Willow Meadowstride
(a.k.a. Will)
Overview
Willow Meadowstride is a dryad Feykin and former member of the community of Hollow. He was a leader in the community and member of the Fey Court of Novus.
In 314 PF, Willow gave up his place on the Fey Court, increasingly disillusioned with the status quo. He wished to reinvest the community's efforts in reactivating the Fey Gate, which many dismissed as either dangerous, foolhardy, or worse. Willow searched for a way to reactivate it.
He used his latent dryad abilities to stride through trees to leave the city and find something to use to reactivate the gate. He requested his friend and colleague Rayla Moonshadow to cover for him while doing so.
He returned with a seed he called the Oakheart, a seed from a fey oak whose roots reached across realms to the fey plane. This seed is the progenitor of all fey oaks.
Willow devised a ritual to use the Oakheart to temporarily reactivate the Fey Gate, destroying the seed in the process. Willow was deeply distressed by this decision, seeing it a betrayal of his values as a dryad to be deeply connected to nature.
Rayla agreed to stand watch while Willow conducted his ritual under the cover of night in the shadow of the gate. While Rayla did not witness the ritual, she heard a blast of energy and a flash of light. Quickly, she darted to the gate, only to find the gate simmering down with energy and Willow gone. It was unclear if the ritual worked and Willow was now on the fey realm, or if it had gone horribly wrong, taking her friend's life. While she hope that it worked, she never recieved a sending message from Willow as he agreed he would do when he returned. Rayla told no one of this moment, and the community of Hollow has largely presumed Willow to be missing.
Despite the secrecy of Willow's efforts, it would seem that rumors of his efforts in the wake of his disappearance have reached throughout Hollow, prompting Yira Inkstep to approach Rayla with and intriguing offer.
