Summer's scent wafted across Irollan on the day I first met Godric. Only he wasn't a man then, but a hale, brown-haired boy child. Godric was at one of his father Edric's councils, standing among the men, listening to their words, learning. The knighthood was his future and well he knew it. Although half grown and with tousled hair instead of a steel helm, he dallied beside the waists of all the nobles of the kingdom for he was related by blood to the king himself. As his father's eldest, one day he would inherit the command of a Duchy. Godric soaked in the words of his elders, eager, searching for his significance. His eagerness for wisdom would have made even an elven priest proud.
My father was friends and needful allies with the human kingdom of men. Both elves and men guarded our world against the aspirations of demons, who were apt to invade from their holes underground at anytime. Yet on this day, the land was peaceful. Cheerful blossoms fluttered across my cheek like soft satin as it shifted on my wrists. I wore a maiden's gown for the occasion, perfumed with oils. But my hardwood bow was a comforting force on my back. Its stiffness yet suppleness reminded me to have both strength and flexibility for ours was a mission of peace. A time of renewed promises.
I remember when Godric's mother set his sibling Aiden down in a cradle stuffed full of feathers shorn from the finest geese. I dangled a minor amulet above young Aiden and looked into his cheerful eyes, so pure and vacant from the pain of human knowledge. Then I showed Godric's second sibling, Fiona, what it was I teased her brother with.
"See?" I asked Fiona. "He keeps tugging at all that is in his reach! Your new brother has much strength of life!"
"And much mischief!" Fiona said. "He pulls on my gold necklace all the time! It hurts! But especially my hair!" Fiona complained in the loud voice of a girl who has recently become adept at speech and abuses that power. She was not yet tutored in the decorum of nobles, although such studies would begin next year, when she left the nursery for good.
"Well, your brother has done his mischief! The clasp will need mending. But at least my hair is spared." I slipped the amulet into a pouch at my waist for safekeeping. Fiona watched this, but her attention drifted elsewhere. She was looking for her nanny.
"When is supper?" she declared with eagerness. The children frequently dined first and were sent away to bed before the men came. But I was a guest and a warrior in training. I would sit beside my father Lasir in the hall at dinner when the sun had vanished and the moon burned bright in its hours.
"I shall rest," I said thinking longingly of a nap, for if I had to wait long for my meat, then I preferred that sleep suppressed my hunger. But Godric's mother had read my mind as easily as that of her own children.
"Here, have some figs," she said offering me a bowl of dried fruit from a table nearby her chair set in the shade. "The children are always hungry! Always growing!" she remarked. I took a bit of fig and examined it closely before biting it. My hunger ebbed.
Towards evening, my father Lasir and me washed our faces in a bowl of water brought to us in our rooms. I wiped my face dry with cloth. I was ready to go. My feet stirred with wanderlust. So, while my father Lasir busied himself, I crept just outside our room and looked towards the stair leading down. Up and down the hall were many rooms, and snooping at the door to one where lamplight flickered from within, I was startled to see Godric conversing with his white-capped tutor.
"Hello, Lady Anwen," said Godric standing up to bow ceremoniously before my frame though he was yet several feet shorter than me. "Do you require escort?"
"I might," I said a bit flustered that my impatience was causing trouble to our host's son. The proper thing would be to wait for my father. But I was bored. "I do not know the way."
"Dinner has not yet been called," Godric explained patiently to me. He pointed to a set of bells hung on colorful rope. The end of this rope disappeared into the floor. "Dinner is ready when the bells ring three times! But I will be happy to converse with you, Lady Anwen."
"You are a kind host," I offered, meaning it, for I was still a young hunter in training. I was easily overlooked by true adults. But neither did I wish to hang about the nursery with Fiona and her nanny. I looked around the room.
"You have many books!" I complimented. Godric smiled.
"This is a classroom! Do you not have a tutor, also?"
"My father has taught me to read himself. But I have many masters to learn from. Head Priest Euny teaches the sacred and the past. The Head of the Huntsman Lodge teaches me how to catch game."
"Is it difficult, your training?" I shrugged.
"It feels natural to me. The bow in my hand is like the blood in my veins. The tension of the string is like the air in my breath. It is tiring but well worth it. What of you? Have you begun a warrior's training?"
"I will be sent to the Unicorn Duchy Academy in a few years," Godric said trying to make his voice sound deeper than it really was. I giggled. "To learn jousting and swordsmanship and knight's drills."
"And honor," I said. "You human knights are always going on about 'honor'."
"That, my lady is something we of the Unicorn Duchy learn from birth. It is our worship of Elrath. Do you know what my mother and aunt say whenever we part?"
"No," I answered awkwardly, and curious. "What is it?"
"Strength, piety, and honor!"
"I am fond of the simplicity of 'farewell' myself!"
"But we are not guaranteed the wellness of farewell," Godric said with a maturity far greater than his years. "It is more important that we celebrate we have lived well rather than for how long. With all respect, Lady Anwen, we are not as ageless as the Elves." I smiled then, for even if the topic was grim, stroking a sadness within me even then, Godric had spoken well.
"I shall wait with you!" I declared with a bit of fire of my spirit deciding for me. "There is much of your lands and kin I am curious about!" I said opening my hands to the air.
"And I of yours, lady!" said the boy with a polished bow.
