Chapter 4

The dying light made it difficult to see much of Arturia when they reached it. There was just enough light left to get a vague idea of the clearing and the village before them. The fading light was augmented by the lovely blue-white light emitted by the phosphorescent vines that climbed and hung from trees all around the clearing. The trees were different here - much, much larger than anything they'd seen on Fantasie so far. They were distinctively colored too, with dark sapphire leaves and a trunk the color of lilacs. Did they even have lilacs here? Alex wondered to herself when she noted the color. Pale lavender then. The vines, which glowed dimly in the half-light of dusk, seemed only to glow brighter the darker it grew, providing an eerie, eldritch cast to the entire setting. It looked very fantastical to the two teens. So far, Fantasie was definitely a world that lived up to its name.

T'lar took them directly to what was easily the biggest tree in the entire grove of trees. The teens were temporarily puzzled by their destination. Armith wasn't a talking tree, was he? The way their lives had been going lately, Sean and Alex wouldn't have been all that surprised, but T'lar actually didn't want them to talk to the tree. He wanted them to meet the elf who lived within the tree, and to that end he brushed aside the thick curtain of hanging vines that concealed the entrance to the tree interior.

Alex and Sean were both surprised by the amount of space available within the tree. Sure, it was a big tree, but they hadn't expected anything like this. There was only one room, but it had a great deal of overhead room and was quite spacious. The interior of the tree had been partitioned off by large woven mats made of various colored vines. The effect was rather pretty, actually. And it certainly did the job of concealment it was intended to. They couldn't see much more of the interior besides the screens, but the length of the room was enough to get an idea of just how vast the space must be without them. Alex and Sean stood just inside the tree and waited while T'lar went further into the interior.

T'lar approached the inner sanctum of the old one carefully. Armith was occasionally annoyed by the constant stream of supplicants and elves begging for him to solve their problems. So sometimes, those who sought aid from him were immediately hit on the head with the staff Armith was never parted with, even within his own quarters where he didn't expect to move around a lot. He actually kept it on hand for the express purpose of beating elves he didn't like over the head with it.

T'lar actually admired him for it. If he hadn't been too stubborn to ever admit the fact that he might need help walking, he would have used the idea himself. But as it was, he just grudgingly respected the old one for his less-than-sunny attitude towards life and those he interacted with in that life. "Greetings of the Rising Moons to thee, Armith," T'lar said formally. Formal language was used only for greetings and leave-takings between respectable individuals of the same race. Armith, as Eldest, was entitled to the formal greeting from every other elf in Arturia. He was a very venerable elder, Armith was.

Armith turned in surprise. It was unusual for anyone to bother him when the moons were rising. It was a time for nourishment and reflection - not a time when the others came to him with their problems. Still, manners were manners and T'lar was a proud elf - he wouldn't show up at this time without good reason. Mindful of his manners, even though his age could have easily excused him from making any return gesture at all, he curved his fingers and placed the tips of each hand so that they were just touching the palm of the opposite hand before bowing slightly. "And a good Night's Dawning to you, T'lar," he said in return. "What business brings you to my humble abode?"

"Strange doings, Armith. I was doing a bit of foraging today over by the river. I didn't find anything edible, but I did find two dragons in their two-legged form who almost trampled me."

"Go on," Armith urged. "So far this does not sound all that unusual. Dragons over by the section of the Rymar River closest to the village are rare, especially in their smaller form, but as there may be very good reasons for their presence there, it is not entirely unheard of." The Rymar river was a silly name for something which at that point was little more than a stream, but it did get quite a bit larger further downstream. In fact, it eventually got so wide that it was easily the largest river in all of Fantasie. It just didn't get that way for awhile.

"See, that's the thing. These dragons? They claim to be from some other world or some such thing and they would like to request our aid in figuring out how to get back home." T'lar paused for a moment to sort out his opinion of this. "It doesn't make sense that they're not dragons, they should bloody well be dragons. They look exactly like them. But the female didn't even know I was an elf! No self-respecting uppity know-it-all dragon would be able to pretend to be something else to the point where they didn't even know what an elf looked like! So I brought the whole mess here for you to sort out yourself. Such a thing must be a matter for our revered Elder."

Armith looked at T'lar with some distrust. That one word had sounded suspiciously like sarcasm to his pointy, slightly-deaf ears. He didn't put up with sarcasm in his own tree. He poked T'lar with the ever-present staff. He wasn't going to let anyone get away with making a mockery of him! No way. They all came to him with their problems, and as part of the price for him running all their lives, they were regularly thwacked or jabbed forcefully with the staff if Armith thought they were up to any sort of elfin hijinks. "Well," he began, rather annoyed by the fact that he was missing his meal but intrigued by these strange non-dragons from Elsewhere, "Go out and bring them in then." Maybe he could hurriedly consume a piece of fruit or two (to tide him over for what was fast becoming an incredibly long time before he would be able to eat a proper meal) before T'lar came back with the strangers. He had a feeling that he was going to need the energy.

T'lar reappeared suddenly from behind the partition and gestured to them with slim fingers. "Armith is willing to see you and hear what you have to say now. Follow me."

Alex and Sean nodded and started forward semi-reluctantly. They were eager to see what Armith had to say, but meeting another new elf in a strange place wasn't an easy thing to do even in the most ideal of circumstances. The fact that their meeting with Armith wasn't going to be a situation where two people met a third for the first time so that they could be friends, but one where two people came before a third to politely beg for his aid and knowledge, made it a very uncomfortable meeting that they were almost willing to put off. But ultimately, their need to know outweighed their discomfort at having to plea for aid from a complete stranger and they heeded T'lar's beckoning hand.

Armith was sitting down when T'lar returned with the strangers in tow. It was the only chair visible in the room, because Armith didn't believe in coddling his visitors and only brought out the other chairs he had when he had invited them to his dwelling, not when they barged in with one of the multitude of problems they wished him to solve for them. The luxury of the chair he allowed himself was nevertheless a plain, functional, slightly uncomfortable one. The discomfort of the chair helped him stay awake and focus throughout the lengthy explanations he was frequently required to listen to. The chair had no arms, and he held his staff loosely upright in his left hand, as a guard and swift retaliation against any perceived disrespect on the part of his visitors. Next to the chair was a table that was low by human standards, but which was perhaps a foot above the seat of the chair. It was a comfortable table height for an elf and a glass filled with Armith's favorite juice was placed within easy reach for him to drink from if either the tale and/or his reaction to it was particularly lengthy.

He studied the newcomers carefully. One was male, and one was female, that much was clear. After a few minutes of considering their features and attire, he came to the conclusion that these two beings were obviously not dragons. It was just as obvious that they were not from Fantasie. Their clothing was the big thing that gave it away. There was no one on the planet that he was aware of who was capable of manufacturing that strange substance of which their shoes were constructed. Their garments, too, were of uncommon construction. They were slightly too far away for Armith to be certain, but the material looked unlike anything he'd ever seen and the stitches seemed too unnaturally even to have been made by hand. These oddities were enough that Armith was predisposed to believe that they were from a place outside their own. But he would listen to their story to see if he could spot any inconsistencies that would reveal them as imposters anyway. It was part of his task as Elder after all to listen for the lies that lay within the tales his people told as they explained their problems. Armith prided himself on his ability to discern the truth within the stories he was told.