One From Three -- Tira's journal

[seina]

The tiny elf sits under the big tree at the Crossing and smoothes her hands over the journal that she had bought on her last trip to Immersea where she had gone to purchase more burlap for the babies.

With both palms she swipes the tears from her cheeks before dipping the new quill into the tiny bottle of ink and writes her thoughts…

Today I was judged.. again.. and found lacking by those that called me “sister.”

Today my purpose was taken from me.

Today I lost my home.

Today I am no longer a ######.

My heart hurts. The goddess’ voice in my head has fractured.. all her aspects shouting at once. My world has come apart at the seams and I am not sure who I am anymore.

Maybe.. maybe.. writing it down will help.

And here I thought I would begin this journal as the respected Tira’allar Vandiir.. Druidess of the ###### #######. The irony of life is sometimes too much to be borne.

A ten day ago, I was happier in my own mind and body than I ever have been. For the first time, peace ruled my head, my heart and my soul. In trying to stop understanding the chaos that lives there and just accepting it, it became peace. Do you see the beauty of it? No one can understand how three distinct goddesses became one to save The Father. It is impossible. One must just have faith.. believe. It is the same with her voice in my head. If I try to understand it, I am lost and confused. It is only in accepting the unknowable and just believing that the peace comes!

Teneas told me that the ##### ###### did not feel I was open with them, which was like a wound to my soul. How can they say that? How can Entori and Isiolith say this? I gave them the very gift of –me- and it was not enough? How can they ask me to explain something that even I do not understand? I have given them all that I have! And it wasn’t enough!

And Vinduil.. he is the most blessed of The Father! And yet.. he can not even look upon me, let alone speak a word to me. Does The Father then hate me so much? Am I that vile to The Father that his servant can not even bare to look at me?

Goddess.. how can you bless me with your voice, when your love despises me?! Will you leave me, too? Just like Vinduil.. just like The Father.. will you cease to look at me? Cease to speak to me? Cease to love me?

Will I loose my goddess, just as I lost my home?

I am crying and alone.. I am reaching out in the blackness.. but my hands can not find purchase.. I am cold.. I am lost..

Her small shoulders slump, as she curls herself around the open journal, smudging some of the words. Her tiny body shakes with painful sobs. Frantically she searches and finds a tiny stone.. a tiger’s eyes gem.. and holds it in a white knuckled fist to her heart.

“.. believe in me.. don’t let me go..”

[seina]

She walks the town of Eveningstar, but not upon the paths. She walks outside where people normally walk. She looks for the perfect spot.. the spot that feels right. She studies her chosen spot from all angles.. careful not to walk in the center portions, the snow there fresh and clean. With purpose she walks, heel to toe through the virgin snow, creating first a single straight line.. and then two.. completing a perfect, inverted triangle with the last. With a little hop, she lands in the center and crouches down. Leaning out she draws first one circle in the upper left corner, then one in the right and finally a third in the lower portion, the three circles interconnected. Taking another little leap, she jumps out of her creation and tilts her head to the side.. a soft smile on her lips. She looks right and then left and with a soft chuckle she regards the empty place next to her triangle. More awkwardly, she traces, while crouched in the snow, a wonky looking sunburst, walking out to create rays.. giving the snow tracing a sense of movement.

“.. unity through diversity.. and change..”

Again leaping into the triangle, she takes out her journal and begins a fresh page, touching the smudged pages with a sad and thoughtful expression.

I learned something yesterday, something that I will not forget. The loss of a title.. a place.. a purpose.. is deeply painful. To suddenly be without a reason to walk out of your door, is overwhelming. But to loose the faith of the one person that you feel within your soul.. makes the other pale in comparison. And to think I trusted those words that made me doubt, but I had always trusted his words before. I shall not make that mistake again. I will not doubt.. never again. Whatever comes, that will be the one unifying thing in all the change that will come throughout our lives.

I am in change. Perhaps a bit of him has seeped into my soul. Perhaps he can teach me locks and I can teach him to calm the minds of animals. Goodness.. our little room here will be filled with tiny creatures completely enamored of the two of us. We will be tossed out and have to find new lodgings.. but won’t it be fun until we are?

Lomeluril said that The Father does not make mistakes, but his children do. I will own mine.

The Lady Mouse said that a shrine is a simple thing. So is a home. I can be at home wherever my heart rests and worship wherever my prayers find me.

Angharradh said that I had done well. I have. It wasn’t up to me to force those with their eyes closed to see her in me. My unity.. my balance is in that I am diverse.. and that I change. It is only when I stop fighting this that –I- make sense. Anyone seeking to understand that must earn the right. Now and always. The gift of me was never free and shall not be given lightly or forced.. ever again.

Teneas said that his love still is strong and that I have all of him. What is a title compared to that?

I was too happy and the balance found me. There is never joy without sorrow. Never love without dislike. Never beginnings without endings. In all things, nature seeks to correct an imbalance. I met with this balancing yesterday. It is time for me to embrace that which makes a druid a druid and not just parrot the words like some silly child.

