Prologue
Clouds swam in the sky over the woodlands, the bottoms blue-gray shadows. From above the plumes were illuminated brightly by the sun. Only sections of the billowy brightness were visible through small gaps like soft scars in the clouds. This was the kind of beauty that Shandras enjoyed gazing at for hours.
"Queen Shandras?"
Metal clinked as the queen looked down across the whipping flames at a young girl. “Hmm?
The girl frowned. The frown looked forced. “Your disapprove?
The girl Moved her hand up and down toward the coals with her fingers spread apart. The stump she sat on shifted slightly, dead in the loose dirt at their feet. The fire rippled aside to make way. She smiled. She seemed pleased that the coals would not want her to burn herself. “I think everyone know you are the queen. And so you should show it!”
>Now Shandras frowned. She hated the burden of royal lines. She wasn’t really a queen. She reconsidered. Hate was too strong a word. “I am the queen of Easfrania , yet here in the wooldands and plainlands I am only another elf searching and healing.”
>The girl grew bored with her game and withdrew her hand as she rocked backwards on her perch. The fire resumed its upright posture and crackled, seemingly pleased at its encounter with the girl. Shandras was still in a foul mood. She growled quietly and was still growling when someone came out of the gloom.
>Shandras, your Ssan’rye . It lays in the grass,” the voice said. Couldn’t he leave her alone? She was enjoying her gloomy clouds. Perhaps the clouds were not hers and they were having a pleasant flight in the sun, but she wasn’t. This man wanted to bother her.
>Shandras looked at the man upside-down. It was a bit painful but washed away some of her anger. “She needs sleep.” said the queen.
The man looked perplexed. His “chin” was pinched and his eyes narrowed in a funny way. >Your sword is tired after it’s long meditation in the peaceful Plains Arsh-ynd ?” He asked. The sarcasm dripping form his words could have been collected and made into a spice, Shandras thought. She grew tired of her mental charade and sat up straight to look at the weapon of question.
The grass was tall but soft where she had left her blade in its sheath, and the green tails gently embraced the wizened bark of ancient swirls and rivulets. The sheath had been a work of her own making when she was only two moons old. A prodigy they had thought, then. The blade inside hummed to her contentedly. Shandras stared at the pattern as well as ithrough to the creature inside as she said, “She is like the moon in the Sun’s light. When she is unsheathed she restores to her greatest potential of energy and when sheathed she feels cut off from life.” Shandras left the air free of conversation for a moment, knowing it would make the man uncomfortable. “Unlike myself. I thrive in the overcast grass.” She wanted company in her misery.
>”Hah! Don’t let her tie you down!” the man warned. He plopped down in a much too enthusiastic way for the current weather and patted her sheath. It was far out of her reach. That was anothwr burden she was happy to lay down for now. A mauve vapor clung to the man’s fingers when he lifted his hand from the sheath. The evanescent vapors dissolved into the air as he shook his hand. He then patted the girl’s head and tussled it. The girl giggled and scratched behind her ear which folded and then sprung back into place in a tapered poit near parallel to the ground. It seemed to point toward the man.
Shandras stood, patted the linen strands of her skirt, walked over to her Ssan’rye and knelt to pick up the trustworthy weapon. Near either end dangled a chain that was warm to the touch. She hooked these to her wide hempen belt while the girl also stood and began to wander around. Shandras rested her hands on her belt to consider the child. The sheath and blade hung at behind her thighs which allowed her access to the pouches on her waist. She ruffled in her pouch for a handful of identical umber legumes with the shells still on. She tossed these to the girl. A quick request to the coals and flames sent tendrils roaring to engluf the legumes which cracked aned opened loudly before landing falling toward the girl who caught them in one hand. She blushed, looking proud of herself but surprised.
>”They’ll be perfectly roasted.”
>”Thanks Queen Shandras.”
>They’re not for you Iy’lee. Feed them to Avalanche .”
>The girl huffed and blew her cheeks out then popped them with a puff. Still, she had to obey her queen. Shandras was acting just the way the girl said a queen ought to behave. Such a foolhardy nature, she thought.
Iy’lee walked a short distance from the fire where a beast of shaggy ochre hair stood on all four black hooves as large as the girl’s head. She held up the legumes to the creature’s thick-browed eye, She was so short of the beast so tall that she had to stand on her toes to show him. Avalanche looked down and saw the treats. Then he shook his entire body Tusks the size of a large man’s triceps to hairy tail. A rain of hair follicles fell like delicate pine needles onto the earth. Then Avalanche opened his mouth. Iy’lee placed the entire bunch of legumes in the crevice of one of his many – each of which was the size of her hand. The bjorn’den ground the legumes – shells and all – between his teeth and rumbled in appreciation. As a reward Iy’lee was able to pull herself up by one of his tusks and onto the saddle on his back. Large sachels full with useful plant components and edibles hung slung under , in front of, behind and even strapped atop the saddle. Honestly, Shandras thought, it was just snug enough for a child.
