The Woodland Realm, S.A. 750
She does not make a sound with her passing, the leaves beneath her feet do not betray her steps as she slips through the beams of moonlight scattered by the canopy overhead. Her nerves sing with tension, the lines of her body taught with the coiled power of a doe ready to spring to flight.
Something has changed in this forest. There is a brightness she has not felt in many a year, the trees sway with the whispered joys of care and love. It is not her doing. This particular forest is outside of the normal range of her people, but she loves it dearly. For many cycles of the moon she has wandered into it’s green embrace when the restlessness of her spirit overtakes her. Many paths she has tread in the shade of those green leaves, until all the trees know her and do not bar her passing.
Yet now, there is something new here. It intrigues her, stirs her blood to boil with excitement and wary anticipation. The presence, that which the forest speaks of, does not feel foul or oil-slick on the edges of her spirit. No, if anything, there is… familiarity. The wisp of memory, of laughter beneath starlight and the bright eyes of her kindred with faces lit by joy. Yes. She knows this feeling, this presence.
She ran, then, leaping light as if wings were on her feet, and still the forest did not betray her. She heard it then, soft laughter in the distance and the sounds of merriment; music of harp and flute, clinking of glasses and the drumbeat of feet dancing upon the earth. She yearned for it, like a vine stretching out over nothing to chase a beam of sunlight.
Yet, too, she remained wary of these unknown kindred. Long ago in anger she forswore the company of those who lifted blades to their own kin, and she was loath to leave this massive forest to blood-handed usurpers, even if her anger had long since cooled.
Her eyes glimpsed fair hair, fire-less eyes, and kindred adorned in colors of green and brown and silver. These were not the Ñoldor. Still, she clung to the shadows of the leaves, watching without interrupting. At the base of bald-hill they had raised tents and shelters, and the festivities were held out in the open beneath the stars and moon. There was the smell of roasted meat in the air, wine was dark in their wooden cups, and above them all laughed one with more joy than all the others.
He was the one who drew her eye the most; his fair hair was loose and free, his laughter gay and without reservation. In him she saw reflected another; strands of gold teasing in honey-brown hair thrown back in laughter, the flowers on his brow bringing out the brightness of his blue eyes. A blink, and the vision was gone, and the strange male was pale silver-gold, though no less merry.
‘Hail King Oropher, hail the elves of the Woodland Realm!’
The cry rang out from a single voice in the throng, until all the merry-makers picked it up and the forest echoed with their joy. The crowned elf, Oropher, laughed and raised his arms to the stars, and songs of praises to the starlight and forest fell from his lips.
She watched their joy with her own stirring in her breast, warmth creeping through her veins until her entire being was suffused with it. She sat back on her heels, her lips lifted in a smile. She knew now she had nothing to fear, not for this forest and not for the people who already showed such love for the boughs. Love that, in fact, the wood itself seemed to return, as a rare wind stirred the leaves to flurries that danced above the laughing Kindred.
Content, now, she slipped away as silently as she had arrived, her steps lighter now not with wariness, but with joy and bittersweet contentment. She knew, now, that she did not need to worry.
This fair place would be in good care.
