It was a statue the size of a human newborn, in the shape of a woman. Time had worn away the finer details, but the shape of her delicate hands remained.
He observed the hands for a long time, and a part of himself, deep in the recesses of his memories, ached for the humans to understand him.
And then, as quick as that thought came, he growled before grabbing his treasure with his ruthless claws andcarrying it back to his cave. His hollowed-out cathedral of stone filled with treasures that meant nothing to him.
Just a pile of useless, meaningless things.
He harshly threw the statue into a pile of gold coins before laying beside it, curling his tail around the base.
His treasures were all he had to protect.
He was alone.
Always alone.
Two
In her village,order ruled above all else. Order was peace. Order was safety. Order was absolute.
Justice. Punishment. Law. These were the doctrines of her people.
Elowen knew better than to ask for softness, or to ever expect it. She moved through the narrow stone streets like a slip of shadow, her body too thin for the coarse fabric that hung from her frame. Her long dark hair, usually braided to keep it neat for the Council’s scrutiny, often escaped in loose strands that brushed her hollow cheeks. Her blue eyes, striking even when lowered in obedience, noticed everything, even the things she was punished for seeing.
Her bones pressed gently against her skin—the sharp angles of collarbone, the pronounced curve of her ribcage, the thin wrists that looked as though the slightest pressure might snap them. She, like so many in the village, bore the unmistakable signs of hunger: pallid skin stretched too tightly over delicate structure, faint tremors in her handswhen she worked too long without rest, a weariness that lingered in the hollows beneath her eyes.
Her physical fragility did not dim her presence, it sharpened it, making her stand out like a single fragile flower growing through cracked, darkened stone of the houses that were filled with darker silence.
The cottages were lined up in narrow, uniform rows like teeth clenched in a jaw. No one planted flowers in their windowsills. No one hung paintings in their homes. No one loitered. Laughter, if it even existed at all, was hushed behind thick curtains and quickly silenced. Families kept to themselves and taught their children obedience before they even uttered their first word.
Expression was weakness in her village. Questioning the rules set in place by the Council was treason. And kindness? Kindness was foolish, dangerous, and forbidden.
Elowen had learned these things as a young girl, but she ached to be different.
She was always too quick to comfort. Too slow to judge. Too eager to shed a tear when a thief lost a hand or question why the poor and sick were given less food during the harsh winter months than the healthy, even though they were the ones that needed the nourishment the most.
Elowen knew that softness was equivalent to danger.
Like her father, she grew up to become a healer, though the townspeople trusted him more, for he was both a man and more experienced in the art. Her father was quiet, firm, and always obeyed the Council’s orders without question.
His touches were clinical, and his words were few.
Elowen, by contrast, was gentle. She hummed quietly to herself when she crushed herbs. She would let her coldpalms linger on a child’s feverish brow for a bit longer than needed. Her heart ached when a woman would come in seeking a pain remedy for bruises shaped like her husband’s fist.
There was a part of everyone in the village that tolerated her for this, as it was human nature to seek comfort, but that was all they did:tolerate. They did not accept her, nor like her, nor trust her.
But she did not care. Or at least, she tried not to.
Elowen had but one freedom, and it was the forest.
Beyond the high iron gate of her town, past the guard’s torches and the stone walls, lay the beauty of nature. This is where Elowen found peace and serenity in her rigid world. Even the light seemed softer there, filtered through a thick canopy of trees that changed with the seasons into vibrant shades of yellow, orange and red before falling lifeless in the winter—only to turn green again.
She visited the forest often, under the excuse of gathering roots and other ingredients. The Council approved of her collecting, so long as she returned before dark and her satchel was inspected upon return.
Everything she brought back became the property of the town, and so however much she might have wanted to, Elowen was not allowed to havethings. No one was.
Deep in the forest, far from the paths laid by men of the past, there was a lake. It wasn’t large, but it was wild, natural, and real. Cupped between moss-covered hills, surrounded by soft meadow grass and floral shrubs, the lake reflected the beauty of the sky every day and night in a way no mirror ever could.
Animals, too, found peace there. Deer would come for arefreshing drink while foxes played in the brush. A crane would show off its beautiful balance, while fish bobbed at the surface of the water, waiting for insects to land.
