"May I have the honor of buying you two Harpers a drink?"
Aaron took the initiative and raised his mug.
"Viscount Salian?!"
Whenever the couple traveled, Jaheira always did the talking. Khalid, a powerfully built warrior, was invariably the silent one. Quite contrary to the Celestial Empire's notion of men handling affairs outside the home and women managing those within, Jaheira was clearly the more forceful of the two. She took charge both at home and abroad. "What brings you here, my lord?"
As a Harper and a druid of the Emerald Enclave, the true-neutral Jaheira saw no reason to bow to the aristocracy. Still, she offered Aaron a proper formal greeting-not because of his title or fame, but because of his formidable strength and respect for nature.
In recent years, many druids had visited the Hurek Sacred Grove Reserve in the Sunset Lands to study its example of harmony between people and nature. By developing tourism, establishing protected areas, and limiting cultivated land, the Hurek Sacred Grove District was considered to have successfully achieved an integrated balance with nature.
Jaheira had also gone to learn from its advanced practices. Her conclusion was that they could not be replicated.
The reason the Hurek Sacred Grove District could maintain that balance had nothing to do with mutual understanding between people, or humanity's willingness to demand less from nature. It was entirely because the Sunset Lands produced far more food than it could consume. Even after exports, its vast surplus could still subsidize the Sacred Grove District.
Aaron himself was also someone who always had something new up his sleeve. From Silver Lotion to the Nine Volumes of Salian, and later the resort's hot springs, he could offer new things to compensate nature in other ways. Naturally, there was little conflict between