Chapter Text
She’d stepped through to a strange world with a rainbow sky. The ground was carpeted with flowers, like an overgrown meadow as far as her eyes could see. She looked around but didn’t see anyone. There was a tree here, too, and she went and sat under it, not sure what to do next.
The wait was short, luckily. A man suddenly appeared in front of her. His clothing was strange. Old-fashioned like people wore in Shakespeare movies. But much like her Meemaw had said, he glowed golden and was the prettiest man she’d ever seen. He came over and offered a hand to help her up. She took it, and a strange feeling went through her when their hands touched.
“Ailionora Lathanyl. My child, I am Corellon Larethian, your father.”
She couldn’t stop staring at him. It was just so strange. Her whole life, she’d searched the faces of every person, every photograph, every news segment, trying to find someone who looked quite like her, and failing. Oh, there would be someone with her cheekbones, or her nose, or her eyes, but never all of it. And never the ears. Yet here he was. It was like looking in a mirror, in a way.
“Are you feeling alright, child?” He asked, sounding worried. “The passage into the feywild can be difficult for mortals unused to the sensation, but you will recover.”
She realized she had to speak. “Sorry, Sir. I ain’t sick or nothin’. I… I just ain’t hardly seen someone who looks like me before.”
He looked at her oddly. “Daughter, you are not in trouble if you do not feel well. I am merely concerned for your welfare. If you are alright, I will lead you to my home.”
She took his offered hand, and it held hers with surprising strength for fingers as delicate as her own. “Please, lead the way.”
If someone had asked Nora where she thought her father might live, she would have had a few answers. Perhaps a tree house or a cutely decorated cave. After she had read “The Hobbit,” she was certain it would be one of the cozy little houses with a round door. She would not have ever, not in a million years, guessed it was a grand marble palace set amidst a village built into the tops of primordial white-barked deciduous trees and pines.
He had taken her to a room that he told her was hers and had left with only the mention that she should come and find him in his library at sundown. It appeared to be noon when she looked out the huge window. The room was bigger than the entire cabin she had grown up in. A bed carved of a reddish wood with four posts and a fairy-tale canopy of pale blue velvet with gold tie-backs sat in an alcove on one end.
There were multiple bookshelves that went to the ceiling built directly into the white marble walls. The books were written in a script she didn’t recognize, but they seemed important as they were bound in leather. A mural was painted on the ceiling of people who looked like her hunting a group of deer with bows through a forest. It was beautiful. So realistic she felt like she’d recognize the folks in it were she to meet them. There was a beautiful settee by the shelves, also in sky blue velvet, with a pile of soft white furs on one end.
She’d wandered through one of the doors in the room to find what must be a dressing room, a concept she’d only ever seen in a tv show about the Queen of England and dismissed as absurd. Three wardrobe cabinets were on one wall, then two large chests of drawers and a cabinet containing shoes. A vanity table sat in the center, with hair brushes and jars of what must be cosmetics. She opened the wardrobes to find long, flowing dresses made from linen, wool, and velvet, all in sky blues and pale purples. There were also what looked like pale ivory linen nightgowns, trimmed with insanely intricate embroidery of moons, stars, leaves, and flowers. One had lace with tiny woodland animals in it. The drawers contained underclothes, just as beautiful as the other clothes, as well as fitted trousers of a style she had never seen, and soft blouses and vests. One drawer had what looked like corsets in it. The shoes were mainly short leather boots, but there were also slippers made of velvet and silk.
Through another door off the dressing room, she found a bathroom that took her breath away. A huge stone tub sat in the center, filled with water that continuously bubbled out of a copper pot that sat on one end and flowed over the top edges of the tub into the drain that surrounded it on all sides. The water was pleasantly hot when she touched it. A small closet contained what she hoped was a toilet. She had used it as one out of desperation after listening to the trickle of water for several minutes. There was a rack that had towels draped over it which kept them heated, and a cabinet filled with soaps, oils, and dried flower petals. Everything smelled amazing.