I am a Keeper.. a Lover.. a Child of the Seldarine.. a Druidess of the She That Is One From Three. My purpose is the keep the woods and recognize the balance. My love is deep, unending and flows without restrictions or conditions. I am a creation of The Father and therefore perfect, the way I am. The Consort loves me –for- all the reasons that they did not want me.

Someday I may be able to think of that place and this time without an overwhelming feeling of loss and betrayal. Not today. But someday.

[seina]

She lies in the snow, blinking up at the dappled sunlight. A soft smile lights her lips, before a light laughs escapes them as she moves her arms up and down in the snow and at the same time opening and closing her legs. Nimbly she leaps from the print she has made in the snow and shakes herself like a dog.. bits of snow flying all about. Next to her handmade snow-shrine to the Triune goddess and the Fey Jester is now a perfect snow-Avariel. She regards this little addition to her shrine, walking around to the head of the winged snow elf and traces the crescent moon of the father.

“.. from the air..”

A memory touches her mind and she frowns slightly. Moving around the edge of the small clearing in Eveningstar, she crouches by the lower right hand side of the rays that come from Erevan’s symbol. Here she draws a very poorly drawn dolphin leaping from a few gentle waves.. the sunburst seeming to burst over the sea.

“.. and from the sea.”

Her smile returns slowly and she chuckles, reaching for her journal once again.

It has been a lovely few days. At such loose ends, was I, that I needed to have this. To love and be loved. To be goofy and silly and speak of nothing but nonsense. To have dessert and neglect dinner all together. To just –be- and not worry that someone was judging my every move. To be loved and accepted but in a way that does not restrict or confine.

This is what it is meant to be of The People. I thank the Father for looking at me through my love’s eyes.

I need to return to the woods. I need to see to Taran’s Grove and to leave word for him. I have neglected all for the few and must reconnect.

I must be silent and patient. I must find a place to plant my feet.

[seina]

With her back to the big oak that faces her “snow shrine” to the Seldarine, the little druidess slides down the tree to sit at the trees base. Her deep brown eyes move from leaping dolphin to the sunburst shining over the waves to the inverted triangle beside it to the snow winged elf to finally the crescent moon above all the others. She takes a deep breath, smiling softly and opens her journal.

A bit of history, I think today, for it is from the past that we learn.

My father is a simple man.. a bit of a scholar. A seller of books by trade. He is a good elf. He married a woman that he cared for and produced two children. He taught them in the ways of The People. He taught them to revere the Seldarine. He taught them as he was taught.. as his parents were taught and their parents before them.. and he thought that they would follow in his footsteps.

Phyrra, my elder sister, was tall and graceful. Her ink black hair fell to bellow her tiny waist in a pin-straight single sheet. Her eyes were large and a mossy green. She was.. in a word.. beautiful. Kind of heart, Phyrra was beloved by all in our Settlement.

I was not Phyrra. Younger by over fifty years, I was left to run a bit wild. Far shorter that my sister, my mother despaired of ever being able to keep my black hair in any semblance of order. My eyes are an ordinary brown.. deep and dark as the woods. “Mysterious as the woods” my father would say. He would bend down and look into my eyes and murmur, “What is it that you are thinking in there, my tiny Tira?”

We would have been such a normal family, had Phyrra not gone with my father that day to market, but my mother needed to stay with me as I was feeling poorly and father needed help to carry his wares. It was at market that she met the man she would later marry.

I was young and you will forgive me for not remembering or even knowing all of the details. What I do know is that my sister spent more and more time away from home. I think my parents assumed that she had met and was being courted by a good elven boy. When she finally brought her “young man” to meet my parents, our perfect little world turned upside down.

Kendrick was tall.. very tall. Standing at over six feet, I remember thinking him some sort of bear. His face I can not remember well, but his hands were huge and had hair covering the backs.. red hair. I was fascinated by that hair, I must admit. My mind would wander to it often while my parents and Phyrra shouted at one another and Kendrick and I stood silently. Wouldn’t that itch terribly? Wouldn’t it be terribly hard to keep clean? Wouldn’t bugs and things –nest- in it? And.. was it more than just on his hands? What if he were hairy just that way all over his body?

I remember the silence broken only by the sobs of my mother and Phyrra, as Phyrra clung to Kendrick. I remember the stony look upon my father’s face, which was to become the only look I would see there for decades to come. I remember that as Kendrick and Pyhrra left, never to return to our home within the Settlement, Kendrick bent down and smiled at me. Looking into my eyes, he nodded once and removed the pin from his cloak. He pressed this into my hand and spoke softly. I remember thinking it odd that such a soft, gentle voice could come from a man so large.. and hairy. He said, “For your journey. You will understand when the time is right. Balance favor you.. keeper.” I remember thinking I had never heard my father yell so loudly as I clutched the unicorn pin in my hand to keep my father from seeing it and surely taking it away.

It was that pin that I fastened to my cloak some four decades later when I too left home. Only there was no tall human man leading me away. Nor were there any shouts. There was just my mother softly weeping and my father’s stony face.

