Distant Company

Oh how Waning Gibbous shyly pulls away
Coy as she yawns in a blanket of stars
Soothed by balmy night air
Her freckles moon dust, her eye reflecting morning’s light
Bated breath
 
 
These past days have felt like a precious, fragile pocket of time in and unto themselves. Worries of violence and being on the run assuaged by midnight skinny dipping and midday gardening. Is there anything more beautiful than the laughter of loved ones sounding in harmony with the soft chirping of crickets.
 
Elusive and hiding just out of reach but audible.
 
Just like true joy, bubbling under the surface but guarded by socially dictated norms and our own preconceptions of what is or is not acceptable.
 
So much has happened since I set out from home that now I’m back and have been back I think I have changed.
 
Is change a frightening thing for an Elf?
 
Am I supposed to represent that long-lived immutable creature folklore culturally tells me to be.
 
Dad said he’d met my birth parents, that he knew of them. I wonder why he never shared that with me… Only now I hear of their names.
 
Did they call me Faestina, or did he? Is Gladdenstone his name, or mine?
 
What would they think of the person I’ve become? Should I let that influence my actions or am I to continue as I have been? What am I even like to someone who barely knows me, how does someone see me when they come across me and how have I changed since leaving home.
 
Am I growing or festering.
 
Perhaps it’s immature to care how others perceive me. Had I the wisdom or foresight I would turn aside, laugh at the notion of someone judging me and… say what? What is an Elven Druid supposed to say?
 
“You cannot judge me for you cannot understand me”?
 
I’m more or less convinced anyone can understand me, I’m hardly a complex puzzle.
 
Ah, but I digress, and this summary is one of beautiful things, not my own self-embroiled reflections.
 
It has been wonderful to spend so many quiet, peaceful moments with my loved ones, to show them my home and its bounties.
 
That being said, as contented as they have seemed here, there has been an undercurrent of urgency. There are times when both Allie and Bree have disappeared to run errands and whilst conversation has been pleasant and amenable enough we have not had much discussion as to the events that lead us to now.
 
I hope they are both alright and that this setting does not put either of them at ill-ease. I care about them both deeply, yet I feel that the more I pry, the further away I push them. My mannerisms must come across as invasive or insensitive, I suppose if they wish to share how they feel with me then they will do so.
 
Adding to these concerns, I haven’t seen Skodrun for at least one full day, if not more. I was so keen to speak with him, to show him some of the more wild corners of this part of the forest. I do hope he returns to us soon… For I know that heading in the wrong direction here would result in less favourable encounters.
 
By contrast, I must confess, that my rather puerile machinations to spend time with at least one of my dear ones has yielded a great number of pleasant evenings and late afternoons whiled away kneading bread or basting meat. It’s funny… how focusing on a physical action (such as cutting root vegetables) results in just the right level of distraction for my tongue to loosen.
 
I must have bored him senseless, prattling on about such mundane events. The time a black bear came through the farm in my youth, how I pestered Dad to teach me to loose arrows from a bow and how I pinched a shortbow in the cellar to practise in secret (or what I presumed was secret) or the first time I wildshaped into a little dormouse.
 
He is far too kind to me, listening to the endless verbal string of nonsense. It must seem so infantile for someone with his life experience...
 
Well, that’s neither here nor there, he has a beloved beauty elsewhere. Probably waiting for him as we speak, as I write this.
 
Hm… How wicked of me to think - no, it’s wholly inappropriate. A good person would not have invited him in or been as selfish. What must Dad think of me… What would this partner of his think of me.
 
I must learn to detach myself from such feelings. I ought to be focusing on the matter at hand, on the news of the seeds and their affiliation to Vor Yabley.
 
One way or another, we are all connected to what’s happening, if these are seeds then we are part of their root structure.
 
When we are all together again, perhaps on one quiet evening after dinner, we can talk about what we ought to do next.