For All Things Eternal

Chapter 2

The next morning as I left my house I made sure to douse the fire before stepping out into the brisk morning air. My breath clouded in front of me and I wrapped my cloak a little tighter around my shoulders to try and stave off the frigid temperatures. Winter had come in full force this year and supplies were hard to come by as our coastal town was bombarded with blizzard after blizzard these past few months. Some days it was so bad you could only see a few feet past your nose, and we even had a few of the townspeople fall to their deaths from the steep cliffs surrounding the eastern part of town just past the chapel after getting turned around in a particularly bad storm. If we were lucky, the snow might hold off long enough for us to get back to town after this outing but knowing my luck, that was probably not going to happen.

The sun had not yet risen and I glanced to the three moons lighting the dark skies above my head. They were named after the most prominent gods, Sunos the largest of the three, named for the god of light himself. He is worshiped by most of the people of the Kingdom of Ebrimid and considered to be savior of the elven kind. Naris was only slightly smaller, and was named after the god of both order and chaos. The third moon, the smallest of the three that seemed to glow fainter then the others, was named after Cordes. The god of death and darkness had been absent for many years, and many believed he might have perished at the hands of Sunos many hundreds of years ago. My eyes caught on that third moon, unable to look away for a moment before brisk wind tore my thoughts back to my current task.

Allowing the faint glow of the moons to light my way, I slowly walked across the small clearing separating my sister's house from my own. It was no more than forty feet across nothing but grass filled the space between. Some of the children around town liked to use it as their playing field for some strange game they made up using a small ball and some sticks. Some days they got particularly rough and my sister and I would have to intervene and tend to their scrapes and bruises. Pushing past the memory I tucked a loose strand of ash white hair behind my ear under the hood of my cloak. It was mostly pulled back into a low ponytail that fell straight down to my lower back but a few pieces framed my pale face and fell to my collarbones, grazing over the black leather chest plate.

Finally I reached the cobblestone walkway leading up to my sister's front door, glancing around to see pots filled with long dead brittle stems that were once lush with the very herbs used to make the tea I drank with Averen last night. Candlelight shown through her ancient windows casting a faint glow on the bushes and shrubs leading to her front door. Sylvie always loved having vibrant gardens filled with medicinal herbs and exotic flowers. She would spend hours in the warmer months exploring the nearby towns in search of new seeds from traveling merchants. Sometimes when I would be called out of town by the guard to travel to the nearby capital Highsummer, I would bring her back drawings of the plants I'd seen along the way. She could make anything grow, even revive plants that were long dead. That was her gift. As a high elf I supposed it was fitting. When we were younger, she would always try to give me plants to liven up my home. They never lasted a week.

Ascending a few stairs I tapped my knuckles on the large oak door that matched my own. Both of our houses looked different compared to the gothic architecture of the buildings downtown because our father had started building them for us when we were only ten years of age. He had bought the land ahead of time and claimed the reason they looked different was because he wanted our houses to stand out, but we both knew that he couldn't afford the materials used on the buildings around town so he just made due with what he had. Even so we loved them all the same. When no answer came I knocked on the door once more, this time pushing it open and waltzing inside.

"Hey Sylv!" My melodious voice carried through the warm foyer as I tried to clean the mud off my black leather boots on the small rug in front of the door.