Sorry folks, partly censored! To make sure it doesn't go over the M-rating, I had to censor some things. Fill in the blanks with your imagination, and possibly a sheet of paper and a graphite pencil. Kiddies go away! Go outside to play for a bit. I'll bribe you with a bag of Oreos. ;)
Godric's poignant goodbye to me after I freed him from the demons was not entirely lost on me. My heart had stirred with some discernment of the importance of it, yet the grief of my father's loss obscured my recollection of it moments after we had parted. In my heart, I hoped yet did not truly expect such a reunion to come true. I was sylvan. Godric was human. Our races and nations were as separate as a fresh water brook from a salt-water sea. Yet, as I was to find, even the river meets the ocean in some places. Even elves and humans may meet, bonded more by our similarities than our differences.
With the demons pushed back from the earth and the Blood Eclipse thwarted, happier times had come to my people. We rebuilt the villages damaged by demons or by knights acting on the orders of their deceived king. We buried our dead with rites and we mourned them with grave clothes and song. We crafted beads of old weapons to remember our comrades by. I stood beside a hundred ceremonial spirit fires, and passed out many beads, for I was the daughter of our late king. I was also a general now. To honor the fallen of our people was a duty I had to fulfill, but the act nourished my soul, also. There was a deep wound to fill- that of my father's passing.
Findan was all the family I had now. My deer-head wearing, druid cousin was something of a pain to me. He had always followed after me and played nasty little, childish tricks when we were younger and he had only just recently begun to act more maturely. But out of my loneliness I began to grow fond of the cousin whom I had called a little brat on more than one occasion. Perhaps to spare me more grief which I didn't deserve, Findan began to play his practical jokes on other victims.
The sparseness of our lineage must have occured to Findan, too, for he was even more glad than I was when Priest Euny sent an envoy to my lodge. A priest with a deerskin headdress and a robe of finest violet came to kneel at my doorstep at the rising of the sun. I knew that this message must be special when I saw him. My visitor had worn the religious order's best holy bones and beads for the occasion. The gift he brought was a red oak leaf tucked into an envelope spun from the silk of tree moth caterpillars.
The leaf was a summons. It was the summons my father had wished to see most while he lived. It was a summons I had wished for myself, once. Now, I clung to the summons like the hope of a woman drowning at sea. I had spent the last four years of my life burying the past and the dead. Now, here at last, there might be a future.
"I shall open a keg of the finest mead for you, dear cousin!" Findan said when the envoy had left, for it would have been rude to speak while the holy envoy was around. "But I shall save my very best for your wedding day! Praise Sylanna! This is exactly what we need. The star of your future burns right, Anwen! You may well be the mother of our future king!"
"Perhaps," I said looking at the red oak leaf for I knew what it meant. The redness of the oak leaf symbolizes autumn, the time of harvest or maturity. It symbolized that I myself was now a woman of marrying age. But it also carried with it a second symbolism. This one was a little grimmer and more profound.
Among the sylvan, our dead at buried at the roots of trees. On rare occasion, our goddess transforms an elf directly into a tree on the eve of death. So in many ways, the forest which surrounds us is a sacred graveyard. The trees and dead and living have become one in a never-ending, spinning circle, for the trees capture the restless souls of elves instead of necromancers. The connection of our ancestors lingers for centuries within the trees, and so we benefit from their guidance with their wisdom, even while their spirits whisper from the hunting grounds of the afterlife.
My great, great, great- grandfather's oak tree was alive yet and it was from this tree that this leaf was taken. It was a potent symbol of success that my lineage had an entire grove of living oaks besides my ancestral grandfather's. Many of these trees had belonged to kings or generals of great importance. But my ancestor-father's tree was one among the holiest, for he had been greatly blessed by Sylanna. His tree, now digging its roots deeply down into Sylanna's holy soil, was among one of the eldest and largest of Syris Thalle.
But the connection of the leaf to me was subtle. It is a tradition among the elves that when a sylvan maiden becomes old enough to wed, all interested suitors might lay their offers at the roots of the woman's elected ancestral tree. This meant, that on a day appointed by Head Priest Euny, he would take me to the tree he had taken the oak leaf from- the most holy tree of my ancestors- and have me hear out all offers of marriage that any elf within Syris Thalle wished to give. It is partly out of the concept of fairness that we sylvan cherish that we do this. No suitor is barred, no matter how poor or homely. But it is so, as with humans, that the handsome and wealthy win these contests most. It is entirely possible, if the maiden wishes, to find all suitors unacceptable, in which case she would need to wait for the Head Priest's express permission to marry in the future. But it was not in my head to wait. I was ready to wear the laurel and leap the fires now.
