Liya froze. On the other side of the pillar before her something moved; she'd thought it was an odd arrangement of bushes and roots, growing over a large marble boulder. The roots, she now saw, were withdrawing quietly, and what she'd taken for a bush was lifting off the boulder by its own volition.

"Pardon me for not meeting you at the door," a voice said, calm and gentle and echoed by the immeasurably ancient creaks of branches bending, "I'm old, you see--"

The creature unfolded itself from what turned out to be a stone chair--it was human-like, very tall and made of greying, weathered wood. Its joints groaned as it rose on feet like roughly hewn cloven hooves. It was draped, absurdly enough, in a length of rich red fabric patterned with yellow blots like flowers, tied into a very, very tiny waist with a gold sash. And it had a face--a mask, maybe, green-white, peering out from a mass of willow branches that served as hair. The face was oddly smooth but for a straight, long nose that didn't seem to be anything but decoration, a smiling mouth, and black eyes with gold irises, that fixed on her.

"Sometimes it is difficult to start up again," it said placidly. Liya's mouth fell open.

The creature stood well over her head, Hawk's height at least, if not taller--she could not find her voice, and the creature blinked pleasantly down at her, as though puzzled.

The head tilted on a long, delicate, jointed neck, and the branches rustled around the pale face. "Oh dear," the creature said, "Are you new? It's quite all right--" and it offered an arm that had just a moment ago been a mass of roots growing from a chunk of wood, but had now shaped itself into the rough equivalent of a human hand-- "My name is Helygen."