[Cuiviénen. Year 1105 of the Trees. Dawn of departure]
[Selas POV]
Three days had passed since the Sundering.
Three days of preparation. Of arguments over belongings. Of families discovering what the Eldar had taken, accidentally or otherwise, and trying to reclaim it. Some disputes turned bitter. Others resolved with quiet dignity.
We settled them all.
The Eldar were ready. Their belongings sorted, their goodbyes said. Oromë would return at dawn to lead them west.
I found myself in the forest when she came.
The bow in my hands was nearly perfect now. Yew, or close enough, shaped and tillered with obsessive care. The draw was smooth, the curve elegant.
I drew back an imaginary arrow, testing the tension. Held. Released.
Perfect.
"Selas."
I turned.
Ilvëa stood at the forest's edge, backlit by starlight, golden hair catching what little glow filtered through the canopy. She held something cupped in both hands.
My chest tightened.
"You're supposed to be with your family," I said. Kept my voice neutral. "They'll be leaving soon."
"I know." She walked closer, and I saw her eyes were red-rimmed. She'd been crying for three days straight. "That's why I came. To give you this."
She opened her hands.
An acorn. Large, perfectly formed, glowing softly with golden Light.
"Remember how I've been practicing?" she said quickly, words tumbling out. "What you showed me. With the Light, how you can put it into things, make them last. I tried it with plants, with seeds, and…" She thrust the acorn toward me. "This is from the oldest, mightiest oak in the forest. When you plant it, it'll grow into something magnificent. Something that'll always remind you of me."
Her voice broke.
I took the acorn carefully. It was warm in my palm, thrumming with her Light like a second heartbeat.
"Ilvëa…"
"I couldn't just leave." She was crying openly now. "Not without giving you something. Something that would last."
The acorn pulsed in my hand. I stared at it, at this impossible gift, and felt something crack in my chest.
"Wait." I fumbled for my knife, the first one I'd made, stone sharp as any metal, infused with my own Light. "Here. Take this."
I pressed it into her hands before I could think better of it.
"Selas, I can't…"
"You can. You should." The words came out rougher than intended. "For protection. For whatever you need. It will serve you faithfully. Just… take it. Please."
She clutched the knife to her chest. We stood there, inches apart, each holding pieces of the other.
Ilvëa took a deep breath. Raised her head. Looked straight into my eyes with sudden courage.
"Keep my gift safe. For you. For the Avari. Keep me in your memory," she said, voice steady now despite the tears.
"Always."
The word was barely audible.
Then she moved, fast, decisive, and kissed me.
Brief. Desperate. Her lips tasted of salt and sorrow and everything I was giving up.
Time froze. Then accelerated, along with my heartbeat.
She pulled away, ears flushed red, face surely the same beneath her hair.
"I have to go."
And she ran, vanished back through the trees toward the settlement, toward her family, toward Aman and a life I'd never be part of.
I stood frozen, acorn in one hand, bow in the other, lips still burning.
I could follow her. Could change my mind. Could…
No.
The Sundering had happened. Sides were chosen. Many Quendi had trusted me. I'd said goodbye to my family. Now I'd said goodbye to Ilvëa twice over.
There was no going back.
But gods, my heart ached.
I closed my fist around the acorn. Its warmth spread up my arm, comfort and torment both.
"I'll keep it safe," I whispered to the empty forest. "I swear it."
{Image: A acorn in Ilvëa's hands.}
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Same day. Mid-morning]
The horn sounded.
I walked back to the settlement alone, bow slung across my back, acorn tucked safely in the pouch at my belt.
Oromë had returned. His impossible horse gleamed at the head of the gathering column, the Vala himself tall and radiant and utterly inhuman.
The Minyar went first. All of them. Every single golden-haired soul, led by Ingwë who walked with the confidence of someone who'd seen paradise and knew he was returning to it.
Then the Tattyar. Half of them. Finwë at their head, dark-haired and strong, leading his people toward uncertain glory.
And finally, the Nelyar. The Lindar. My people, except they weren't anymore.
Nearly half had chosen to stay. But more than half were leaving.
The still-hesitant Lindar trailed at the very end of the column. I watched them pass. Searched faces.
There, Novë with his family. He caught my eye and raised one hand in farewell. I returned the gesture, throat tight.
Farther back, Denethor with his mother and father Lenwë. Going.
And at the very end of the Minyar section…
Ilvëa.
She kept looking back, tears streaming down her face, stumbling because she wouldn't, couldn't, take her eyes off what she was leaving behind.