"My house needs cleaning," I fretted. My cousin Findan laughed.
"You need cleaning, more, Anwen!" he said, pointing at my cheek. "There is mud on your cheek! And when is the last time you combed your hair!" Findan laughed at me some more. He was always well-groomed, while I spent my every waking hour twisting through the densest thickets of the woods in scouting missions. Even if we had peace now, the sudden loss of my father had forever instilled a distrust of peace within me. I had made it my life's mission to see that any unwelcome guest to Syris Thalle was routed or slain, promptly.
"I will buy a brush," I promised Findan, for I had no idea where I had mislaid mine. He responded by opening his knapsack and removing his from within. He offered it to me.
"Please, dearest cousin, favor me by brushing your hair now! It is hard to look upon you!"
"Twerp!" I said but I took the brush the same and dragged it with difficulty through my flaxen locks.
"So, have you chosen a day?" Findan asked. I blinked.
"To choose a man to marry? No! Sylanna, no!" I gaped. But Findan shook off my discomfort.
"Then let me choose the day for you!" said Findan, his voice a merry sing-song as usual. "How about two months from today? That gives me plenty of time to make sure that every household in the kingdom knows about this. I will spread the word myself!"
"You do not need to do that, Findan," I said modestly. But my cousin had taken on a serious look.
"I would like to see you happy, cousin," he said, "and you are my kin. Your kin shall be my kin. I wish to bring you choices that are good. Is there anyone you've your eye on particularly?"
"Well, no!" I said blushing. "Midarelif of the House of Resyotte is sort of handsome. But I don't know him well."
"He is of a good house," said Findan thoughtfully. "Perhaps too good. His family may not permit him to make an offer in favor of a more powerful house. They have several cities to their name!"
"I did not say that I expect it!" I fluffed up with rage. But Findan was used to my temperament and ignored me.
"I will do all that I can to help, you cousin!" Findan promised nobly. "Now you do what you can on your end of the bargain and brush your hair!" I took up the silver comb, mollified.
It is the custom of brides-to-be among elves just as it is with humans to look their best, so I ordered a ceremonial gown of spun silk from the tailors. The steward of my home and his wife, the cook, bought me a basket full of soaps and perfumed oils. From the druids, I sent for holy herbs for my bath but my laurel I would get from Euny himself when the time came.
Two months flew by in a nervous frenzy. I had scrubbed and rescrubbed all the dirt away a thousand times. Yet I remained as deeply suntanned as a sylvan might be. My hair curled up in ringlets at its edges against my bidding. But at least I smelt like a rose for I had been drenched with herbs and flowers and thousand times over.
A lot of my attention had gone into dressing myself as a bride. But at the edge of my mind remained the part of the who was a general, and my fears. Whilst I was playing at braids, who was keeping the necromancers at bay? Who was overseeing the training of my troops? Much to Findan's consternation, I dressed in my leaf armor, saddled my unicorn, and rode out to several garrisons as my appointed day to meet Euny beneath my ancestor tree drew nearer.
The old lodge where I had first learned archery was a welcome sight, as were the soldiers old and new who garrisoned there. I shared a beer with old friends and rode on. Halfway between one garrison and the next lay a village which was more a home to me than the wooden villa I had inherited at my father's passing. I stopped to say my hellos to elf couple who ran a tavern where I had rented a room for months at a time. In a way I was running away from the great unknown future that I faced and towards memories I had of happier times. I was enjoying myself. That was, until a soldier came up to me with a message in his hand from one of the garrisons at the edge of the kingdom. I jolted at the note when I read it.
"Who let him in?!" I raged crumpling up the note. "You know humans are forbidden from entering the kingdom without permission!" I raged. But the veteran archer in green suit bowed a much as his longbow would allow and fixed his steely eyes on me.
"Lady Anwen, it was by your orders that we let him in! The visitor is Godric of the Unicorn Duchy. You have given him permission to visit our kingdom in the past," the veteran reminded me gently. I was stunned.
"Godric? What might he be here for? Did he say?"
