The Present
"I need you to go to Schuttgart." Terebel said.
Mune paused with her fork halfway to her mouth to gape at her uncle across the table from her. It was evening, and Terebel and Narlafayn finally exhausted themselves enough to go out in search of food, allowing Roan and Mune to enter the house finally. Narlafayn also gaped at Terebel, as it was common knowledge that Mune swore after Ballard's death that she'd never step foot in Schuttgart again. Seated next to Mune, Roan ate in silence, his eyes glued to one of the books Lavinia had left behind, which he'd propped up on the table to read from while he ate.
"You're joking right?" Mune asked incredulously, her food dropping off of her fork and back onto her plate. Terebel gave her a look that said he wasn't as he chewed, and Mune dropped her fork. "No." she said quickly.
"You have to." Terebel stated, swallowing his mouthful and taking a drink from the glass by his plate. "Calisan was arrested up there and needs a family member to bail him out. Evzen can't have a hand in this matter or it'll seem like favoritism and put him in a bad light." Mune glanced at Narlafayn, who shook her head and shrugged with large eyes.
"So go do it yourself, you're his family, plus the Seal of Gnosis, they'll be happy to have you up there." Mune snapped while clenching a fist. Terebel sighed heavily, the noise gaining Roan's attention away from the book.
"You fail to remember, I emerged as the Destroyer up there." He said in a controlled voice. Narlafayn's expression turned desperate, and she put a hand on Terebel's arm. Speaking of the time when Ballard died and his fate as the Destroyer emerged was still very hard on him, and Narlafayn hated to see him struggle with his emotions.
"I'm not going and that's final!" Mune shouted, slamming her fists on the table and standing.
"You're going, and THAT'S final!" Terebel shouted in return. Narlafayn hid her face behind her hand as they launched into an argument. They both shared an identical stubbornness that Narlafayn swore had to have been genetically inherited from Ballard himself. She glanced at Roan, who had instantly lost interest in their argument and was back to reading his book.
"Don't you grow up to be that stubborn." She said flatly, staring at her son. Roan blinked once and looked up at her, his face not giving away any emotion.
"I think it's a lost cause because you're pretty stubborn too. I'll probably be worse." He stated maturely. Narlafayn sighed heavily and buried her face in her arms, defeated.
As Mune and Terebel argued over who would go to Schuttgart, Waverly Telrúnya was venturing out of the village on his own for the first time. The ten year old strolled casually past the sentinels guarding the south gate, making it appear as if he were going to go fishing in the lake beneath the village. As he reached the end of the long bridge, he glanced over his shoulder once, and with a triumphant grin sprinted away from the village.
"Waverly Telrúnya, I'm telling!" a stubborn child's voice shouted behind him. Waverly stumbled to a stop and spun around quickly, his eyes large. Iris, now seven with a head full of blonde ringlets, stood to the side of the bridge with her arms folded across her chest. Her group of friends sat at her feet and giggled to each other about some secret only they knew.
"What are you telling on me for? I'm just going to go practice my sword stuff." Waverly lied, shoving his hands in the pockets of his calfskin shorts. Iris shook her head fiercely, her curls bobbing around her head.
"You're not supposed to leave the Village without a grown up, I'm telling!" she repeated. Again her friends giggled at her feet, the noise of their laughter irritating Waverly.
"Oh yeah? What about you, you're out of the village and you're not with an adult." Waverly accused, glaring at the girl. Iris's expression changed and she stuck her nose in the air with a spoiled smirk.
"My daddy told me I was a good girl and could go where I wanted." She stated in a boastful tone. Waverly groaned and rolled his eyes before turning away from the girl again. He'd known her as long as he could remember, but the older she got, the more annoying she was becoming to him. She could never do wrong in the eyes of her parents, and more times than not, Waverly was stuck taking punishment for mischievousness she caused.
"Ok, ok. I'll go back in the Village." Waverly grumbled, kicking his toe into the hard packed dirt of the path he stood upon. Iris' tiny chest puffed out in snobbish pride over getting Waverly to obey a command, and she smiled at him in an almost flirtatious manner.
"Well, I won't tell on you if you come play with me." She pushed. Expecting him to follow this direction too she sat down with her friends and waited for him to join. When her friends next to her gasped, Iris turned around to find Waverly racing down the path, away from them. Her mouth dropped open as she stood up, shocked that he would trick her. Her pretty face dissolved into hateful tears, and at the top of her lungs she screamed "DADDY!"
Waverly couldn't remember why, but he had the distinct feeling that he should be going out to Iris Lake every time the seasons changed. His parents would gladly take him down there to visit the young Mother Tree near the lake, but never let him out of their sight. He recalled that, just that spring they'd taken a trip to the Lake, and he'd seen the prettiest blonde woman sitting on the bank of the Lake, playing a lute. His mother pulled him away as he tried to approach the lake, scolding him for not properly greeting the Mother Tree. When he looked back again, she had vanished. Now it was the last day of summer and first day of fall, and Waverly raced down the path towards Iris Lake alone, hoping beyond hope that the woman would be there again.
