A Rest In A Beautiful Forest (Pre-Veil & GF'd)

[Joyau delaLune]

1st of Melora, Winter

Joyau had been traveling for a cycle, taking her time on her way to the Ivory Universitas in Demios. She made her way through the woods hoping to find a soft spot to rest. Finally she saw a little clearing. She alighted from her flight. She had sent her medical gear, books and other items on to Demios. All she had with her was a knapsack containing a change of clothing and a few provisions. She also carried over her shoulder the only other item she would not be separated from, her medic field kit. She never knew when she would run into someone who needed a medic, so she stayed prepared at all times.

She washed her hands in a small stream she saw and slipped out of her warm green cloak, laying it on the ground atop some pine needles. She opened her knapsack and took out a small crust of bread and a few pieces of dried grapes and a couple of nuts. She placed her dinner in a small bowl she carried. She used it for drinking most of the time.

She sighed a little as she lay back against the tree nibbling on the the food. She wasn't very hungry, but she knew she needed nourishment.

The sprite was dressed in traveling clothing; a pair of green leather breeches, white linen shirt, light leather breastplate, and knee length brown leather boots. Her dark green heavy water repellant cloak kept her from having to sit on the cool, damp forest floor. Her friend Zim Rage had given her an elvish long-knife made of fae steel. She never thought she would EVER wear a weapon, but after the ratta rebellion she realized that some sort of weapon could be useful. If she would have had a knife when she ran into the ratta carrying a small child, she could have poked him a little instead of having to wrench the child out of his hands. She might have gotten herself and the child killed, except for luck. A small poke on his hands might have made him release the child. Still even after learning how to use the sword she hoped she would never have to use it in combat. She was a healer, not a killer. She took it off her belt and lay it on the ground beside her.

Her long blond hair which was braided neatly this morning, was slightly messy by late afternoon, tendrils were curled around her alabaster complexion. Her large green eyes which were usually filled with joy for life, showed her fatigue. She knew the city beyond the forest was not too far for her to make before nightfall, yet she yearned for a few moments of peaceful contemplation. Too many people traveling with her for many miles had worn down her spiritual aura. She needed time alone to regroup.

She had been so focused on her studies, then on her job at the hospital, her meditation time had been limited. Her Master was always on her back telling her she couldn't do her job because she was so small. His attitude had made her stronger and more confident, but it took its toll on her spirituality. Then the horrors she had seen in the streets of Taralon, which brought forth something the innocent little sprite had never experienced. She found she was calm and cool under fire. What a surprise. She who had been like a fish out of water away from her beautiful forest village, had risen to the challenge. But to the loss of what, she thought. Her spirituality, her peace, her serenity had been challenged at every turn and she had become tough enough to do her job. But, she wondered, would she be able to worship and enter into that mystical contemplation she so desired. Was one to be sacrificed for the other.

She wished she knew the answer. If there was an answer. This was the time when she needed her grandfather. But he had been killed doing what she was doing. He was in service to the Empire, also, but in one battle, a battle where he had saved hundreds of lives, his own was snuffed out by the sting of an arrow. A savage strike indeed on one who had lived though a century of battles, never having raised a weapon against friend or foe. Was she up to his standard. She doubted that.

Joyau finished eating and pulled her cloak up over her shoulders for warmth. She was so tired she didn't even know she had slipped off into sleep.

[Malvoitre]

The forest had patterns of its own. Moving shadows, the cricket's shrill, steady growth and decay on the canopy floor...Malvoitre knew its song. A winter mostly isolated with only the sound of rain to echo back responses to his slowly eroding array of sounds made watching his only life's goal. In a way, there was drama there...how things struggled to survive...how they worked passionately to cover the void left by a fallen tree...how animals ate animals who ate animals who at bugs who ate plants that grew from all of their collected decaying carcasses...how the struggle to survive never ended. Equilibrium was never reached. Death and growth were the only tunes to which the Tawnleaf swayed.

Which is why it was so easy to spot her down on the forest floor. She did not belong. Her demeanor so obviously swung to one extreme end of the paradigm. Like most of his race she was an icon for life and goodness, unspoiled by thoughts of death or survival. The sprites simply existed. Diana took care of the rest.

