Eofe’s frantic packing was interrupted by the sound of distant, merry laughter up in the boughs. She cursed whoever decided to revel until dawn tonight of all nights and risk waking Mother. It was probably Wynnin and Taron celebrating their father’s sudden departure. She would have prayed to the Greenwarden for quiet and mercy, but she didn’t want to attract the Goddess’ attention just yet.
She hadn’t even planned on leaving tonight, but she had learned earlier in the day that Warden Orin had been sent on a task outside the village. That meant her Aunt Maeve would be taking up his post. If she didn’t go now, she would have to wait a whole season for another chance. And by then Father might be back from fighting the Wildmen in the east and she really didn’t like her odds of escaping from under both her parents’ gazes.
Eofe quietly gathered the rest of her things into an increasingly bulging pack. Her already cramped room was looking especially disordered as she scrounged for all the things she thought she might need for her journey. Thankfully she had been in the habit of squirreling away dried meats and berries for weeks, so she had enough provisions to last for a few days at least. The rest of the pack was stuffed with basic survival tools and cooking utensils and padded with whatever spare clothing she could fit into the small space.
With the pack full to bursting, she threw on a dark green cloak over her hide armor; composed of a breastplate and vambraces, and strapped a sheathed long knife to her belt. She dragged the pack over to the window, cringing at the muffled rattle it made with every step. Mother was sleeping just on the other side of the wall and every slight sound spurred Eofe to imagine the woman waking up and dragging her daughter back to bed, this time with locked doors and boarded windows, so she really would be stuck at home for the rest of her life.
Finally, she went to retrieve her most valuable possessions. Mounted above the dresser was a short recurve bow of wood so dark it was nearly black. The darkwood bow was second in value only to the bowstring that glittered with silvery light and thrummed with pent up magic. Eofe looped her bow over her shoulder and grabbed a small quiver of arrows. It wouldn’t be enough ammunition for her journey—probably not even enough to leave the forest—but her aunt had once forced her to train five levels in [Fletcher], so she could manage.
Now that she had everything she needed, she opened the wooden window into the quiet Elven village of Fal Tiren, home to the people who called themselves the Surag. Fal Tiren lay near the western edge of the Wildwood, an ancient forest of wild growth and massive trees that was but one part of the greater wildlands known as the Green, all part of the domain belonging to the [Goddess of the Wild]: the Greenwarden herself.
Trickles of moonlight pierced a canopy of giant trees from hundreds of yards above, dotting the forest floor with pale, shifting lights. Each tree was as wide around and tall as a [Wizard]’s tower, not that Eofe had ever seen one of those. The only [Wizard] she knew was a former Aedwyn Elf who had taken the Greenwarden’s bargain to join the Surag, and he knew better than to build anything so grand in the Green. Homes like her own ringed each of the great trees, surrounding the trunks in wooden bands all the way from the forest floor up to the lower branches. Most of the buildings were dark, but a few warm lights glowed from the villagers’ abodes and lit the swaying bridges and walkways connecting the upper structures. The silence of the night was interrupted only by the distant cries the forest’s natural inhabitants and the muted murmurs of those two idiots up in the boughs.
Eofe’s home was on ground level, which meant that it was several feet above ground with the only means of descent being ladders or massive roots that acted as ramps. Eofe’s window opened onto one such root, so that she gently lowered her pack onto its surface before climbing out the window herself. She looked back to her home for what might be the last time. Eofe felt guilty. She almost left a letter, but she didn’t want Mother to immediately begin chasing her down. So Eofe whispered a quiet apology and goodbye then followed the root down to the forest floor.
From there, she cast two of her Skills: [Light Step] and [Leave No Trace]. She had only recently reached level 20 in the [Scout] class, finally giving her the Skills she felt she needed to escape and survive on her own.
