You awaken as the first rays of the dawn of a new week reach your eyelids. You stretch out the stiffness that sleeping on the ground has imparted. Then you head to the river to bathe. When you return, having spent far too much time washing dust from your hair, you find that the humans have hauled themselves from their beds and are staggering around breakfast. Rather than helping you decide to start planning out today's work. You are going to clear the area where the village is to be and build simple dwellings for each of the individuals present. You anticipate this taking most of the next four days, perhaps more. You quietly decide to fetch Merrill after work is done for today, since you do not have any supplies left in the ruins. Which reminds you, after the clearing is finished you will have the results of your farming experiments at last. You survey the area with a practiced eye and start to make plans for where to put things and what trees need to be taken down.

You finish your plan just as breakfast is called. You walk over and take your small plate of meat from the fire. You sit among the men who will be doing most of the work and discuss your plans. The first thing you had decided was that you want to cut as few trees as possible, partly due to their immense size and partly due to personal preference. Fortunately, you had already planned out a rough layout for the town, so you have an aspirational size for the clearing. With this in mind you manage to sketch out a basic map of what the village will look like in the future, from that map you then determine the small central area you will be clearing and roughly where each house will go.

The first few hours are spent in preparation, cutting wedges for felling and distributing roles. Trees are chosen and everyone helps in stripping branches to the best of their abilities and tools. You are not involved in that as you are still walking the men assigned to logging through the process of felling a tree safely. You do get involved in the clearing of the underbrush around the trees though. You also have to impress on the people who will not be wielding axes the importance of acting as lookouts. While you are doing so you consider what your own role in the work to come will be.

You know in your heart that there is only one role you should play, that of an instructor. There are any number of arguments you could make to justify more direct action on your part, but that is not what you are here to do. You are not going to be these people's headman or their local lord, you are just making sure that they can establish themselves as a village. You may be excited by the prospect of what this village could be, but those who live in it must make those decisions themselves. The fact that they are human, and you are not, is only a further reason to distance yourself from the actions that your leadership instincts drive you towards. Humans should rule humans, Noldor should stick to ruling the Noldor. You will serve as your people always have, a combination of example and teacher.

You would like to say that your help was the keystone of the construction efforts. You are certainly important but hardly irreplaceable. Beyond running them through the basics of cutting a tree down safely, the proper use of wedges to do so and other such things, you are mostly relegated to an observer. You see the first tree fall, see the wonder blooming on the faces of the villagers, and watch a small clearing grow. Though it feels hypocritical, since the whole project was your idea it does sadden you somewhat that so many trees must fall. You comfort yourself with the knowledge that once the village has enough room it is likely to be an end to the tree cutting. When tools are downed on the first day there is a great deal of cheer, the villagers have made good progress and they should be able to start building after only one more day of logging.

True to your prediction the second day sees the area planned for the village cleared and the felled trees being turned into building materials. Merrill ends up helping with some of the log splitting, though she is nervous about doing so. She seems to enjoy swinging the axes though, at least at first. While the others are distracted with that you are correcting technique here and there, improving performance slightly and generally making sure that no one gets hurt. You also start to consider what you are going to build. You had intended to let everyone have a house of their own for morale reasons but looking at the construction materials you have to work with you are reconsidering that option. Due to the nature of the source as felled trees, the majority of your planks begin very long and have to be cut down to a more manageable length. You consider the possibility of making some kind of permanent barracks instead. It would be more easily able to take in new villagers. A further option is to build a few larger houses that can be shared and use the remaining material to build a barn or a town hall, to future proof the village. You do not come to an answer before night takes hold of the construction site.

After work is done for the day and the twilight has descended on the land you brave the journey to the ruins. After darkness travel I dangerous, in addition to the usual perils of travel without light the dwellers of the forest become bolder. Their fear of the sun is further proof, as though any was needed, of their dark nature. Merrill is pleased to see you. She confesses she may have checked on you in the Beyond after you did not return yesterday. You apologise for worrying her and inform her that you will be leaving for the village next morning.

