Echo of Linkbard

Srin stalked his fellow elves. The forest crawled with them; he knew bronze-skinned elves lay just beneath the tree shadows. He knew he would find them, catch them in their paths as they flowed like lifeblood under the skin of the leaves. They would yield their secrets to him; after all, there were no secrets a cousin could keep from another.

An elf’s imagination can be the most boundless of all fancies; Srin’s mind was gifted, some say cursed, by his own wild beliefs. It was of course Srin’s idea to seek the ruins of Lilliki, his foolhardy idea to interview every wild elf tribe to discover any scrap of knowledge they might have of that grand, devastated nation. A shame it was that no others saw the genius of his endeavors save the humans he gave coin to for protection. As Srin examined another puddle that somewhat resembled a footprint, the human spoke.

“That’s no elf’s print, I tell you,” Magria sniffed. The human woman darted her gaze suspiciously around the trees and spit. “You’re tracking deer again.”

“Deer, you think?” Srin asked. “How many?”

She leaned over the blond elf’s shoulder. “Two… maybe up to four. It’s rained soon, may've been yesterday. Could’ve been any numbers for what I’m seeing.”

Her elven employer stood tall and rubbed his golden chin, which was as smooth as her own. “Did they run?”

The hunter nodded her weathered head. “These were on their move.”

“From what? Deer are peaceful creatures, no? Only a threat makes them run, I would imagine.”

“When something gives them a chase, yeah, that’s when they run. Elsewise they run too when they’re being fools and get spooked by nothing. Either ways, you’re still tracking deer. Thought we were looking for elfs.”

“Magria, your assistance is priceless. Yes, I know I am tracking deer. Deer are just what I’m looking for.”

The human shrugged. It wasn’t the first time the gold elf had changed his fool mind.

~~~~

The Dancers at the Oaks had told him what little they knew of the Buck Chasers. The Buck Chasers were yet another of a long list of leads he had pursued. With each tribe he sought, Srin felt he had become more in touch with his wild cousins; hunting them brought him a pleasure he was sure amounted to much more than any his golden brothers attained sitting in their libraries. And how much more had he learned! Why reinvent what others had held secret and safe for so long?

The ways of the forest elves alone were enough to write several treatises on, but it was the knowledge they unwittingly retained that he desired. Many knew the former glory of the great elven collective that was Lilliki. Many sought the secrets still entombed within that nation's remains, left for reasons only the dead knew. Srin sought not the corpse of that nation, not even the fragments of its last breaths that brought great amounts of gold coins in dark market deals. His quarry still lived and breathed, but not in the elegant, refined manner in which it once flourished. Srin wanted to discover how the magics of that nation lived on in its now primal citizens, the arcane talents of a great time adapting to primordial peoples. His mind rushed with possibilities each time he discovered a new outlet for the secrets of his ancestors in these foreign cousins of his.

Finally he did discover the Buck Chasers, their bows drawn and pointed from the brush. In Magria’s opinion, the wood elves had discovered them.

Using the tongue of the woodlands, Srin shared his desires with the arrow-pointing wood elves. They listened silently as the gold one gave his verbose excuses. They bound the human, blindfolded both intruders, and informed them that they would be taken to Echo. Srin could hardly contain his excitement.

As they drew close to the tribe’s settlement, a strange sound took hold in their ears. Magria silently wondered if they had entered a tavern; Srin knew he was in the right place.

Both were pushed to the floor and their blindfolds removed.

“Echo is not here. Soon again she will return. Wait.”

Srin thought how considerate it was to address them both in the common tongue for the benefit of his human companion. The huntress marveled at their surroundings.

The wild elves did often live in cities molded from the living trees, but never had Magria held of one being crafted from shrubbery. It seemed that they were surrounded on all sides by stems and small leaves, some giving to create paths a single elf wide, but never actually concealing anything going on around them. She could see all of the city at once: elves dancing, elves eating, elves dressing, elves painting their bodies, and, most of all, elves drinking.

“Magria! Look at the paths!”

She could not answer him with her eyes; a nude male bathing his body with water from a basket captured them. The stunning elf man’s acorn eyes smiled at her as he shook away the bright water from his braided hair. An ally of his tugged playfully on his friend’s wet hair. They dashed into the brush, a group of dancers with drums concealing their lively chase.

“Magria, the paths!”

“Uh, yeah, it’s like rabbit roads. You can see for…”

“No, look at the prints! They wear the boots!”

The huntress looked perplexed at the elf. All this revelry around them and he wanted her to track them still? She cut him a curious look and turned to examine the print left by her escort. It was the footprint of a large deer.

Magria was nearly knocked into the dust as two dancing elves crashed into her. Looking down at their visiting obstacle, the two females shared a hawfing laugh and left their drinking gourd in her lap as an apology.

“Weird elfs,” Magria said shaking her head.

Srin heard the sound of pipes being played. A roar of delight rolled through the shrub community as the twittering sound fluttered through the air. Quickly the music seemed to flicker closer to where the two visitors sat. It all at once pulled Srin’s heart into an embrace of bliss, his loins too feeling the inspiration in his heart. He unconsciously tugged at his bindings as he twisted and fought to find the source of the music.

Above him, he spied movement. A figure of auburn shades, perched like a dainty mountain goat in the branches, flitted down, catching each step with the tips of its feet. As it drew close, its music seemed to overwhelm Magria; the human slumped over in sleep brought by the same muse that so inspired Srin’s passions.

The amber form skipped down to the forest floor, bending slightly the branches of the shrub in which her kingdom, her paradise, was formed. The horned woman giggled as she patted the human on her dark, sleepy head and took the feywine jug from her lap to suckle upon its sweet fillings.

“Madam… Lady of the Buck Chasers…”

The nude woman regarded the stuttering gold elf with a clever grin as she stood with a hand on each hip. She stood a moment, locking eyes with her captive. A drop of feywine slip down from the corner of her smiling lips. Her tongue slinked out to catch it just as she began to speak.

“I am Echo of Linkbard, mistress of the revels, creator of the Leaved Place. And by luck I find time for spending with the Buck Chaser tribe.” Her people’s light laughter answered her tease. “What are you about, stranger?”

“Lady Echo… I come to… I seek to… Could you untie me?”

The horned elf woman laughed boisterously, a laugh he had heard the two dancers imitate only moments ago. Her amber eyes settled on him. “In an exchange.”

“For what? I give gladly,” Srin replied twisting in his ropes.

The gourd struck him solidly in the chest. “Drink,” she grinned.