As she had many hours, and she smelled far less pleasant than this place, she decided to take a bath. She was staring at the wardrobe, trying to pick out something to change into, when she heard a small, girlish voice speak in a language she didn’t understand. She turned around to see an elderly woman carrying a glass bottle filled with a murky green liquid. The woman looked at her, then mimed drinking from the bottle.
She took the bottle, pulled open the cork and smelled. It smelled like dirt. She didn’t relish tasting it. She was hesitant, but she realized that she had already put herself at the complete mercy of this place. It wasn’t the time to start getting squeamish. She closed her eyes, and drank it as fast as she could, gagging only a little at the taste. It wasn’t worse than when she’d had to eat rotten carrots last winter.
“Ah, now that you can understand, hand that bottle back to me and I can take care of it.”
She turned and looked at the woman, confused, but handed her the bottle. “Why can I understand you now, Ma’am?”
She smiled. “He said you wouldn’t know. That was a potion of tongues, Ailionora. It will translate any language spoken to you into your primary language. You’ll need to learn Espruar, of course, and the speech of the humans as well, but for now, this will aid you in adjusting to your new home.”
“And where am I, ma’am?”
“Ah. This is Arvendor. I am named Moonflower. Your father has requested that I help you learn how we live here, and I have happily agreed. You may ask me anything you need to know. There is no need to feel embarrassed for not knowing something.” Her warm voice and easy smile made it seem real.
Nora paused, trying to think around this. Well, a guide would certainly be useful.
“Can you show me how your clothes work? I’d like to take a bath and…” She looked down at her clothes. They were cheap things and in terrible shape. An old lumpy gray sweater over a worn cotton dress. “I don’t think I’ll be putting these back on.”
Ailionora had been in Arvendor for seven years now. It was hard to keep track of time here. She had tried by marking days in a small journal she kept. But it was easy to miss days here. And the adjustment to trancing once she’d been taught how to do Reverie had thrown her off for some time. But it had to be close to seven. Meaning she was now twenty-four years old.
The first month had been a non-stop shock. It turned out that she was an Elf, well, a Tel’Quessir in their language. Like the Tolkien kind, although he’d gotten many things wrong. Her Da had gotten her multiple tutors to help her learn what she needed to know to be a part of her people. The first and biggest shock had been finding out that she was still very much a child amongst her people because they lived for hundreds of years.
At seventeen, she wasn’t even grown. He’d had Moonflower explain to her that her sexual maturity wouldn’t happen for another decade or so. She’d then had to explain to the horrified old woman about the baby she’d lost and suddenly she’d been surrounded by a group of healers, having magic cast about her and potions shoved at her to drink. Apparently, being on Earth had sped up her development was the general conclusion.
She’d also learned from their discussions that Elven women typically don’t have the kind of curves she’d developed in her last year on Earth. She had no idea where they came from. Her Momma and Meemaw were both rail thin, willowy was the nice way to say it. But no matter, it was there. She’d been afraid that it would be what made people here think less of her, but Moonflower had assured her that while it was unusual, it would not be offputting to other Elves.
“After all, nothing is so attractive to our people as fertility.” She’d winked at her.
That led Ailionora down a rabbit hole of learning about Elven families and culture. Which inevitably led to the second big shock, which was learning that her father was a God. Like an actual deity, the chief God of her people. She’d needed almost a week, no a tenday it was called here, to acclimate that in her mind enough to talk about it. Even after seven years, she still didn’t understand all the implications.
Magic was real here. There had been a lovely old man who had been her tutor in magic. She wasn’t particularly good at it, well, the kind that one learns. She had some magic, it turned out, that simply came from her blood. The result of her parentage. That she had learned easily and had well-controlled use of these days. Tutors had taught her how to shoot a bow and wield a longsword, both of which she had taken to quickly. She’d had a physically rough upbringing, which had built a decent amount of bone strength and muscle in her. She also enjoyed physical things like that and had a good time learning how to fight and hunt. After a few years, some of the Elves who lived here in Arvandor had begun taking her hunting in the forest.
Her third biggest shock was finding out she had been living for almost a year in Elven heaven. That’s why everyone she saw was elderly. It turned out that Elves reincarnate, so they don’t stay forever in Arvandor. And almost all Elves die old. Occasionally, she’d see a child or a younger adult, but they never stayed more than a few days. Only the elderly waited to reincarnate for a while.