He didn't believe she existed...not Diana, but the tow-headed sprite below his perch. The faes rarely came to these woods and only his relatives would count themselves among the Hobb ancestors. Loneliness was causing delusions, he told himself. Or perhaps he had become one of the waking dreamers, chosen by Kaimelea to see visions envied even by the mystics.

Anything was possible when left alone too long.

Uriel stirred suddenly, the white fox fur garment draped across his shoulders tightening against his skin. The other sprite had fallen asleep. Did dreams sleep? He couldn't remember anymore. For many brightenings his dreams and reality had shifted seamlessly with one another, working with and against each other like the wild components of his forest home.

She could be real. The thought was...alluring.

Malvoitre slipped off his perch, wings wide, and drifted down to the forest floor as easily as a fallen leaf. He landed a few steps away from her and sat low. What to do? What to say? How does one connect to the living...to a dream?

Finally he decided to speak. In a voice that matched the trembling pitch of the nearby stream, Uriel called to the stranger.

"Arise, creature," he whispered. "You are far from our homeland. This forest can be unkind."

[Joyau delaLune]

Joyau awakened suddenly, not knowing where she was. She was sure she heard the soft voice of someone calling, but it took her a moment to focus her eyes; and eyelids which seemed to be so heavy she had to concentrate just to keep them open, saw him then, like a dream, one of her kind. His gentle aura had already reached out and touched her, though she knew he had not touched her with his hands. She stared at him, her large moss green eyes betraying the wonderment of his presence.

She wanted to reach out and touch him, to make sure he was real. Then she spoke softly to him, "Are you a dream?"

[Malvoitre]

Malvoitre's ice blue eyes went wide as words poured from the other sprite's mouth. The soft harmony latent within the vocal chords of his race...he had forgotten how sweetly they could sound. Human words were so gruff. Even elven whispers couldn't compare to the complex melody of the being before him. Even more complex was the question she had posed. A simple greeting from one quickly jarred from slumber, but Uriel had never considered his creation or where his identity took root.

Perhaps it was in the mind of another. How tempting that thought was...to be the mere creation of some higher power. To be a guide, or small player in the fantasies of another entity...perhaps he was a dream after all, just a small manifestation of some other wiser being. Could it be his life was in the control of another? Could it be that all his trials were the mere workings of someone as yet unseen?

He looked about him. The forest swayed in its endless dance. Things died. Things grew. Nothing ever really ended. Nothing ever really began. Only life seemed important. Through it all, even the shadows of a wintery forest, it endured. How perfect. How perfectly simple that life would endure despite the drama he had seen with his own two minuscule eyes. Perhaps he was a dream. Perhaps he was place here simply to entertain the thoughts of others.

"I don't know," whispered the sprite suddenly. "If I am, then dream sweetly fellow sprite. Let your dreams come true."

[Joyau delaLune]

He was real. Never had she imagined when she had sat down in this peaceful forest, she would awaken to the words of one of her kind. She had not seen but one since she had left her forest home and he had not the magnitism of this being. He seemed to read her soul. She was in awe of his presence.

She sat up and spoke, "My name is Joyau, what is yours", she spoke softly as if the words she spoke were superfluous to the feelings she had inside. She couldn't remember when she had felt such a pull or if she ever had. She was sorry she had spoken, she was afraid her words would break the magic of his presence.

She tried to think rationally, but there were no rational thoughts in her head, only peace like a sea flowing through her as a river of contentment. She looked at him, his piercing blue eyes so different from her own, his black hair, and his gentle countenance. She was swept up in some marvelous discovery of not only him, but of herself. She waited for his next move, totally lost in the moment.

[Malvoitre]

Trickle water words came from her mouth, tumbling softly like the ebb and flow over polished stone. Her voice, her look...he could feel them smoothing his sharp edges, changing him if only slightly into something more familiar, something from the past. The corner of his mouth twitched at the revealing of her name. It calmed him just knowing. Such was the healing power of a sprite. How mystical this creature was, but somehow simple.

