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*flinches* So sorry for the delay!! Apparently my post didn’t load, ’cause I can’t find it. Apologies.

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Eliane stood, her eyes closed, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Elven Sea. The cool, salted breeze filled her face, blowing back her hair and her cloak. She liked to come here.

Usually.

She opened her eyes, then let her gaze drift towards the clear horizon.

I’m sorry, brother.

Perhaps if I hadn’t let you face her alone, you would still be here.

Or she would have fallen with him.

Eliane turned away from the ocean, forcing her mind onto other things.

Before her, the great peaks of Illyara’s Crown stood out sharply against the blue sky, and at the mountains’ feet crowded thick forests. Down the slope on Eliane’s right, the pale grass receded, at last making way for sandy beaches. To her left, the land fell away sharply into jagged rocks and other cliffs, these ones lower than the one on which she stood.

The ground ahead of her sloped downwards gently, until at last the tall pines, elms, and thick-trunked oaks of the forest took over.

This was Arianne, the island of the elves, and her home for the last century or so; maybe longer.

 

Eliane paused, looking out over the landscape, and letting her eyes linger on the mountains that bore her mother’s name.

Then it came.

White light seared her vision, then vanished, leaving nothing but darkness in its wake. The grass beneath her feet vanished, replaced by stone.

Her eyesight returned, faster than should have been possible, and Eliane stumbled, then found her balance again. Her hand flew to the leather-wrapped hilt of her dagger as she took in her surroundings.

Arianne, the elven-isle, was gone.

In place of the magnificent mountains, there stood a crumbling castle tower, framed by a gray sky, just visible outside of a paneless window set in stone.

Now she stood in a wide stone room, dark but for three lanterns hung in a triangle from the ceiling. The walls were bare but for an ornate tapestry hung on one and a dusty painting on another, both of them adjacent to the wall with the window.

Then Eliane realized that she wasn’t alone.

Voices drifted in through an adjacent room’s open doorway.

She drew her dagger, and stepped forward.