In a dark and deep land lives young Marjorie, a woman desperate for something more than her conventional life in her tiny village, Core. She aches for something dangerous, something like the dark forest, Mirkwood, which borders her home.
Yet, there...
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The cool night air settled over Marjorie's fleeing figure as she raced the setting sun alongside Mother River. With each passing moment, the temperature continued to decrease, but she kept the cold away by her continuous movement.
Her crimson cloak trailed behind her in a billowing curtain, catching on twigs and low-hanging foliage. Although she was plunged in darkness and armed only with a single torch, Marjorie knew the way to Grandmother's house by heart. After spending most of her childhood wandering aimlessly through Woodsman's Landing and along the banks of the river, the surrounding landscape was as familiar as the back of her hand.
She passed sporadic piles of fallen timber, proof that the Woodsmen were steadily etching their way through the land. Each day, every man strong enough to hold an ax spent hours chopping down new sections. They cut down trees to create safe passages through Mirkwood forest, meant to ensure a safe journey past the Wolf and into Beyond.
It was foolish, thankless work. Grandmother Sicily claimed the trees of the forest held a stubborn magick in their roots. An ancient incantation protected it from a Woodsman's steel blade, but still, the men cut. One tree took an entire team of men a month to bring down. Once one fell, thousands more still waited.
"It's easy to be a Woodsman," Petyr told her when they were both young teenagers. It had been his first week on the job, and his hands were welted from the labor. She spent months nursing his blisters. Back then, his brown eyes were still big and wide, hungry for adventure. "You just imagine you're cutting the Wolf's head off."
All Woodsmen carried that same vision. Each "Timber!" was a promise to the Wolf. One day, the beast would be killed by one of them. If not today, then tomorrow, and if not by them, then by their sons.
Every villager dreamed of the day a brave Woodsmen would bring the head of the Wolf mounted on a spike. Marjorie pushed the thought away. She couldn't deny that she shared the same fears of her village, but she didn't like imagining the Wolf dead.
Now, no villager ever had to face the terror of living through another Wolf's Eve and Wolf's Night. No more sacrifice. No more Last Banquet. No more death. Not with the Wardeness of Beyond shepherding their journey through the dark forest.
Marjorie quickened her pace. She needed to reach her Grandmother before they were left behind by the soldiers. Together, they would return to the village and set on the path toward a new, better life, one that wasn't haunted by the Wolf or set in stone by life in Core.
Sicily lived on the edge of Mirkwood. Most Fewfolk did. Some, like her Grandmother, built houses or set up nomadic camps. Others lived off the land and survived by taking shelter in caves. A few, like Blanchette, were traveling merchants and used their familiarity with the forest to profit on the market. And the little that were left simply survived beneath the stars.
Her Grandmother's home appeared after Marjorie rushed up a rolling hill covered in thick vegetation. The two-story tree-house was built in a tall scrub oak. Five decades after its creation, gray branches curled around the building like a tightening fist.