"Yes, M'lady!" the soldier said lifting up a second sheet of parchment for me to take. This one was more a scroll such as one might record a spell upon. It was fine calfskin vellum wrapped around a wooden rod. There were scratches of black ink scrawled on it. I recognized the handwriting immediately for Godric and I had sent a thousand notes between one another while our fathers yet lived.
"Godric wishes to see unicorns?" I asked lifting an eyebrow. "This is a long way to come for curiosity, but this is Godric!" I shook my head. "The scholar in him never rests, does it? Very well, send Godric a message back and bring him to me! He shall see his unicorns."
"Yes, my lady!" said the elf archer who had brought the message. He left me after a brief salute, this time by a hand swept along the head like a summer breeze.
Godric had come into my kingdom with great trust, for he rode with only a few horsemen and priests at his side. It was a thin bodyguard he traveled with, not an army. Yet by the sounds of things, Godric had become quite the skilled general himself. He now knew enough battle magic to send most foes flying at a wave of his hand. He was an even more famed warrior than I for his part in saving humanity from the Blood Eclipse.
The four years since we had parted last had aged him into a man at his height of strength and vigor. His arms were now stout bands and his voice deeper, richer. His face had altered a bit yet his eyes and smiles were much the same as they had been when I had seen him last. But there was another look there glimmering in Godric's eyes. Nostalgia. He drew in a look of me like a man who has lived too long without a glass of water. He lifted my fingers to his lips and kissed my hand.
"My Lady Anwen!" Godric declared. "Praise be to all gods that ye be well!" I drew back my hand and touched my fingers from where they had been kissed. I blushed. There was something about this Godric that had all the vigor of a buck in its crowning glory. He carried himself just as proudly, only he wore armor of gleaming metal instead of antlers.
"Godric, my old, dear friend," I answered slowly. "Praise the gods you are well, also! So, you have come to see the unicorns?" I asked smiling with wit. I gestured toward the one I rode upon.
"See, now you have seen one!" I uttered. "Content?"
"Well, in truth, no my Lady," said Godric. "It is my fondest wish to visit one of the sanctuaries where they are bred and reared, to see for myself how much they differ from other beasts."
"Any reason for such fascination?" I asked.
"A rearing unicorn is my House's emblem," Godric explained with much practicality. "I thought it time I understood just what the symbol meant."
"Oh good, wise Godric!" I smiled at the friend I had shared so many letters with in my youth. "You shall have your wish! But I ask that we depart on this hour if we are to see the unicorns. There is a gathering I must attend two days from now," I said sliding my eyes off to the distance with guilt. I was cutting it close to my ceremony of choosing overseen by Head Priest Euny.
"What is that?" Godric asked innocently. It might have altered much if I had explained things then. But I fibbed instead.
"Oh, it's nothing," I lied outright. I gave orders to my own traveling companions to march and Godric and I rode side by side to the nearest unicorn sanctuary.
I had to agree with Godric's sentiments that they are impressive beasts when his eyes finally laid upon unicorns. These were broodmares- unbridled and untamed in all their woodland glory. Gleaming, shining, shimmering with both daylight dappling across their shiny coat and the magic radiating from within, they tiptoed through the woods banishing the shadows with a soft, dull light around them. In the bright, broad daylight their skin reflects the light. Like the reflection off green meadow grass soaked with dew then drenched with full sunlight, the unicorns are too uncomfortable to the eyes to gaze at except from beneath a shaded hand. Godric and I stopped by a shimmering pool of water stirred by their hooves and watched a stallion boss his herd of females and colts around.
The unicorns left the sun for a darker, damper patch of of mossy wood and we followed them, no longer shielding our eyes out of necessity. Godric watched the unicorn's stamp, the muscles in their legs rippling and I found myself watching muscles, too, but not that of the unicorns. It was those of Godric as he lifted his arms to stretch. The knight had discarded his armor for plain clothes and I saw the similarity between unicorns and the Unicorn Duchy for the first time, myself. It was Godric himself, with his battle-hardened biceps, who was the unicorn among men. Now I understood. At that moment, awkwardness came upon us as the stallion among the unicorns mounted a mare to spread his seed within it.
"We should go," I said catching Godric's hand to tug him from the sight. He flinched from the sudden contact and I realized my mistake.
