Galendira,

  I’m sorry I’ve lied about my reaso our relat— my intentions—

  I’m sorry I let you believe that I intended to fulfill the mat

  I’m sorry you believed I could

  Galendria,

  I must apologize. I let you believe things that were not true, and I did not correct you. I knew you would not accept working alongside a Night Elf, and you would be difficult it would be difficult for you. Because you would find it problematic, I thought it easier to allow you to believe what suited you. This was wrong of me. I should have been upfront about many things, not the least of which were my plans to leave you to your life in Etnfrandia explore the Faeworld.

  Please do not assume that Syrdin’s intentions are for ill. It has been a generation since the Night Elves have invaded any country but the Kravtic strongholds. Not every tribesman serves the ill that led them to Etnfrandia’s gates all those thousands of years ago–and there are but remnants of those who invaded the Wood Elves. We may not understand what Syrdin wants, but we may not assume that it involves violence conspiracy war the death of nations, or even enmity with Etnfrandia, nor the Wood Elves for that matter.

  Also, I think you should, if you value your relations with Mell, you may consider apologizing for what you’ve said of humans. Their love of history and culture is no less than ours, but rather is in many ways more prolifically treasured for the very fleetingness of their lives that you disparaged.

  “Draft of an undelivered Letter”

  From Fennorin’s Notes from the Fae II

  It was two gazes, not one, that simmered hot against his shoulders. Under Galendria’s roiling glares and Ferngal’s ominous stare, he’d led the charge for days, barely camping for fear of Shoth attacks, ever pressing onward through the brush. The tall palms had dispersed, but the humidity hadn’t broken. The air pressed on him like a wet blanket, its heat doubled by the sun breaking through the low bows.

  At least one of those gazes had an obvious intention: remove them from her lands. Gale, on the other hand, contradicted herself at every turn. On the one hand, she wanted something from him: an apology or explanation or something. On the other, she refused to let him speak to her for more than a sentence at a time. His attempts were met with snide remarks that hit him harder than a hand ever could.

  They marched on.

  “In morning’s wane grew Father Tree;

  On winds of peace he scattered seeds.

  They grew into a forest gold,

  That swayed upon a breeze’s blow”

  Gale sang the song loudly at the rear of the group, lilting it along as she stomped and trudged through the ferns. At intervals she even broke them, setting the bugs and wind spinning with anger. Fenn ground his teeth together amidst that moment’s whirlwind.

  “The Father was a perfect Oak

  It wore a white and cragged cloak

  Each branch complete with crossway twin

  Sheltered saplings from storm and wind”

  To make matters worse, it was his least favorite song. She knew it was. When they were young–younger–he must have argued with her a dozen times over the merits of that song. Sure, the music was fine, but the lyrics. There was nothing botanically accurate about the song’s description of an oak. Their branches alternated. And they didn’t have fathers; they were monoecious.

  He walked backward through a patch of grass, facing her. “Gale, do you have to sing that one?”

  She turned her nose away and ignored him–as she’d been doing for days. He huffed and faced the front again. Confounded woman. If she was angry, then she should yell at him for his wrongs again and be done with it. He could take a berating, but days of passive-aggressive snobbery had left him without a will to ever apologize. His fingers squeezed the straps of his pack. What was he apologizing for anyway? Letting her believe as she pleased? It didn’t feel like such a crime anymore. Not when she’d so persistently crafted the delusions.

  The last time he’d begun to try, he’d not gotten past, “I understand you think you need to hate Syrdin,” before she’d turned her nose up and curtly said, “you understand nothing.”

  There were plenty of things regarding her he didn’t understand, the primary example being her recent behavior. However, he did understand her pain. And that she would be biased, having been raised in Etnfrandia. She was exacerbating her own wounds with this nonsense. But would she let him explain that? No.

  In fact, her real pain hadn’t even begun. There was so much she still didn’t know about his intentions. She had wanted to believe him to be some kindly saint meant to raise her children: the original delusion. Somehow, through all of his secrets and revelations, she still clung to that one. But he was no saint, only Fenn–a weakling scholar with an unhealthy obsession with faerish magic and lore. Unhealthy because it had almost cost them all their lives.

  “Miss Gale, you probably shouldn’t sing so loud anyway,” Krid chided. “We are not welcome in this forest.”

  She quieted–a little. Fenn marveled at how such a pure voice could sound so grating. The song reached its end only for her to start all over again. He stopped, pressing his fingers under his glasses to meet the building pressure there.

  Mell paused at his side. She reached a hand out, but made no contact. Her friendly touch had become less frequent since the morboran attack. Since he and Gale had been fighting. “You’ve got to talk to her, Fenn.”

