>>5779265There was precious little unspoiled nature—true WILDERNESS –to be found in Hawksong, or even outside its high, white borderwalls. Everything that wasn’t paved with cobblestones or flattened and packed for dirt trade-roads was manicured and made palatable to human tastes (well, and to those of the races of Halfling and Dwarf, also). In the Silver Realms (more properly SYLVAN Realms) of your mother’s people, the paths were less obvious, bounded with bushes and trees from centuries hence. These, the elves would bend to fair compromise, rather than break apart or uproot, creating latices of woven, living roots that served just as well as any quarried-stone street, while dense boughs of trees were like a sun-speckled roof for all the realm. There was little need for agriculture, for the learned elders of the Ath Tel Syol knew the language and lore of plants and could intuit where crops seeds or nuts grew, and encourage them by subtle art to be yet more abundant and rich. When the seasons denied such simple pleasures of the earth, the season of the hunt would come—when all the animals who normally were as pets to the elves would know their hunger, and lead them in chase, and give their lives and blood in that deadliest and most violent harvest… But never be penned in, never held hostage for meat, milk, egg, or wool in cages, barns, or corrals.
Then again, elves reproduced more slowly than did men, and grew more slowly, and ate and drank less, and live din fewer numbers. Elves were in decline, while MEN ruled the world. Maybe there was wisdom in both traditions… But there was only one way to find out.
You traveled for days on foot, by yourself, finding that your natural poise and grace did not equate to a natural endurance or athleticism. Scholastic life had done little to prepare you for the arduous physical activity you now faced, and elven heredity was not the great equalizer you’d hoped. Still, you were determined, and so you did what you needed to do in order to find the distant, wooded hill where the great old tree—a maple, far older than the typical age of its kin—was said to grow tall and wide. You found it there, pitted and rotted but still sprouting new growth, gnarled roots wrapped tight around a heart heart-stone which faintly radiated a natural magic to your mage’s second-sight.
“It’ll do,” you said to yourself, and made camp there.
It took the better part of your week’s vacation—well beyond the patience of even dear Pearce to save you any liquor, you were sure—but you sat there, burning incense and murmuring hymns in the Silver Tongue of the elf-folk, remembered from your childhood and your early days in the ancient tradition. You reflected on what it was you’d come here to find: peace, commonality, unity, wholeness.
