Among the Birches *NaNoWriMo 2013*

From the Sacred Sea

A path, well worn and nearly invisible to all intruders' eyes, lay between two rocks and a stand of spruce and aspens along a pebble-covered beach. The beach itself was barren of people to the left and the right of an elven form: long, braided hair reflecting the starlit sky, laying against skin the color of the paper birches' bark. Kya, she was called, and she stepped lightly (as indeed all of her kind do) onto the path to return home, pushing past shrubs and vines with quiet dexterity.

That's quite odd, she thought. Never have those of my dwelling allowed for this amont of overgrowth.

The beach Kya arrived from held a fleet of canoes, light as air and completely tight to water. One of them was stained dark with the salt water; it was the one Kya had used on her journey. It rested with its kind on a sheltered part of the shore, in a spacious but hard-to-spot alcove between two rock outcrops. There was no need for restraints; all of her people held the boats to be sacred and treated them well... And, really, no one else ever came close. Her island was a rather small one and upon it dwelled only her people: the elves of the island and the humans. The elves could easily recall a time when they dwelled alone there; the humans, though, had long ago forgotten their arrival and, though the elves would gently chide and remind them, thought themselves to have lived alongside the elves for time immemorial. The humans, generally being homebodies, rarely travelled to meet the others of their race on the mainland which lay a two-day journey to the west, so they had no idea as to the rarity of their pairing-- or their luck in dwelling near to and with the elves. Where other humans had famine, war, and disease, the humans of the island enjoyed abundance, peace, and health. The elves acted as their priests and priestesses, providing not only material comfort and security but also a deep wisdom to guide them, allowing these lucky humans a closer connection with the force which created all.

Though the humans were content with the confines of their island, the elves were more adventuresome. To hold counsel with other tribes and peoples, they would take turns in leaving once or twice each a season; some in large convoys and others alone. The leader of the elves left more often, but always he carried with him a precious stone which had fallen from the sky in the early days of the elves, onto the beach which held the canoes. The stone allowed for him to be reachable by the people of his island, no matter where he travelled. The stone, it had been told, also possessed a greater, hidden power than that, but it was a mystery the elves had not been able to reason, divine, or talk through. When the stone was found on beach, there lay next to it another stone: this one, of the same kind as the others making up the beach. Engraved on this second, normal stone were the elven words for Be patient, there is Power beyond what you may see or hear. In a darker time you shall find me anew. The stone with the prophesy crumbled upon touch, but the elders, whose memory never fails, clearly remember.

Kya had gone off on a lone retreat to another small but uninhabited island a day's rowing from the beach. On the island there was a small jungle encasing a cave, and infrequently the elves would travel to it for meditation and reflection. Eating only the fruit of the shrubs which grew outside the mouth of the cave and drinking only the trickle of a small stream running through the dark cavern, she sat, going through the volumes of knowledge which lay inside her-- and every elf's-- memory. She danced for the rememberance of some kinfolk who had been lost in murderous inland raids perpetrated by others, their bodies retrieved by mournful youth and interred into the catacombs constructed on the far side of the island. Despite the peace and serenity about her, she could not feel at ease; so she left the cave, sped through the jungle, and began her trip back before a single moon cycle had been completed. The water had been rough, and she sensed around her trouble waiting to reach up from the depths, but her canoe carried her swiftly and safely through the waters.

Now, she was headed on the pathway towards home. Usually, the path was incredibly well-hidden but also well-worn; now, it seemed infrequently used. Kya sensed that there had been no elven or human presence on the path for at least several days. The feeling of apprehension which had plagued Kya since before her departure strengthened, and she intensified her effort to remain queit and unseen. She scrutinized the area around the path, but as she made her way towards the first hills of the island, she could find nothing explicitly amiss. The cairns her people had set up and disguised just enough to allow the humans to see if they concentrated (the elves had trained the humans in picking them out in the woods, beaches, and hill-tops) were not disturbed and there were no messages left upon them for future travellers to see. The forest itself was quiet, but not overly so; a bird here and there sang a few bars and the leaves rustled and fell in a strong wind that blew in the tree tops. It was far from Kya, on the forest floor, but soon-- when she started the ascent of the hills-- she tower over the trees herself and feel the wind against her, just as strong as the trees did now.