It is hard to explain what life was like after Phyrra left with Kendrick. There was no more freedom. There was no more laughter. There were no more wanderings in the woods or storytelling by the fire. There were stern lectures about the “proper” way to behave as Tel'Quessir. The faces of the Seldarine, as presented by my father, became stern and unyielding. I was dutiful and I learned to please. It was far easier to paste a smile on my lips and nod my head, for if I did, perhaps I would earn a few moments of privacy where I could lie face down on the thick moss in the deeper woods and just breathe in the life of the woods. Where my heart would beat in time with the sounds of the wind in the trees and the call of the animals. In those four decades, I learned to “become” what people expected. I learned to shut away myself and live within the box of other’s expectations.

After leaving home, I first went to my sister, hoping to ask Kendrick of the pin he had given me so long ago. But that was not to be. Kendrick had died, of natural causes, a few years before, but had left my sister a son. Eroan Kendrickson, she had named him. He was every bit as tall as I remember his father.. every bit as large.. and every bit as hairy. He looked not at all like my delicate sister, but his devotion to his mother, my sister, still makes me smile to think of. It was he that told me of the Forest Queen, who’s symbol his father had pressed into my hand the day he took my sister from our childhood home. Eroan and I sat for hours in those weeks I spent with my sister. We spoke of many things, as I covered the ground around us with tracings of triangles, which would not make sense to me for more than a year. We spoke of the ways of the druid. We spoke of the balance. We spoke of things that awakened my heart and the voices within my head.

It was these voices that finally led me away from my sister’s home, for although much of what I heard in my head was confusion, one thing was clear. I had a purpose.. something I needed to do.. something I needed to –be- and this would not be found with my sister. “Cormyr,” the voice whispered.

But I did not leave alone. No.. I came away with two protectors. One of The People and one furry. My childhood friend, Ithilas, would see me safe to Cormyr. It was also he that left me in the care of my protector, Aasa, who, while his personal hygiene is lacking, is the most loyal friend anyone would care to have.. for Aasa is a bear.

Armed with the pin given me by my brother-in-law, my protector, the voices within my head and tracings of triangles, I came to the small village of Isinhold seeking my purpose.

[seina]

Sitting cross-legged on their bed in Evingstar, the little druidess reaches down to her pack and takes out her journal. Her movements disturb the elf lying next to her. He murmurs something that makes her cheeks grow pink, as he turns and snuggles to her hip. She laughs softly and smoothes out the tangle of his golden hair, before taking up her quill and setting her thoughts to paper.

The journey began like so many others of late. Aasa and I searching the wood for little ones that would have little chance in a mature wood such as the Hullack. The competition there is fierce, many of the very young would not make it to maturity. Left to nature, most would die and become the fertilizer for those that come after.. with their deaths aiding their brothers and sisters as they attempt to break through the thick upper canopy.

Is that what I am? Fertilizer for the next? Interesting idea. I will have to think on that more.

But today I was not alone. One that should be more careful apparently felt the need to walk.. alone.. within the woods. Now that he is alone, he really should not be taking such risks.. and he had the gumption to suggest that I would be safer living in that place! Men.. alive and dead.. are all the same, it would seem.

I went with him to that place and we spoke of many things. He is very wise.. if a bit humorless. His words just solidified all that Teneas and I have spoken of. I am as I was meant to be and can be no other way. Tangling myself into knots trying to be something for others leads to confusion and uncertainty. Patience is what is needed. Not my strong suit, but I am trying. Patience.. even if some never come to a place where they can understand what a druidess of the Triune Goddess is to be.

My conversation with Isiolith was.. stilted, but better than expected. Teneas was right in that it would have been better had these first meetings waited longer before they occurred, but when someone such as –he- says, “.. be ready for teleportation..” one just gets ready.

Speaking with Entori is like chasing one’s tail. –I- think I make perfect sense, but often find those I am speaking to staring blankly back at me.. he more than most. In the end, it does not matter. My oath, once given, will not be renounced. It doesn’t matter what I have or wear or who recognizes it. It just.. is. Something he said.. sticks with me, though. He said, “A few small words to one elf could of rectified this. whole thing, or can or will..” One elf. How very sad is that?

In the end, I need nothing more than what I have.

I have The Father’s love, the blessings of his Consort, the faith and trust of the best of men, a snow shrine, a thick quilt and chocolate cake.

Hmmm.. chocolate would taste good right now. I wonder if they have any downstairs.

The entry ends here, but boasts a crumpled page and several smears of chocolate. Apparently they did have some downstairs.

[seina]

She leans against the tree’s trunk wrapped in a dark cloak too large to be her own, but the softness of the well worn material and the smell of him always made her feel content. The owner of the cloak lays sprawled not far away.. arms and legs wide, the sun glinting off of his golden skin, his eyes closed and the smile of the truly sated upon his lips. If not for that smile and the soft rising and falling of his bare chest, one might think him dead, so bonelessly and still he lay.