We spoke for a time. I did not recall what it was we said, only that elves were as unknown to Godric as his kind were to me. In the pit of my heart, I feared the human's ways. But as I befriended Godric, some of that fear faded. True, it might be that this same young man might be called to wage war on my kind some day. But it was just as likely that the role as allies in a great war against the demons might befall us. Ours was a world that had never had and never could be without war for long.
I had sat on a wooden stool, my long legs crossed as I perched nimbly. Godric's tales amused me. I wore a smile on my face when the small, silver dinner bell chimed three times, as Godric had predicted. I lowered my feet from the stool and stood on my feet. As I shifted, something fell from the pouch at my waist. I must not have secured it tightly, for the necklace Aiden had broke tumbled free. Godric held it in his hand.
"Yours, lady?" Godric offered it in his palm. But I grimaced at the costly trinket.
"Yes," I said. "It is my amulet. Sorry. I should be more careful," I said thinking of my cousin Findan. He was forever calling me clumsy. But Godric made no such remark.
"It is beautiful," Godric said examining the stone wrapped in wire and gold dipped leaves. "Is this an artifact?" Godric spoke thinking of magically infused objects. By chance, what he held in his hand was.
"If you like the amulet so much keep it, for you will soon have need of it!" I stated boldly. It was true. An elven amulet is crafted to be a thing a beauty, but it is also an instrument of war. Like armor, it guards its owner's life. Godric stared down at the gift. He struggled with himself to accept, so I helped him with it.
"Consider it a token of friendship," I said. "Between your kin and mine. We are allies, are we not? Our fathers are friends. Should not we be?"
"Yes," said Godric tightening his hand around the pendant so that I might see it no more. He looked up at me, frownless but smileless.
"I will accept. You have my thanks, Lady Anwen," said the young son of the Lord of the Duchy Empire.
I had aged a little more when I saw Godric next. Godric had grown tall, lanky yet, but with the beginning of thick muscles and hair as golden as if his mother had snipped the sun to make him. He and I were friends after a fashion. As part of his academic lessons, his tutor had him send letters to literate peers. One of these had been me. I could read and write the human craft as well as the ancient letters of my own kind. Sometimes I had explained my own studies of ancient scripts to Godric by letter. He was curious of our mythology, and with childlike enthusiasm he had listened by correspondence as I spun the tales of ancient Elven warriors, mystical creatures, and the mandates of our dragon god, Sylvanna.
But the cause of Godric's fateful visit to our court in Irollan had little to do with friendship. It had everything to do with politics for the King of Talonguard had sent our courts to meet. For this purpose, my father had ensconced beside a gate- a magic portal which was no little thing. Magic portals are both ancient and great in power. They take decades to complete and more gold than an army's wages to erect. They are dangerous also, for they might give passage to friend as well as foe. But as a measure of trust, a gate of transport had been erected to give passage between Talonguard and the outskirts of Irollan, nearby a river where a hunter's lodge and Treant's grove might be found.
Elves are not very fond of walls of stone. So my father's encampment to meet Edric, Lord of the Unicorn Empire and Delara, wife of the Ruler of the Silver Cities, was one of cloth tents of vibrant blue and red. It had begun as a day of joy. My training to be a ranger was complete on this day and I was now an adult and a warrior. My father was just as proud of me as I was of myself.
At least I can take comfort in this thought- the last time I saw my father alive was when he was smiling at me, full of pride and joy of the young woman I had become. In a few short years I would undergo the Rite of Oak's Choosing, which is a matrimonial ceremony by which I could, if I should choose a suitor to wed. I already knew of many young elf men who would likely offer, for I was the daughter of our King. Although the rulership of our people does not pass strictly through blood as it does for humans, but rather by Sylvanna's blessing, I was highly favored. My father and I knew we were near to a happy event for our family. Joy filled us as a water does a stream.
That happiness was cut away as surely as breath is from life when demons came for the Blade of Binding. An artifact entrusted to my father, he guarded it with his very life. In the battle within the campground, the sword was misplaced and disappeared from view for a time, only to return with Aiden.
My own life took a new path then. Steeped in hatred, I sought revenge. I drew on all the fury of Sylanna to slay every demon within my reach and as I drew stronger, I searched for answers. Words fell on my ears that Godric, also in the camp on that fateful day, still lived yet was captured by demons. I found him, and with a fury building in me in that moment that sealed my fate forever forward as I general, I slew the demons who confined him. The demon general Azexes, slayer of my father, fled back to Urgash by my hand. My prize was vengeance but also the life of my friend.
It was much to my surprise that by holy power, strength, or both, Godric broke through the manacles Urgash's children had bound him in and strode forward. Godric wore the armor of a knight now, for he had completed his training at the Unicorn Duchy Academy. His own path to being general was now to begin. But before Godric returned to Talonguard and its emperor, he paused. He posed to me a question, uttered deep from his heart.
"What drove you on?" said he. "I thought surely I was presumed dead and forgotten." Godric's look towards me was soft and he wore what few knights did towards an elf. A smile.
"We're united in grief and loss, Godric," I said, my heart deeply pained by the loss of my dear father. "I couldn't give up on you."
"A week ago I would not have understood that," Godric stated gently, with all the nobleness he had grown into. "I hope to see you again, Anwen. In happier times." I had missed some of smiles he had given me then. I was so lost in my grief. But happier times would come. And it would be as Godric had said. Once again we would meet.