[PostsforIncogs]

PUBLIC LETTER TO THE AUTHORITIES OF ARCADIA
By Wyrmia of Sheng Monastery, 376 years of witness

It is with a most peculiar mixture of spiritual dismay and earthly indignation that I find myself compelled to put ink to parchment.

Pray, consider the almost blasphemous irony of the scene: upon entering Arcadia, that self-proclaimed sanctuary of verdant harmony, that city of plants, of peace, of supposedly sacred canopies I was greeted not by the whisper of leaves nor the luminous grace of the solais, but by a most vulgar attempt at murder unfolding before the very stone gates.

Up to that point, I confess, I remained unshaken. In three centuries and more, one grows accustomed to the theatrics of moral decay. What followed, however, wounds the spirit in a far more unforgivable manner.

A centenary tree.

Removed.

Replaced… with a lamppost.

A lamppost.

SHAME ON YOU!

Tell me, Arcadia, what form of illumination do you imagine yourselves to be invoking? That which flickers through wires and hollow metal, or that which has, in silence and patience, carried light through centuries of sap, bark, and memory?

You have exchanged life for utility.

Time for convenience.

The sacred for… infrastructure.

The enclosed photographs, obtained with the assistance and scrutiny of the Mages’ Association, leave no room for misinterpretation. What stands before us is not pruning, nor stewardship, nor care. It is mutilation, elegantly disguised as progress.

Thus, before mortals, spirits, and all that yet breathes beneath the surface of this world, I hereby declare my intention to pursue formal legal action against the kingdom for its neglect and its blatant disregard for living heritage.
Let it be known: trees are not ornaments to be replaced at whim. They are witnesses. Archives. Bridges between the seen and the unseen.

And unlike your lampposts, they do not require ignition to illuminate.

With severity, clarity, and what little patience remains to me,

Wyrmia of Sheng

Keeper of the Silent Rites,

Witness of Time,

And ,regrettably,still alive to endure such absurdities.

[lostrozen]

What? What do you mean you removed this tree? What did I even hire you for?!

Scandals are soon abound within Arcadia as her Duchess chastises the formerly hired landscape experts for their great transgressions against a true relic of the land. Though their sins can not be undone, one may find that soon enough, a new tree grows in place of where so recently a lamppost stood like a thorn. Never the same, perhaps, but new beginnings are abound.

No further commentary is made on the public accusations, thereafter, as the fleeting woe soon passes from the scope of the many troubles that are regularly brought to the Duchess for adjudication.