It was this thought, oddly enough, that made her chuckle as she reached for her journal, removed the cork from her little bottle of ink and dipped her quill into it. She begins to write, now and then pulling the cloak back up and over her bare shoulders.

They thought he was dead.

It’s a bit hard to wrap my mind about that one.

First, I –did- tell Entori and others that we were living in Eveningstar. To my knowledge, no one has sought us there. The innkeep would keep messages for us. He has become used to us and our.. well.. odd ways. Thank goodness, for I like our little room very well and it is becoming a home to us.. despite the fact that our furry friends need to live outside.

Second, Teneas wanders. He has always wandered and will always.. well.. wander. He doesn’t go far and doesn’t stay away long, but anyone that knows him know that he needs to just get away sometimes.. even from me. I take no offense for it is just part of who he is and to love him is to love all of him. He is usually only gone a few days at a time and returns with a purse that is several lions heavier and rather..

Here she pauses and looks again at the shameless sprawl that Ten has assumed. She laughs softly and returns to the journal.

.. happy to be home. Perhaps I shall seek Entori out and reaffirm to him where Ten and I live now, so that if the need is there, they can find him.

My days do not change much and are filled much the same as any Keeper, I would suppose. There has been no word from Taran, so I –keep- as much of the Hullack as I can with only my protector by my side and I fulfill my oath. I pray to Her to grant me further blessings and strength so that I may keep that which she loves.. the woods –and- my oath.. with greater diligence, but I also realize that I rather insignificant in the grand scheme of the balance. As often as possible, I walk the other woods, although usually that is when I find someone else to walk alongside me.

Our talk with Beloril still troubles me. Elvewyn’s end weighs heavy on my mind. I find myself treading the path in between Bel’s and Ten’s opinions. I agree with Ten that Elvewyn made the bed in which he now lies and that he had much to pay for. Hells, I hid Celithiril after he was Elvewyn’s target for nothing else than the title he wears.. as a message. How can taking someone’s –life-.. taking the life of kin.. be a message other than “we are not kin”? But I also see Beloril’s point. Now there is no hope. Aren’t we a people of hope? Aren’t we a people who understand that time itself has very little meaning? Shouldn’t that prevent us from acting rashly? –All- things are possible in time, are they not? Even the redemption of someone that has sunk so low. I mean.. they have –embraced- others that have fallen and were given the time and the chance to prove themselves again. Added to that, the ultimate judge is the Father.. and he –loves- all he has created. It would take much to make a father turn from his beloved child, but wouldn’t he then open his arms if his child truly wished to return to him? And how are any of us to know what was in Elvewyn’s heart?

Did I trust Elvewyn’s words? No.
Did I think he had changed? No.
Did I think there was hope that he could change? Yes.

Hope. Living with hope that in time all will become as the Father intended.. –this- is balance.. this is to be one of The People.. this is who –I- am.. druidess of the goddess of unity through diversity and blessed by the god of change.

Slowly her eyes scan the words she has just written and her mind becomes as he heart and body are.. content. She closes the journal and sets it on her pack. She re-corks the ink bottle and stands slowly, stretching. Padding on bare feet, she moves to stand over Ten, smiling down at him. His smile grows and he reaches out a hand to grip her ankle without opening his eyes.

“.. gotcha..” he murmurs.

“Aye. You have.”

[seina]

She sits cross-legged in the snow, using her cloak to protect her backside from the cold. She has been sitting in this same spot for sometime.. staring at the symbols walked into the snow for several hours. Her quill in hand, but until this point, not touching the fresh page in her journal.

A soft smile touches her full lips before she bows her head in reverence and understanding and begins finally to write:

Faithfulness. Loyalty. Oaths, promises and vows.

These seem to be reoccurring themes of late.

Faith to the Seldarine.. oaths to our Lord.. promises to our brothers.. vows to those that we love.. loyalty to all.

I know so many that struggle to keep all of these every day. I know that I do. And every day is a struggle. Some days I feel so well about what I have accomplished and how I have done so. But there are others when I feel as if I can just keep one.. hold it tightly.. then at least the world about me has not taken all from me. I wonder if these days are tests.

But what do our struggles say about those that willingly toss them away? Willingly walk away from The Father.. the Lord.. our brothers.. our loves? Does loyalty mean nothing to them?

I try to put myself in their position. How would it feel to be able to do that? But I find myself panicked by the mere thought. Instead I find myself feelings what those that have been betrayed feel. How The Father must feel when one of his children turns from him? How the Lord feels when someone refuses to keep their oath? How a brother feels when he is let down by those he would willingly die for? How a lover feels when “forever” becomes “.. until I find another”?

I have been selfish. I will try to be better.

She packs up her things and makes the journey to the crossing. There she waits, leaning against the great bear that protects her.

[seina]

Kissed from reverie was the best way to begin one’s day or at least this was the tiny druidess’ opinion.

“.. out on patrol.. return soon.. will find you..”

Words whispered in the pre-dawn against her hair brought a smile to her lips.

“First things first,” a grin clear on her face and in her voice, even if her deep brown eyes remained closed, “.. my elbow feels neglected.”

