[Year 1107. Weeks later. The gathering circle]
[Selas POV]
I called an assembly. Not for orders this time. For teaching.
"Everyone knows families can't have more than four children," I said. Nods all around. "I think I know why, and I think we can change it."
I explained what I'd discussed with Mireth. Light as energy. The constant drain. The possibility of holding it inside.
Then I showed them.
I stood in the center of the gathering and pulled my Light inward. The glow around my body dimmed, faded, vanished. In the starlit darkness, I became a shadow among shadows.
Gasps. Someone grabbed a neighbor's arm.
I held it for a full minute. Then released. Light blazed outward, brighter than before, and I heard the sharp intake of breath from a hundred throats.
"It's not easy at first," I said. "It takes practice. Months, sometimes longer. But eventually everyone can learn to hold their Light within themselves — almost constantly."
Mireth stepped forward and demonstrated the basics, guiding volunteers through their first attempts. Most failed. A few managed seconds of dimming before their concentration broke.
"Everyone needs to learn this," I continued. "Not just for children. The Light makes you stronger. More alert. More enduring. It changes how you live."
They agreed to try. Some eagerly, some with skepticism they didn't bother hiding.
But they tried.
"One more thing." I took a breath. "You've all seen in the forest, strong trees bear large, strong fruit. The same applies to animals. And to us."
I let that settle.
"Strong, healthy, active parents will have children who are the same, or better. Children take the best qualities from both parents. So all Avari need to train. Constantly. Improve ourselves in everything, not just for survival, but for our children's sake."
The crowd stirred. Couples exchanged glances. Women studied their partners with new appraisal. Men straightened unconsciously, suddenly aware of being measured.
A new standard was forming. Unspoken but already powerful. Among the Avari, strength wouldn't just be useful.
It would be beautiful.
{Image: Approximate view of archery training}
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Training grounds]
[Celestia Third Person]
"I can't anymore!" One Avari collapsed to the ground. Others followed, groaning.
"How can we endure this? Will suffering and torment really make us stronger?" another asked the void.
"You should've started this from childhood," said Celestia, who handled the exercises better than her subordinates. She crossed her arms and looked them over with theatrical disappointment. "At this rate, not one noble Avari woman will even look at you."
"That's not true!"
"We're not weaklings!"
"For my beloved, I'll become stronger!"
The young Avari clamored competitively, boasting their strength. The watching women exchanged satisfied glances with light smiles. At Celestia's quiet suggestion, they'd positioned themselves where the men could see them, evaluating, comparing, whispering to each other with just enough volume to carry.
It was shameless manipulation. It worked beautifully.
The men trained twice as hard when they thought someone was watching. The women, for their part, trained just as hard, because Celestia had made it very clear that strength was not a male virtue but an Avari one.
What won't you do for love and future children?
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Year 1108. Evening gathering]
[Multiple voices]
"How delicious!" Shouts rose from the fires amid general conversation and eating.
"…meat is better!"
"No, fish is superior!"
"…why didn't we cook food these ways before?"
"…look how much the garden yielded! More than you gather in the forest!"
"…fish has too many small bones!"
"…then eat the fish, not the bones!"
"…my finger still hurts from missing the nail!"
"You thought hammering nails was like picking berries? It needs skill!"
"…look at the pattern I made!"
"Beautiful! Look at the shirt I made!"
"…so fish is tastier than meat!"
"No, meat is much better!"
"What do you know about food? Nothing is sweeter than berries and fruits!" a third voice interjected.
"Meat and fish are better!" the carnivores roared in unison at the herbivore.
Shouts and debates continued around the fires. Someone had carved reed flutes. Another stretched hide over frames for drums. Music joined the noise, then voices, then laughter.
And watching over all this celebration of life sat one thoughtful Avari, whose eyes occasionally clouded with nostalgia and sadness.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Same evening]
[Selas POV]
The fires burned low. Families claimed regular spots now. Craftsmen sat with their guilds. Children ran between groups.
I sat slightly apart and watched.
My people. Growing. Thriving. In their own way, at their own pace.
Celestia settled beside me with two bowls of fish stew.
"You should eat."
"I will."
"You always say that."
I took the bowl. Seasoned herbs, chunks of white fish, root vegetables from the gardens. Good. Getting better every month.
