“The river of time is a force of nature none can defy. The best we can do is to keep wading through it, adapting to the changes its flow brought to us as we best could, and otherwise doing our damnedest to stay afloat. Those who are stuck in the past, that clung too much into things no longer suitable for the ever-changing world, could only hope to drown along with the past they cherished so much.
The past is to be remembered, to be learned from, but not to be placed upon a pedestal of worship or to be slung to like a tree during a storm.” - High Elder Nydia Celearwen of the Great Emerald Forest Elder Council, circa 602 FP.
“Pardon me, but are you from the Great Emerald Forest?” Aideen asked towards a group of elves whose clothes – mostly leathers and some sort of processed barks and leaves – made them particularly stand out amongst the Alfheim locals. The group of elves were gathered around a couple of wagons and seemed to be discussing something amongst themselves when she interjected.
Aideen and her group reached Alfheim just before noon that day, and quickly made their way into the city without any issues. It was while traversing the city while looking for a place to have some lunch that they stumbled upon the group of unusual-looking elves that attracted Aideen’s attention. From the paler skin tone of those elves and their different outfits, it was obvious that they were not locals to the region.
“Indeed we are,” said a tall but well-built female elf who turned to face Aideen with some surprise etched on her face. The elf was still young, probably no more than a century older than Aideen’s own grand-nieces or so, but was clearly in some high position as the other elves deferred to her. On a second look, Aideen realized that most of the elves around the wagons were around that age or younger, too.
“Was it that easy to tell us apart?” asked the elf with some consternation in her voice.
“Sort of. You folks dress differently to the locals, and also your skin is a dead giveaway even if you switched to local dress,” Aideen pointed out. “The locals here get more direct sunlight and have a deeper tan, while all of you are notably paler even if you have similar skin tones. If the Great Emerald Forest is as dense and grand as the stories have it, I can see that happen when you don’t get as much light through the canopy.”
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“Huh. I guess it was obvious when you put it that way.” said the young elf with a shake of her head. “Thank you for answering my question, stranger. I am Illydia Celearwen of Égørisvænovãēnæl, or the Great Emerald Forest, as your folk called it in the common tongue. We wish you good tidings and successful endeavors.”
“Aideen deVreys of Ptolodecca, here on a sojourn while taking some of my nephew and nieces around to see the north,” said Aideen in return as she introduced herself. “From your presence here, I would assume that the Forest has relaxed its isolationist stance? They kept strictly to themselves and did not even trade with Alfheim when I visited a century or so ago.”
“You have been here a century ago?” asked Illydia with a clearly surprised expression on her face. “Oh, I see, so you are amongst those blessed with an eternal existence. I beg your pardon,” she added after a moment. “To answer your question, that is indeed the case, though it is a very recent development, not even a decade yet, and it is mostly limited to allowing some of us to travel as far as Alfheim to trade so far.”
“Still a positive change,” said Aideen with a nod. “Changes like these take time, and I imagine with you elves it would take even longer for things to change on a larger scale. Even so, everything starts small, and what is now small can always grow in the future.”
“There is truth in what you say. As it is, the changes were mostly driven by youths like myself and my compatriots who were tired of the elders who kept advocating for their ways and no other,” admitted Illydia with a nod. “Times have changed, and we believe that if we as a people want to survive, we will need to keep up with the times instead of languishing behind in old bygone glories that most of us never even knew about.”
“It is something stubborn old people often have difficulty understanding, even amongst the long-lived, yeah. I think all of us know someone who fits the description in our lives,” said Aideen with a chuckle. “Sometimes you can change your mind, other times you just have to wait it out before the problem eventually resolves itself.”
“Others like me are hoping that we could bring change sooner to our people through the profits we bring by trading, but yeah. Worst case, things should get better within another generation or so,” replied the young elf with an amused chuckle of her own. “All we have is our youth anyway. Time is on our side, and if the young can get changes to happen once, we can likely do it again.”
Illydia likely referred to the revolution that caused the splintering amongst the elves of Alcidea that resulted in them splitting into the forest elves that inhabit the Great Emerald Forest and the plains elves that lived in Alfheim. That revolution was also triggered by generational disagreements and the young striking out on their own way. It was rather ironic that not a couple generations later, the seeds of another such change was likely already growing amongst the new generation of the forest elves, but it only goes to show that stubbornness could often do little against the passage of time.
“If there’s one thing constant about this world, it is how some things change while others stay the same,” noted Aideen. “One way or another, we will be there to witness a good part of it.”