Off me.
I raised my hand. Just held it there, a silent goodbye.
She pressed one hand to her heart. To the knife I'd given her.
Then the column moved around a bend in the path, and she was gone.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
The Avari stood to the side, watching the Eldar disappear.
Some wept. Some looked relieved. Most just looked lost.
I let them have their moment. Let the weight of what we'd done settle fully.
When the last Eldar vanished from sight, I walked forward and turned to face the gathered Avari.
"We stayed," I said. Simply. Clearly.
Every eye focused on me.
"We're the Avari now. The Unwilling. Those who refused. Those who remained." I looked at each cluster of families. "We refused the path of servitude to the Valar. We stayed and chose our own way. Now our future, and our children's future, depends on us."
My voice strengthened.
"In every case, the choice will be ours. Not the Valar's. Not anyone else's. Ours."
The crowd stirred. Some faces showed fear. Others determination.
"But first, we need to decide how to live. Who will lead. We need to choose a chief."
Silence fell.
Then Thoron, one of the Lindar and the first who had stood behind me during the Sundering, stepped forward.
"You," he said. "Selas of the Lindar. Fourth son of Enel the progenitor. First to refuse. Only child of the progenitors who stayed." He looked around at the others. "You should be chief."
"Yes!"
"Agreed!"
"Let Selas lead!"
The voices built. Not everyone agreed. Some argued, challenged, demanded discussion.
But in the end, they chose me.
I was chief of the Avari.
Well. This is happening.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Later that day. The settlement]
[Selas POV]
"My first orders as chief," I said, addressing the gathered Avari. "We need to know what we have. Food. Tools. Weapons. Everything."
I pointed to several organized-looking individuals. "You, you, and you, inventory everything. Count it all. Report back tomorrow."
They nodded and hurried off.
"We already found problems this morning," I continued. "Two storage areas were half-empty, panic theft during the chaos, not malice. But it'll happen again if we don't set clear rules about property and sharing."
Murmurs of concern.
"Second, food. We can't rely only on gathering and hunting." I gestured toward the lake. "Cuiviénen is right here. Fishing. Harpoons, nets, hooks. We'll figure it out."
"We've never…"
"Then we'll learn." I cut them off, but not unkindly. "We'll experiment. Make mistakes. Improve."
"And farming. Real farming. Gardens. Growing our own food instead of just taking what the forest gives us."
"Third, defense. Better weapons. Better tools." I looked at Eol. "You're interested in metalwork?"
"Yes." His voice carried easily. "I've been heating stones, trying to extract…"
"Good. You're our first smith. Find others who want to learn."
"Fourth, we rebuild the settlement. Stronger. More organized. With a unified plan." I paused. "And we need walls."
That got reactions. Confused murmurs. Walls?
"For protection. Oromë warned of darkness in the North. Whether you believe him or not, walls are never wasted."
"Fifth, specialization. Smiths, hunters, farmers, weavers, builders, fishermen. Teachers for children. People studying the world and inventing new things."
"And lastly…" I took a breath. "We need our own language. Our own writing. Our own numbers."
That stopped them cold. But slowly, heads began to nod.
"Avarin," I said. "The language of the Avari."
More nods. Thoughtful looks.
"We'll hold regular assemblies. But for now, let's get to work."
They started to disperse.
"Wait." I bent down and picked up a thin stick from the ground. Held it up.
"One Avari. Alone."
I snapped it. The crack echoed.
"That's what happens when we're alone."
I grabbed a fistful of sticks, maybe twenty, and squeezed them together.
"But this…"
I strained. Put everything into it.
Nothing. The bundle held.
"Together. Unbreakable."
I passed it around. No one could snap it.
"Only together will we survive. Remember that."
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Year 1106. The forges]
[Eol Third Person]
The heat was incredible.
Eol wiped sweat from his face and peered into the makeshift forge, a pit lined with stones, filled with charcoal burning hot enough to shimmer the air. In the surrounding darkness, the forge glowed like a small captured star. Brightest thing in the settlement. In a world without sun, fire was king.
In the center of the pit, copper ore glowed cherry-red.
"Is it ready?" asked Tavor, his young Lindar apprentice.
"Almost." Eol grabbed tongs. "Watch carefully. This is critical."
He pulled the ore from the heat. Molten metal dripped, not much, but enough. Proof it worked.
They'd tried for months. Gathering rocks, testing which yielded metal when heated. Failure after failure. Smoke and slag and wasted charcoal. Eol had burned through more wood than the builders were happy about, and his hands bore scars from a dozen accidents he'd refused to let Mireth heal properly because there was always something more urgent.