"You're thinking about her," Celestia said. Not a question.
I didn't answer.
"The Vanya girl."
I pulled the acorn from my pouch. Still warm. Still glowing faintly with Ilvëa's golden Light, mixed now with traces of my own silver from constant handling.
"I think about her," I admitted. "Sometimes."
"More than sometimes."
"Fine. Often. Happy?"
Celestia was quiet. Then: "There are others here who'd gladly…"
"I know."
"But you're not interested."
"I'm not."
"Because of her."
"Because I chose this path. She chose hers. And dwelling on what might have been is pointless and stupid and…"
"And you do it anyway."
I had no response.
We sat in silence, watching the Avari celebrate another day survived.
"It's not just her, is it," Celestia said after a while. Not a question. She was studying me, the way she studied terrain before scouting it. "You're lonely in a way that has nothing to do with romance."
I looked at her.
"You're the only one who thinks like this," she continued, gesturing at the settlement, the walls, the forge still glowing in the distance. "Everyone else is learning. Adapting. But you already knew what you wanted before any of us understood the question."
"That's not…"
"It is." She wasn't accusing. Just observing. "You're surrounded by people, and you're completely alone. Because nobody here sees what you see."
I held the acorn tighter.
"That's the job," I said.
"Doesn't make it less lonely."
No. It didn't.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Years 1108–1110. Various moments]
The Avari grew stronger. Not overnight. Not uniformly. But the changes accumulated, visible to anyone willing to look.
Light retention spread through the settlement like a slow fire. After that first assembly, more and more Avari committed to the practice. As they learned to hold their Light inside, everything shifted. They became more active, more alert.
The dreamy, unhurried quality that had defined Quendi existence began, slowly, to give way to something sharper.
And the culture that emerged valued this. Strength. Vitality. The discipline to train, to build, to push beyond what was comfortable. Young Avari began to measure each other not just by beauty of face or voice, but by capability.
By what your hands could make, how far you could run, how steadily you could hold a bow at full draw. Women preferred men who trained. Men admired women who could match them.
It wasn't something I decreed. It grew on its own, nourished by the Light retention and the training and the simple fact that in a world without the Valar's protection, usefulness was the highest virtue.
The Avari were becoming a people who prized doing over dreaming, strength over contemplation, and they didn't need me to tell them that. They figured it out themselves.
Not everyone participated equally. The military training remained a point of friction, the first-Awakened tolerating archery but resisting anything closer to real combat. But the physical conditioning, the exercises, the culture of improvement? That took root deeper than I'd dared hope.
The settlement transformed around us. Huts became houses, properly framed and roofed. The wall climbed higher, packed earth and sharpened stakes, ramparts for archers, watchtowers at intervals.
Gardens expanded into proper fields with rotation. The forge grew from a pit to a structure, then to a complex with multiple hearths.
We created our own language. I suggested the foundation, letter shapes and structure from what I remembered, and the Avari took it from there.
Elven memory was extraordinary. Words invented in the morning were known by the whole settlement by evening. The lexicon expanded faster than I could track.
They surprised me. Potters emerged without prompting, Avari who'd found clay deposits and experimented on their own until they'd figured out basic ceramics.
A carpenter invented the wheel, not because I told him to, but because he'd been watching the potters spin their plates and thought, what if bigger?
I praised him publicly. He glowed for a week.
I ordered carts built. Told them it was for hauling supplies and construction materials. Which was true. But in the back of my mind, those carts had another purpose.
When the day came to leave, and it would come, we'd need to move two hundred people and everything they owned across unknown distances.
Better to have wheels and not need them than to need wheels and not have them.
And the births.
Mireth had worked carefully, quietly, teaching the technique to willing mothers. The first fifth child was born in Year 1107, and the celebration that followed shook the settlement.
By Year 1110, we numbered nearly two hundred. Families that had been childless had two, three, four young ones. The technique worked.
But some things resisted. The military training that I considered essential remained the hardest sell. The young generation trained eagerly, the ones who'd grown up with my games accepted the progression to real combat practice as natural.
But among the first-Awakened, among those who remembered Cuiviénen before I was born, the resistance never fully broke.