Waverly traveled for hours before finally reaching the second bridge that crossed the second of two rivers that flowed from the Oren side of the mountains. He sunk to a squat next to the bridge, and threw handfuls of grass into the river in front of him. He was tired, his feet hurt, and he was just remembering that the journey to Iris Lake took several days of foot travel, and he was a ten year old without provisions. Sighing in frustrated defeat, he rolled onto his side, and stared at the glimmering water in front of him. The sparkling hypnotized him, and he shut his eyes to sleep.
The sun was halfway through its course of setting, when Waverly felt someone approach him. Half-asleep, Waverly curled closer to himself, afraid that it was an adult sent to find him. Instead of a harsh scolding, he smelled a fresh scent, like flowers and pure untainted water in the early summer. A soft, musical chuckle met his ears instead of a shout, and he slowly opened his eyes.
"I suppose Iris Lake was too far for you to travel at this age after all." The pretty blonde woman said with a smile. Waverly lifted his head in an instant, his cheeks pink as he gazed at her up close. She seemed familiar somehow, although he couldn't remember when or where he would've seen her before. Her hair was long, nearly to her knees, and floated around her like wavy blonde clouds. She wore a strange yellow and blue bikini that appeared to be half made from shells, and a shimmering filmy yellow skirt was tied around her waist. A strange headdress that looked like a shell adorned her head, her hair streaming out from behind it.
The woman sat down next to him as he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and she adjusted her skirt so that it would flare out around her. She wore strange thigh boots, Waverly noticed, that were the same colors of yellow and blue as the rest of her outfit, only instead of a boot covering her foot she had a stirrup strap which left her toes and heels bare.
"Shall I tell you a story now?" she asked as she settled herself. Waverly blinked curiously at her, and wondered why a stranger would ask such a silly thing. Why, he was ten years old, much too old for something like being told a story! He tried to shake his head at the woman and put on his most annoyed face, but his body stopped cooperating with him all of a sudden and he nodded with an eager smile. The woman giggled again like an excited child herself, and sat prettily as she thought of a story to tell.
She launched into an epic tale of a battle between good and evil that supposedly happened centuries before even the oldest Elf in the Village was born. It was a tale of angels versus the darkness of the Abyss, their wars conducted in underground labyrinths. There was one distinct hero in her story, one that finally put an end to the treachery of the Abyss, but Waverly couldn't help but feel dislike for him.
The moon was rising when Waverly began to feel sleepy again. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, trying to force himself to stay awake. He was enjoying the woman's story so much; he didn't want to go to sleep just yet. It was also chilly now that the fall had begun, and he tried his best to not show that he was cold. He wasn't sure how the woman in front of him was staying warm, for she was dressed as one would dress to swim, not to sit in the open.
"Are you tired?" she asked, tilting her head at him curiously. Waverly shook his head rapidly, the flaps of the artisan goggle hat he'd worn since he were younger flapping back and forth. The woman giggled as he yawned immediately afterwards, amused by the blush on his face. She scooted closer to him and in a surprising display of strength, pulled him onto her lap and cuddled him close as if he were a small child. Waverly stared out in shock, and tried to convince himself to struggle in embarrassment. The woman began to hum softly before he could muster up the strength to do so, and he struggled to keep his eyes open.
She was warm, like bathwater, and soft as if she were made up of the sunshine-laced clouds her hair resembled. Her freshwater scent filled his senses as his eyes finally drifted shut. Her wordless song was beautiful, and he felt as if he'd known it at one time. He felt as if he knew her, somehow. He sighed and shifted to press closer to her, content as a baby to be held by this beautiful stranger.
"I will visit you again, when the fall changes to winter…but you only need look for me as far as the Starlight Waterfalls near your village. I won't make you travel so far next time." Her amused whisper came through the haze of sleep. Waverly made a small noise in his throat and shifted slightly before deeper sleep claimed him. "Thank you so much for coming to see me, descendant of Ballard. I rather enjoyed this evening." There was a light press on Waverly's forehead, and a blush automatically crept up on his cheeks as it registered as a kiss in his mind.
"Waverly!" Celleriant's surprised voice tore through the darkness of sleep, and Waverly sat up before he'd even fully woken. His father snatched him up just as he'd convinced his eyes to open to hug him tightly. "Is this where you've been this whole time? We've been so worried about you! It's by the grace of the trees you're safe!" he said in a tear-filled voice. Now fully awake, Waverly blinked several times in confusion before squirming out of his father's grip.
"How'd you find me way out here?" he asked, confused that Celleriant would've found him in such a strange spot.
"Well it's a good thing you didn't go far from home, Arvalo brought Iris over proclaiming that you'd run away towards Iris Lake alone." Celleriant stated, sitting back to give his son a skeptical look. Waverly stared at his father, his confusion growing. He glanced around his surroundings and nearly yelped as he was no longer sitting on the bank of the river in the arms of the pretty lady, but on the bank of the lake that the Starlight Waterfalls emptied into, near the Elven Village. He looked around himself wildly in the next second, trying to find where the lady had gone.
"Waverly! Oh my little sapling!" Cesa cried as she left the small group she'd been searching with to rush towards her husband and son. She collapsed to the ground and hugged him tightly while weeping over his shoulder. She pulled away in the next second with an angry look on her face and stood up while holding tightly to his hand. "You're going to march right over to the Mother Tree young man and apologize to her for worrying her as well!" she snapped, pulling him away from the banks of the Waterfall pool. Still shocked, Waverly allowed himself to be pulled. Had he just dreamt the entire thing?