The journey to the village is much less stressful with even pre-dawn light, you only have to fight off half a dozen attacks. When you reach the village construction site you answer Merrill's questions about what you are doing and why while going about your work. The trip has given you an idea though, hunting has largely been suspended due to the daylight hours being taken up by construction. You could set out to hunt at night though. You could also change your schedule so that some time each day is dedicated to hunting. The final option that you are reluctant to take is to ask Merrill to try to forage, after all this area is relatively safe and she currently has no job.

After some internal discussion, you decide to try to hunt at night while everyone else is sleeping. You should be able to manage to find and kill game in the night, thanks to your quendi sight and long practice at fighting beneath moon and star. You inform Merrill and the villagers of your intentions. You endure their dire warnings of monsters that come out at night, obviously forgetting that you had already travelled through the night to retrieve Merrill. You ignore their warnings for this reason, and when the sun has set beneath the treetops you set off to seek prey.

The forest is a different place at night, you had already noticed the increased activity of the monsters that dwell within but there is more to it than that. The moonlight that manages to pierce the canopy above casts shadows in strange ways. Every bush near a tree seems an ambush in waiting. That several of the trees themselves launch ambushes on you does not help alleviate that impression. Many of the animals that you are familiar with hunting have fallen asleep, and those that scurry about in the darkness are not as large as their daylight counterparts. It is blatantly obvious that this particular hunting trip is going to stretch your skills to the uttermost.

Your skills are apparently insufficient. There is simply nothing to hunt. The few animals you do find are skittish in the extreme and very small. You never get a chance to strike at something substantial and you cannot catch the small rodents and bats in sufficient numbers to make anything other than a snack. None of this is helped by the steadily mounting numbers of attacks. It is particularly irksome to look up from a duel with one of the magma creatures you first saw in your vision to see an owl snacking on a mouse while staring at you. It feels as though the universe is taunting you.

Your second night of hunting does not seem like it will be much more promising. There is the same lack of any substantial prey animals and more interruptions than you can believe. You are starting to suspect that something is disturbing the dark creatures of the woods. You are faced with a conundrum. You need food to live, but you cannot get any with the creatures of the forest so disturbed. If you investigate the source of the disturbance, you will be unable to hunt, but if you leave them be there will be nothing to hunt. This conundrum is answered for you late in the second night of the hunt when you meet a Dalish hunter in some distress.

You find the hunter slumped against a tree clutching his side. You do not see him until you are almost on top of him due to the thick trees and the darkness. As a result, uncharacteristically for a Dalish, he sees you at the same time as you see him.
"Who, ah who comes?" He gasps at you.
You take a quick look at his wounds; they are not immediately fatal but they will be if they are left untreated for too long. With a heavy sigh you kneel down and begin to assess how best to treat them.
"A healer. How did you get these?" You ask.
"Ah, ah, I… Bears, so many bears." These words are all the Dalish manages before he stops responding to you at all.
You wonder what it is with the Dalish and bears as you get out the healer's kit you were gifted and prepare to perform first aid.

You are quietly humming to yourself as you work. These wounds, unlike the disease that ravaged the Sabrae clan, are something you are extremely familiar with. You have seen more claw and fang wounds than most hunters ever will. You calmly clean his wounds with alcohol, stitching up the deeper cuts while he is unconscious and bandaging the rest. You examine him in detail, now that he is out of immediate danger, and are pleased to note that there is nothing wrong with him beyond blood loss. As such you feel no remorse as you hoist him over your shoulders and set a course for the camp of Zathrien's tribe, or his former tribe you suppose. The thought of leaving him where he lay had passed through your head, but you do not want him to undo all your hard work by dying to a spider. Also, you have an idea as to how you can address your supply situation.

