MALI TUVEHTERHAL

Perhaps, whilst wandering the woodland in search of wise words, you chance across the following note! ~~:*:~~ Friends, brothers and sisters! I was very fortunate to chance upon a fellow son of Malin at one of my forest homes. We spoke for many long hours, deep into the night, revelling in the illuminating powers of the stars and Their Mother Moon. To know that my thoughts have inspired such passion within even just one soul fills me with pride’s warmth. And so, knowing that others may also wish to meet with me, I lay out these instructions. A great stag statue stands resolute by the sea, resplendent in the Sun. Tuck a note here, and I shall be sure to chance by and read it whilst out on my wanderings. Blessings upon you, dearest reader, and may the gods look kindly upon you and your kin. ((Should anyone be interested in meeting up for roleplay, please feel free to send a PM describing the note you have left!))

Here are recorded the dreams which have visited me, blown on the winds of Time, who are the companions of Malin’s sons. ~~:*:~~ I see the Lady of the Otherworld, red haired, shrouded in the setting Sun, for Her spirit is the last flame seen beyond the pall of Death. She is attended by fallen stars who have left their posts at the edge of the world to do battle against the Darkness which writhes across the land. At the head of the horde I see Him, exalted in Netherflame, the souls of His slaves screaming their hollow battlecries. Beneath Radiance and Smoke, a murkier battle rages, one waged with sharpened steel and bought with mortal blood. So many righteous souls perish. I hear their names, too numerous to recount, and I weep. Blessed are they who marched into the frey! Hail, the First Sons, hail, the first Immortals Beyond Death! May your sacrifice never leave our lips, may your spirits never leave our hearts, and may our hymns ever recount your deeds! ‘Lo, attend! The battle is won! Now, I see Her Radiance spreading across the ground like wildfire and not a twisted root is left in Its wake. The poison of the Destroyer flees before Her compassion. This miracle is not Hers alone, however, for I see those attendant stars falling in droves more countless than raindrops. Every blade of grass, the tall mountain slopes, the rivers snaking across the plains, all things are silvered with the touch of divine grace. I see Them, four brothers newly burdened by terrible curses. In a sea of celestial Light, Their shadows are deepest midnight. She speaks to Them like a mother. Each of Their fears She consoles with care and grace, and not a lingering shadow is left in the wake of Her illuminating words. She speaks with the Great Power that is Hers to command, and to Her authority all the world lends its ear and does as it is bidden. To Her noble Son, Horen, She proclaims; “You have little Time here, young one. This place of green leaves and stark mountains and wide oceans shall be your home only briefly. This injustice I cannot avenge, but the powers of the Otherworld are mine to command, and so there I shall enthrone you in the highest heavens. Each of your Sons shall seat a star, and the glow, the warmth, the majesty of ELOEM shall be known to Them. The Seven Skies shall be Their domain. Their joy shall be the sunlight which nourishes Eletaliame'Hiyluan, Their duty shall be the rains that fill Her with grace and Their hope shall be the kind winds that blow through Her branches.” And it was so, and shall be so, until eternity’s end. To Her noble Son, Krug, She proclaims; “O’ noble warrior, I cannot quell the raging fire in your heart. His curse lies thickly upon your spirit like a great cloud of smoke, which shall last from this day until the last day. Whilst in this Life nor the next can I clear away this blackest smoke, I shall make clear to you the noble Light of your flame. Honour shall be your guide, and dutifully you shall march with our armies against the Darkness. Come, and march with the passionate joy of all Creation in your heart. Let none taint the roots of Eletaliame'Hiyluan again!” And it was so, and shall be so, until eternity’s end. To Her noble Son, Urguan, She proclaims; “Whilst your shadows may lie short upon the ground, the shadows of all the secret places below shall be yours to revel in. You shall know the full bounty of the caverns beneath and the mountains which tower overhead. Gems shall offer themselves up to you as wheat offers itself to the farmer. O’, Urguan, you shall know the roots of Eletaliame'Hiyluan better than any so that your greed might turn to love! The making powers of ELOEM will be yours to command, and from this day forth, I give into your keeping the Order of the world!” And it was so, and shall be so, until eternity’s end. To Her noble Son, Malin, She proclaims; “O’, my son, from you He has attempted to steal the joy of Life Itself. From you, He has tried to cut away the branches of Eletaliame'Hiyluan that you might fall into the Darkness with Him, His slave forevermore. This shall not be! I charge you, Malin, and all your Sons, with the keeping of the Light of the World, which is also called Life. You shall find kinship with all living things through my brother and sisters, the Aspects, into whose care I entrust you. The powers of Death relinquish Their hold over you! Life’s Light burns within you now, and shall burn within you forevermore, such that no Darkness may separate you from your family which you so dearly cherish!” And it was so, and shall be so, until eternity’s end.

