#fianel

Commission for @smith-hadeon of two lovely elf boys Mathaes and Fianel

A gift reference sheet for @perfume-and-parchment.

Long, long ago—ages before the wars of the dragons, ages before the brain eaters wriggled up out of the shadowy depths, ages before we forged the peoples of Fianel together under the banner of our great-tent, ages before Manu Burqan turned upon Copanis—even then the Strong Folk wandered, as we always have, and always shall. We brought great honor to our gods, and they honored us in return.

A potent healer by the name of Dzoldzaya helped his family survive many raids which would otherwise have ground them into dust. They rose to such prominence that soon they passed unchallenged across the steppes that others had claimed as their own for generations.

Dzoldzaya's skill was great, and he sat with his back to the fire even into his fourth decade. His children and his children's children tended his fire, even when all his brothers had been reduced to cooks and hearthkeepers for their sons and daughters. For Dzoldzaya kept the ways of The Roamer, and his victories were The Roamer's victories, and the orphans of many of those he met in battle came to follow The Roamer, for they saw that she had made Dzoldzaya strong. So The Roamer kept his teeth sharp and his arms mighty and his bones whole, for he had found favor in her eyes.

But a day came when Dzoldzaya held his first great-great grandson in his arms, and he realized that all the tales of glory he had to share with the boy were the same tales he had told to the baby's mother. Disturbed, he withdrew from his family and sat alone for seven days, praying to his god for guidance as to where he might find new enemies worthy of song and remembering.

The Roamer came to him in a vision, then, and said: "Dzaya-my-love, you must do as you have before. Seek the unknown horizon, and the glories beyond."

But Dzoldzaya replied, "I have roamed all the world, so that every horizon is familiar as my children's faces. Nowhere remains a foe who is my equal."

The Roamer shook her head, and smiled. "Are you yourself such a child, thrice-mighty-Dzaya, that you think any could see every horizon? Even I cannot lay such a claim, well-guided as I have been...."

When Dzoldzaya woke, his hand clutched a disk of silver and glass, and when he gazed upon it, the needle that floated in its depths twirled dizzyingly. When it finally came to rest, he heard a sound like a bell, and he smiled, for he knew the purpose of his god's gift.