~~~~

Airy waves of firm desire had taken him that night. That was all he knew at moonrise. The sounds of the elves carousing seemed distant as the breeze flowed over his skin. Then he realized his bed were tree branches that air passed both above and below him.

His startled reaction ignited that laughter again. The horned woman swooped Srin into her arms, filling his ears again with her deep chuckles.

“I have you, Srin. Do not fear any fall.”

Srin gasped with his surprise. Not only was he held aloft by only the thinnest of twigs, he was as close as he’d ever been to a woodland elf, if that was what she was. And she was fantastically nude.

“Madam…”

“Echo,” she corrected as she playfully flicked his nose.

“Echo, um, I came to you for information regarding Lilliki. I have seen the magic boots, those that reshape the footprints into animals’. How did…”

“Oh, why speak of what is gone? Is Lilliki here? Please. Don’t be so concerned.”

Srin quieted a moment despite his demanding mind. Questions innumerable and their indecipherable possibilities filled him. After listening to the winds for some lovely moments, he simply could no longer withhold his desire.

“What are you?”

Again she laughed. “I am Echo of Linkbard, a child of inspiration.”

Srin blinked. “What does that mean?”

“These people are my dreams made true. They are my creation and my creators.”

Srin’s sharp face scrunched in thought. “I still don’t understand. Where is Linkbard? Are we not among the Buck Chasers’ tribe?”

“Linkbard is a satyr’s name; he is my father. These are the descendants of my mother’s people.”

Feykin. He should have known, but perhaps he had known. Her step was too light; her laugh was too throaty. The fey... Even after the thousands of years elves had actually been aware of those giggles and breezes made flesh, there was no generally accepted opinion on them. Texts argued between themselves. Their authors lost hundreds of years of their lives to the subject, some never returning. An elf could lose himself utterly to the fey, and gods help any humans they chose to play with. Srin swallowed, hoping the stars were the same he had seen the night before and not those of a century he thought belonged to his twilight years. Such depths of time laid a dance away to creatures like this woman.

No, he couldn't think of her as a woman, not just as woman. Echo, despite being only of partial fey blood, would flow on through time like the stream that carves the canyon. He could not allow himself to ride her through a fall only he would notice through with his mortality. His feet longed for the ground.

Srin nodded, then paused. “Wait… your mother’s descendants?”

“Yep.”

“But… then how old must you…”

"Oh, I'm twins with that star," she said waving her hand limply toward the night sky. "And," she added, "I am the mother of the dew that was the twinkle in your seventh grandfather's eye"

"So then you must have seen it all! What caused the fall of Lilliki? How did you all fall into barbarism? What magics did not survive?"

The horned elf huffed and then laughed again. “Always what is gone, is that what you want? How can you have what is gone, silly Srin? Why not hold me? You know, as long as you hold me, you won't fall down. Why not have more to drink?”

Srin quickly declined more feywine, content to soak in his own brew of thought. Echo was an ancient woman, as beautiful and strange as the dead city he sought. Behind those fey horns, no doubt there lay the knowledge he sought, forgotten by all save this creature. Yet she did not care to revive any of it. Srin's brow smoothed under her touch, relaxing his body and mind.

Both Srin and Echo had what was there, leaving all the past behind.

~~~~
The limber elven man ran his moist braids over her body. She squealed like a maiden as he teasingly doused her giggling body. Then water hit her hard in the face.

Magria came awake quickly to Srin’s waterskin. Looking up to her elven employer, her wet face’s look moved from disorientation to grudging recognition. She spat water and shook her hair from her eyes.

“Where are we?”

“The forest. Yes, still in the forest. Can you tell when in the night it is?”

The huntress examined the sky. “Past the night’s center. What happened to the elfs?”

Srin exhaled confidently. “No concern, my dear Magria. They have left us. Gone forever." He wiped the moist soil from his hands. "Now, which way back to that little village of yours?”

“If you’re thinking to leave me back and wander through here on your own, I’m not being here to tell you what a fool thing that is."

Srin waved his palms to stop his companion’s tirade. “Not in the very least do I plan such action. I have in fact spent far too much time here. Have you ever been to Wyrmcove, Magria? I hear they create all manners of new items there. I should think they do not call it the ‘City of the Best Craft’ for no unearned reason. Can you just imagine them, dear? All those craftsmen creating all those shinning, sparkling, grand new things! New things none have ever imagined before! New things once locked in their makers' minds made real! New things...”

Magria set their packs against her back again. She muttered again, “Weird elf.”