Role

Chapter 12

I trudged out of Darsylon and across the plains. I picked flowers
and tried to get nectar out of them, but it was certainly not
enough to feed me. I starved my way through the plains, and when
I fell down on the road I should've died, but I didn't.

An old, old human woman picked me up and forced broth down my
throat and when I became coherent again, she asked me my name.

"I don't have one."

"Then," she said, "I shall give you one, and a story for it, too
because every name needs a story."

I consented. It seemed silly to be nameless.

"Etielise is what they will call you until this form fails you and
you fly again, dearie," she said with a wink. I wasn't sure what
to make of it then, but upon reflection, it seems she knew I had
not been an Elf for long.

"Etielise was the lovely daughter of a pair of traveling bards,"
the old woman said, patting a horn tied to her belt, "and one of
them was of the fair folk, like yourself, and the other was like
me, a daughter of Man. Etielise and her father died, to be quite
frank, and I'm sorry if that alarms you, but you remind me of her
so much. She loved all the gods' creatures. Every one."

The old woman wiped one of her eyes and lit a pipe. I slept at
her camp that night, and in the morning she fed me more broth and
told me to go south, that I'd find something to do that suited me.

I thanked her for the broth and promised I'd do naught but honor
her daughter's memory with my new name.