But for all of her efforts, if the legends were true, were for naught. The human Hero would return.
She touched the burn marks along her bare left arm, her marble skin blemished in several places with ugly scars that no amount of Elven sorcery could heal. Damn the humans and their pointless defiance. Could they not see that the First Children worked to stop another Cataclysm?
Ever since that fateful day, and for mysterious reasons unknown, she felt that her connection to the elemental spirits of the land had grown stronger. She could summon the spirits faster and guide and direct them with even greater precision. Through this communion, she felt that she had come closer to finding the true meaning behind the song of the spirits, the song of Mana, or simply ‘magic’ as the lesser races called it. It gave some credence to the old theory that the gods rewarded great deeds.
But these were old complaints and best left for another time. She could delay the direct summons no longer and she needed to focus on the now.
She departed her chambers, making her way through the summer palace, the train of her formal dress unfurling a crimson wake behind her. Sunlight filtered through high-arched windows, acting almost like beacons that guided her steps. No one would meet her gaze, not Lady nor Lord, nor master or servant. All eyes were downcast in her presence. They all had, of course, had heard of her. The chittering whispers exchanged behind delicate fans that followed her passage were proof of that.
Finally, she reached the oaken doors that led to the Court of the Ancestor Trees. Trees, as she had been told when she was young, by one of her tutors, were the only things that elves had any real affinity for. For only the stoic giants of the forest could hope to last as long as the First Children.
But why not then the long-lived Dragons, why do the elves feel no affinity for the scaled tyrants of the skies? Why was their mark not on any elven design or heraldry?
Her inquiry had earned her a casual slap for her impiety. The elves had no affinity with the dragons, and that was that. Further pursuit of the subject was met with cold stony silence at best and violent deflection at worst.
She had felt that the answer had been a poor one, and the delivery poorer still, in its lack of respect for her station. Years later she had set matters right.
Arimea smiled at the memory, savoring it like fine wine. Her vengeance had been a subtle one. A few well-placed rumors here, and a few pieces of ‘evidence’ placed there, resulted in her former teacher being accused and then judged guilty of trading in Witchwood with the humans. A most cardinal sin and crime. She had enjoyed watching him break under exquisite torture.
As to breaking, it seemed the insolent guards lining the door to the Court were in dire need of it. They regarded her with disdain, their eyes passing over her as though she were naught but a fleck of dust, utterly unworthy of even a modicum of respect befitting her station. A woman of high birth such as herself should have been met with bows and deferential gestures, yet they stood unmoved, defying the very order and decorum upon which elven society thrived. It was yet another insult she was forced to bear.
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Just as she thought of launching a scathing verbal attack, the guards, clad in intricately crafted armor of spelled bronze, finally parted the heavy oaken doors. Ignoring them completely, she stepped forward into the king’s court.
It almost seemed as though she had stepped into a great glade of an ancient forest. The elven court spread out before her, a space that dwarfed even the grandest of human cathedrals. At the far edges of the glade, giants stood sentinel, their bark and trunks conjoining to form the boundaries of the elven court. They were of the Witchwood, ancient magical trees, that seemed to almost bleed Mana, infusing the air with their pure energies. Above her, great leafy boughs arched and formed a canopy. Adorned with a mosaic of vivid fabrics, they cast dappled shadows upon the assembly below. Long banners hung from the lower branches, each representing one of the noble families. The very roots of the Witchwood twisted into seats for the court's esteemed members, while between them, a lush carpet of emerald grass sprawled.
A mixture of naturally and patiently guided growth, the heart of her people’s realm, never failed to impress her.
Then a great hush fell upon the court as the assembly noticed her presence, snuffing out any lingering murmurs of gossip. She was like a gust of wind, extinguishing a feeble candle's flame.
A man was waiting for her. A man who once had been straight, tall, and unblemished. Now he was scarred and hunched. Lorsan, the once-swordmaster of the court and former tutor of the king’s children himself, hobbled towards her on a cane, ostensibly to give her support. He, who had once been a living legend, had been reduced to this.
“Lady Arimea,” he offered in greeting, giving her a small deferential nod of his head. A weak escort, but an escort nonetheless. She would take any support she could get in this den of vipers.
“Lorsan,” she returned curtly, for her attention was arrested by the sight before her. It was as spectacular now as it was when she first had the honor to be presented here.
Moving deeper into the court, Arimea could hear the Witchwood’s song. It was a steady symphony born from the trees, more felt than truly heard, as the trees gathered the melody of sunlight, turning it into life and energy. But how exactly the trees drew sustenance from the light was a process that, to this day, confounded the wisest of Elven sages.
A shaft of sunlight shone on a raised dais, focusing Arimea’s attention to a grand structure that overlooked all before it. The eternal seat of power of the elves, the Peacock Throne.
It looked to be carved from the Witchwood, but no metal blades had been allowed to touch the sacred wood. Instead, it had been coaxed into being, shaped by the ancient songs of elven craftsmen who once wielded the arcane words of creation. Formed into the shape of a peacock's splendid fan, its myriad eyes seemed ever vigilant, eternally on the watch for the faintest whisper of treachery.
And upon that throne sat their king. All feared the king and his vitriol. He was quick to anger and slow to forget, for the years upon the throne had lent him great power. Through his long reign, his list of achievements almost rivaled the list of his former, now broken, enemies.
He was a being filled with an almost raw masculine energy, yet surprisingly slight and supple of form. His hair and eyes were the iron gray of storm clouds, a sign of his great and venerable age. A proud and unlined face, taught with a tapestry of long-buried emotions and memories, looked coldly down at all before him. Watching for signs only he knew to look for.
Like all the elves, Arimea feared their king.