A masculine chuckle accompanied by a soft kiss pressed to her forehead.

“.. soon, Little One.”

Still lying amid the tangle of camp blankets, she half opened her eyes to watch his strong, straight back disappear into the mist. She rolls and stretches, before reaching for her journal.

Fear.

Never have I felt such and never do I hope to feel that afraid again. I would rather face a legion of orcs wearing nothing but my boots and carrying a fragile, blunt stick then stand before who I thought he was and speak those words again. Glad I am, though, that I finally did. Glad because I know now that I –can- and for the pride I saw in my loves eyes when I told him and for the guide I have found and.. dare I hope.. for the friend and brother that I may gain in time.

Respect.

Some say that actions speak louder than words. They are wrong. For your actions can –scream- who you are.. –what- you are.. but a handful of words said by the right person or just one spoken from your own lips, can undo –all- your actions.. nullify them.. make them worthless.

Apologies.

Given, accepted and returned.. forge bonds stronger than any metal. Stronger than any stone.

Understanding.

Oh! This one I have known the power of. To look into Teneas’ eyes as I speak and –see- that he understands has set me free. To have those simple words.. “I understand”.. fall from another’s lips is more precious than I could have ever imagined. I will return it ten-fold to my brothers, to my friends, to those I care about.

Love.

The most important of all and gained from such tiny things. How my heart soared to be among my brothers again. To fuss with them.. pick at them.. jest with them.. to touch them.. be-ribbon them.. listen to them.. understand them.. love them.

Revelations.

So many. Too many to recount. All learned from and that is what is important.

Loss.

.. and the icy fear that his passing has weakened that which must be kept strong.

Strength.

Mine.

She closes the journal and hugs it to her as she waits for the dawn.

[seina]

Crouched in the Ceremonial Grove, her left arm wrapped around her legs, her chin on her upturned knees, the tiny druidess sets her palm in the middle of the latest triangle she has traced in the grass. Her deep brown eyes blink slowly, before she reaches out that hand, which is caked in dried blood, and sets it on the body wrapped in a clean white sheet that lies near her.

“Hush now, my brother. Soon. Soon you will return to us. All will be well. Hush now and rest.” She peers up at Radra, who smiles gently.

She withdraws her hand and slowly takes out her journal and begins to write.

Loss.

I feel his loss like a weight upon my heart, almost as if it can barely beat for the loss pressing in on it.

When Kain placed his body in my arms, the weight of him made it real to me. I had lost my brother.

I am not sure if it was the weight of his body or the weight of my heart that made my knees almost buckle and how I carried his body from where Magius managed to teleport us to the Wardens that protect the entrance to our home, I will never know.

Although, the hardest part was letting him go so that the much stronger Warden could bring him here.. to Radra.. to the Grove.

Once again her dark eyes roll up to look at the body lying near. She gently reaches out a hand and pats it. “Soon now, my brother. I will wait for you. I am not going to leave you.”

Now more than ever I fully understand the fragile nature of our lives.. long as they may be in comparison to the other races.. I will protect my own. I will hold them dear. I will love them all with every fiber of my being. I will keep my oath to them and to those we protect here. For as long as the Seldarine permits me.. their names be praised.. I will remain with them and carry them when they can not walk for themselves. I will bring them home.. forever.

Slowly she closes the journal and her eyes and mouths the last word. She reaches her hand out to lay it on the body once more.

[seina]

Much later.. after their brother is returned to once again walk among them.. after he has been seen to his bed in the tower to rest.. after the fear has abated and the blood washed away.. two halves become one whole once again..

[seina]

The tiny druidess sits by the small, well protected fire in the woods. The evening had fallen so softly in her woods. In harmony with all around her and accepted by the animals, she sits wrapped in the too large cloak with her back against a large boulder listening to the sounds of the daylight world going to rest and the nocturnal one waking up. She smiles and pulls her well worn journal from her pack. She opens the small bottle of ink and wiggles it to set it steady in the layer of dead leaves that carpets the ground around her. She sharpens a quill and begins to write.

After keeping to the woods and delving into my faith.. searching for balance in myself.. an endless journey.. the lights of the city were harsh and the sounds even more so. Everyone in Suzail seemed so tall.. so loud.. so bright.. so full of life. But the woods.. my woods.. are more alive, but not so frantically. Perhaps that is it. Elves look at humans and their frantic push for “now” just as I am sure that the trees see my life.

I have come to terms with my need to be accepted –now-.. to have the others accept Teneas and I as one –now-.. to be allowed to take up my apprenticeship again –now-. How very un-elvish of me to want all “now”.

As she writes this, Tira chuckles. The sound wakens Aasa who yawns his very bearish yawn and buts his nose against her arm, sending a slash up the side of the freshly written page. She sighs, still smiling and rebukes him gently in elvish, “Aasa, sa wihmcelv, aey laaw ane fa sema nyilmaoyc oem aey ilma sa cilmyam anirill aey anireln aey ilma.” The great bear huffs out a breath and closes his eyes, settling back down. Tira rubs ink stained fingers over his snout lovingly before taking up her quill to finish her journal entry.