She had learned the language of her people in a few months, and after seven years was fully fluent. The accent was almost impossible for her to get right, but it was close enough, according to those that lived here in Arvendor. The human Common tongue was harder, even though it was similar to her old language. Corellon told her it was essentially a much older version of it, with some historical differences.
Her father had summoned her today to the temple. She had never been inside of it before. She’d been told it was there, and she wasn’t forbidden from visiting anywhere in this realm, but she’d not had an interest in it. She still had unpleasant feelings around churches and the like since the incident with the Pastor, even after all this time. But he asked her to meet him there, and she had grown to love her father quite a lot, so she went.
Corellon could be a strange man. He was quite chaotic, bouncing from thought to thought without focus it seemed at first. But then he could be intensely focused when something struck his fancy or seemed important to him. He was quite arrogant, and uncomfortably racist in her opinion, especially about these dark Elves and Orcs he spoke of. But it also sounded like he’d experienced some damage at the hands of these people, so she tried to temper her judgment since she was an outsider. Overall, though, she had found Corellon to be a genuinely good spirit, someone who wanted to make his people happy and safe, and he was, by far, the best parent she ever had.
She entered the temple, wearing her favorite dress, a sky blue linen number with a low square neckline and half sleeves. The natural waist was defined by rows of carefully embroidered white flowers. She wore it with a silk chemise that provided a bit more coverage above the neckline, making it a touch more modest. She never wore stays unless she was out hunting. Moonflower had promised her that most Elves didn’t, but they had been provided because they had worried she might want the support with her shape.
Corellon was in the center of the large space. It was white marble, like all the other buildings here, but the floors here were old wooden planks rather than stone, and the exposed wooden rafters were dripping with pine boughs, making the space smell rather like Christmas. A huge wooden table - an altar, she supposed - sat in the center, with an assortment of flower petals, clay powders, and paints laid out across it. She smiled. Her father loved the arts, all of them, and his people were always encouraged to pursue them. It felt correct that his altar would be covered in such tools.
He raised his deep purple eyes to look at her. “Daughter, today is the day Moonflower is being called to be reborn. I’d like to send you with her.”
“You want me to be reincarnated?” She was confused. They hadn’t ever talked about that.
“No, child.” He laughed, the sound rather like peals of silver bells. “I want you go to Toril, the world you will live in. I was sending you to help her new family. I think it would be a lovely way for you to learn to live amongst your people until it is time for you to complete the mission I have in mind for you.”
“The one where I help save the enslaved Elven man from the powerful evil holding him?”
“Yes, daughter. The same.”
“Why am I to wait, father? Isn’t he suffering?” She worried about that from time to time, since Corellon had disclosed that she had been born for a purpose. To be his hand on the material plane where he was not allowed to act.
“To free him, you will need to be ready. You are not yet ready. That is why you have been training to learn our ways of combat and magic. And now you must learn how to be an Elf. That will be part of how you defeat the evil.”
“Well then, I suppose that I am ready. Should I pack?”
“No need. Your things will be where you need them. I’ll have you help Moonflower through her journey to return to the material plane, and then I will open the path for you to meet her there. She will be born to one of my priestesses, in the city of Evereska.”
The reincarnation journey was fairly simple, all things considered. She’d helped Moonflower walk into a silvery pool at the back of the temple. One of several such pools. Other Elves were helped by other attendants on their journeys. Moonflower had stood in the pool, communing with her new mother, helping her through the pain of the birth, while Ailionora sang to the woman, soothing her, feeding her warm herbal teas and small pieces of fruit. She held her hand, right until the proper moment, when Moonflower had given her a small, sad smile, thinking she was saying goodbye.
“Thank you, Moonflower, for helping me learn how to be Tel’Quessir. You have been a most loving friend to me, and I am glad I get to return the favor.”
The woman didn’t know what she meant, but the time for talking had passed. The silvery liquid of the pool swept upwards, wrapping itself around the form of Moonflower and swallowing her, until it calmed back down into the pool, leaving behind no trace of the spirit it had taken.
