The Last Druid’s Reckoning

Of Poetic Poultry

It was still early enough for the mist to sit heavy over the Grove like an old cat refusing to move until the sun gave it a reason. Seraphina and her fellow culinary convicts trudged toward the kitchen once more, faces etched with the silent regret of people who knew breakfast would involve hard labour and soft porridge.

The wizard boy was already there, Sermin, Cook’s unfortunate nephew and an unwilling sous-chef with a strong sense of duty and an even stronger resistance to complaints. With his ash-grey robes rolled to the elbows and a stirring ladle he wielded like a magical staff, he looked like someone who had once read a cookbook and never quite recovered.

To Seraphina’s eternal relief, Sermin leaned closer and whispered, “Why don’t you fetch the eggs from the chicken coop? Less... explosive risk.”

She whispered a grateful “thank you” like he’d just saved her life (and possibly everyone else’s breakfast), then dashed out the back door like a girl who had seen the future and didn’t want to be in it.

And that’s when she saw Elder Rozlin, descending from the coop path with the same dignified serenity as a queen walking her herb garden, holding a woven basket filled with terracotta jars that glinted golden in the light.

Seraphina’s eyes widened. “Honey?”

“Indeed,” Elder Rozlin beamed. “Got it fresh from Queenie this morning.”

Queenie was, for all intents and purposes, a very large, very territorial beehive matron with wings that buzzed like music and a disposition that fluctuated between divine calm and apocalyptic rage.

“I reckon folk would be glad of honey with their bread today. A good harvest this year. Queenie was so pleased with the wildflowers coming back. I sang to the earth all winter to coax her favourites through the frost.”

Elder Rozlin was a bardess an esteemed member of that Order. Her song magic was legendary, bards said her melodies could convince moss to bloom in midair and bees to waltz politely. She was also the only person who had ever managed to talk a stag into surrendering to dinner plans.

“Were you with the hunt yesterday?” Seraphina asked.

“Oh yes! The scouts never would’ve caught that poor Hart without me. Got into a fight, you see, leg all twisted. Very sad.”

Seraphina nodded solemnly. Then paused. “Did you... talk it into being caught?”

Rozlin tilted her head and looked fondly into the sky. “I told him a broken leg is never quite the same, even after healing. And that being eaten is a noble end. He asked for a farewell ballad, one the legendary silver antlered stag of the northern mountains would be proud of. I gave him a lullaby in A minor and an apple.”

Seraphina blinked. “That’s... surprisingly moving.”

“He was brave, bless his Hart. Well, I cried. He mostly sniffled and fell asleep.”

Seraphina, trying not to think about it too hard, glanced at Rozlin’s belt, and saw it. The poo stone. Layla’s blessed creation, now dangling proudly among charms and dried herbs.

She very deliberately did not comment.

Instead, she pointed toward the coop. “Would you help me with the hens? They keep pecking my fingers.”

“Oh, my dear,” Rozlin chuckled. “It’s all in the negotiation.”

They approached the chicken coop like diplomats prepared to negotiate with a small and heavily armed nation, with a history of grudges and surprisingly sharp beaks.

A dozen hens turned their heads toward them in perfect, unnerving unison. Seraphina flinched.

“Are… are they always like this?” she whispered.

Rozlin gave a solemn nod. “Ever since Doris read that self-help scroll, they’ve become very assertive.”

Seraphina squinted at the largest hen. “That one’s glaring at me.”

“She’s always glaring. It’s her way of showing affection. Or planning a coup. Could go either way.”

Rozlin stepped forward with the exaggerated calm of someone addressing a room full of unstable magical artifacts. “Ladies,” she said, raising her arms like a leader in the center of a market sale day, “we come not to steal, but to honour your noble sacrifice!”

One hen clucked in a manner that said uh-huh, pull the other wing, while another fluttered as if preparing to launch a preemptive peck strike.

“These eggs,” Rozlin continued grandly, “will nourish the future, young witches who think potatoes boil themselves, Wizards who still burn water, and druids who still talk to squirrels and call it networking.”

“Why are you embarrassing us?” Seraphina asked under her breath.

“No embarrassment dear, only truths. Last summer I found Ivy whispering her acceptance speech for the Order of Healers entry day to a rabbit. Oh he was very attentive, gave her good feedback too” Rozlin muttered.

Doris, the Big Beak of the coop, huffed. The air shifted. Tension mounted. Somewhere, a mouse squeaked and changed its mind about existing.

“We know you’ve been lacking… certain masculine influences,” Rozlin said delicately. “Mr. Rooster hasn’t visited in some weeks, likely off on another journey of personal growth.”

Seraphina rolled her eyes. “He’s probably in the next village auditioning as a sunrise vocalist.”

A few hens honked in mournful solidarity. One lifted a wing over her heart.

“But you,” Rozlin said with feeling, “you are the unsung heroines of breakfast. The yolky glue that binds society.”

There was a cluck. Then another. Then, like feathery dominos falling to consensus, the flock parted regally.

Seraphina blinked. “I think you just emotionally manipulated the chickens.”

Rozlin grinned. “Leadership, my dear. It’s just guilt with better vocabulary.”

They collected every egg, every blessed, uncontested egg, and as they retreated in triumph, Doris gave one last guttural squawk.

“I think she said, ‘Bring snacks next time,’” Seraphina whispered. Rozlin wiped an imaginary tear. “They’re terrifying. And I love them.”

“I didn’t know that was possible,” she whispered.

Rozlin leaned down conspiratorially. “Confidence, child. And flattery. Chickens, like nobles and squirrels, crave both.”

Seraphina grinned and offered, “Would you like me to take the honey to the kitchen for you?”

Rozlin handed her the basket and smiled. “You’re a jewel.”

Seraphina ran back toward the kitchen, arms full of treasure: eggs unbroken, jars gleaming, and her soul unbruised by chicken fury. A miracle, really.

Somewhere behind her, one chicken clucked, “She’s alright, that one.”

Rozlin nodded. “She’s going to change the world.”

The hen pecked a worm. “She better. We’re all out of patience.”