Watching the sunrise, I shake the pebbles and dirt from my boots. These boots are well worn now and can tell of the many leagues I have traveled. It seems I have been traveling for half my life now. I sit for a moment along the game trail that no human could see, and I think about what brought me to this moment.
I was just a child before the Turning, and remember just bits and pieces of my life. We were always on the move, never staying long in one place or another, for the humans were ever after us. My father, Gal-Limir, explained that the humans hated we elves since before the Turning and the War of tears. We had justly ruled the humans for generations, and now they sought revenge for imagined wrongs. I had never seen a human at that time. It was just my father, my mother Aroween, and myself at first always on the move. It would be years later while learning the way of the bow and blade from my father in a small village of elves, that I would first glimpse humans. While out hunting one day, we came across three humans along the game trail. They were dressed in the colors of the forest and carried a bow not unlike my own. They were not as quite as my father and I, being that they were big and clumsy. They went on their way, saying not a word to us. My father told me that these humans where rangers, not unlike our own, and where more open to elves more so the most humans. My parents cared little for the humans and said even less. They rarely talked about the past or where we were originally from. That is a tale my father has told me only bits and pieces of through the years, and never willingly.
Years later, we settled in an eleven village for a time. We were treated with much respect, but with a little distance by the villagers once they found out our family name of Lok-ri. It was there that I met Loriathan. We shared the recognition that most elves share when they know they have met their mate. But being the both of us were still young, we were not allowed to marry just yet; our fathers would have us wait for the right time. But being young and foolish, we stole time together as most young elves do. The time would come for us to be wed, or so I believed.
The years went by and my training continued under my father, a master bowman and blademaster. I was happy there for the first time in my life. Training with the others from the village, learning the dance of life and death of the blade, was exciting. The rings of steal upon steal, and the singing of the bow, were like no other sound I knew. They were the sweet sounds that filled my soul. Nothing compared to the song of the bow and the dancing blades except the love of my Loriathan. From her I learned the way of nature and beasts. The years flew by and I learned swiftly the skills my father taught, and those of my sweet Loriathan.
Then one cold winter's day, my nightmare began.
A group of us were several days out from the village, testing our knowledge of the forest ways when we grew uneasy. We were on our way back to the village when the stillness of the forest alarmed us. The animals had all cease to move as if danger was upon them. I knew something was terribly wrong. I raced for the village with the others in tow. The sight we came upon was horrible to see. The village had been razed, no one, nothing left alive. I found my father's body stripped and mutilated, left among the human bodies to rot. Of my mother and Loriathan I found nothing. We buried out dead and set out on the trail of the human horde.
We found a small group of men not far from the village, camped for the night. We fell upon them, killing them all. As I made to go past the bodies, I noticed one carried my father's blades and wore his boots. I clean the blades and saw the name Lok-ri. I stopped and thought of my parents' people. They must learn of this. Surely they would be prepared for the battles ahead. But where do I start? My father rarely spoke of House Lok-ri, except to say that it was once a great and powerful house, and would be again.
Now wearing my father's boots, I set out in search of a family that I did not know, but is part of my blood...