Your journey takes you until well past midnight. You are not looking forward to construction efforts tomorrow since you are not likely to be getting much sleep tonight. As you approach the camp you are spotted by a sentry. You had seen the sentry before he had seen you, though not by as much as usual. Since most of the clan is asleep, no alarms are raised or great outcries are made. You ask if you can take enough ingredients to make a week's worth of rations as saving this hunter had interrupted your hunting. There is some resistance to the idea, but mostly the people you speak to seem to think that it is cheap at the price. You think they were angling to ask you about Zathrien but you had places to be and most of them wanted to be back in bed. You tell them you will be visiting later to give them the full story of what happened. This seems to placate them enough that most of them go back to bed and you can return to the village to collapse by the fire for a few hours rest.

You push down your desire to change the plan. The villagers need houses, to feel like this village is their own, and having property will be the first step in that. Just because something is more efficient does not always mean that it is a better choice. So, you say nothing, watching as the villagers start cutting the wood down to lengths they can use. You are consulted frequently on how to build the houses. Usually, one of the villagers will come to you with a design and ask how best to build it. You find yourself desperately searching your memory through the thick fog of exhaustion for information on how to build things.

Fortunately, after a short amount of searching, you recall more than a few semi-permanent encampments you have had to build over the years. You have to refuse some of the more outlandish designs. You have to explain, in detail, why wood will not do some of the things stone will. You blame yourself for some of the more overambitious designs, you seem to have infected the townspeople with your enthusiasm for what this town might be. Still as far as problems go having an overenthusiastic workforce is not the worst one you have had to face in your life.

The work ends up taking two days, with your and Merrill's help. Hours of sawing, shaping and nailing leaves you all covered in sawdust and with aching limbs. After the two days have passed though you behold the twelve small houses. Each of a similar design, simple boxes with a triangular roof frame to be filled with thatch. Yet they are all slightly different, one has a covering on the front while another has a fence and so on. There is the familiar feeling of something new being born in the air. The faces of the atani who will call this place their home shows something like pride and wonder combined. You recognise it well, it is Kurvo after he finished his first carving, or Kano when he first wrote a song; it is the feeling that this could be it, your calling in life. As you all settle down to the last of the food that has been saved from previous hunts, you listen to their plans for the future. There are the obvious ones, the need to hunt tomorrow or to check on the progress of the farms, but there are also plans for expansion.

When the next day dawns you check on the yields of your farm beneath the trees. It is almost ready for harvest, and you can now tell what the yield will be. Your worst fears are not met, there is sufficient food here to sustain a dozen men for a time. Unfortunately, that is all it can do. There will be no surplus and they will not exactly live in plenty if they do not supplement the harvest through hunting.

You relay this information to the villagers. They take it as well as you would expect. They are simply pleased to have a steady source of food if hunts go badly. The conversation quickly turns to more future proofing. There is concern about the viability of hunting long term especially if leather is going to be their main trade good going forward. The problem arises when it is pointed out that there is very little room for animals like sheep or cows, which leads to an argument about what could be raised. Suggestions such as clearing larger areas or raising rabbits are thrown around, but no agreement is reached.

The argument is brought to a halt by one of the former bandits asking what the town should be called. You had not given the matter much thought, so you were interested to hear what they might suggest. You are shocked when they look at you expectantly.
"Why are you looking at me? It is your village; you should name it." You tell them.
This causes them to start suggesting names among themselves. In the end they decide on Gladesville, which you believe means village of the clearing. You would criticise their naming sense but the fact you had called the hill you had built your fortress on 'cool cold' stays you.

The day after construction finishes for the week, you decide that while you are returning to the ruins you will speak to Zathrien's Dalish tribe. They are somewhat out of the way, but you feel that if you do not get it done now you never will. You have no desire to leave the clan wondering where their keeper went, or worse accuse you of murdering him. You would like to avoid such an accusation, even if most people would classify convincing someone to kill themselves murder without context. Despite your best efforts to remain positive, you expect no small amount of suspicion, given that you and Merrill are returning together and without Zathrien.