All in time, but not in human time or even elvish time.. all in the time of the woods that I love so much. Only in that time will I be seen and accepted as what I already am.. only in that time can anyone understand the unity between Teneas and I.

I am content. I am happy. I am indeed blessed by She Who Is One From Three.. and by all the Seldarine.

She smiles at these words and is not startled by the purple rose that suddenly appears across her journal entry. Picking it up in her delicate hand she closes her eyes and strokes her cheek with the perfect blossom, glorying in its scent and her love.

“..illw E ceela aey. Iltytyailm illw cila ameanir sa, sa ceela. Anirela leviran illw ilcc anirelaa ane nyesa.”

[seina]

The tiny druidess hears him long before she saw him. That haunting familiar song drifts softly through the woods. The animals still and silent.. listening. For a moment she can do nothing but stand with her eyes tightly closed. Her heart ached. Too much was at stake. She could not fail.. not again. Taking a deep breath, she opens her eyes and gazes down at the mighty bear at her side. Taking his huge face between her hands she looks into his eyes and speaks softly in the soft musical tones of her native tongue.

“Go now, my darling, and wait for me at the big tree. I will come to you before morning and we shall be away. Not a long journey, but a necessary one. It is my eyes. They give me away.”

The bear growls softly and bumps his head against hers, not understanding her words, but hearing the tone of her voice and sensing her mood. Standing to her full height, Tira motions and the great bears moves into the forest.

Another deep breath is taken and held before she turns to seek him out, following the sounds of the song to him like breadcrumbs leading a child home.

She tilts her head to the side, regarding him as he stands fishing in the small stream. He whistles softly, seeming to not have a care in the world. She closes her eyes, drops her head and prays harder than she has ever before. Don’t let me fail. Please don’t let me fail.

As if hearing her thoughts, he turns and smiles at her. “Careful. Legend has it that elves walk these woods.” His words full of mischief and his eyes full of mirth before his arms are filled with tiny druidesss.

“What is it, Little One? What is all this?” He says, laughing as she peppers his face with kisses.

She shakes her head, grabbing his face and kissing him deeply. When he again tries to speak, pulling away from her a bit, she follows and kisses him again, ending with a sharp bite on his lower lip and her hands fisted tightly in his golden hair. Teneas growls softly, taking her into his arms and turning them about. He strides forward and thrusts her against a large tree. His eyes narrowed, he speaks in a husky, low voice. “Like that is it, my love. So be it,” he manages to grind out before he takes her mouth in a kiss full of unbridled passion.

The couple makes love frantically there in the blackness of the night.. all but animalistic in their need. Much later when the need is met and the energy drained, the tiny druidess turns in his arms and looks up at him. Her face full of sadness.

“Teneas. My love. I need to make that journey.. to Padrin’s cave. I need to see it and.. pack the past away. Do you understand?”

He strokes her cheek and nods, setting his forehead to hers. “Ahh.. now I understand. Hurry back, Little One, and know that I am with you always.”

She smiles for him, before dressing quickly and melting into the pre-dawn mists.

[seina]

She tucks her hair behind her delicately pointed ear as she sits at the mouth of a sturdy tent. Her legs are drawn up to her chest with her point little chin resting atop them. Her large brown eyes stare at the dying embers of the fire. She pulls the corner of the too large cloak more tightly around herself, tucking it into itself to keep it from slipping from her shoulder again. She feels the weight of the stone in her free hand. Gently running the pad of her thumb over the carving.. three interconnected circles circumscribed within an inverted triangle.

Please don’t let me fail.

Her eyes move to where she can just make out the inn wall. In her minds eye, she can see the fletching of a single arrow. She clinches her jaw, her eyes moving to the large tree outside of the inn. Her eyes dart about the clearing as she remembers the day when it had been engulfed in flames.. she remembered frantically trying to beat it out with her cloak.. she remembered Entori’s hands in hers as he yelled over the roar of the flames, “Pray, Tira! Pray for rain!” She remembers wakening, the pain of her body and the rain on her face. She remembers Entori holding her and smiling at her. She remembers the sound of the goddess’ voice in her mind.. the unity. A soft smile touches her lips before it all fades and she is once again in the present. A tear rolls down her cheek.

Please.. don’t let me fail.

[seina]

The tiny druidess stood straight and wiped her hands on her trousers. She tilted her head at the bed of leaves she had made, the thickest of the camp blankets tucked around it so that it might keep its shape. Idly, she rolled a second blanket that she then set at what would be the head of the bed and spreading the third over the whole to cover their bodies when Teneas returned from patrol and joined her here in their “house.” The laughter bubbled up within her and spilled out as she looked at the stone that made up two walls of their house, the drop-off that was their window and the open side that was their always-open door. Shaking her head, she began to take down her raven-black hair in preparation for bed, wondering at the randomness that had brought them here.

She pulled her pack over to one of the stone walls and sat down on the moss there, folding her legs up under her. Still running her fingers through her hair, little bits of leaves fluttering down about her, she drew her well-worn journal out of her pack and set up her ink bottle.