Copper was the first success. Bronze would come next, once they figured the tin mixture.
But iron… iron was the goal. Iron was strength.
"Pour it!" Tavor held the stone mold steady.
Eol tipped the crucible. Molten copper flowed like liquid fire, filling the mold, cooling almost instantly to dull red.
They waited.
When Eol finally pried the cooled metal free, they both stared.
An arrowhead. Crude, misshapen, but undeniably metal.
"We did it," Tavor breathed.
"We did it," Eol agreed.
He turned the arrowhead over, feeling its weight, testing the edge. Still needed work. A Tattyar smith in Aman would probably laugh at it. One of those blessed craftsmen with their divine knowledge and their perfect materials, handed everything Eol had spent years clawing toward from nothing.
He pushed the thought away. Bitterness was a luxury he couldn't afford.
"Again," he said. "Make another. Better this time."
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Year 1106. A clearing near the settlement]
[Selas POV]
"Again!"
My voice cracked across the clearing.
Celestia's arms trembled. Her shield wavered. It was just a wooden board with a leather grip, nothing like a real shield, but it was heavy enough to matter.
"I can't…"
"You can. One more time. Hold it. Thirty seconds."
She gritted her teeth and held.
"Twenty."
Her vision swam.
"Ten."
Her muscles screamed.
"Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Down."
She dropped, gasping.
I crouched beside her. "Well done."
"I hate you," she managed.
"You'll thank me later."
"Doubtful."
But she would. Already, after months of this, she was stronger. Faster. Could shoot farther than anyone in the settlement.
The training group had grown to nearly forty. Mostly young, the ones who'd grown up playing my games and didn't question the transition to something harder.
The first-Awakened were a different story.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Same period. The settlement]
The problem wasn't rebellion. It was something softer and infinitely more frustrating.
Indifference.
The Thirty-Three clan heads had accepted me as chief. They followed my directives on construction, farming, fishing, language. They built what I asked them to build and planted what I told them to plant.
But military training? Physical conditioning? Preparing for a war that existed, as far as they knew, only in the warnings of a Vala they'd chosen to defy?
That was where the wall went up. Not all of them. Thoron trained without complaint. So did maybe a third of the Elders. Another third went through the motions, showing up when expected, doing the bare minimum, vanishing the moment no one was watching.
And the last group, maybe seven or eight of the Thirty-Three, simply didn't participate.
They had reasons. Always reasons. Responsibilities that demanded their time. Children who needed watching. A craft that suffered when hands were busy holding spears instead of tools. They phrased their refusal in the language of duty and obligation, never in the language of defiance.
They weren't defiant. That was the maddening part. They respected me. Called me Chief. Bowed when custom demanded it.
They just didn't believe.
It wasn't age. They looked no different than the youngest among us, bodies strong and unworn by time, hair still silver-bright, hands steady and sure. Elves didn't age. Didn't weaken. Didn't slow down.
But something in their spirits had calcified. Something in the way they'd lived for generations at Cuiviénen, contemplating, singing, drifting through an existence that asked nothing of them, had hardened into a way of being they couldn't shed.
It had never mattered before.
At Cuiviénen, beauty had meant light in the eyes, a clear voice in song, grace in movement. Bodies had been an afterthought. Elves did not sicken easily, did not age, did not break under the slow passing of time. Strength was useful, but rarely necessary.
But the world had changed.
Walls needed lifting. Trees needed cutting. Fields needed turning. Spears needed holding steady when arms began to shake. Slowly, quietly, something new was taking root among the younger Avari: the understanding that a strong body was not merely useful, but admirable.
And in time, desirable.
They thought in eternities. I thought in years. And the gap between us was wider than any I knew how to bridge.
Maethor was the most vocal. One of the first-Awakened at Cuiviénen itself, he carried the weight of that origin like a badge. Not arrogant, exactly. Just immovable. Fixed in the certainty that the old ways held wisdom the young couldn't comprehend.
"We are Quendi," he said to me once, after I'd spent an hour trying to convince him to organize archery drills for his clan's adults. "Not animals. Our strength lies in thought, in song, in the contemplation of truth. Not in learning to kill."
"Oromë warned of darkness. Enemies."
"Oromë wanted us to leave. His warnings served his purpose." Maethor's gaze was steady, not hostile, but utterly unmoved. "You yourself taught us to question the words of the Valar. Should I not question yours as well?"
I had no answer for that.