"Oh! I am sorry!" I apologized for among human nobility such a gesture would be considered intimate. The women folk were kept separate from the men on most occasions. Like possessions, women are shared among households only with great contracts and bargains between the noble houses. It was especially so with someone so nearly related to a king. I doubted that Godric had ever kissed a woman in his life, let alone drank mead with them or sat around a campfire singing songs or listening to the music played beneath the light of an untamed moon, as all sylvan do. He was much too holy to have visited a human's brothel, either.
"I am fine," said Godric a faint smile teasing the corners of his lips. Yet he was as pale as I had ever seen him.
Godric and I made our way back to my party of travelling companions. My plan was to see him to the nearest village and give him license to journey to a proper tree city where I would have him treated with full respect. Once my guest was seen too, I would return to Findan and Euny and my ancient elder's tree for my important ceremony. But something within me tugged at my heart. I felt ill at ease.
"I am feeling unwell," I admitted in a hairsbreadth as I gritted my teeth. It was much that I had said anything. An elf warrior is commonly so full of pride that he will bind his wounds himself rather than fall out of formation for a moment, and I was no exception. But today, in this moment, I did not feel like a warrior, but a maiden. I shook by Godric's side. My heart was cold like ice, my skin hot.
"I am going for a drink," I said handing the reins to my unicorn to one of my attendants, an elf archer named Mayous. I shrugged off my discomfort by plowing off into the woods. The leaves above my head abounded with game and if I had been in the mood to, I could have taken a fat grouse as if flew by overhead with a short burst of its stubby wings. But the only thing I longed for, truly, was distance. Unbidden, my feet stumbled to one of my most favored waterfalls. It was a tiny spring cleft high up in a rock face. Most of the year, it is dry but in the rainy season it reaches its most violent and coldest torrent- as it did now. Willing to wash the madness off my perspiration-soaked skin, I stepped deep into the water and waded into the fall. I held out two hands to cup the water to drink. Then I let the water simply spill into my hands, watching it fill then flood out over the edges of my cupped palms. My white gown of an sylvan bride grew drenched over my leaf armor.
"By Sylanna!" I cursed to myself. "I must wash! I must purify myself of this feeling!" My body had shook in the sight of a man who was human. It was someone who hardly knew the ways of my people and did not worship our dragon god. He was a devout disciple of Elrath. Yet the boy I had known had become a man sculpted like a mountain. His sword wielding arms were battle-hardened steel. His eyes were a molten fire of passion, not the cool of a sylvan forest.
Wild and blurry-eyed, I tore my clothing off and lay them on a rock by waterfall, just outside of its spray. "Godric!" I moaned to myself, mournful of what his presence was doing to me. As I curved my arms around my chest to support my breasts and arched up into the water in anguish, willing it to wash my lust away, my sharp ears heard a rustle in the brush. I sunk deeper into the waterfall.
"Anwen?" came Godric's nervous call. He spotted my clothing on the rock over head, and forced his eyes away. But then, the same eyes that wished to remain devout and pure took on concern and he pushed them once again to where it was dangerous for them to be. I saw relief in them that I was well. But they rounded wider still at the sight of my nude backside as I clung to my breasts. His eyes were a modest apology until his gaze locked his with mine. The desire within me still smoldered. It was Godric, next, who shook. Details of what followed, I do not tell lightly.
"My Lady Anwen!" Godric groaned out much as I had done a minute earlier with his name. He stepped closer to me. I stood still and silent within the falls, my hands still curled around my breasts as he paced towards me, my eyes hunger with desire for Godric, much as one would have for rare and precious game. It was a different kind of arrow we were feeling.
"Godric," his name came off my lips like a whisper. Yet it resonated in the watery grove, just above the sound of the waterfall. Godric placed his gloved hand tenderly on either side of my arms.
"You have… you will… lady!" the man said finding his tongue at last. "We have been friends for a long time. Allies. And you are my savior," said Godric thinking of the day I had saved him from demon invaders. "When I was child you gave me an amulet. It was just a gift. A token of allegiance. But among my people sometimes when a lady gives a man a gift it means something," said Godric leaning closer and searching my eyes for rejection. He found none.
"What?" I asked finding the air to breath.
"Sometimes such a gift is a token of love," spoke Godric softly, braving the unknown with the slight edge of fear. "Sometimes I have hoped for such a thing as I have kept it," said Godric pulling out the amulet from a pocket in his plain clothes. I wrapped my hand around the amulet so that it was knotted between two hands- his and mine.