Each Skill felt like it had opened a hole deep inside her chest to drain something vital out of her. As a simple [Scout], she did not much mana, but she could sustain the two skills together for hours. [Light Step] made her step softly, like walking on clouds, each movement so subtle even she could hardly hear the brush of her own footsteps against the forest floor. And wherever she stepped, [Leave No Trace] erased the marks of her passing. Footprints melded back into the earth, and broken twigs and crushed leaves were scattered or repaired, leaving no trace of her path.
With her Skills guiding her steps, Eofe struck out over the detritus of the forest floor, avoiding the worn paths between the ground-level homes. It took minutes of slinking through the shadows, winding her way between quiet and darkened homes before she left the muffled sounds of the village completely behind. When the last lights of the village finally faded from sight, Eofe cast [Owl Eyes]. The nightscape ignited in a burst of color. Suddenly she could see the kaleidoscope of flora inhabiting the wild forest; patches of bushes budding with blues and yellows, thorny red vines twisting around the ancient trees, dripping with blood from fresh kills, and the vibrant green moss that infested many trunks, pulsing with magical energy. With all three Skills active, she felt the well of mana within her draining rapidly. She had maybe an hour before she would be forced to deactivate some of her skills, but hopefully that would be enough time to cover her trail and make it a difficult task to track her.
As she drew further from the haven of her home, the calls of the wild grew louder. She heard chitters and squeaks, hoots and hollers, and the distant roars of feral predators. The voice of the wild Green was familiar to Eofe, but that did not mean it was safe. She watched her step as she traversed the forest, wary of the ever-present dangers of the wild, listening for the telltale signs of a threat.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
She had left the village far behind, but she wasn’t free yet… Her new Skills might get her past sleeping villagers, but for a Warden on the watch—
“Where do you think you’re going, little bird?”
Eofe stopped.
From the shadows stepped a [Warden of the Green]. Tall, graceful, clad in brown hide armor and a dark green cloak, the dusky-skinned Elf leaned on a darkwood bow nearly as long as she was tall, strung with a bowstring like Eofe’s own that glimmered in the moonlight. Eofe had once sprained her muscles trying to draw that bow. The woman possessed the type of Elven beauty the mayflies wrote poems about, with silky chestnut hair looped in a braid over her shoulder, eyes like spring, and a wry smile that teased lifetimes of experience. Her Mark of the Wild—the sign of the Greenwarden’s blessing—came in the form of patches of bark-like skin on her cheeks and temples that creeped down her neckline. Eofe knew from her own stories that this woman had left a trail of broken and bleeding hearts halfway across the world in the distant past.
Eofe felt entirely inadequate in her presence. She was short, with hair more like flax whose tips settled just over her shoulders, skin a shade paler, and a face that still bore the signs of adolescence. Her own Mark of the Wild emerged as a pair of stubby antlers poking out of her hair. But she had the same eyes as her aunt, of which Eofe had always been quite proud.
Never in her lifetime could Eofe imagine escaping a [Warden of the Green]. But Eofe had other plans for this encounter.
She dropped to her knees and begged her aunt for mercy.
“Please, Aunt Maeve! Please let me go. I’ll come back in... fifty years! I promise!”
The Warden looked down at the young (for an Elf) girl whose head barely reached her chest even when standing. Then she stepped forward and patted the girl on the head. Eofe tried to swat her arm away, but her aunt’s arm blurred and her swing hit only air.
“Stop it, I’m not a child,” Eofe complained.
“You’re not even fifty,” Maeve teased.
“I’m old enough to leave the Green,” Eofe said.
“No. You’re not.”
Eofe deflated. Maeve was the one who had trained her to be a [Scout] when her own mother saw little point to it. It was Maeve who chaperoned her training excursions deep into the Wildwood where feral things lived, then abandoned her to learn the hard lessons of survival on her own. Maeve taught her how to shoot a bow, how to fight with a knife, and everything else she had asked of her. If Maeve didn’t think she was ready…
“But we’ve little choice now, do we?” Maeve added and Eofe looked up hopefully. “By the time you’re old enough to go, your… condition will prevent you from doing anything at all,” Maeve’s eyes drifted to Eofe’s heart. The young Elf instinctively rubbed her chest, wherein lied the source of all her troubles.
