The Chronicles Of The Council #1: The Sun's Tears

Chapter 23: Aebbé - Riddles

  "This thing all things devours:

Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; 

Gnaws iron, bites steel;

Grinds hard stones to meal;

Slays king, ruins town,

And beats high mountain down." ― J.R.R. Tolkien  

I arrive an hour and fifteen minutes before the sun rises. I am eager to start my training. I barely slept. I stand outside the wall occupied by the Second Order. My head is covered by my dark brown mantle. It is chilly. I pull it tighter around me.

"You came."

I turn around: "I was too curious."

My words freeze in the air.

"You can't practice in that. You need to wear proper clothes."

I'm wearing a plain, but comfortable, brown dress.

"This is what I always wear, or something like it."

"You need pants and boots."

"I am a princess. Ladies wear dresses," I say in a mocking voice.

"I have to be somewhere at sunrise. Walter will have clothes that should fit."

He starts to walk away.

"Who is Walter?"

"His is the tent next to mine."

"Which tent is yours?" I shout after him.

"The blue one."

"Thanks! They are all blue."

He laughs: "Of course they are!"

He turns around and looks at me. "The big one in the middle of the camp. You will know it is mine the moment you see it."

I was looking forward to spending time with Lord Caith, but I should have known that he had more important things to do with his time than to teach me how to use weapons. I think that I could learn a lot from him. 

I wander into the camp. The camp is arranged in a spiral or circular pattern. The inhabitants are only starting to stir. The camp is too big for me to take my time to find the 'tent in the middle.' The camp is situated in a clearing outside the city, but still inside the fortified walls. If I remember correctly there used to be a field of grain here.

I approach a group of elves standing outside a relatively large tent. I am intimidated by them. Some of them look as young as I am, but I know that they must be centuries older than I am.

"I greet you by the sun, and the lord you serve. May it rise brightly for you," I say with a curtsy.

"We greet you." 

They do not offer me the traditional words that become me.

I stay polite. "I am princess Aebbé, daughter of-"

"We know who you are, daughter of Ardam. We do not take kindly to you being in our camp."

"I apologise for insulting you with my presence," I curtsy again, "but I have been directed by your Lord Caith to find Walter."

My father used to tell me that you should never anger an elf, for their wrath knows no bounds. So, I am stepping very carefully on the thin ice of their hostility. I've had years of practising my conduct in their presence.