"Joyau," he said softly, testing the syllables against his tongue. "Joyau...a difficult question you ask. Call me Uriel. It's what they know me as."

He nodded to the ancient trees above them, so splendid in their dark emerald colors. The things they must have seen. The ages they must have passed though. Now they provided a home for him and a simple place to meet one of his kind after so long. How mystical the world was, yet somehow it made sense.

"Why have you come here, friend? You and I are uncommon underneath these trees."

[Joyau delaLune]

His name is Uriel, he's real, Joyau thought. His voice was so musical. There was the feeling of solitude he wore, as a mantle upon his shoulders. Joyau had never felt quite the way she felt now. Was it only hours earlier she had despaired of ever feeling the mystical presence of one who brought her back to her origin, back to her forest home. But there was something about him that was tinged with lonliness. The lonliness of one who had lost his way.

She remembered the sages in her village who told her that solitude began when loneliness lost its power over one. Was it the blessing of solitude she was sensing or an intense need in Uriel which drew their souls together in such a mystical fashion. It took a while for her to speak as a thousand memories of her life before raced through her mind. The words of her guides, words she did not understand years ago, now blossomed like flowers in her mind, making her understand this being, and herself more clearly.

The unspoken language of something unknown and foreign to her also coursed through her body as her mind and emotions began understanding. There was more going on than Joyau realized because in her innocence she had never been in love.

"I, I don't really know," she said. "I am traveling to Demios, and I just wanted to be alone for a while. This lovely woods seemed to call."

[Malvoitre]

Demios. Across an empire. Such strange things the strings of fate had woven. Why would they bring another to him, why should he and Joyau come together if only to be scattered across the world? He let silence slip between them, allowing the sounds of the forest to roar in their ears as he stared unblinking, considering her with his eyes for as long as he could. What was this feeling? Why should he care where her gossamer wings carried her? His home was here, his solitude complete.

It dawned on him slowly, old feelings returning after patterns of absence. He wanted her company. He wanted to talk and laugh, share stories and walk the same timeline with her if only for a little while. Such strange feelings to have all at once, deep in a secluded forest, so very near to his empty dust-filled home.

But she had come here first, westward to the Elfhame. Something had drawn her here and perhaps their timelines were meant to entwine after all. Perhaps fate had meant for them to come together, wayward sprites in an unforgiving world.

Inwardly he reproached himself. To wish for such things was foolish. To believe in anything other than solitude...discomforting.

"These woods are a good place to be alone," he said, steeling himself for a coming farewell, "a quiet place lose oneself."

[Joyau delaLune]

Joyau listened to his words, but she couldn't understand a word. Her senses were speaking louder than the voice of a small one like she. She caught the word "alone". Alone, she had never been alone. Not truly, for her life had traveled in circles of her family, friends and teachers, those she had helped and those who had helped her. The only aloneness she had had was among those foreign to her. What did she know of being alone.

"Alone," she said, "I have never been alone. My family, my friends in my village. Even the death of my parents, left me not alone for I have my brother. I have spent the last era and more away from my home, my village. But I have not been alone. I have had teachers and I have worked in a hospital. I have been a medic in a war and had to stop a plague in Taralon. I am tired, but I have not ever been alone."

She looked into Uriel's eyes, they were so full of lonliness, she realized just then what it meant to him to be alone. Her eyes turned emerald green, something they rarely did except when frightened or angry. His eyes were as blue as the sky and as penetrating as a sharp knife. She could not look away, and then she could not look any more. The bare naked truth of his need penetrated all her defences and her heart began beating so rapidly she was sure he could hear it.

"I know you are lonely," she said softly. "I know you are afraid, afraid of something I do not understand. But I want to. I want to understand you more than I have ever wanted anything, I think. I do not know why," her voice trembled. "I do not know why," she whispered, "but I know I need to." Her eyes filled with tears, she never cried, but she cried now, softly, and she didn't know why.

