Whisper of a Druid

An Encounter with a Legend

The people in the east have a saying. 'Don't let the kumakatok knock on your door'. They say it brings bad luck. It's a pretty basic legend. Three hooded figures who seem to be human, but aren't, knock on your door in the middle of the night. You answer the door and bad things start to happen. I've heard this legend more than once in my travels and there are plenty of others like it. Yet somehow here I am standing in my doorway looking at three hooded figures, who just knocked on my door, in the middle of the night.

"Can I help you?" I say to the one standing at the front.

"Yes," he says in a gravely tone, "is this the residence of a woman named eir?"

"I am her, yes," I responded, "how can I help you?"

He looks to the others and then back at me "Might we come in, we have something of urgency to discuss with you." his tone is exhausted, making it easy to tell they rode an awful long way to find me. And that their reason for doing so may be of interest.

"Of course. You are welcome to make yourself comfortable" stepping aside to allow the three in, they enter and take off their cloaks. Closing the door I turn to them. In the light of my fire I can now make out their uniforms.

"Royal knights!?" I say aloud, unsure of what I'm seeing. This certainly wasn't what the legend was implying. They all turn to me.

"Yes, we are here on behalf of the royal family." Another one of the knights says. This one is younger than the first, with blond hair and green eyes. Whereas the one from earlier was clearly older, grey hair and eyes giving away his age, and his experience.

"What could royal knights possibly want with me? Or the royal family for that matter? I don't believe I have anything of interest?"

"But you do," the third knight speaks, "your skill is what is of interest." this one seems to be the middle of the other two. Blue hair and green eyes of his own, harder in age to tell than the other two but clearly powerful nonetheless.

"First let us introduce ourselves." The first knight speaks. He steps back and takes a slight bow. "I am Cory Stallion, head captain of the royal knights" the other two follow suit.

"I am Collum Gannon, royal knight charged with protecting the twin prince and princess of Kohala." the second knight says.

"And i am Castiel Harse, royal knight.'' The final knight finishes the introductions.

"Well okay then," I say feeling a bit out of place despite being in my own home, but also better about the situation now that I had names to put to the strangers. "My name is eir, as you know, and based on your earlier statement of needing my skill I would assume you're in need of a healer."

"That is correct madam," Cory starts.

"Just Eir" I interrupt.

"Very well...Eir," he continues, "you have probably noticed that the queen has been making less appearances lately, yes?"

"Yes."

He turns to look at the others before sighing and looking at me once more.

"This is because she has fallen ill. We are here to bring you to the capitol in hopes of finding a cure."

I stare at them in disbelief for a moment before frowning. "Why me? There are plenty of other healers and even priests her majesty would have access to. Why would you ride for a week to find me?"

"Because everyone else has failed," Castiel says, stepping forward. "We have had what seems to be every healer, priest and doctor look over her highness and none of them had an answer."

"Then we heard of you and your reputation as a powerful adventurer and amazing healer," Collum adds in, "so we figured we might as well give it a shot."

"So here we are now, asking for your help, miss Eir." Cory says before all three of them take a deep bow and stay there.

I stop to think for a moment, mostly in shock at the situation. I knew from the moment they started explaining the situation that I would help. Doesn't make it any easier to take that risk though. After a minute I sigh. "I will help you." I say with all the confidence my already tired mind can muster.

They all stand up and look at each other, seemingly happy with my response.

"Perfect." Cory says, looking rather relieved, "when shall we depart?"

"Immediately." I say without hesitation. Startled looks passing over the knight's faces.

"Are you sure?" Collum says. "We did catch you in the middle of the knight, might as well get a good rest in before departing in the morning."

"Perhaps. But if things are mysterious enough to where no one else has figured it out and urgent enough to where you came and found me. It would be better to leave immediately."

I grab a few things from my shelves and put them in my ready to go bag, being an adventurer has its perks, and put out the fire while heading for the door.

Looking back I see all three knights standing there looking dumbfounded. "Well?" I say startling them out of their daze. "Let's get a move on." and with that we rush out the door and begin our track to the capitol.

Notes for story:

Kingdom name is kohala, pronounced as (koh-ay-la)

Eir is pronounced as (i-er)

Kumakatok is an actual filipino legend that i use for this, though i only used the basics of the legend

Castiel is pronounced just like the supernatural character (not based off him just liked the name) and his last name is pronounced like the word harsh

Collums name and what not was just for fun and idk if it will be important enough or not at some point so pronounce it however you want.