid for you. What is not a mother's love except for mercy? She knows this world will not be kind to you, and so She urges us to walk and draw your siblings, your parents, your children, your elders before the altar of Her love, so She might save you.

The holy word of the Cathres, what your Satrap sneers and calls a peddled thing, reminds us that "[t]o Sing is to lay bare your very being to the world... When we sing, we are one with Her will." Your very being, your soul. That soul is a song, and as the Cathres continues, "[e]ach song is a seed." Because in the end, She offers you the way to salvation. She offers you a chance to Sing. We plant you once more within Her embrace, and so provide you the chance to truly experience the wonder, the serenity of eternity. Life, so everlasting, within the turning of the Cycle.

Yet let it be known, there are other ways for you to Sing. And that is the lesson we singers of the green world wish to remind you.

When Aren made his first declarations against your home, your Satrap bid his time. When again the Empire darkened your homes, he flew away and bid other powers to help. He did not stay with you, he did not fight with you. Now you have no allies. Not SWEEP, not the heroic Hammer. You have no one.

Except you have Her.

You need no foreign, unknown God, for you have a Goddess, a Mother, residing within your heart. She will be with you. She will shake the world with you. But you must remember that She hungers.

Defy your Satrap. Bring knife to his throat. Slake the wild Green Mother with his anointed blood, and She will protect you. Herald not some 'Great Dau' but the Skybreaker, the Stormbringer, the Red-Jawed Wyvern, Takaros, Her face of Fury and Rage and hot, hungry life. Raise your voices to Her and let the Manu fall by your hand. And ours, as kin.

The Aerie will fall. It is fated.

It will fall because something new will be born. You have the choice to decide that. But know that if you so choose to resist Her, you so choose to reject that other way to Sing, you will still Sing to Her regardless. We will provide you mercy, because She will always love you and we are so harbingers of Her love.

" This is how all endings being.
This is how all beginnings end.

But there is Hope."

Penned by my hand on Quensday, the 15th of Lleian, in the year 16 AC.