Anecdotes

Fragile Things

The Queen: Arent you afraid? That your very existence is chained to something so fragile?
Solace: You carry your life around in your breath, your blood, and your beating heart... yet you ask me if I fear for my life being held in a fragile little box. If you were to stab my vessel with a dagger I would continue on living...
He drags a ceremonial dagger across the lid, then lifts the blade and points it lazily in the queens direction.
Solace: If someone did the same to you... would you continue living? The queen smiles, then looks out the window to the courtyard below
The Queen: It depends where, I suppose.

Parasites

"Do humans get parasites?" the fowldyr asked, itching at her arms.

"Yes, we do. We can get worms that live in our guts." The human placed their hands on their stomach. "They sap our energy and make us ill."

"I suppose I know how that feels then." The fowldyr was craning her neck upwards, gazing at the crimson canopy of her vessel. "My tree has beetle larva burrowing in it. It feels like they are chewing on my very soul." The fowldyr continued to scratch the phantom itch on her arms. "What do humans do when you need to rid your body of parasites?"

"We go seek out a herbalist. That usually does the trick."

"I suppose that won't work for me, huh?"

"I'm afraid not... I think you may a different kind of professional for this."

The Village

A village that fell apart when their local dyr guardian died. A small village losing it's fowldyr would be such a devastating loss, you're not just losing an important figure in the village, but a living record of that village's history. A person who knew your great great great grandma and could tell you all about her.

The Orchard

A fowldyr whos vessel was an orchard. She cared for those trees for hundreds of years. A wildfire reduced the area to ashes, and without a vessel she became mortal. She uncovered a seed in the ashes and planted it. She spent the rest of her mortal life regrowing her vessel from that single seed. It started with one tree, then two, then three... and after decades of care her orchard had regrown. Without the gift of her immortality she had grown old. She thought about summoning the Weaver to resume her immortality... but she was so very tired. She had lived a good life. She decided to live out her mortality in her beloved orchard, and greet the end when it was finally her time.

Mother

A fowldyr with a kind but solemn expression sits in an oaken bed, gently holding the frail form of an elderly woman. The fowldyr is a young woman, stroking the wispy hair of the elderly woman and softly humming a lullaby. It was a small ritual, but it was one she had done every night when she adopted this child nearly a century ago. She knew when she took in the orphan that this would be how the story ended, and she had accepted that long ago. A mortal's life is like the blink of an eye to a fowldyr. Still, she had raised this human as her own child, and even when the mortal looked double the fowldyr's, age she never stopped calling the fowldyr "Mother."

She held her child until the very end.

The Battlefield

They say there is no greater thrill nor greater challenge that squaring off against a fowldyr warrior.

A piercing clang rings out as the two swords collide. Both blades gnashing and chewing, small chips and dents forming on their edges as each warrior fights to gain the upper hand. The mortal blade catches a knick in the fowldyr's sword and as it twists both weapons shatter. The fowldyr warrior's eyes widen, feeling their tether snap and their immortality rush out of body like receding tide. Seizing that momentary lapse, the opposing warrior drives their broken hilt into the fowldyr's heart.

Even an immortal can die on the battlefield.