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"…we can know virtually nothing of certainty about the ancient Druids, so that - although they certainly existed - they function more or less as legendary figures." -Ronald Hutton

Until rather recently, Oliver Greenwood was a terribly ordinary fellow living in New York and doing what every young professional did in a frighteningly normal way. He was a young aide to a politician, a steady moderate democrat with little worry outside of the fact that bills needed to be paid on time and that his commute to work was getting longer because of construction he now had to walk around instead of through. He’d always been good with plants, had a little garden on his balcony that always seemed to be thriving no matter how much his neighbor’s efforts wilted, and he’d always been good with animals, always had a cat or two around, left out some bird seed for the pigeons, and was known to take in a stray dog when the need arose. None of that, he figured, was all that extraordinary.

Of course, all of this was before the creepy old man had stopped him in central park. It had been a relatively normal night for Oliver, nothing out of the ordinary – he’d come home from the office late as per usual, and cut through the park on an evening jog because every now and again he got tired of only seeing high-rises – when he’d been stopped by a man who looked both homeless and like he’d gotten lost somewhere from the 16th century. He was covered in furs and carried a staff (Oliver figured that was probably smart for protection, considering he was in New York), and spoke to Oliver in all sorts of thees and thous that didn’t make much sense in context, much less in the reality of the 21st century.

He’d said something about Oliver being from a long line of ancient Druids, a religion that tied the practitioners of ‘wilde magicks’ to the earth and nature. That he, Oliver Greenwood, was going to be the next Druid in this line, that he had been called to greater purpose and something else about restoring balance between man and his roots. It had pretty much been at that point that he’d told the man to wander back to his D&D practice sessions and headed on his way.

Except now he’s got all sorts of weird things happening. His plants are going crazy. He could swear he heard his cat talking the other night – because he was alone and he knows for a fact he wasn’t the one bemoaning the lack of tuna in his cabinets (he hates the stuff) – and he’s pretty sure there’s a couple stray dogs that have started following him to and from work. So he’s doing research and everything he’d finding about Druids makes all this seem crazier and crazier, because it’s absolutely, totally, completely impossible that he’s some reincarnated or continuation of some line of European or English or Irish or whatever priests of nature that walk around with deer and pray at Stonehenge and have magic powers because magic is totally not even real. Right? Right.

So he’s going to completely ignore the fact that he touched his neighbor’s wilting tree yesterday and the damn thing turned green as soon as he did it.

…He’s just been working way too hard and is starting to lose his mind. That’s it.