Perhaps, whilst wandering in the weald, you spot a scribbled scrap of script on bark, stone or parchment. Perhaps, whilst pondering the sea and its thousand white horses, a left-behind campfire safely secluded in the curve of the cliff face catches your eye, and soon you are reading forgotten memoirs by renewed firelight. Perhaps, whilst praying to the gods, a chanted, a sung, a lilting phrase of poetry comes floating by on the wind, though you hear no footsteps, and see no singer. These are the collected writings of a travelling philosopher who has but recently taken up residence in the woodland surrounding Amathea. You are welcome to chance across these works as they appear. ‘The Aengul is Fire, the Daemon is Smoke. The Aengul is the Beginning, and in the Daemon we find the End. In the blessing of an Aengul, one finds Light, and in the curse of a Daemon, one finds Darkness. The divinity of the gods extends beyond the material world, playing out in the immaterial realm of dreams, illusions and ideals. Their motives are subtle and hard to fathom. It is for this reason that a curse can seem to be a blessing, and a blessing can seem, in our case, to be a curse. I reflect now upon the Bronze Law. I see how the light is dull upon that old, unpolished breastplate. I see how doubt poisoned the minds of the elders, as it had poisoned the elders before them and those who have grown elderly since. What I write here points to the truth of the poison, that it might be burnt out of the tree to save our people from stagnation.’ I. The blessing of Life that was given to Elven kind was the blessing of infinite Light. It is the nature of Light to illuminate and reveal, but not to grant wisdom, for wisdom comes in the wielding of the Light. Wisdom is in seeing the fault by the forge fire's glow, wisdom is in recognizing the glum expression across the mead hall, wisdom is in choosing true love by moonlight rather than wild passion. II. Wisdom is to protect the Light from faltering, fading, and dying. For if the Light were to die, then eternal Life would become madness; this, we know already, for so many of our kind have reached their millennium only to finally crumble under the weight of their accrued illuminations, the experiences their bright Light has revealed to them. III. What is revealed is the Weave of the World, and through the weave of roots, we are given eternal Life. If we do not make the roots our own, their touch becomes poison to us, and soon we are dirt for them to feed on. IV. To ‘make the roots one’s own’ is the mystic’s journey to come to terms with this world; to find the justice that puts down the sinners, to find the peace that brings joy and ends war, to find love in a world that can appear endless and lonesome. To believe the blessing of infinite Light to be a curse, is to be cursed with the impotency to carry out justice, the hopelessness that peace will never be found and the ultimate lovelessness that leads to the death of the soul in isolation. V. And so I proclaim, brothers and sisters; infinite Life leads to infinite bliss, and to infinite despair. Should we commit ourselves to the wise wielding of this Light, we shall come into our rebirth, and rise as the eternal protectors, the eternal consorts of the world, whose blessing it is to live forever in love with the winds that have caressed us, the earth that has lifted us and the Sun which has nourished us. Come and sit with me, brothers and sisters, that I might elucidate the thoughts which bubble in the cauldron of my soul, with inspired words. It is known that myriad philosophers of our kind have looked upon our blessed lives as a second curse, an invisible chain which has bound us to stagnation and rot. Not so, I say, for like our druid comrades I have gazed upon the wild forest which is also eternal, and I have received their wisdom on the source and proper conduct of their long lives. I see this wisdom in the work of the Aengul who blessed us, in the council of the Aspects who guide us, and I would share this council with you. It is known to all Elves that the world we live in is alive with numerous forces. We are a book-learned civilization as much as we are world-learned wanderers who have seen the seasons come and go a thousand-thousand times. Of all the races of the world, we are the ones who know Her myriad faces best. Summer comes upon us, bright and hot like freshly forged steel, to be quenched in Autumn orange and tempered in Winter chill. The changing of the world is our constant companion, and the chief rope which prevents us from drifting away on the tides of time. This changing and its attendant companions, the souls and essences which dance to the rhythm of the music, I call the Weave of the World. It is the sum total of all the roots curled tightly into the damp loamy soil, the numberless living creatures in the darkness of the forests, the winds whispering through the countless leaves above our heads whilst daydreaming the figures of the gods in the clouds. It is the name for the way of the world, the interconnectedness of all things and the flame of our journey which issues forth Light and Life. And so I ask, what relationship to the Weave of the World does our immortality grant? Are we doomed to sit idly in the midst of a storm whose touch we shall never know, whose fury we can never embrace? Worse yet, is our immortality somehow an affront to the ways of Living and Dying to which all our brethren dutifully conform in holy communion? No, I say! This is not the nature of our being. Oh, what a blessing we have received! What wondrous, holy and most sacred powers have been entrusted to the Elven people! The soul is a simple entity. It lives and dies by the conditions in which it finds itself, and responds according to its nature. It is the way of most souls that, when exposed to certain conditions, the body gives out, and the energy of the soul which enlivens the body is set free, bringing about death. Put another way, every soul can be overpowered by the shadow of Death, a shadow which, like all shadows, takes its shape from that which casts it. So it is that a bird takes flight by the wind and drowns in the waters, where a fish floats serenely beneath the waves and suffocates in the open air. So it is that Time for the sons of Horen comes upon them swiftly and with great power and more slowly to the sons of Urguan whose kinship with stone makes them durable and more resilient to the powers of Time. These are all the ways of the shadow of Death, who is one half of the Weave, one thread of blackest silk. The other half then, is the cloud-white thread, the sunlit silk, the tough tunic and priestly cowl which begins and shepherds the Life of a soul. It is clear then that we eternal folk of the forest are blessed with a radiant Life which banishes the shadow of Death. Our roots are strong and planted in the soil so surely that few things indeed can so much as make our Light flicker. The flame of our spirit reveals the full passion of the dancing Weave to us, a passion which blesses us with immense fortitude. The shadow of Death comes upon us only should this fire begin to fade, and our holy communion with the world begins to falter. When our eyes are blind to the beauty of the Spring rains, when Autumn wanderings beneath the falling leaves no longer inspire awe, when the rejuvenating rays of the Summer Sun are distant, tepid things, this is when the shadow of Death encroaches on us. Unlike the other races for whom Death is an ever-present reality, if we wield our Light wisely, we may become as indestructible as the world itself.