"Then keep it as such," I whispered. Godric's lips felt for my own. They pressed gingerly, inexperienced at first and then, they took on the boldness of the man who owned them. They quested to dominate. It was a battle I played back, mildly. Pulling and sucking when his lips allowed, I tasted of him and found it sweet, satisfying like no drink of mead I had ever tasted.
"More!" I called lost in unbidden desire. Lost, too, Godric took me by the arm and like a lady of his court, led me to the sodden banks, his eyes still lost in mine. Then they cast down on my naked body and I let my arms fall so that he could drink in the the entire sight of me. My slender, tall sylvan body pale like moonlight. My cascade of sun-kissed hair wrapping round my back all the way to my waist. The delicate toes on my feet. I knew my breasts were not a big as some of the human women but Godric did not seem to care. He drank in the sight of them. As he fumbled with his plain clothes, I helped him take them off, drawing his shirt over his head and tossing it.
"Is this wrong?" Godric muttered in the need-choked air. "Is this right?!"
"I do not know," I muttered, reaching out with the tips of my hand and tracing his skin. "I do not know!" I muttered, lamenting. But both our needs were so great. Godric snatched my hand away and I wondered if he resented being touched. But then with an angry growl, he grasped me around my back long enough to pluck me off the ground and lower me vertically onto it on the mossy earth.
"Anwen!" Godric called out, his voice thick with desire. The distance was too great. The air too thick with sparks.
"Godric, please!" I begged and he lent forward and planted one brief, light kiss on my lips. The trees whispered. But before the act might be completed, an arrow flew and landed a few scant meters beside us. My newfound lover pulled himself off me quickly, eager to defend. A tense minute passed. Then my cousin Finden strode from the forest, his face filled with rage.
"Anwen!" Findan raged. "Have you no shame? By Sylanna! The most great and noble of the elves are meet below your ancestor's tree to see your wedding day, and you discard your bride's gown for a tryst with a human knight?! Will you see our late king's bloodline ended with you?! Would you turn from Sylanna for Elrath?!"
"I, I," I stuttered, my eyes falling then. "I am sorry."
"Come with me, cousin!" Findan barked. "I will see Godric returned safely to the edge of forest. I will see that no harms comes to your LOVER," said Findan sneering the word. "But for once in your life, Anwen, I plead that you behave with dignity! Put on your clothes!" My cousin gave me such a look I was even more ashamed. Reluctantly, I unthread my fingers from Godric and dropped his hand away. He tensed and like a wall of ice, moved away.
"I am sorry," Godric bowed before Findan. "I did not understand fully how the situation stood. But my actions were my own."
Good, brave, Godric! So noble to the very end! My heart choked within my throat and a gasp rose up but I stuck a fisted hand between my teeth and ran back into the woods in the direction from which I had come. The archer who kept my unicorn mount saddled and ready for me gave me back its reins, but Findan was too quick for me. Over the years, he had come to be a quick and foresighted thinker, unlike I who acted in the moment. Findan's troops surrounded me to keep me escaping his grasp. I was a prisoner to my cousin Findan, now. Lost in a nightmare, I was forced to wait for Findan and my return to Euny. I rode the trail in a long march of shame. Even Midarelif of the powerful and wealthy House of Resyotte was waiting there for me under the ancestral tree of my hallowed kin. But I hung my head in shame and met none of the eyes of my suitors. Instead, I shuffled towards Head Priest Euny. We spoke in low voices for a time. Our audience grew restless.
"Anwen," Head Priest Euny announced with much shock still in his voice and on his face, for he had looked forward to this day as much or more than my father had. "Has decided to decline all suitors and remain unmarried for the time being."
"No!" I heard Findan cursing as he slapped his head. But I found a tent and fled within it. I lay down inside and wept.
Godric and I kept in touch by letter over the long years. The man grew old quickly, yet he remained hale and beautiful and keen of wit. He accomplished much and was the celebrated warrior of many human wars, a key and pivotal ruler in his kingdom. He counseled kings and stood up for justice during a brutal civil war. He married and raised his daughter well.
But the wife Godric had taken passed on from illness when Godric was in his forties. It was then that the letters between he and I became almost daily. We met in secret and completed the rite that Findan had interrupted so many years ago. All the time, I feared I was disappointing the dragon god Sylanna. Yet Head Priest Euny did not read ill fortunes for me. All of these intimate details I tell you now, for you are the priest of my confession. But such things I did not tell Godric's human daughter, the good Queen Frieda.
