...The herbalist's apprentice followed her master deep into the Moonwood, carrying baskets and gathering vessels. The commission that had arrived was unusual, three tones, three plant sources, one coherent result. Her master had specified it would take the full season and required visits to four different locations where the necessary plants thrived. In a meadow near Silverymoon, they harvested lemon-bright citrus fruits from a grove maintained by druids. In the deep wood, they scraped lichen from stones that predated the last war. In a limestone cave system, they found the fungi that would provide the third tone.

When the dye was finally finished and the commission delivered, it arrived at a small cottage where a ranger lived between the forest and civilization. She held it up to the window, and the cloth seemed to contain light itself, to hold some essence of the wild places she'd defended for decades. It was a gift from the Druids' Circle, recognition of service rendered beyond what coin could measure. As she wore it through the world, it marked her visibly. The bright, alive colors announcing that she belonged partially to the wood, that something of nature's vitality moved within her. A year later, a young druid approached her at a gathering, asking where the garment had been commissioned, and the ranger sent her to the master dyer in the Moonwood. The apprentice, now a journeyman in her own right, received the commission and smiled at the irony. The cycle continued, and the colors would travel from one defender of the wild to the next, carrying with them the story of three plants and the commitment it took to bring them together in harmony...