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A man who has studied the elven teachings for years now, packs his bags and leaves with nary a word to anyone else. His house is quiet and barren, and the young boy he apprenticed has gone with him.
The man returns to the temple-town with his apprentice before two months have passed, and demands to see the scriptures.
The curator eyes him warily, knowing from whence he came and with whom he shares kinship. They share a long discussion that is far too gentle for the anger behind it, and he is permitted to read the words of Auri-El and the spirits. He smiles in gratitude drawn from a deep well in his soul, and enters the reading-room alongside the highest priests.
The lower priests whisper amongst themselves, and two apprentices stand outside of the chamber.
"What do moths mean for you, again?"
"The goddess of beauty."
"I don't think we have a god for them. Xarxes, maybe."
"Who?"
"The scribe of auri-el."
"I thought he was a saint."
"Does the difference matter?"
"Maybe?"
Before long, the man and his escorts emerge. He and his apprentice are directed to a building down the road that will accommodate them during his study.
The man takes to watching the roads and message-boards in perfect image of the hawk-wife his people venerate. A year passes, in which the human boy is accepted as an acolyte and taught the scriptures, the holy tongue, the songs. Another year passes, until a small paper mentions boats off the coast. The day it is pinned up, the humans leave, riding in a fury towards the northern reaches.
Nothing is heard of them for months, but there are no longer any messages coming from above the river shared with the changed elves. There are people who pass through the town without a word.
More months pass, and messages resume, full of terror and hope and pressure. It is understood that there is a war with the people from the boats, but few discuss it in detail.
The snow prince has died, and dragged their chances down with him. Lesser mer weep for him. Greater mer bawl. The knight does neither, and his heart does not ache, no matter the sympathies he offers to his peers.
It is hard to feel anything anymore, except for the nights that he sobs himself sick. The bile is bitter in his mouth. The pain has already fled by the time he catches his breath, and so he carries the bucket to the waste ditch before washing his mouth in the river.
This war is foolish and harrowing, but they are safe. They have the mountains, the warriors, the guardians, the meagre protection of a religion now twisted against them. Holding water to his eyes, he stops to wonder if the acolyte has survived. He does not ask this of his kin, nor the few messages still trickling in from the east.