They trained in archery. Most of them. Grudgingly. But when it came to spear work, to shield drills, to anything that looked like preparing for real violence against thinking creatures, the first-Awakened found reasons to be elsewhere.
"We hunt," Maethor told me with impeccable calm. "We defend our homes from beasts. That is sufficient."
"It won't be."
"So you say. You've said it for five years."
"And I'll say it for fifty more if I have to."
He inclined his head, politely, and went back to whatever he'd been doing before I interrupted.
I couldn't force them. Wouldn't. That wasn't what the Avari were.
But I could make sure the next generation knew better.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Year 1110. The Elder Council]
[Thoron]
The clan heads gathered to discuss current affairs, as they did each month now, in the meeting hall Selas had insisted they build before any other public structure.
Thoron studied the faces around the fire. Thirty-three seats. Not all filled. Some Elders sent representatives when they had better things to do. Maethor, characteristically, had come in person. He always came. Disagreeing from a distance wasn't his way.
"Still, the decision to stay was correct," one of the younger Elders said.
"Indeed, after the Eldar's Exodus, our lives changed greatly," said another.
"Perhaps we should have joined the Eldar after all?" A third, one of Maethor's quiet allies.
{Image: Clan heads of original Avari families in discussion}
"No, Selas was right then," the first countered. "He may be strange, but thanks to him our lives improve."
"True," a fourth agreed. "Look what we've achieved. Stronger dwellings. A wall. Gardens and fields. Metal tools."
"Don't forget our own language. Our own writing." A fifth shook her head in wonder. "Before Selas, no Quendi even thought of such things."
"You'll say next that you enjoy the constant exercises!" the third grew heated.
"And why must we all learn archery and spear-wielding?" another supported the protester.
Maethor hadn't spoken yet. He sat with his hands folded, watching the argument flow the way he always did, with the patient attention of someone who'd seen conversations like this repeat a thousand times since the Awakening.
"Have you forgotten what the Vala warned?" the fourth countered. "Darkness and enemies. Selas's proposals are sound."
"We chose to ignore the Vala's summons," Maethor said, and every voice quieted. "We chose to stay precisely because we did not trust his words. Now we use those same words to justify training our people for war?" He spread his hands. "I see the contradiction. Do you?"
Thoron felt the room shift. Not toward Maethor, not exactly. But toward uncertainty.
"Whatever you think," the fifth spoke, "we elected Selas chief by our own will. And he knows what he's doing."
"No one disputes that," Maethor replied. "But knowing what to do and being right about everything are different things. Our Chief is young. Brilliant, yes. But young. And youth confuses urgency with wisdom."
The clan heads fell silent. Some nodded. Others frowned.
Thoron watched it all and said nothing.
He'd been the first to stand behind Selas at the Sundering. He believed in the boy. But Maethor's words had a weight that belief alone couldn't dismiss.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Year 1110. The assembly hall]
[Selas POV]
Five years since the Sundering.
Nearly two hundred Avari. A settlement with walls, forges, farms, and its own language.
And it still wasn't enough. Wasn't fast enough. Every morning I woke up with the same thought: we're running out of time. And every day the gap between what we had and what we'd need gaped wider.
But with growth came complexity. And with complexity came politics.
I stood before the gathered Elders, heads of the thirty-three families who'd stayed.
"We need structure," I said without preamble. "Right now, every decision goes through me. It's not sustainable."
Murmurs of agreement. Even the skeptics agreed on this.
"I propose a council. Two tiers. The first, you. Clan heads, Elders. You'll represent your families' interests, bring concerns, help shape major decisions."
Cautiously positive murmurs.
"The second tier, my direct advisors. Specialists in key areas. Smithing, farming, defense, healing. People who can manage their domains without constant oversight."
"And who chooses these advisors?" Talagan asked, sharp-eyed.
"I do. They answer to me. Execute my will. Manage their domains."
"Sounds like concentrating power."
"I'm distributing it. Right now, everything flows through me. If I fall, the system falls with me. This way, knowledge spreads. Leadership doesn't die in one throat."
Talagan nodded slowly. "Who did you have in mind?"
"Eol for smithing. Mireth for healing. Caldor for construction. Celestia for martial training."
That last one got reactions.
"A woman?" One of the Elders, not Maethor, but one of his circle. "Leading warriors?"
