No real purpose for this, just because I wanted to write this story. It's the story of the parents of a character in one of my newer stories, one that is not posted yet. I'm about one third done with that story, anyway, and I've got a lot of outlining to do with it.
High in the swaying branches of the oak and aspen forest, if one looks close enough, houses are built of living branches. Some small huts are scattered on the ground, but the majority of the homes are high in the trees. Decades were spent shaping the branches into woven walls that bloomed each spring and shed leaves each winter, coating the interior floors with petals and red orange scales. Yet if one were to enter this house unknowing, one might find it to be very uncomfortable. If one was a Wood elf, one would hear the screaming and cursing of the trees, alive and forced to work for the elves. It is said that trees hate Wood elves the most of anything living, though they hate everything that is not flora.
Each house is furnished quite similarly. Either dead wood is introduced to live wood, forcing the wood to grow around the dead wood, creating dead and living tables and chairs, though they are low, or the tree is irritated to grow the table naturally. Beds are treated the same way, stuffed with sweetly fragrant leaves and pine needles.
Curled upon one such bed was a young female elf, no longer called els by her people. She was not worthy of such a title as elegant female.
Ilyuth knew what they said of her, though. Her tribe had needed new blood, and had been wedding together for so long that "family ties" in the tribe was more than mere camaraderie. In the face of calamity, the leaders of two neighboring tribes had agreed on an arranged marriage, for new blood. The result had been Ilyuth and her siblings. The girls were sent to their father's tribe, and the boys were sent to the mother's tribe.
There was a worry, though, among the two tribes. Because of this the children were watched carefully. In those who were born of two tribes, rebellion was common, and the tribes worried that this tendency would carry out its work and ruin all that they had worked for.
Ilyuth had it, that rebellious spirit. Her siblings were perfect, as if she was the sponge that had absorbed the negative. They were exactly what tribes-people should be. Ilyuth alone had rebelled.
They spoke of it like it was a curse, the tribe. That was why she had left the first time.
She had returned with a son.
Turning over in the bed with a groan, she curled her willow body around the call of smooth, warm flesh that was her child. She stroked his head, smiling as she watched him suck his thumb. He was quite old enough to stop, yet after his father had. . . Had. . . Ilyuth simply had no desire to stop his habit when it gave him such comfort.
She did not regret it, her son. If things had gone differently, if Calan was still with her, she would have never returned to her father's village at all.
Ilyuth pushed those thoughts away as she looked at her son, white fingers stark against the red gold of his hair. No, no, she would not remember those dark, dark days. Instead, she would remember the days of sunshine in her life, though those days had been lived in the rain.
Yes, she beckoned the timid thoughts that peeked from her memory. Let her remember, so that she could forget.
She had first seen Calan in the rain, but the chilled gray mist had disappeared, as if it had been burned away, when she had glanced at him. Having run away from her tribe, she had nothing, no clothes, no cloak, no food, no method of purchasing food. So she stood, soaking wet in the rain, peering from the trees at Calan. He had fire for hair. Fire drew the helpless in hope of assistance.
He had been easy to remember. His cloak had hidden the majority of his face that first day, but a few strands of fire red hair were enough, enough to bring her down from her trees, to beg his help. She would not forget his eyes, either, that fierce gold that had pierced her so terribly that she had tried to cover herself with her arms.
If he had noticed, he did not react. He simply held out a hand, opening his cloak wide to hide her soaked form near his dry, warm body. If that had been all, if she had never seen him again, it would have been enough.
Ilyuth preferred him in the rain ever after. During the time she had known him, she would take him on walks in the rain, tugging his cloak hood off to see the fire red hair pool over his shoulders. Rain would darken the fire, make it smolder, coals fading to burn instead in his eyes when he watched her. He would then lower his head to her, gold eyes filled with suppressed flames.
Her memory jumped and faded, her child turning in her warm embrace to press his face to her chest. His smooth, elegant face. So unlike Calan, who had been scarred across all of the skin that stretched across his face. The tightness of scars had made it hard to smile, she had reasoned. He had never smiled because his scars were painful.
His smiles were not hidden because of his family, or the trouble on the borders. No, she had insisted, it had been the scars that gave him pain. Not the family that hated her. Not a mysterious someone that haunted his dreams.
Ilyuth was glad, though. Her son was unscarred, healthy and whole. He would smile more than his father, and he would have a better life than she had had. Even if he was a Half, she would love him as her father had never loved her.
That evening, when she slept, she dreamt of Calan, her son hidden by darkness. Instead of her child curled at her stomach, it was Calan, his scarred face and his torn heart. She stroked him on his head, comforting him, and the time never seemed to end. Her son faded from memory, as she slept with Calan by her side.
When she awoke the next morning, she had forgotten, instead remembering only her son, his smooth face and innocent heart. And he slept by her side during the day.
Just a quick piece that I was thinking of for a starter piece of one of my newer stories. The story is about the son, Dek. I drew a pic for it as well, but I'm a terrible artist, so don't assume that it's gonna be shown to anyone. I've still got shading to do still, though, it's not finished.
Ah, well, elves, elves everywhere.
Gotta go, okay?
Shadow signing off.