---------------
Summer
---------------
In the spring, the land was dying. Nothing grew, nothing bloomed. It was as if
the earth had died, and all was barren. We - the elfen of the forests - had
thought that death was imminent. How could it not be, when even the seeds
feared to grow? Patches of dark influence spread throughout the land - surely
the touch of something supremely malignant. Now that summer has come, there are
no fruits. Nothing to eat. We catch fish and hunt the woodland creatures, but
without the trees and plants they too are dying. It is difficult to describe
the pain and horror an ailing forest gives to one of the elfen race, we who are
tied to nature perhaps more than any other race. It is torment, a withering of
mind and spirit and body, a cry of agony that stabs through the consciousness
and does not stop. We feel the touch of the Old Ones, as the forest does.

Sometimes, in this unnatural season, one of our kinsmen will leave us and will
not return. Nobody dares to ask where they have gone, but they do not return
alive. My guess is that their despair takes them to seek the Fates for the
final journey. We mourn their choice, but cannot condemn it, for we too feel
the forest's desperation. Yet with every one of my people that perishes, my own
heart grows heavier, for I have had my own brush with despair.

It was a summer morning like any other when I was wakened. For a moment I
looked around, not sure why I was startled - I usually sleep through a number
of things, including thunderstorms, fanfares, and on one occasion an earthquake
- but the reason soon became apparent. I was a weaver of dreams, and very
sensitive to whether people woke or slept. And Ellindel was awake. Or, more
importantly, not there.

I leapt up, dashing across the wooden floor of our home and yanking the door
open - in time to catch sight of her slender, green-clad form, slipping through
the diseased trees of the forest. I have never been accounted fleet of foot
among our people, but I dash after her with a speed I never knew I possessed,
and seized her wrist. She was cold and pale, and she shook at my touch,
thrashing feebly against my grip.

"Ellindel," I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. "Where are you
going?"

She shook her head, silent. I would not give up. "Tell me," I demanded. "Or at
the least let me go with you."

Shake. "What are you going to do, then, all alone and away from all your kin?"

She was trembling now, so hard that she could hardly speak. "Let me go," she
whispered. "Oh, for the love of the Green Guardian, let me go. I must go."

"Ellindel," I said, trying to keep myself calm, "I won't, not until I'm sure
you won't do anything rash."

"You promised," she said. "When first we became hearthmates, you promised that
I could leave when I wished."

And indeed I had, a vow born when first she came to share my hearth like a free
and joyful bird. I remembered it well, from the golden fire to the smile upon
her face that called forth such overwhelming love for her - all the more so for
the fact that I had been (perhaps in an ungentlemanly manner) listening in on
her dreams for the past months, and knew her misgivings: of being tied down,
trammeled, imprisoned. It did but make what she did a greater gesture of trust.
I had held her close, and with a sudden impulse had said, "Ellindel, beloved. If
you ever choose to leave, I will not hold you back."

I never thought she would have cause to invoke it.

The morning chill seemed bone-deep now, and I noticed that I was shaking as
hard as she was. A helpless rage welled up in me, so that I raised my hand and
saw her flinch. I struck with all my strength at the diseased trunk of a nearby
tree, and let her go. She exhaled sharply, and vanished into the depths of the
forest, leaving me alone in the silent forest.

I sat down abruptly, my fist beginning to bleed, and wept.

---------------
Autumn
---------------
I have spoken little these last few months, and done less. Each morning I have
the same routine. I wake, find some old, stale bread, clean the room, wrap
myself in warm clothes, and go outside to search through the forest. I do not
know what I search for. Perhaps only to get away from my own thoughts. I do not
bother lighting fires, and the hearth has been cold and empty for months now.
The diseased wood will not burn well in any case.

The forests still suffer, but I do not care. I open myself up to them, to the
sickly and nauseating ailment that afflicts them. The trees have voices to
speak, I find, and they tell me things - the wind-whispers in the next valley,
the course the rivers take. And less pleasant things, such as the worms that
gnaw at their roots and the darkness deep inside the earth.

One morning, as I walked through the wood, a whisper caught my thought. It was
joyous - something I had not heard in a long time. Spirits, it said. Healing.
And indeed I thought I felt something - a gentle, far-off mental touch,
soothing and calming me. A healer's touch.

I did not run towards the direction it was coming from. Instead I waited, until
I heard the soft tinkle of bells, and a bright, ethereal creature trod in from
the depths of the forest. It was a horse, pale as the moonlight, with a single
bright horn upon its head. It was dazzlingly beautiful, but it was as nothing
to me compared to she who rode it. Ellindel.

I somehow found my wits to stumble over to the creature and help her dismount,
and only then did I see the other beings surrounding her, pale and bright as
the silver unicorn she rode. They were diminutive things, delicate and
sprightly. Some had wings, some did not. All were looking at me with some
slight apprehension.

"This is Glinshari," she said to them. "My hearthmate." And she smiled, as she
used to in those happier times before the woodland ailed, and somehow I found
hope wrapping its tendrils around my heart again.

"These are the fae," she told me. "The spirits of Nature. They were ailing
because of the Soulless, the Old Ones. But now they are healed, and will be
well. We were in time, Glinshari! The forests can yet be saved."