[Malvoitre]

Malvoitre's unwavering eyes continued to stare at her as she broke down in front of him. How time had changed him. He remembered a time when smiles broke out at his entering a room, the people around him expecting his light-hearted nature to brighten even the darkest circumstances. Now...and how quickly things had changed...his gaze was enough to bring somebody to tears. He sighed inwardly and blinked. It felt like a good time to check up on his feet.

He didn't know how long he stared at them. Time seemed inconsequential now, words even less so. She had seen something in his face. Something that needed mending. Like a good, faithful sprite, she wanted to fix it. She wanted to fix him. Did he need fixing. Was his existence flawed somehow? Was resigning himself to a predictable hermitage really so bad?

The prospect was alluring, though, to have company...someone to talk to. The humans had a phrase..."spilling your guts." He could go for a little of that. It would be violent and messy, like the phrase implied, but perhaps it would lead to the healing Joyau so willingly offered. He opened his mouth, waggled his tongue, briefly made a sound.

Joyau.

Malvoitre flicked his cold eyes up at her again. The tears told him everything he needed to know. Perhaps she could heal him somehow, but his presence worked like a blade cutting through her serenity. He couldn't harm her anymore. To do so for the sake of his own selfish desires would only lead to guilt on his part. And guilt...it didn't mix well with loneliness.

A need to comfort her overwhelmed him. Like her, he felt an overwhelming desire to close the wounds already inflicted. He wanted to make her smile, to hear her laugh. He realized he hadn't heard laughter in a very long time. The little sprite guessed hers would be sweetly musical, like wind chimes and the wind through reeds.

Slowly he moved forward, gracefully covering the ground between them. He took her trembling hand in his own and firmly held it, gently pressing his cool forehead against her own. They were close together now. Her soft warmth seeped into his skin and he drank it willingly, suddenly remembering a sense of touch so long ago abandoned.

"There is time for that," he said gently, calming her with his musical voice. "We have all the time in the world."

[Joyau delaLune]

As Uriel moved forward and took her trembling hand in his own firm grasp and gently pressed his cool forehead against hers, Joyau took a small hicuppy gasp. She couldn't move. She felt for a moment that the touch would last forever. Small shocks went through her body as she reached up and touched the side of his face.

Then he spoke and the words seemed to wash over her like ice water. She jerked back from him trying to gain her composure, "I cannot stay here," she said. "We don't have any time together." The reality of their parting hit Joyau in the stomach like someone punched her. "I have to go to Demios, to school." Joyau said. "I don't know why I chose the city, but I have already made arrangements. There is only one other city where I would feel comfortable going. It is a forest city, Natura, but I could not be there until Spring. There are druids there who could teach me. Their healing powers are great, also."

[Malvoitre]

Malvoitre nodded slowly, holding her trembling body. He understood her choice. The Elfhame was not a home to her and other forests long lived in the hearts of sprites called for her to return. And yet, she seemed to be asking him to come with her. Why else would she list the times and places she would travel to? Perhaps it was time for him, after a long winter of solitude, to move outward from the Tawnleaf and once again travel across the Empire.

Sighing quietly, he let go of her, his wings beating at once to lift him off the ground. He hovered in front of her for a moment before speaking quietly.

"Natura, then. Look for me in the spring."

His wings carried him farther upward and farther away from Joyau. Time was what he had promised her and spring was as good a time as any to come to know her more. The sprite recalled his brief time in the Dolwoods, visiting the hidden sprite city. Perhaps they could visit it together as the Dolwoods blossomed. Malvoitre almost smiled at the thought.

Slowly he drifted away from her, the winds pushing against his wings in a haphazard direction. It wasn't long before he lost sight of her completely. For only a time, he told himself.

For only a time.

[Joyau delaLune]

Joyau stood there silent as Uriel told her he would meet her in Natura. Only a short time then they could be together. As Uriel rose in the air, Joyau lifted her hand to wave. She called after him, "Natura in the Spring." Her heart beat wildly as she recalled his arms around her. She had been so self sufficient for a long time, yet now she felt her destiny was going in another direction, a direction not of self-denying service to others, but one of finding out who she was as a person, a woman.

She turned and flew away. The opposite of Uriel towards the main road leading her to Demios, but only for a short time, then she would go to Natura.