She walks barefoot over the lawn. To my eyes it seems that the grass itself leans towards her, yearning for the blessing touch of her feet. I cannot keep my gaze away from this dreamlike figure, breathing in the real world before me. Nor can I look over-long into the radiance of her face. I hover in a twilight of wanting and running. What she is, and what that means in the world, is too great for me today.
I repeat to myself 'Elf. elf. elf', as though I needed any reminding of what she is. She surpasses any story I have heard, passed generation to generation. The reality of her eclipses the imagined, as real love in all its anguish and hope makes a mock of any ideal.
Her presence reveals to me all my faults. I breathe in the sour-sweetness of my own body's scent, feel the tiny snags of my fingernails as I run my thumbs over them. The golden pins in my hair become tawdry in its thick unwashed darkness, whilst her hair glitters of its own sake, full of her life, with no need for jewels.
When she speaks, the world is written in colours that I have no words for. Strikes me dumb with its music. Her kindness is a danger, I feel my throat constrict against emotion that I have kept so carefully away. Were I a man, I would be unmanned by such loveliness.
When has anyone I know ever seen such a creature for themselves? No one I know.
And Randir is friend to her, as Amlarad is kinsman to the wild.
She offers me a loose-wrapped bundle, that shakes itself out into a dove-grey dress. She said the valley was perilous.
