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After Alli left with Sai, Fléin receded back to the woods to think. Panakeia's ideas had gained strength in the village. Almost nobody believed in the wolves anymore, and as a result, nobody was voting. What would happen was anybody's guess. Indeed, many of the villagers had tried to guess, and each suggestion was - to Fléin's mind, anyway - as downright ridiculous as Panakeia's.
A sudden movement made him jump off of his stump and grasp his axe. He stared, eyes wide with wonder, as a dryad, frail and wispy, approached him. "Pray, put down your axe, good Dwarf," she said, and her voice was as the song of the Vanyar before the feet of Manwe upon the Hallowed Mountain, not that Fléin would ever know what that was like. He lowered his weapon.
"Are you an ent?"
"Nay, good sir. I am a dryad, a spirit of the trees. I am come to tell you that A Slan is on the move."
Fléin bowed his head. "My lady, I had heard this news before, though I know not what it forbodes."
The dryad's bell-like voice rung over his form, warming him. "Do you not then know who is A Slan?"
"Nay," he replied, bowing his head. In her presence, he felt uncouth and ignorant.
"My, you are uncouth and ignorant" the spirit replied.
"Tell me what A Slan is! Tell me what it means!"
"I must go!" was her response. There was a burst of wind, and the spirit seemed to dissipate.
Fléin rushed towards where her form had stood, only to see Anakron stalking towards him.
"There you are!" he said. "Most antisocial of you, staying here. Come back to the village with me."
Fléin had no choice but to be escorted away. He cast a last longing look around the place, searching for the dryad, but finding only two halves of a beaver.
Grudgingly, he returned to the village, but his thought was with the beautiful spirit - and with A Slan.
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