[Authors’ Note: Wow, it took me a lot longer than I had expected to get this done! My apologies. Enjoy! 🙂 ]
I’ve been traveling for quite some time now, in search of old tales long forgotten and my own path, the tales I am destined to tell. I have always known that I was meant to be a writer, historian, and artist; but what I did not know was about what.
I had made a stopover in Sherwood Forest. I have traveled to the Lost Isle of Teryen to meet Sean of Branach, the rebel, and the disinherited Princess and Chieftain Katharynna Maelyr Palathion Cianath. I had stopped over in Camelot over a winter to meet Merlin, Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Gawaine and the rest, and Lancelot’s son, Galahad, and the (even by my terms, much less Elven ones!) young ambassador of the Elven realm, Eilyssa Half-Elven. Her mother, Aivara, Lady of the Lake was an impressive, queenly personage, but I did not see much of her, for which I am grateful, as she was also a frightening one. I moved forward in time to a possible future, and even further onward to what can only be described as an alternate universe, in which I journeyed through the lands of Elayatar and Kalya, with shapeshifters Verun, Karyll, Nadya, and Beckra, Binders Aliana and Jay, Aliana’s (adopted) sister Klis and mother Alice, and Chiavan Starlun. I visited the strange, desolate world of the Ayn’neir, and the curiously divided realm in which Gervaise Baeltyr Eredhen was destined to be king and Iris the thief was his only ally against the world that would try to enslave him. Most recently, I stopped in Ertraia for a long visit with Rowan Jaentyr Caerlen, Margery Dun Fayr, the ranger and knight Rheadwyn, Queen Melilana, King Halbryn, and Rowan’s brothers Fortaine and Julian.
I’ve revisited these lands time and time again, and learned to love my friends there. I knew I was destined to tell their stories. Only one question remained on my mind.
Why could I not settle down?
I had been making my way home from Ertraia once more when I was blown off course by a crosswind. It was so fierce and swift and harsh I thought I was going to die, so you can imagine my surprise when I woke up again in a soft bed, under white covers–in a world I had never so much as imagined before. If you have read The Lord of the Rings, particularly the part of the book when Frodo awakes in Rivendell, you understand how I felt then. I sat up in the bed. The room was of medium size, slightly larger than my bedroom at home, and certainly much more orderly. Sharing a bedroom with one’s younger sister is not conducive to order. Neither is being a teenager, really.
All the furniture was beautifully carved and old, though perfectly preserved and undamaged. The room was not just orderly, it was perfectly clean. The color scheme seemed to be soft blues and dark chocolate browns. Now, as you’ll probably already know I’m normally all for green, but this was soothing to look at.
As I got up out of the bed, a young boy–very thin, almost see-through, but at the same time luminous–peeped in. I vaguely recognized Nightlight from the Guardians of Childhood books, which I had never read, only being able to guess at the boy’s origin from reading excerpts and bios on the website. “Hello? Oh–you’re awake. Good.” I slowly sat up, somewhat confused.
“Hello? Where am I?”
“Oh dear. I’m not very good at explaining. I’m just a protector and floorwalker–let me get somebody else.” Then the half-ghostly boy was off like a shot again, leaving me to get up, somewhat confused. Before I had done much, though, a tall woman dressed in long, dangling robes entered. She smiled at me, in a way that was intended to be reassuring, but was somehow rather unsettling.
“Welcome to Selay’uu, home of the People.”
