ANGEL
No one knows why the heavens set their sights on Hwindir Tavorion. Perhaps they needed a new champion; perhaps they felt the need to strike back at evil through the first child born after one of the longest Drownings in living memory; perhaps it was chance.
What was clear to all the elves of the Dancing Falls was that the boy was touched. Dogs and horses known as difficult brutes would reach for his touch. Arguments would falter when Hwindir drew near. “If you lost something precious, bring Hwindir on your search. He’s more than lucky.”
There were the obvious magical traits that manifest in a gifted elf as they leave childhood, no surprise to the hundred or so of his community, where a fair few were drawn to the mystic arts. Not that he particularly cared for Magstine Dawntracker’s tomes. He could already feel the power flowing in his blood, why devote days to study when there was so much to set right in the world?
Then the others found out about the Voice.
At first it seemed innocent. Asked why he had done a good deed, Hwindir began to reply “a Voice” had told him to act. The others would chuckle at his youthful exuberance until one day old Dawntracker asked him what the Voice sounded like. “Like a young girl singing in the distance, but there’s thunder rolling on her tongue,” he told her. The laughter faltered around the half-brewed potion, his lessonmates’ faces clouded.
Word spread. Where once his kind acts were praised, now there was muttering. Those who had been irked by his intercession into arguments – not always in their favour – grew openly resentful. “You’re cracked,” they’d say. “Your voice is calling, better find her.” Even those inclined to be indulgent, his friends and family, felt discomfort in his presence.
The Dancing Falls, once his whole world, seemed cold. He couldn’t deny the Voice he heard so clearly, but he couldn’t stay where he was distrusted, resented, even feared. One day, his few possessions on his back, he set out. None stopped him.
He headed north. While some of his friends had excelled in the ways of the woods – hunting, trapping and fishing – those skills had never come easily to Hwindir. But not far to the north were relatively civilized dukedoms and farmlands of humans, growing thicker as you drew near the large city of Seapoint. Perhaps there someone could either cure his madness or give a face to his Voice.
After much walking, he arrived one night at a large stone building, a settlement’s fires clear to be seen atop a nearby hill. Pushing open large wooden doors carved with the symbol of the Sun, Hwindir collapsed into a great open room, rolling onto his back to gaze up at a painted ceiling.
There, in a beam of reflected moonlight, was the image of a lithe, pale woman, a sword in one hand, a trumpet in the other and enormous wings stretching from her back.
In the morning, when bushy bearded Norkas trotted into the church, grabbing incense for the almost overdue sunrise service, he found Hwindir lying there, a hand stretched up to the celestial mural.
“What in the world are you doing on the floor, man? I don’t have time to deal with drunks or fools right now.”
“Who is she?”
“What??”
“Her, the woman on fire. Who is she?”
“That, oaf, is an angel of Sarenrae. Of all the weird, whimsical, witless…”
He’d found a name for her. And a new name for himself. Angel.
Later that morning, he questioned the cleric on everything he knew about the angels, their realms, their contact with mortals. His body fed by the good priest’s hospitality and his mind racing with new knowledge, Angel set out with new vigor in his step. With nowhere in the world to go, he had a goal to draw near: to become like his Angel.
What was clear to all the elves of the Dancing Falls was that the boy was touched. Dogs and horses known as difficult brutes would reach for his touch. Arguments would falter when Hwindir drew near. “If you lost something precious, bring Hwindir on your search. He’s more than lucky.”
There were the obvious magical traits that manifest in a gifted elf as they leave childhood, no surprise to the hundred or so of his community, where a fair few were drawn to the mystic arts. Not that he particularly cared for Magstine Dawntracker’s tomes. He could already feel the power flowing in his blood, why devote days to study when there was so much to set right in the world?
Then the others found out about the Voice.
At first it seemed innocent. Asked why he had done a good deed, Hwindir began to reply “a Voice” had told him to act. The others would chuckle at his youthful exuberance until one day old Dawntracker asked him what the Voice sounded like. “Like a young girl singing in the distance, but there’s thunder rolling on her tongue,” he told her. The laughter faltered around the half-brewed potion, his lessonmates’ faces clouded.
Word spread. Where once his kind acts were praised, now there was muttering. Those who had been irked by his intercession into arguments – not always in their favour – grew openly resentful. “You’re cracked,” they’d say. “Your voice is calling, better find her.” Even those inclined to be indulgent, his friends and family, felt discomfort in his presence.
The Dancing Falls, once his whole world, seemed cold. He couldn’t deny the Voice he heard so clearly, but he couldn’t stay where he was distrusted, resented, even feared. One day, his few possessions on his back, he set out. None stopped him.
He headed north. While some of his friends had excelled in the ways of the woods – hunting, trapping and fishing – those skills had never come easily to Hwindir. But not far to the north were relatively civilized dukedoms and farmlands of humans, growing thicker as you drew near the large city of Seapoint. Perhaps there someone could either cure his madness or give a face to his Voice.
After much walking, he arrived one night at a large stone building, a settlement’s fires clear to be seen atop a nearby hill. Pushing open large wooden doors carved with the symbol of the Sun, Hwindir collapsed into a great open room, rolling onto his back to gaze up at a painted ceiling.
There, in a beam of reflected moonlight, was the image of a lithe, pale woman, a sword in one hand, a trumpet in the other and enormous wings stretching from her back.
In the morning, when bushy bearded Norkas trotted into the church, grabbing incense for the almost overdue sunrise service, he found Hwindir lying there, a hand stretched up to the celestial mural.
“What in the world are you doing on the floor, man? I don’t have time to deal with drunks or fools right now.”
“Who is she?”
“What??”
“Her, the woman on fire. Who is she?”
“That, oaf, is an angel of Sarenrae. Of all the weird, whimsical, witless…”
He’d found a name for her. And a new name for himself. Angel.
Later that morning, he questioned the cleric on everything he knew about the angels, their realms, their contact with mortals. His body fed by the good priest’s hospitality and his mind racing with new knowledge, Angel set out with new vigor in his step. With nowhere in the world to go, he had a goal to draw near: to become like his Angel.