"No," I said. "We were not in time. -You- were in time." An uncomfortable
silence ensued, and then sudden relief welled up in me, as though my mind had
only now realised that she was back and safe. "Ah, beloved, don't do that to me
again."

"I had no choice," she replied. "If I'd failed, it would have been better for
you to think I'd just gone off, instead of trying to do what I had attempted."

"I would have helped you," I said.

She smiled. "I know."

---------------
Winter
---------------
The winter in the forest is cold, so cold. Perhaps in Ackleberry or gentle
Gloriana the weather is milder, but northern winters consist of snow and
blizzards and howling wind. Yet, despite this, my heart is light, for the trees
now slumber in their natural cycle, and I know that the silence of the woods is
the stillness of rest and not of disease.

I have grown to care greatly for the trees, more so than most of our people,
who view nature as more of a cycle than a thing. Perhaps they would say that I
cannot see the forest for the trees. Ellindel is quite busy now, and has
students who learn from her the ways of the fae. They call themselves the
wiccans, and name themselves the Coven. I shared the tale of my strange care
for the trees with Ellindel one day, and she looked thoughtful.

"There might be more in what you say than our people thought," she said softly.
"Are not the trees the body of the forest, as the fae are their spirits? And
when we heal, we heal mind and spirit and body, not spirit alone..."

That was in the early winter. Later in the season, around the Solstice time, a
great change came over the forest, for the fae lords came amongst us. They were
in the form of a radiant woman and a white stag, and there are no words to
describe their beauty. The woman greeted Ellindel, calling her
daughter-in-nature, and named herself to be the Nature Spirit of Moon.

"Hear Me," said Moon. "Three Covens shall there be - one of Moon and one of
Lake, and one of Night in the southern forest. We will guard the forests and
ward them, for Nature holds us all in her embrace."

But the Hart turned rather to me, and though he did not speak I heard his
thought running through my mind. "You live up to your name, Strongleaf. Though
the fae have been healed, the forests need their guardians. Aid us in this
task!" And he turned and trotted off. I followed, until we ended up in a quiet,
secluded grove by the river, and the White Hart taught me of the totem spirits.

One by one I learned to sense the lives around me, the animals of the woodland.
I called upon the squirrel for its skill of foraging in times of hunger, upon
the sun to lend me its light and the moon to soothe my spirit. I briefly sensed
the burrowing lives beneath the earth, revelling in the rich smell of loam and
the cool dirt around me. I learned to wear the night sky as a cloak to make my
passing unnoticed, and to ask the spirit of the raven for wisdom. The river
healed me, the wolf lent me courage. One by one these totems blessed me, until
it seemed that Nature itself filled me with its whispering symphony of life.

I gasped with the sudden heightening of senses I found, and sensed the White
Hart's amusement. "You learn swiftly, Strongleaf," he told me. "Return to your
hearth and your rest. On the morrow we shall meld the forests."

I did so, stepping silently and with a confidence given by the many spirits
that twined with mine, until I stood before my own door, looking into my home
and my Ellindel, her face more beautiful still when perceived with my
heightened senses.

"Great things are afoot," she whispered to me. "Moon has told me the message of
the other fae lords. Come spring, we'll raise the Great Tree of this forest,
that it may link us with the Ethereal and ward us forever."

---------------
Spring
---------------
This day is surely great, and shall be remembered for as long as the forest
communes live, for today we planted a Tree of Power.

All our people were there, and we watched as the silver nut was planted, the
seed of the Tree of Trees that would now guard our forests. Ellindel and I
stood by the green grove by the river, watching the tiny mound of dirt that now
bore so many of our hopes. Then she turned to me, and nodded. We linked our
hands, and so did our students: the Wiccans and the Druids, as people now
called them.

Ellindel began the spell, her fae fluttering around her, and I joined in,
calling upon the vast strength of the forest. Guard us, I thought. Guide us and
shelter us, for when we are dead you will still grow strong, and your boughs
will give our children shade and sustenance. We concentrated, and slowly a tiny
shoot sprouts forth from the soil, blossoming and growing larger. The fae lords,
Moon and Hart, stood in the background, but I felt them lend us their strength.
The sprout grew swiftly, and when the spell ended it was a good-sized tree. Not
huge - that it would attain in time - but strong enough to survive the rigors of
the wild.

"This is a day of joy," I said to those who watched, "For the Great Tree of the
Serenwilde is planted, and it shall grow for generations untold. And today, if
we may, we shall name it. This tree I name the Moonhart, in honour of the
Spirits who have aided us, and who will shelter us with their presence in years
to come."

"So may it be," echoed Ellindel, and we stood gazing at each other across the
grove where the Moonhart would now grow. And at that moment she smiled at me
with a sudden joy, and I felt her thoughts find mine, and she told me such news
that made me gape in wonder and almost topple over again in front of all those
people.

Indeed, life is a tenacious and wondrous thing - for though this year has been
the darkest and the hardest in living memory, come next winter our hearth will
be blessed with a child. So now I smile, and savour the springtime, and I am
content.