Corellon had told her that a path had been prepared. She had learned how to walk the feywilds herself, although she was not the best at it. Her extra-planar origins had meant that it was unstable around her, so she had resigned herself to only being able to follow a prepared path. She calmly walked out of the temple, hugging a few of her tutors goodbye, and stepped into the mushroom circle that bloomed in the patch of grass right out front.
Another decade had passed since Ailionora Lathanyll had left Arvandor, making it seventeen years since she had left Earth. She was now thirty-four years old. In Elven terms, that made her something akin to a sixteen year old. Old enough to have an adult body and it being culturally acceptable to engage in trysts with others, but young enough it would have been deeply inappropriate for a fully adult elf to reciprocate such feelings. She also was not expected to be extremely responsible or to know what she wanted to do with her life. This was her time to discover herself and to try new things.
She had spent the past ten years assisting with the upbringing of the daughter of the two highest ranking priests in Evereska. A little girl who had previously been her tutor named Moonflower. Now she was known as Amnes, or Oakheart. She was a serious little child who delighted in climbing the trees around her parent's small home.
Ailionora had settled into the city. Her parentage was not known here, and Corellon had told her to keep it to herself. Her ‘employers,’ the closest term she could think of as Elves didn't have jobs the way that she was used to, knew of her origins, unsurprising as they were priests of Corellon and Sehanine, her half-sister. But in general, people were told that she had been born to an Eladrim, a wild fey-elf, and raised in another world. It wasn’t too far from the truth and removed questions about her accent and occasional lapse in knowledge or etiquette.
She had come to love the ways of her new people. They were strange sometimes, even now, but there was such care and community here. No one was punished for being sick or slow, and everyone was supported to do the things that brought them joy and created the most benefit for all. They also lived closely with nature, even though it was a city, the forest it was situated in thrived. Even animals were not trained or held here, but they spoke with them and got willing assistance. They rarely ate meat, hunting was only done when the population of animals had risen too high for the environment to support. Instead, they mostly lived on fruits and vegetables, as well as edible flowers. Eating this way she felt healthier than she had ever been on Earth.
She had become extremely proficient in the longbow and longsword, practicing daily along with training her body for speed and agility in combat. Elves were peaceful by nature, but they were in a seemingly unending battle with the Orcs, a battle started between the people’s gods before they even existed. Orcs occasionally managed to get close enough to threaten the city, but they were always taken care of before any damage could be done. She had taken part in a few of the defense attacks, receiving warm praise for her actions.
She’d also taken up playing a small Elven harp. She still remembered many of the songs she knew from Earth, and this allowed her to play some of them. Her slightly altered rendition of ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’ was a favorite amongst the little ones.
She had become quite content in her life, enjoying the creature comforts of the city, her routines, and the friends she had made. She’d even had a few paramours over the years, lovely distractions but nothing that had been serious. She’d appreciated how fluid Elves were regarding sexual relationships. Although it was expected that most would end up in a heterosexual pairing, there was no animosity towards those that sought out other kinds, even to exclusion. She’d learned to appreciate fine clothing, music, art, and poetry in her time there.
So it was with some sadness and much trepidation that she approached the end of her stay. Corellon had sent her a message in a dream, letting her know that it was time for her to start her mission. The one thing he was requesting of her before she pursued her life however she saw fit. According to him, she was ready, as were the allies she would find to assist her.
She had been given very little knowledge regarding her quest. Her job was to rescue an enslaved Elf from a great evil, located in the city of Baldur’s Gate. And the only clues she had been given were that she was to find an Elven woman named Jaheira when she got there and that she would know the Elf when she met him.
Leaving from Evereska, she was heading with four other youngish Elves who had wanted to go on an adventure. They would not be helping with her end quest, but they would travel to the city together for safety. Corellon had warned her that she would truly be on her own, he wasn’t allowed to affect the material plane directly, not even to save her. She probably should have been terrified by that idea, but instead, she was excited. It felt like after almost two decades of living in a dream, she was finally beginning her life.