Iy’lee absently placed another legume on one of Avalanche’s molars, right in the cap She could see her reflection in the gold. He must have been eating too many berries again. Iy’lee wondered if it had hurt when the caretakers had poured the gold in the cavity. It sure didn’t seem to hurt him now as he ground his teeth side to side. As the hard shell cracked, Iy’lee watched Queen Shandras stand illuminated by the fire. Her soft lavender skin reflected the orange glow which made her appear a sunset in avatar form. Only below her belt was the spell missing, where linen strips made up her skirt. Oyeun said those were the best healing wraps, but Iy’ee knew they still itched just as bad. She remembered the rash AND the gash she’d gotten from falling in a Hashberry bush just a couple years ago. Not to mention her jutting bone. Once healer Le’rya had set the bone and wrapped her shoulder and cast the spell the itching had been TERRIBLE! She would tell Oyeun again when they got to Easfrania tomorrow.
The blade Shandras was holding under the fire now was much sharper than Iy’lee’s exposed bone had been. Suddenly she remembered she was still hanging upside down by one ring over her boot. She’d done that so she could reach Avalanche’s mouth but not fall off. She flung herself up and grabbed the steel ring to right herself. Being upside-down for this was wrong after all. It was disrespectful to the queen. She did a crunch and pulled herself up with the ring. Then she sat proper on Avalanche while burrying her hands in his abundant fur.
“Gjio, awaken!” Shandras shouted, blade held straight over the flames. Yes, Iy’lee thought, this was right. The whole family was sitting around at the edge of the light, faces enamored in the flickering light and backs cast in black night. Within the silver reflection on the steel, runes glowed orange to complement the queen’s eyes. Iy’lee got giddy with excitement. Shandras was the BEST storyteller!
“Gjio, earth, sky, ocean. The celestial body. This body is an avatar of the soul. She formed long before we were born of her. Like the soil, she moves beneath. Gjio, I ask of you… spread!”
The wood and corestones that fed the fire spread in a circle that dragged dirt along and reduced the flames to hot embers. Shandras lowered her Ssan’rye point into the center of the miniature crater.
“Life – as the seed to our existence and our awareness – emerges.”
The corestones brightened to incandescent emeralds and magentas. Sprouts with buds emerged out of the ground to curl up around the blade and the queen’s forearm. There they blossomed into peach-pink flowers. Shandras spoke as she met the eyes of those who gathered. “Relax your overwhelming growth.”
The vines infurled into a spiral. Shanrdas lifted up her Ssan’rye. “Air shapes and sways our hearts, her wild will on Flor’eliant.”
A gust blew at the leaves of the newly born plant. Shandras caught one flower that blew free. A sudden shard of sunlight shot across the fire pit and the flowering vines that accented the veins within.
“Through all life on Flor’eliant, Gjio’s Will traverses.”
Queen Shandras held the flower between her breasts, then placed the flower behind another woman’s tapered ear. “We call on her aid and thank her for her answer.”
The gathered pilgrims sat and stood in silence. The elders, all clad waiste down in cloth skirts or side-folded pants, raised their hands with palms upward. Lef’alyen – Water of Life – formed around their hands in beadlets, then little rivulets and finally a flood of water at their elbows that undulated like a second skin around their forearms.
Iy’lee felt a surge of reliefe come from within them. She also felt the beating of Avalanche’s heart as she pressed her head against his fur. She could hear the beat of the queen’s heart as well. The two hearts played a song. Then came the rain, and it matched the song. Several dozen heartbeats from the elders, and more from the younger members of the camp, and so too the samll animals hidden in the shrubs and trees. Thud, thud thud. Thud thud. Thu’thud, thu’thud thud. A downpour.
Iy’lee looked at the dying light of the corestones and rattled the remaining legume in her palm. “No more snacks today, Avalanche”. Somehow she felt content.
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Far to the East and South in a dense forest distant from any elven, a figure stood on a short cliff of rock and clay. The wind rustled the many leaves scattered on the dens forest floor and graced her sunrise red skin and the thin stretch of her wings. He tapered ears were freezing in this cold land, but she only had attention for the missives from nearby currents of air. A little discomfort was welcome. Thankfully the terrain matches what she knew of this area. She'd flown far, but now her destination was close. She flexed her wings as she rarely could, and they spread out glowing with the sun hung low through the branches. Their thin fingers pointing to either side.
A flake of dried Freh leaf fell from a pouch on her waist as she launched off. The flake drifted down to the adge of the small plateau and there it hung, unable to fall to the foliage below.
Love it! Please release more soon!