The Night of the Moon was a mere fortnight away, but Arlas Hollowyn did not find herself afraid. She was a traveler, an Elf of the Moon, never remaining in one place for very long. The Elves are an eld and stubborn race, and rare to persuasion by any-body. Arlas Hollowyn was a millennium and ten years old, containing the serenity and beauty of a Youth, for an Elf ages differently, but an Elf ages gracefully.
The moon was bright and made the world look refreshed: a third quarter, the most common of the Moons. Arlas was tall and pale, her skin tinged with blue, her hair straight and silver. An Elf doesn’t always travel at night, but they are harder to be seen, and thrive greatly on the freedom that nighttime holds. An Elf differs from a Human in this way; they are far more independent and adventurous. Tonight the wind was roaring, swooping through the grassland that was Azuria. Arlas was not opposed to the wind. She believed it made her look ethereal and beautiful.
A child Elf ages at five times the speed than a Human, though their age does not begin to show until they are seven hundred years old. Many wonder how long an Elf can live. Many in Crepegrum had even dared asked the Elves themselves, despite never being given a straight answer. The boy Elf Alta Pergwyn was fifty years old, the child of Arlas and Arasne, youthful and inquisitive as a child Elf always is. Alta stood between the two women, perched at the top of Fairhaven Peak to overlook the nation. An Elf can see clearly across all of Crepegrum, and they possess an exquisite sense of hearing, which makes an Elf astonishingly difficult to surprise.
“My lady.” Arasne Hollowyn spoke with a voice clear and mystical. Her fingers, long and slender, rested themselves on the shoulder of Alta. “The sight of the nation alighted is oh, so breathtaking, and it is but a reverie to enjoy it with my Elf-Woman and my attractive, young Boy called Alta.”
An Elf was a creature of incalculable pride, and many were not tolerating of the Elf-Woman Arlas and her Elf-Woman Arasne. The eldest of the Elf-men were concerned not with the feelings of his peers; no, he was concerned only with his own ego and accomplishments. For an unaccomplished Elf was as expendable and foolish as an Ordinary.
Arlas was an Elf-woman of much femininity and youthfulness. There could not be a genderless Elf: not because it was forbidden, but because the Race of Elves believed not in such folly. An elf-man was to be courageous to attract the attention of an Elf-woman, and she must be submissive and obedient to her lover. But Arlas was neither submissive or a lover of men, and so she was frowned upon by Elves eld and young, male and female alike.
“Yes, my queen,” spoke Arlas, her ears pointed to the lighted sky, her hair blowing in the wind. “I find myself very much in agreeance with this sentiment. To me, it matters not what the Isles of Men need say about my love for you, dear one, for I am contented and I do as I please.”
At a half century old, Alta Pergwyn was midway to adulthood. He was prurient and quick to anger, but very well loved for, and never without a place of shelter.
“I am worried,” said Alta, a crinkle over his striking brow.
Arasne, with her elven Woman and Boy in tow, leaped very gracefully from the side of the mountain and landed soundlessly on the shore aside the Quarenrian Sea. “Tell me, my boy, for what reason are you worried? The Night of the Moon will arrive in a fortnight, and you, Alta, achieved great things that night. It was oh, so! wondrous to watch.”
“I am worried,” said the boy Alta once again upon their descent across the sea. “For the family called Carleth is callous and rather fearsome, and I am wary of their actions during the Night of the Moon. Even without evil, this battle continuously results in casualty, and I am worried I might not make it out alive.”
This was true. The family Carleth was feared and powerful, the worst of Dark Elves in all of the nation. In spite of this, there was far more Good than Evil in Crepegrum, and so it was assumed by many that at the Night, Good would be triumphant. And this was, a lot of the time, the case, as the two opposing sides battled against one another. But each race is a gratified race and loathes a defeat, and so once in a while, races would turn against each other.
“Alas:” The arm of Arlas swung, as a wave of the sea slammed up against the boat. “We cannot dwell on that. To dwell is to do nothing more than to make one frazzled, and this will do no good. We cannot worry ourselves with mere possibility. We must worry ourselves only with becoming our very best selves.”
Though the journey home was winding, it did not tire the Elves. They were all very agile possessed great stamina, a trait which very oft came in handy. The Azure Tower was bronze-coloured and spanned eleven stories, the very uppermost on which the High Elves stayed. Though she had a room in the tower, Arlas was rarely home, for a Moon Elf prospers in nature, traveling and finding new places to call home. Remaining a homebody made Arlas rather bored a pronounced amount of the time, and she disliked repetition, unlike the majority of elves. Many an Elf had been looked down upon for rejecting the behaviours of an Elf. Many more had been cast away to live as mortals, and this was the biggest dishonour that could be bestowed.
The voice of the High Elf Aerith would boom over all of Crepegrum, through the forest and the grassland, across the seas. “Elven-folk, Magickal creatures, and every-body in between: the time for battle is nigh, and it will surely be a long and perfidious night. You must be very certain not to lose yourselves in battle. As I say each year, may the best Race win.” And then the nation would fall dark and silent, each of its residents left to their own apprehensions, some fraught with terror, others fraught with vigor.
The Elven Race knew all of the creatures in the nation: for they were the eldest and the most-traveled, and nothing ever happened without the knowledge of the Elves. Nothing ever happened in Crepegrum without the High Elves giving their approval, and this was most inconvenient to many other races, but this was the way it was.
