The Hermit and the Elf

In evening, when night becomes so still, dreams often take shape and worlds are born. Harbingers flit to and fro from these worlds carrying tales and fables. Such are the fate of crows and ravens. They are embassaries of the deep places in our soul bringing those dreams back to us. Shadowy winged entities of prose and poetry. They are God's sages.

On such a night the Harlequin admired his painted face in the glass darkly. Never once did it cross his mind that it was a mask. To him his painted face accentuated his visage giving him the power of glamour. So immersed in self was he that he failed to spy the Raven as it landed on his sill.

The Raven cocked his head and with one darkly glassed eye held the Harlequin in his gaze. This was what he gave pearls of distant realities, this pompous jester of courtly amore. He considered the waste, spread his wings and fluttered them trying to shake off the realization. Who was he to judge?

The motion caught the Harlequin's attention. He stopped in his primping and in mock respect bowed his head to the inky fowl.

"So, I am honored by the presence of such a stately and noble bird that feasts like the worm and fools himself to be among the prestigious. Tell me oh father crow, what makes you think I want your company tonight?"

The raven flitted from the sill to an oak table lit with a single taper in one fell motion. There he erected his long black beak and spoke in a gravely voice, "Popular or shunned, you all taste the same. Even the worm as dense as his is does not show partiality. There is honesty in that."

"Oh," feigned the Harlequin in mock surprise,"you seek to give me a morality tale?"

"No," whispered the Raven,"I bring you one of longing, a romance if you will, but it would bore you since you are such a master of the subject."

The Harlequin sat in his velvet chair and sniffled a yawn. "No, bird, amuse me go on praytell..."

It was when the Forest of Wyren was younger. Dense it was with foliage and fern and the limbs of great trees formed a lattice work against the sky. Deep within it near the brook of Gladenfyrn there dwelled a hermit.

He was a studier of nature and such. Collecting tomes of lore and scribing the works into one massive volume that was illuminated with images of the wood's hidden things. Those things that are now lost now. Sadly, in being lost, has wounded man. For there was such beauty in those days. Not the reckless carnage that litters the street of Glorenstien as it is today with its plagues and man's cruelty to man. The woods were of such majesty that even the elaborate, ornate towers of this city would be humbled in their shadow. Tall they were and hardy in their stature. The hermit loved to roam among them never sensing his aloneness.

It was one afternoon when the dusk pour like honey through the leaves that the hermit heard something that rang with the familiarity of waters lightly rushing over stones and yet held beneath it the sound of chimes. So enamored he was with the sound that he sought its source. He followed the sound deeper into the woods until the moon painted the landscape in silver and turn the grass velvet. He saw her then. Standing alone illuminated by a thin sliver of light that gave her skin an ethereal sheen. She was small in stature and lithe in limb for he could see her body plainly 'neath the gossamer that she wore. She was singing. The sound wrapped about the hermit and with fingers like smoke tendrils brushed the cobwebs away from the neglected parts of his soul. The elf has seen him, yet did not stop her singing, nor did she make any attempt to evade the hermit's gaze. Instead she turned eyes that seemed to flash colors on him and made him the focus of her song.

In the nights that followed the hermit retuned to the spot. Often he would bring gifts to her and she in return would share secrets of the woods. It is said that they made love, but in truth she opened doors inside of him and healed his most damaged parts. This continued for several months, until one full moon, the elf came no more.

The hermit was devastated. He went searching deeper into the woods, yet to no avail. There was no trace left of the elf and many of the secret areas of the woods she had revealed to him now became hidden. He was encompassed by grief.

He returned to his abode. Now filled with cobwebs, dust, long shadows and memories. He soon laid himself down and never found the strength to rise.

Winter came. The wind blew with a harshness among the woods. There was no compassion in her breath and the hermit knew this would be end of him. He had no strength to make a fire or to rise and shutter the windows. He began to sink deeper into Winter's frigid embrace. Then he heard it. The Elf's song. Playing lightly in the air that eventually the sound of the wind became something distant. A warm glow filled him and a new strength as he rose, made a fire, shuttered the windows and returned to his tomes and his work.

For there in the heart of winter, listening to Winter's cold scream her realized a truth. That it was better to have elf's song than to have never heard one at all.

The Harlequin rose and studied himself in the mirror again. Smiled to himself and gloated, "Bird I have known many women. Some of the most royal stature. When I lose one's admiration or fancy, there is always another."

"Aye," the Raven said,"but you can only know an elf once, that is if you have the eyes to look at something other than yourself."

With that the Raven flew out the window like a shadow leaving the Harlequin in his study of self.