Aur dryad

"*Custodians of the Aur, keepers of the health of all forests, in all corners of the world.*"
―Mosk Manytrees[[The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire, Chapter 11: Imbalance]]
**Aur dryads** are exclusively Unseelie dryads who only live in the Aur forest, and feed on sap. The most well-known Aur dryad in *The* *Fae Tales* *Verse* is Mosk.

## Physical Description

Aur dryads have bark on their arms and legs. They have grey-green eyes when they are juveniles, and when they come of age - around 200 years - and find their Aur tree, their eyes become distinctly golden. At that point, they begin growing leaves, flowers, seeds or fruits from their Aur tree, just behind their ears, so it sprouts out with their hair. Juveniles do not have this quality and grow no leaves or other plant matter from their heads. All Aur dryads have green hair, which can be multi-tonal or a single shade. They have chlorophyll in their hair, so presumably photosynthesis occurs and they can gain some energy this way.

Aur dryads feed exclusively on sap, and have extremely sharp canine teeth, or 'feeding teeth' that allow them to bite directly into branches. They can eat other foods, but do not gain much nourishment from them.

## Abilities

All Aur dryads possess an ability to communicate with all trees, even without touching them, and they have a unique ability to process the voices of thousands of trees in a forest at the same time. This allows them to automatically know where water is, as well as pathways, other fae, other homes, animals and sources of danger.

Aur dryads can tell the health of a tree directly from its sap, including its age, whether it's sick, whether it's large or small, and the species.

Aur dryads have an ability to grow plants, as well as grow them faster than is normal. They also have an ability to heal plants.

All Aur dryads are genius loci, and tied to their landscapes. 'In the absence of their landscape, they can sacrifice themselves to bring the landscape back.' Aur dryads can turn into their Aur tree when they change into true-form, however, they cannot change back into a human or hybrid-form after this, since the transformation makes them lose all knowledge of themselves. As a result, turning into a tree is considered an end-of-life form of death, with a few trees in the Aur forest being Aur dryads that have 'died' and live out the rest of their life as a tree. The exception is Mosk, who is the most powerful known Aur dryad, had help in becoming a landscape, and came back from turning into a forest.

Mosk noted that he 'never minded extreme cold. Maybe it’s something to do with being an Aur dryad.' He'd let it fall on him.

## Characteristics (culture, habits)

Aur dryads are found in the Aur forest, which they are guardians and protectors of, and they do not live anywhere else in the fae realm. When the Aur forest was burned down by Olphix, Mosk became the only surviving Aur dryad.

Aur dryads are family oriented and communal. They all tend to live in the same family house and independence isn't really encouraged. In many cases, all siblings live together and sleep very close to each other, sometimes in the same beds. Their houses are exclusively grown from wood, and they do not use much metal and have no facility for making fire, since they don't like it and are often afraid of it. Aur dryad families are called groves, children are called saplings, and parents are called mamatree or papatree respectively. Mosk referred to his siblings as brothertrees and sistertrees. Mosk's family was not the only family of Aur dryads, but his family stayed apart from other Aur dryad families. Mosk noted that there were still not many other Aur dryads, and maybe 'only a few hundred in that huge forest.' The other Aur dryads avoided them, as well, possibly because Mosk's branch of the Manytrees family was a kind of royalty or main stewards, who were responsible for healing the Aur forest when it got sick.

Aur dryads are biological pacifists, meaning they have a physiological aversion to causing anyone or anything harm. This can be quite extreme, as Mosk was unable to hunt living animals of any kind when he was learning to use the bow and arrow, and was advised to hunt leaves instead. Despite being Unseelie, they are diplomatic, reserved, gentle and even passive fae.

Aur dryads are respected in the Unseelie Court, and the Manytrees family in particular is a Court family, with Amaley Manytrees visiting the Raven Prince's Court frequently and often taking one or two of her children with her.

Aur dryads are known to be homebodies. Outside of visiting the Unseelie Court, they are not known to stray beyond the Aur forest and do not desire to live anywhere other than the Aur forest. They are deeply attached to their home, both their place of birth, and the forest they're born in. They call living deeply in the Aur forest 'the heartwood daze'.

They consume sap about 'once every two days.' When other fae visited the Aur forest, Amaley and Imshiel Manytrees would meet with them, 'and served them cool sap in cups carved from dead wood',

## Trivia

* Mosk is a particularly atypical Aur dryad by design, as a result of torture from Olphix and Davix; consequently he can no longer hear or communicate with any trees at all, and as a result lost his sense of direction and his ability to wayfind. Due to the destruction of his feeding teeth, he needs to buy sap, or tap trees to access the food he needs to survive. He is also no longer a pacifist.

## Folklore/Mythology

'A dryad (Greek: Δρυάδες, *sing*.: Δρυάς) is a tree nymph or tree spirit in Greek mythology. *Drys* signifies "oak" in Greek, and dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, but the term has come to be used for tree nymphs in general, or human-tree hybrids in fantasy. They were normally considered to be very shy creatures except around the goddess Artemis, who was known to be a friend to most nymphs.'

## Image Gallery

Fanart of Mosk Manytrees by suis0u https://suis0u.tumblr.com/post/628310263079305216/the-moss-boy-is-finish-character-byFanart of Amaley Manytrees by mani-catsinamerica/sosaidtheartblock https://sosaidtheartblock.tumblr.com/post/175686269332/been-drawing-again-i-have-to-credit-the-design
## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 9 December 2017. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/29615421. Chapter 10: The World Forest.
2. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas.” *Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 27 December 2019. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959874/chapters/52448491. Chapter 22: Service.
3. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 27 October 2017. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/28495692. Chapter 6: The Court of Five Thrones.
4. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 7 January 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/30419052. Chapter 12: Empty Whispers.
5. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 15 August 2019. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959874/chapters/48027538. Chapter 12: A Liar and the Truth.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 5 August 2022. https://archiveofourown.org/works/26266345/chapters/102269367. Chapter 40: A New Season.
7. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 16 February 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/31475208. Chapter 15: Isn't This Better?
8. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 12 May 2022. https://archiveofourown.org/works/26266345/chapters/97400118. Chapter 32: Our Better Natures.
9. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 27 April 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/33382401. Chapter 20: Night Terrors.
10. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 19 January 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/30758403. Chapter 13: Captured.
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 28 October 2021. https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/86595049. Chapter 18: The Silent Dances.
12. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 6 February 2020. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959874/chapters/53990812. Chapter 25: Reversals.
13. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 29 August 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/4865985. Chapter 7: Debut.
14. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 5 June 2015. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/9186013. Chapter 46: Masque.
15. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 5 July 2019. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959874/chapters/46372144. Chapter 9: Lies of Omission.
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 30 March 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/32604021. Chapter 18: Sparks of Revelation.
17. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 12 March 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/31845930. Chapter 16: Leave Be.
18. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 17 February 2022. https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/92776732. Chapter 26: It's Love.
19. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 11 November 2017. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/28924812. Chapter 7: A Tender Mercy.
20. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas.” *Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 2 April 2020. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959874/chapters/56194975. Chapter 29: Fury Unleashed.
21. ↑ "Dryad". Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryad. Accessed 7 May 2021.