Before taking up her quill, she stretched and groaned softly, rolling her head and her shoulders.

Facing fears.

I wonder if I will ever be done with this.

Perhaps not, but with each I face, the stronger I feel.

Both conversations were unexpected, both dreaded.. and both achingly sweet in their own way.

Brothers still.. despite all.

I wonder what the morrow will bring.

To her credit she didn’t jump or scream as a kiss is placed upon the tip of one of her delicately pointed ears.

Tomorrow will bring what it brings, little one. But tonight brings a rogue and a sock or three. These words whispered into her ear.. his breath warm against her skin.

Her eyes full of laughter, she looked up to the one her heart and soul bond with more and more every day.. no matter what the morrow brings.

[seina]

Down on one knee, the roguish elf looks up and whispers, “Tira'allara...would you be my wife? Would you marry me?”

The tiny druidess seems to stare a moment without comprehension. She blinks once and her mouth falls open. A slow smile tugs at the corner of her lips which melts into a grin. A chuckle bubbles out from deep within her. Picking up tempo, the chuckle crescendos into an out-and-out laugh that is punctuated with a loud, “Yippee!”

Teneas smiles up at her, a true smile.. one with no masks.. as his eyes begin to tear up. Tears will have to wait though, as he is hit with the full force of nature in the form of an armful of ecstatic druidess. Tira throws her arms around her rogue, knocking him to the ground. Straddling him, she rains little kisses over his face, punctuating each one with a happy, “Yes!”

Trying and failing to contain her, as if he ever could, he whispers, “I love you, too, Little One.”

The inhabitants of the small elven settlement look toward the alcove that had been turned into a make-shift home a few months back and shake their heads, murmuring about the odd habits of those that protect them.

[seina]

The tiny druidess drags her pack passed the screens that serve as the door to her house. Wearily she looks about and then laughs softly.

“.. never a rogue when you need one..”

Setting her pack down in the hideous chair shaped like a hand, she washes her face and hands in the basin in the corner, opening the cabinet bellow and shuttling food, mostly fruit, from her pack into the cabinet. She shuts the little door and then sits in what has been dubbed “The King’s Chair” and folds her legs under her to write a quick note. This note she places on the pillow of the bed, running the palm of her hand lovingly over the old quilt and sighing wistfully.

Shouldering her pack once again, she heads out, nodding to the elf there, she adds, “.. out for a walk and then back to Isinhold. Balance favor, cousin.”

She disappears in a flash of light and slips into the woods.

[seina]

Standing in the middle of Thunderstone, the tiny druidess turns in circles slowly. The sorrow on her face is slowly replaced by that of a panicked deer, surrounded by hunters. She swallows hard and shakes her head. Her thoughts, fractured and scattered, whirl about her as thick as bees to the flower. She wills herself to stop turning and closes her eyes tightly. Fairly vibrating with effort, she forces herself to examine each one. She sees fear and calm reason, self-doubt and unconditional acceptance, cool indifference and love. As she turns them over in her mind, they all seem to snap together into unity so abruptly that her dark eyes fly open and she stumbles.

“.. act as if you are..”

Resolve stiffens her spine as she walks quickly from the town, rows across the river and melts into the forest beyond.

((PM sent))

[seina]

The tiny druidess crouches by the big tree at the crossing as her protector snores not far away, his paws twitching now and again.

Chasing goblins in your dreams again, are you, little men? She laughs softly, turning her eyes again to scan the woods around her.

All was quite now. In this moment, it didn’t seem possible that war was coming. She had spent all her time of late in her woods. The sour after-taste of her last trip to Suzail still plagued her. Reaching for her well-worn journal, she begins to write.

No word from anyone.

The silence is deafening.

The solitude complete.

My faith unshaken.

[seina]

The two elves move quickly to join the frontlines for the first battle in what promises to be a bloody war. They move instep, despite their differences in size.. moving in unison. The male elf stops as they approach the gate and dips his hand into his pocket. The female elf looks up to him and then to his hand which opens slowly. In his palm a beautiful rings shines.

Tira’allara smiles and looks up to Teneas, shaking her head. “No, Ten. Not without Vinduil. I have told you. We do not need to marry quickly. Trust me, you are getting lucky after the battle, married or not.”

He laughs and slips the ring away. “As you wish, Little One.”

The battle is joined and the fighting fierce.

Orcs. We can handle orcs.. hundreds of them. We can handle orcs, Tira thinks as she fires arrow after arrow.. glancing around to make sure those around her are well healed.

The first demon rocked her back on her heels a bit. The fact that she could not damage them with her bow, even more so. Keep telling myself I need a new bow. There always seems to be something more important and not enough gold.

The first use of death magic, however, set her into a panic. She had had not enough time to pray for a ward for all the Wardens. She alone was warded. Her eyes looked to Ten’s back and she paled. No. Not that way. Not now.. not ever.

Waiting until there was a lull in the battle, she takes his hand and slips a ring on his finger. He turns to look first down at his left hand and then to her. His laughter is infectious. "I do," he grins.