For an elf, walking is a quick affair. Kya reached the summit of the first hill only thirty minutes after leaving the beach. The wind, meanwhile, had retained its vigor, and now her braids flew behind her, sometimes flying perpendicular to her body due to the strength of the gusts. Usually, at the summit, she could begin to truly but very, very faintly sense her people in the center of the hills to come. Today, she sensed nothing: no smell of elven incense, no quiet murmur from the human taverns, no chant from the great forest cathedrals. It may be the wind, Kya thought. Never have I known it to be so powerful. It could drown out slight sounds and cover over the smell balsam. Though Kya had climbed even more rapidly than usual, she did not take her customary break at the crook of an old, bent pine; with only her initial look, sniff, and pause, she ran on.

Elves... Elves are a funny race, though never would they abide being called so. Like all elves, Kya was infinitely wise-- so much so, in fact, that sometimes the most unwise actions would come from the epitome of thought. They are swift in execution of orders but often stick with them to a fault, causing more than one worthy elf to suffer an unneeded death. Death, actually, for elves is not a surety; so long as they suffer no violence, they are immortal. Of Kya's clan, only thirty-three elves had ever been lost; in the island catacombs, only thirty-three vines grew from marble vaults and climbed the walls to come together in a beautiful lattice in the grand hall. Always, two elves were there, pruning the vines and sustaining the lives of those who had passed back into the world from which they had all came. The elves loved beauty, loved memory; all of their buildings were magnificently wrought of natural resources and imbibed with the history of the people, spanning back centuries.

The human were funny, too, but not as the elves were. Though they lived in an Eden which allowed them to be always content, they were still great dreamers of (what the elves thought to be) frivolous dreams. Their children built models of large stone buildings, decorated with cloth flags of small bits of silk and linen; they had small, fleeting quarrels with one another over topics like food and drink; and they couldn't seem to remember a thing unless it was written down for them, by them. To help them recall the past, they erected a medium-sized wooden building and filled it with manuscripts that the wisest of them wrote down. The building contained about four hundred or so of these tomes, and the humans called this communal space wherein they were held a library, much to the elves' wonder. A leader of the men (they had many, whereas the elves had only one) would guide the library and organize the lending of the works, and always there were dozens of humans browsing the carefully-organized piles, choosing one or two to read, remember, and then promptly forget. The elves never went into the library except when asked; oftentimes, human writers would call upon an elf to fact-check a new book in the making. During such meetings, the elf would enter through the rough-hewn wooden doors, greet the watchman, and head directly towards a large stone table in the back without so much as looking at the works about him which the humans so enamoured. That's not to say, however, that the elves were fully indifferent to this human enterprise; they listened patiently to the humans' request for the elves' protection over the building, ensuring that the lanterns which were lit within deep into the night never cause a fire, that the books be left alone by woodland creatures, and that, should the humans all perish, the books be given to their nearest human neighbors-- a small town living a rather long distance away on the mainland. The elves, of course, acquiesced.

The elves benefited, too, from their relation with the humans. The wiser of the humans were often called in to elven counsels and gave testified there, giving advice from the point of view of a different race; they helped the elves to patrol the island; and, when an adventurous one or two would venture out, they were often able to pick up wind of going-ons which the elves were blind to. (No one, you see, thought much of a human then, except for a select few tribes of elves, chief of which was the tribe of the island.) Though the elves recognized these benefits, had they not been there, still they would have allowed the humans their harmless living in the cottages and huts in the shallow parts of the forest. Elves, and even the humans, originate from a pure place, and the isolation of the dwellers on the island kept them closer to their roots than most.

So Kya ran, for to catch no sign of the elves is odd, but to not sense the humans might mean peril. Not the animals, Kya thought. They are mighty but we are mightier yet, and, besides, they love us dearly-- as we do them. There hasn't been a fire or storm, either; the ground is dry yet green. Our outposts show that no one was alarmed, no warnings have been rang; there can't have been an invasion. Her mind stopped for an instant: an alien occurrence with worried Kya more than the silence of her land. What could have happened?