  Not if she’s going to be so difficult about it. He lowered his hand. “I know,” was all he said.

  “I know she’s not making this easy, but–”

  “Why did we stop?” Gale asked pointedly toward Mell. She had caught up.

  Anger shot through Fenn with a sudden electric rush such that all he knew to do with it was clamp his jaw shut and turn away, arms closed over his chest.

  “Hopefully to get you two to speak to each other,” Mell elbowed his ribs.

  He stepped away. He had nothing to say to Gale. All of the apologies and explanations were locked behind years of pent-up frustration, finally gathered to the surface like dross. Besides, he felt that if he spoke he would start crying. Crying, for beauty’s sake! He hadn’t known someone could cry from anger.

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  Instead, he stared into the woods. Movement caught his eye, a bit of red amidst the blue-ish leaves.

  He stepped aside to get a better look. Between trees stood a hoofed creature of shining, garnet fur no more than waist-high at the shoulder. Four golden horns twisted from its head, one set branching like hands from over its soft ears, the other curved backward. The strange stag bayed to something behind it, then turned its head toward Fenn to gaze at him with inky eyes. Something jingled when it turned its head, and he realized beads were hanging from his antlers.

  Civilization?

  “Talk to who?” Gale grumbled. “You’re the only one standing here.” There was a genuine pout to her words.

  “Ssh,” he hissed, flapping a hand in their direction as he pulled out his notebook with the other.

  Gale gasped as though wounded.

  “No,” he whispered, pointing.

  The creature bayed again, and another bayed back, stepping forward to reveal a fur of deep emerald. She nuzzled her mate, who nibbled her ear.

  Fenn crept forward a few steps, squatted, and began his sketch.

  “What’s all this then?” Krid joined Mell and Gale, unaware of the two creatures Fenn stalked.

  The deer-like pair spooked, leaping away.

  Fenn grimaced and launched himself forward. “Sudfieds!” he called. “After them!”

  His body dragged as he tried to run, muscles protesting from days of long marches. He could hear footsteps behind him. Though he no longer could see the sudfieds, he saw the rustling of the underbrush in their wake and some scattered hoofprints. It kept him on their trail. They were running in a definite direction. Thus, even when he lost them, he knew where to go.

  Finally, he stumbled over some roots and came to a panting halt, deciding he’d truly lost them. He bent over with his hands on his knees. A stream trickled somewhere nearby and birds–or shoth–sang songs he had not heard before. A fluttering, yellow leaf landed on the ground between his feet carried on a cool breeze. It whisked away the sweat that he had believed had become a permanent feature of his brow.

  Gasping, he stepped forward and ducked to see past a line of the long shiny leaves that bedecked Ferngal’s Forest. Before him, a bubbling stream rent a small fissure in the ground. On the other side, the knobby trees cleared away and instead white ones reached high into the sky, veiling it in a canopy of golden light. The leaves fluttered to the dusky–not ruddy–ground, carpeting it in a duller counterpart to the gold above. The trunks were slashed with red, as though embedded with the same garnet as the sudfied buck. It wasn’t civilization, but it was beautiful.

  The Yellow Wood.

  They had arrived at last. He moved to hop over the small ravine into the new terrain, but claws caught him by the collar.

  “No, I will check it out first. You stay.” Krid stuck a snuffling snout forward and stepped gingerly across the stream. “We may be leaving Ferngal’s Forest, but we don’t know whose land we enter now.”

  “Or what awaits us there,” Fenn added. He could think of several things that might: packs of fae dogs, varieties of great horned beasts, mischievous dryads, flocks of birds, poisonous flowering plants… among other things. “I suppose I could list what I do know for you.”

  Syrdin dropped from a tree branch beside Fenn. He startled and whirled on zhem, then startled again, not expecting to see thick white eyebrows lying bored over flat eyes–he still expected a hood. “Yeah, I’m not too worried about all that.” Zhe hopped over the stream. “There isn’t much cover over there. We’ll see them when they see us.”

  While Krid peered at the treetops, Fenn crouched to inspect something that shimmered down in the water. Tiny fish swam upstream, scales sparkling like sunlit ripples. They were minnow-like in appearance, which he decided made intuitive sense. These creatures filled a similar niche, so their features would be similar.

  “Do you think the water is clean?” Mell panted as she slid down the small ravine’s bank into the stream, sighing with relief as her sandaled feet struck the cool water.

  Fenn tested the water's smell with a wet finger. “Probably. Others have been.”

  “So, what was so important about some faerie dear that we had to run a marathon at a sprint?” Mell asked between gulps.