"You can kiss me later," she replies with a returning grin, readying a new arrow and sighting the first of the new wave of orc.

Newly married, the pair fights harder and with more ferocity than ever before.

Much later, the tiny druidess opens her journal and runs her hand over the next blank page before taking up her quill.

So it is done and not the way I had pictured. There were no words. There were no cheers. There were no hugs or warm wishes of luck. Instead there was blood, gore and the sounds of battle.. the cries of the injured and calls of enemies sighted.

But somehow, despite all of that.. despite not one smile from our family.. there is peace and such a sense of completion.

She smiles and looks to the bed where Ten sprawls shamelessly, having come home in the wee hours of the morning, putting off the promised “honeymoon” to patrol the woods they protect. She gently touches the ring on her finger, before setting her quill again to paper.

Perhaps it was best this way. Now there need not be a fuss.. there will be only this sense of endless peace.. until peace reigns in truth again in our woods and all of Cormyr.

With a soft smile on her lips, she closes the journal and sets it aside. Hugging her knees to her chest she stares at her new husband with a look of wonder and love until the dawn breaks and she sets out upon her own patrol.




**credit for yumdust on Deviantart for the picture, which I shamelessly stole and cropped**

[seina]

In a tower deep within the Hullack Forest..

“I would have done this at your wedding, Tira'allara,but we all agreed that the time is right now. We all share these feelings for you, Tira'allara....
You have always had the mind of a Warden...
The heart of a Warden...
And the desire in your heart to follow the ways of the Seldarine in all that you do.
now...”

The Priest beckons her forward. She strides to him without hesitation, her expression unchanged since entering the Tower. Her eyes look only to his. He takes her left hand tightly in his gauntleted hand, lifting it to a horizontal position. Turning her palm up, he opens it and removes his hand, revealing a small rounded object resting in the palm of her hand.

“Welcome, Tira'allara of the Triune Godess. We are honored by your presence.
We welcome you as a Warden of the Hullack Forest.”

He smiles and looks over her head.

“..and I know who gets to attach it. Teneas... if you will?”

[seina]

SAFE

She could hear the sounds of the battle raging behind her.. the deep growling of the bear and the shouting of the men. The tiny druid half-stumbled, clutching her wounded side. The portal.. get to the portal.. bring help.. my brothers will help.. Half falling to her knees, she wraps her arms around a tree to keep from falling completely knowing that once she does, she will not have the strength to get to her feet again. Consort.. please.. the portal.. She feels a surge of strength and pushes away from the tree. Dragging her left leg which seems to no longer be listening to her brain, Tira struggles up the two small steps and onto the ancient Elven platform. A small smile lights her bloodied lips as she closes her eyes and waits for the magic to take her to her home.. to the Settlement.. and to help.

Nothing happens.

Opening her eyes, Tira takes a painful breath as the blood turns to ice in her veins. It’s as if the portal’s magic no longer recognizes me as a Warden.. how?

Her chin jerks up at Asa’s death cry.. her valiant companion giving his life so that she might find an escape that was denied her. The futility and finality of it saps what is left of her strength and she slides bonelessly down one of the stone pillars surrounding the portal. Oh, Teneas.. husband mine.. I am so sorry. Willing her hand to steady, she traces an inverted triangle in blood on the ancient stone beside her. As tears of regret slide down her bloodied cheeks, she inscribes in the triangle a heart and within the heart the Elven letter “T”. Slowly and careful not to smudge her last earthly message to her love, she rests her right palm over it. I will see you again.. in Arvanaith. Until then, death cannot part us. Seek me in your heart and in your memories.

“She can’t have gone far.. got her, I did.. look at all of this blood!“

She can hear the brigands coming through the woods and remains still as they find her. Wearily, their eyes dart around as if waiting for attack. This brings a smile to Tira’s lips. Clearing her throat she speaks as loudly as she can.. and in Elven. “My husband will find you all and feed you your still beating hearts. You will wish you had never been born, you worm-ridden, window-licking sons of motherless goats!” Chuckling softly and painfully, she closes her eyes and begins to hum.. horribly out of tune.

The human men look at one another in utter confusion and then to their leader. This man.. the largest of the five.. squares his shoulders and strides forward onto the portal. “Learn to speak common!” He shouts, punctuating his words by raising his sword over his head and driving it through the tiny druid’s chest, twisting the blade violently before ripping it out again. He spits on the corpse and turns to his fellows with a rotten-toothed leer.

“Damn Elves think they own the whole of the forest..”

[Teneas]

Sometime later, a lone hooded elf emerges from a nearby portal, and takes in the scene. Her body was moved before he arrived, deep within the woods, the news traveled slowly. He retraced the steps of the battle. Found Asa, and buried the bear. Not a word spoken, but many tears fell as he took in all that the forest floor would tell him. Tugging his cloak tighter, and sliding a glove over his normally bare hand, bearing a ring, he trudged off into the forest.

Anyone looking would find a purple rose left upon the portal on top of where she fell.