He was using my own argument against me, and doing it perfectly.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Year 1107. Evening]
[Selas POV]
I sat on the half-finished wall, legs dangling over the outer edge, staring at the dark forest.
The settlement sprawled behind me. Bigger now. More organized, buildings following the grid I'd laid out, gardens spreading in ordered rows where forest had been cleared. The lake gleamed under the stars, catching light from cookfires reflected on its surface.
Progress. Real, visible progress.
And it wasn't enough. Wasn't fast enough. Wasn't close to what we'd need.
Because I knew what was out there. Not vaguely, not as abstract threat. I knew. Utumno, Morgoth's fortress in the far north, breeding orcs by the thousand. Sooner or later they'd find us. Sooner or later we'd have to run, or die where we stood.
And when that day came, the only salvation lay west. Where other elves had settled. Where eventually the Noldor would return from Aman, and after them the armies of the Valar themselves. Not allies we could count on, but a shield we could shelter behind while we grew strong enough to stand alone.
Which meant everything we built here was temporary. Every wall, every house, every garden. We were building a cradle, not a home.
I hadn't told anyone this. Couldn't. How do you tell two hundred people who've spent years building their first real home that it's all practice for the day they'll have to abandon it?
That was a problem for later. For now, the immediate math was bad enough.
The wall was maybe half done. The forge produced copper tools reliably, but bronze remained elusive, Eol swore he was close to the right tin ratio, but "close" had been his word for months. The farms yielded food, but barely surplus. The language was taking shape, but writing was still scratches on bark, nothing permanent, nothing that could survive a hard rain.
I was pushing. Everyone felt it. The pace I demanded was alien to them, a human rhythm imposed on elven sensibilities, and the friction never stopped.
The thing that kept me up at night wasn't what we'd built. It was the math.
I had, by my best estimate, maybe thirty years before orcs arrived in force. Thirty Years of the Trees, which meant centuries by mortal reckoning, but that number was deceptive. Elves didn't work like humans. You couldn't just throw time at a problem and expect it to solve itself, because elves experienced time differently. A decade that would have transformed a human society could pass among elves with barely a ripple.
They didn't procrastinate. They didn't forget. They simply… didn't hurry. Every task was done with care, with precision, with the unhurried attention of creatures who had forever to get it right.
And I couldn't make them faster without breaking something essential about who they were.
I didn't know how to solve this. Didn't know if it could be solved. Every solution I could think of was a human solution, pressure, deadlines, urgency, and none of those concepts translated cleanly into a society where death was not a natural ending and tomorrow was always guaranteed.
The stars gave no answers. They never did.
I sat on the wall and watched darkness gather beyond the treeline, and tried not to think about what was gathering with it.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Year 1107. A quiet evening]
[Selas POV]
The idea about children came to me not in a meeting, but over fish stew.
Mireth was tending to a builder who'd gashed his palm on a rough-cut beam. I watched her work, quick, clean, confident, and thought about what Celestia had told me earlier that week: two more families expecting their fourth child, and both worried it would be their last.
"Mireth."
She looked up, hands still pressed against the builder's wound. "If this is about tomorrow's training schedule, I'm busy."
"It's about Light."
Her eyes sharpened. She finished wrapping the bandage, patted the builder's shoulder, and sat down across from me.
"The four-child limit," I said. "Everyone accepts it as natural law. But what if it isn't?"
I explained my theory. Light as energy. Pregnancy as massive expenditure. The constant bleeding of Light into the environment, draining reserves that could otherwise sustain new life.
Mireth listened without interrupting. When I finished, she was quiet for a long time.
"You've been holding your Light in for years," she said finally. "Has it changed you?"
"I'm stronger. More enduring. The Light itself feels denser, brighter when I release it."
"And you think if mothers learned this technique…"
"There might be enough Light for a fifth child. A sixth. Maybe more."
She turned the idea over, examining it the way she examined a wound. Looking for the weakness, the hidden danger. "You're asking me to tell women to change something fundamental about how their bodies work. Based on a theory."
"Based on observation. And yes, I know. It's a gamble."
"It's not just a gamble." She looked at me directly. "If you're wrong and someone loses a child because they tried this, that's on both of us."
"I know."
"Good. As long as you know." She stood. "Let me think about it. Talk to some of the mothers. See if anyone's willing to try."
She paused at the door.
"You might be right, you know. About the Light. I've noticed things too. Patterns in how the body uses it." A faint smile. "I just wanted you to understand the weight of what you're asking."
I understood.
I understood very well.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[End of Chapter 3.1]