The day is a strange one, scattered clouds and strong winds contrast with the bright sun. You and Merrill travel through the area where you found the clan two weeks ago, since you doubt, they would move while their keeper was away. Your suspicions are confirmed when you discover the sentries who still cannot spot you before you spot them. You truly despair for the Dalish clans if their warriors cannot spot someone who dresses in a bright red cloak before they are spotted despite wearing forest tones themselves. You share your concerns with Merrill, who seems to find your opinions incredibly funny for some reason. Shaking your head at the antics of mortals you walk up and catch the sentries' attention. They immediately start demanding answers about Zathrien's condition. You have to tell them that you will be informing his apprentice first several times before they let you through.

Lanaya is pacing nervously when you reach the centre of the camp. When she sees you she runs over.
She looks around, presumably looking for Zathrien, and when she does not see her mentor, she turns to you and asks. "Where is Zathrien? Is he alright? Does he need help?"
You take her by the arm and gently lead her to her wagon. "Please have a seat, for I fear I bear ill news."
You can see her face fall, and you suspect she already knows what you are going to say. Still, she sits down and looks up at you in the desperate hope that you are not going to tell her what she knows in her heart you will.
"Zathrien is dead."
There is an immediate outcry. The scouts who accompanied you are yelling accusations of falsehood, several of the eavesdroppers are wailing dramatically. Lanaya is silent for a few moments, tears running down a face contorted with grief. Then, proving Zathrien a better teacher than you would have though, she forces her emotions back enough to command, "Enough! Let the man speak! Tell me, how did he die? How is it that you and Merrill returned and he did not? And after so much time, it has been two weeks."
You look down at her tear stained face, desperately striving to remain strong enough to lead her people. You feel a sense of connection to her in that moment, you had intended to simply tell her what had happened in full, but now you wonder. Should you perhaps spare her feelings?

As you look at Lanaya, now Keeper Lanaya you suppose, who is looking at you with her tears and grief barely kept back by an effort of will, you decide she deserves the truth. The desire to spare her feelings comes from the same place that coddles children to their own detriment. You will simply have to put this as gently as you can.
"Zathrien was the creator of the werewolves who dwelt in the Heart of the Forest." You say.
The onlookers begin to grumble, and you see Lanaya's face twist, but you do not let the discontent grow.
"I cannot say if he created the concept, if you were to press me I would say he did not, but these examples were caused by the spirit he bound to a wolf named Witherfang. The spirit then spread a curse based on its own nature those it bit, cursing them to the half wolf half man forms. Worse it cost those bitten their minds until the spirit intervened on their behalf."
"We know what werewolves are Shemlen. Explain your accusations about Zathrien." Lanaya snaps at you.
You do not roll your eyes, however much you want to. "Zathrien created the curse to take vengeance on the humans who robbed him of his children. There was an unexpected side effect. So long as the spirit was bound to the wolf the curse endured and Zathrien with it. This led to the curse spreading far beyond its original targets, but Zathrien had grown to hate all humans and saw this as no concern of his."

The crowd seems to be very much in agreement with Zathrien's sentiment. It fills you with sorrow to see that division between mortals is as deeply rooted as the division of the Noldor. Regardless of their feelings, you will continue to explain why what Zathrien did was wrong and why he had to make it right.
"I see that you are of a similar mind. But let me ask you this, is this not the same mindset that drove you all from your homeland? That a group of people deserve nothing but suffering for some slight or simply because they are different?" You turn to Lanaya, "Does his action sound like that of the man who saved you?"
While the crowd seems to not care for your first argument your comment to Lanaya seems to land much better.
In the silence you continue, "Mortals are not supposed to endure beyond the span of their years, the longer the curse endured the less Zathrien was a person and the more he was the incarnation of his anger and hate. When he was confronted by this fact, he realised that if the curse must end. He undid the curse and in doing so undid that which kept him alive. That is how he died."