“I did not teach you everything you know just so you could waste away under my overprotective little sister’s roof. So tell me, where do you plan to go?”
Eofe stood up and brushed off her legs. “I’m going to Orith to become an adventurer,” something like real hope for the future took root in Eofe’s chest for the first time in many years.
Maeve’s smile grew. “Orith? That takes me back.” Eofe had truthfully been inspired by her Aunt Maeve’s tales of her past, the sort that [Bards] still sang of even hundreds of years later.
“How’s your Orithian?” she asked.
“I speak good the Orithian.”
“Good enough. Do you have money for a ship?”
Eofe procured a bag of Aedwyn coin and jingled it before her aunt.
Maeve laughed. “Don’t tell me you where you got that.”
“I won’t.” It had been difficult considering most of the Surag had no coin at all, but she knew which ones regularly traded with the Aedwyn. They were perhaps a bit too complacent with how they stored their coin, but then again who would steal something they had little use for in the Green?
Maeve looked to the west contemplatively, where Eofe would be traveling for some time, then offered her niece a warning. “Be wary, Eofe,” she said.
“I know how to survive the Wildwood,” Eofe pouted.
“I know you do. I taught you everything you know, after all. It’s the people outside the Green that concern me. I wish I could have taught you more about people. But some lessons you must learn on your own.”
Eofe had only ever known her fellow Surag, besides the few Aedwyn who had taken the Mark to join them. But they were all Elves in the end. The only other people in the Green were the Wildmen, and they lived far to the east. No other outsiders were allowed in the Green. If the wilds didn’t get them, the Wardens would.
“It will only get worse for you out there as the Bloom approaches,” Maeve added. “The whole world will be distrustful of the Surag at this time—and for good reason. Especially our Aedwyn cousins.”
Eofe took the warning to heart, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. She could pass for Aedwyn with her hood up, but on first sight of her antlers, people would recognize her Mark and know she was Surag. Maybe she would get a hat.
But all of that would be moot if her greatest concern proved true, the one fear that had nagged at her ever since she first got the idea to flee the Green.
“Will she let me go?” Eofe asked.
Maeve raised an eyebrow. “I am no [Priest] to know the will of the Goddess.” The woman glanced back to the east, deep into the heart of the Green, where the Greenwarden sat upon a twisted throne and ruled over all the wild places in the world.
“The Goddess doesn’t normally care what we do or where we go. But you’re a special case, aren’t you?” Eofe’s heart beat nervously. “However, I have lived in her domain most my life, so I think I know something of her character. You may not have her blessing, but neither will you have her curse.” She winced and looked regretfully at Eofe’s heart. “Not any more than you already have,” she added. “She is the [Goddess of the Wild]. Nature does as nature wills, and what are we but a small part of a greater cycle?”
Eofe felt relieved, but she couldn’t help but imagine the Goddess watching her journey, waiting for the moment to punish one of her wayward followers.
“You better hurry,” Maeve said. “I’ll tell your mother I sent you away for some training, but she’ll wise up after a few days. You may have half the Fal on your trail after that.”
Eofe approached her Aunt Maeve and kissed her knuckles goodbye. Maeve’s expression never wavered from her casual smile that could steal a thousand hearts and had probably buried even more. But her tone was gentle and her words made the young Elf still. “Go on, Eofe. Show those mayflies who you are,” Maeve said as she returned the gesture. Eofe flushed with warmth, before the next words doused her with bitter cold. “Show them who you could have been.”
“Goodbye, Aunt Maeve.”
“Goodbye, Eofe.”
Eofe turned around and continued west into the night, hoping that Maeve’s deception would buy her the time she needed. Hoping that by the time the villagers caught on, she would be on a ship to Orith, far to the west. To the lands of the mayflies, whose lives were so short they were hardly worth mentioning. Humans. Dwarves. Goblins. Orcs. And so many more.
And likely the lands where she would die.