Avadis - A legolas story (slow moving!)

Prologue

Deep within Crissaegrim mountains, the cries of an infant echoe through the chasms of the mountain side. A mother stands on the edge of a vast cave, hushing her child gently as she looks out over the cavernous expanse below her feet. The cold winds brush against her dark hair, sending it sailing out to one side of her. 

Many of you reading this now would look at her and struggle to believe she would be more than 30 years young, however, the glow of her amber eyes and her gentle, knowing smile betray the vast wisdom of age she holds in her heart from her hundreds of years watching over the mountains. Bending down to gaze upon her child, she lifts her hand and stokes the baby's head gently, humming a faint tune to calm her cries.

The woman's name is Fayedira, a name translating in her language to mean "beautiful fairy". And this name suited her well, because whilst her appearance resembled closely what her eagle friends described to be a "human", two beautifully elegant wings sprung away from her back, reaching almost to the ground when they were not neatly folded away behind her. She had never dared to venture far from the mountains of her home to see these "humans", the eagles often told stories of the perils they observed from other nations and races. Tales of famine, war, death and plagues were the most common of these stories brought back and told to her people whilst they sat around their blaring fire. And indeed now that she had her own youngling to care for and nurture, she was quite content to live a quiet and simple life, hidden away.

Even so, Fayedira loved to listen to the eagles, their voices slow and mellow. Particularly she loved the stories of forests, with animals and creatures that she could barely imagine herself. Smaller creatures, also with wings, that live in large trees stretching to the heavens, creating a green blanket beneath them for other creatures to take shelter in. It was after these peculiar animals that she gave her daughter her name, Avadis; beautiful young bird. Looking down at Avadis curled in her arms with her delicate beginnings of wings tucked behind her back, Fayedira wondered at whether her child would ever come to meet these creatures for herself.

She supposed not. It was best to remain in the mountains, nestled amounst the clusters of caves her people had called home for thousands of years. The mothers of her kind were wise to avoid those bound to the changes of time, for surely they brought nothing but haste and change to an otherwise quiet and peaceful life. 

And though the rest of the peoples of Middle Earth did not know of their existence, the Avian people would soon be deeply embedded in its history, for good or for evil...