  “The buck had beads on his antlers, suggesting it was somehow connected to civilization”

  “Civilization? Like a society of fae? But that would solve every–”

  “WOW! They’re just like the song!” Gale’s voice sang with joy. She had returned to her usual, bubbly self.

  Fenn looked up and followed her gaze to the gold-flecked boughs. Indeed, he had been wrong about that song's botanical inaccuracy–but only because it wasn’t about oaks at all. The trees were tall with opposite branches, and their leaves were golden in the light. As it turned out, the elven word for oak must have been a repurposed one for this tree. Odaer. The trees appeared much more like aspens than oaks, but Etnfrandia didn't have aspens.

  “I bet if we found the center of the woods we could find the Father tree!”

  “Or some kind of willow.” Fenn referenced the song’s end for Gale’s sake, only for her to completely ignore him. He left Mell refilling her flask and jumped to the other side, excited to explore a new terrain. Gale ran cheerfully from tree to bush, chattering about how beautiful everything was. Krid similarly moved between trees, inspecting them closely with maw open for smell. Syrdin lounged on the ground, plopped unceremoniously–and perhaps unhappily–in the open.

  A cool air washed over him. Breathing it in, he felt like a weight was lifted from his mountain-acclimated lungs. He prayed silently that the path home would not include Ferngal’s suffocating forest.

  “It’s so cute!” Gale squealed over a bush. He caught himself smiling, watching her fawn with delight. “Look at the little poofs!” The bush was orange-gold with small leaves and fluffy, fig-sized seeds furred with magenta.

  “Careful,” he warned as she reached out a hand to cup one. He knew she heard him, but she didn’t acknowledge it. She held the stem beneath. At her touch, the bush released its puffs in a cloud. She squealed in surprise as a dozen of them flew around her, some clinging to her clothes and hair.

  He hated to think what might have happened if those seeds had released poison instead. “Gale, please don’t touch random–”

  “Oh! Another one!” She ran off.

  He sighed. She’d probably be fine.

  “So, does this mean we can make a full camp now?” Mell had clambered out of the small ravine and flopped on the ground beside Syrdin. “Because I can’t be the only one here ready to collapse.” She sipped her water while she waited for a response.

  “I’m in favor. Krid? What do you think?” Fenn asked his friend.

  The man was still dissatisfied with the change in scenery. He snuffed and surveyed their surroundings, running his claws over the ruby scars in the trees. “Yes, but I recommend we still set watches. Gale and I can take first watch. She seems the most… energetic.”

  She giggled and prodded another bush, unaware of the four sets of eyes that watched her. No sooner had she backed away, tugging the puffs off her clothes, than she set her exuberant attention on something else. “Oh, how beautiful!”

  Fenn sat in the leaf-strewn dirt and opened his sketchbook, ready to draw the sudfieds while they were fresh in his mind.

  “Mell, aren’t these the prettiest flowers you’ve ever seen?”

  Flowers? He’d have to inspect later when his attention wouldn’t invite Gale’s snubbing.

  Mell raised a tired hand. “Gorgeous.” She had mastered the art of entertaining Gale’s excitement with minimum effort. Fenn had always felt bad when he tried to do that. Whenever she grew so excited that she danced on her toes, it felt wrong to answer flatly.

  Of course, she wasn’t speaking to him now, and he didn’t look up. Not until Syrdin hissed, “Fenn!”

  He spun to see zheir body gone rigid, zheir sight on Gale, who was at least a dozen strides on the other side of him from Syrdin. He whipped around, already rising, to see her prancing up to a clearing of bright red flowers waving in a small glade.

  “Gale, wait!” He scrambled after her.

  He ran past Krid, who could not have perceived the danger. Gale didn’t turn, pushing aside a clump of bushes that had hidden the clearing.

  “Gale!”

  He saw her flinch at his call. He knew he saw her flinch, but she shoved her way past the shrubbery and bent down.

  “No! Don’t!” Desperate fear ripped the command from him. Krid followed him now in thunderous steps.

  If he didn’t reach her, she’d fall in. She’d be lost.

  She bent forward to inspect the blossoms and had just begun to teeter forward when his hand reached over the bush around her waist. Her pulled her away with all his might. For a heart-wrenching moment, he thought she was limp. He held her up against him, pulling her back, away from the enchanted flowers–away from her death.

  She squirmed, and he knew she was saved. He only clutched her tighter as she began to struggle, overwhelmed with gladness that she could struggle. He had saved her. Him. Had saved. Her. He squeezed her against him and stared at Syrdin. He had saved her… with help.

  Syrdin knew what a fae poppy was.