Journey.

It had been a few days since she had begun her journey, and she was horrified to discover after much weary travel that she had no sense of direction whatsoever.

She had never been far from her village before, where all was safe and familiar. The world outside, as she had thought it, had seemed vast and incomprehensible. Still, she had thought she would be able to get along fine when the time came, especially with the map she had brought with her.

Alas, it was not so. The map, her supposed token of survival, had failed her. She simply could not fathom how the lines and figures on the inconveniently large piece of parchment translated to the vast forest around her, and of course it did not help that she could not differentiate east from west and north from south.

It also did not help that there were no paths or roads to follow, not for some miles ahead. It was well known throughout the lands that the forests of Levianna guarded their secrets well – no outsider could find their way to the hidden villages in the forest depths without the guidance and blessing of the elves.

But, Shierra contemplated, not without a sense of irony as she passed by the same ancient tree for the twelfth time, she was not trying to get into the villages, but to get out!

She paused for awhile, leaning a little against her staff and resting her hand upon the tree. Despite its apparent age, the tree was vibrantly alive; she could feel its life pulse, sense it growing, thriving. Other than that, nothing.

Not for the first time, and not for the last, she cursed the human blood within her veins. She did not have the full ability of most wood elves, and as such could not even sense her location within the forest. It was humiliating and most frustrating for a wood elf to be lost in a forest, moreover her own homeland, and not be able to seek help from anyone.

She glanced at the map again. Her destination was the Sovereign City-State of Nadaran, where she was to complete the first stage of her pilgrimage, the rite of passage among wood elves entering adulthood which required them to journey to various elven communities across Thorreon to pay their respects to the elders. Though she could not tell how many days’ journey it would be until she reached Nadaran, she could tell that it would still be a long time before she made it there, especially considering her current pace.

Her glance fell on Fieri, apparently a township of sorts, opportunely situated on the borders of three countries, including Levianna and Nadaran. It would be a convenient place for her to rest before continuing her journey, perhaps even gather information. But she knew, deep down, that the true reason for her wanting to see the town was neither of these that she admitted.

Tucking the useless bit of parchment back into her robes, her gaze fell upon her staff’s orb, and she glared at it suspiciously. The crystal sphere, locked in place by the ornate wood carvings that wrapped around it, glowed softly in the dim light of the forest. She wondered what it meant, that glow.

She remembered that it had shimmered slightly when she first held the staff, bequeathed by her mother during the ceremony of departure. The staff, her mother had told her, once belonged to her human father. Of course this belonged to a human, she had thought then, as she handled the staff. It was made from good wood, strong wood. But that was all it was – just wood.

The other journeying elves, with their simple staffs of living branches willingly given by the ancient trees of the Levianna forests, had glanced at her ornate instrument with disdain. She had felt shame then, and for a brief moment wished she could discard her staff. Another moment saw her grip around it tighten, and her resolve strengthen with it. An inexplicable sense of belonging overtook her, and she somehow knew then that this staff was meant for her, and that she was meant to wield it, whatever anyone else in the village thought of it. A quick look at her mother’s face showed that she too, knew and felt the same.

The orb on the staff, she had assumed, was just an ornament. But as she had entered the forests and it glowed with a distinct magical aura, she knew that there was more to it than she could fathom. Whatever it was, she would find the answer in Nadaran.

It was just then, that she realized that her feet had continued to move as she had pondered the mysteries of her staff, without really paying attention to where they were taking her. It was also just then that she stumbled over a small figure at her feet, and smashed painfully into the ground.