"She's the best we have," I said flatly. "Better than most men with a bow. Everyone respects her. The position is hers."
"The position is premature," Maethor said. His voice was calm, reasonable, and utterly immovable. "We don't need a martial commander. We have no army. We have hunters who practice with weapons in their spare time."
"We have forty trained fighters and growing."
"Trained for what?"
The old argument. I was tired of it.
"For whatever comes," I said. "Oromë warned us. You can dismiss it. But if he was right and we're unprepared, no amount of wisdom will save us."
Maethor held my gaze. I held his. The room watched.
Thoron rose.
"I support this," he said simply. "All of it. Including Celestia."
Others rose. One by one. Not unanimous. Maethor didn't vote against, he abstained, which was his way of registering displeasure without forcing a confrontation.
The Council of Elders was formed.
The Advisory Council with it.
It was a start.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Same year. Late autumn]
"You look tired."
Celestia's observation was blunt. We were overseeing the wall's northern section, the last piece.
"I am tired."
"When's the last time you slept?"
"I sleep."
"When?"
I didn't answer.
She sighed. "You're going to burn out."
"I'm fine."
"You're not." She grabbed my shoulder. "You created the Council so you could delegate. But you're still trying to do everything."
She was right.
But every time I tried to let go, I saw the future. Saw orcs. Saw war. Saw a people not yet ready for what was coming, moving at a pace that made perfect sense to them and none at all to me.
And I couldn't rest.
"The walls are almost done," Celestia continued. "The forges run. The farms produce. The population grows. You've built something real, Selas."
"It's not enough."
"It never will be. Not for you." She forced me to look at her. "But you have to let yourself breathe. Or what's the point of any of it?"
I looked past her toward where the Avari worked and laughed and lived.
My people.
Thriving despite everything. Despite me, sometimes.
Maybe she was right.
Maybe it was enough.
For now.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
[Year 1110. Winter Evening]
The celebration was larger than any before. Nearly two hundred Avari gathered around massive bonfires, sharing food and music that had grown sophisticated over five years.
Someone had written actual songs. Verses, choruses, harmonies.
Children chased each other between fires, shrieking with laughter.
Couples danced to rhythms beaten on hide drums.
And at the center, I sat on my carved wooden chair, not quite a throne, but not quite not one.
Thoron approached with two cups of berry wine. Someone had figured out fermentation.
Of course they had.
"Drink," he said. "You look like you need it."
I sipped. Sweet and strong and surprisingly good.
"To five years," Thoron said, raising his cup.
"To five years," I echoed.
We drank.
"When you stood up at the Sundering, I thought you were mad," Thoron said.
"I was mad."
"Maybe. But you were also right." He looked around. "Look at them. Look at what we've built."
I followed his gaze. Saw Eol demonstrating bronze work to apprentices, face lit by forge-glow, hands moving with the confidence of a master who'd earned every callus. Saw Celestia laughing with warriors. Saw Mireth tending a child's scraped knee with the gentle competence that had become her signature.
Saw families gathered in warmth and safety under stars that never changed but somehow felt less indifferent than before.
"We have this," I agreed quietly.
For now.
But I touched the acorn in my pouch, still warm, still glowing, and thought of promises made.
The celebration went deep into the night, music and laughter carrying across the settlement and over the still waters of Cuiviénen.
The lake watched. Silent. Patient.
Waiting for whatever came next.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
A small clarification on time:
In the Years of the Trees, before the rising of the Sun and Moon, years were considerably longer. What may seem like rapid progress unfolds over extended stretches of time beneath the starlight.
[End of Chapter 3]
GLOSSARY
For those who wish to delve deeper. This glossary covers new terms introduced in this chapter.
Council of Elders — Representatives of the thirty-three founding clans. They voice their peoples' concerns and help shape policy.
Advisory Council — Selas's specialists who manage specific domains (smithing, healing, construction, etc.) and execute his policies.
Avarin — The Avari's own language, developed after the Sundering. Writing system with evolving vocabulary distinct from other Elvish tongues.
Primitive Quendian — The original language all Elves spoke at Cuiviénen before developing separate dialects.
Clans (or Houses) — The thirty-three extended families forming Avari society's core, descended from original Quendi.