Merrill is quick to support you on the matter. "Zathrien lied to all of us. We believed that he had discovered a remnant of our past, but he had wielded blood magic to turn himself into a pseudo abomination bound to the spirt that caused the curse. Even if you care nothing for his actions towards the humans, that on its own should show that the curse had to end. He shouldn't have kept living that lie."

There is silence for a long moment. You can see the suspicion, the desire to cling to a comforting lie rather than the truth, in the eyes of the onlookers. You do not know why they decide to believe you. Perhaps it was Merrill's support, perhaps they just trust a pretty face. Whatever the reason, Lanaya sags down in grief rather than rising in rage. The onlookers seem disheartened by the revelations about the elf they had respected above all others.
"We will hold a funeral for Zathrien. Whatever else he was, he was our keeper. He deserves that much." Lanaya says.

Watching a Dalish funeral was an experience unlike any funeral you have previously attended. You are not sure if it was because of the lack of a body, but it seemed to mostly be about going through the deceased's possessions. A number of these possessions, and a few flowers and other such items, are then placed in a hole. The hole is then filled in and a stone with Zathrien's name was placed on top of it by Lanaya. Someone had drawn a picture of Zathrien that was passable, in your opinion, and that was leaned against the rock. Lanaya added more stones as people said things as if the deceased could here, resulting in a somewhat elaborate monument shaped like a pyramid. One by one the other Dalish, including Merrill, leave to a place where food and drink has been prepared for the wake. Eventually, you and Lanaya are the only two left at the monument, she has not moved since she finished its construction and is staring at the picture of Zathrien. You push yourself away from the tree you were leaning against with a sigh. She is clearly suffering from her grief and is need of someone to help her process it, and it looks like that role has been left to you.

You approach her and stand there for a few moments, you want to give her the chance to start the conversation. When she does not take the opportunity, you decide to start with something more neutral than her feelings.
"I do not think anyone is ever ready to take over leadership, especially in times of emotional distress." You say, "You have done well. Your teacher should be proud."
This gets a bitter laugh that sounds more like a cough, followed by a scornful comment. "Sure, I bet he's real proud of the girl he lied to all her life."
"What lies did he tell you?" You ask neutrally.
She turns to look at you in disbelief. "You yourself told us about how he was lying about rediscovering ancient elven immortality, and you ask me what lies he told me?"
"Is that the only one? Your tone suggested he had told you some more personal lies." You respond
Another coughing laugh as she turns back to the memorial. "How would I know? I couldn't even tell he was a blood mage consorting with demons."
You give her a long considering look, you think you know what is truly bothering her. "There is one thing you know to be true. He cared for you, at least a little."
When her disbelieving eyes meet yours you continue. "No one forced him to save you, he could have walked by and nothing would have changed in his life. He did not need to teach you well enough to take his place as you have done. In truth he had reason to believe you would never need to. But he did, because whatever his flaws, lies or other acts he cared enough to take you as his student and to make you the best you could be."
Lanaya's eyes drop from yours, returning to the picture of Zathrien. You say nothing, allowing the silence to persist.
Finally she says, "Any other words of wisdom, oh wise one?"
You think your title could have used a little less sarcasm, but now is not the time to make a fuss on the matter. "I have a few, I would note that tears are not always evil. There is a time and a place for grief. I would also point out that leaders must often control or conceal their emotions in public, so a chance to grieve in private should not be squandered."

Lanaya does not respond for far longer than her prior silence. You consider saying more but you think you have done all you can. You walk past her to talk to the memorial for Zathrien, you suppose you should honour the local tradition when you are a part of it.
"You may not have been a good man, but you died to make your actions right. Not everyone can say that. I hope you found your children wherever it is you went when you died."
You turn on your heel and head to the wake. If your quendi ears heard the sounds of weeping after you left, that is between you and the forest.
Lanaya does eventually join the wake, with red eyes and a puffy face. You hand her a drink of the truly awful wine they are serving. She manages a wan smile at you as she takes it. You count that as a win for you.