"So to answer your question, Queen Frieda," I answered on the day of Godric's funeral. "Yes, Godric and I were lovers until Godric grew too old to travel comfortably and Queen Isabel's War took up all his time. He and I always met in secret, for our deeds were questioned by both men and elves alike. I did not wish to do any harm to Godric."
"But my father's soul was welcomed by Elrath himself!" Queen Frieda spun her words wildly. "He was never a sinner!"
"Is loving an elf really such a crime?" I said, my eyes full of sadness. "I thought so, too, that my own god, Sylanna had cause to be angry with me. But then she gave me a gift," I said opening up my purse and taking out a sacred object from within. It was the acorn Head Priest Euny had given me.
"It was just as well I did not get married that day, for what I shared with Godric had been enough. Even if he did not intend it, there was 'precum'. He leaked. The little bit of his seed he shared with me was enough to give me a son. Godric knew this, and it is part of the reason we kept up so much with the letters, until the very end."
"A son?!" Frieda gasped. "Then I have an older brother?! And he is…"
"Half-elf," I answered her somberly. "Half-human. He has yet to find his way but he studies much like the mages. Perhaps one day you two shall meet. But for now, there are things I would ask of you! No, I beg them. Queen Frieda of the Unicorn Empire, swear to me now that you will never seek harm to my son!"
"I swear it!" Queen Frieda answered promptly, smiling. "This is good news even if strange. I had thought I had no kin remaining on this earth! The demons took all."
"Good!" Anwen answered. "Then the second request I have is this. Queen Frieda, please allow me to plant this acorn at Godric's grave! That way, fifty years from now my son will have an ancestral tree to seek wisdom from. In time, perhaps his own daughter will have her marriage declared beside it roots. Whether my son chooses a human bride for himself or an elf, I would see that he is happy!" I declared. Frieda took the acorn in her hand and studied it closely.
"Well, I will have to be careful that no one of the Empire takes offense to such a gesture by the Sylvan! But stay a moment and I will plant the acorn myself." Frieda took one of the gravedigger's shovels that had been laid aside and planted the acorn directly behind the tombstone. Then with much ceremony, she prayed over it. Tears of joy mixed with lingering sorrow poured down my face.
"I can not speak for my people," said Queen Frieda. "But your son is welcome here. I must think on if he can or should take up the Duchy from me as he is Godric's eldest, but as Queen I say that he has every right to live within the kingdom if he should choose so!"
"My son has expressed no desires to visit his father's lands, yet. He is a wandering spirit and has found favor in the wizard lands. Arch-Mage Zehir is especially kind to him and it is my thought that he will ultimately apprentice in the Silver Cities."
"We will speak more!" Frieda promised. "Thank you for telling the truth."
"It has hurt me long to not speak of it," I had said drying my tears. Queen Frieda remained lost in thought.
"Now that Godric is dead, will you marry?"
"I might," I answered frankly, "although it would be hard for me to find a suitor now. My guilt on that day is too well known."
"If you do not marry," Frieda offered. "Perhaps you will visit the human kingdom for an extended stay, yourself. It is odd, indeed, but my heart bears you no ill will. I think my father will smile down from his place by Elrath's side if we be friends. Lady Anwen, you always welcome in the Palace at Talonguard, as long as I reign as queen!"
"You have my thanks," I bowed. "Now if it is alright, may I have a few moments more to visit Godric's grave?" Frieda nodded and moved away to give me a few private moments at the tomb of my beloved. I took a white lily from the wreath I wore and pressed my lips to its petals, soft like Godric's lips had been in life. I set the thrice-kissed-flower down gently on his grave.
"Godric!" I lamented less than I had before. I looked upwards toward the heavens with Elrath, and the light. "I may never see you, but you are in my thoughts, always! Like letters, I will send you a thousand prayers by the priests of Elrath to let you know I care! But I thank you for the brief time we shared, my noble and gallant knight!" Then I stood up, wondering if I would return home to forest of Syris Thalle to act more like a proper elf, or to wander the human kingdoms for at bit. For now, none of that really mattered. I was a relatively young elf, after all. I had hundreds of years more to find my own path forward. I only hoped that I might live my life as boldly as Godric had, for he was truly the noblest hero in a world full of might and magic. The end.