Our Last Outing

I, Queen Trystam Aoife Aryanna, ruler of the elves stepped into the river densely covered with grass. Behind me the Cottonwood trees formed a thick, barely impenetrable wall. Both my sisters, Gwen and Robyn, accompanied me in this hidden Elvish location within the land of Theria. Only the elves knew how to navigate the maze among the trees.

“Arya,” Gwen cheerfully said, “There are crawdad in these waters. I brought the net along so we could fish them out and make crawdad stew for supper.”

A sense of sadness lingered in the air. This was to be our last outing together before Gwen journeyed to the land of Ilundar to be crowned as the Queen.

Robyn immediately suggested we find spaces among the trees to prepare places for us to sleep during the night. We went at this with a will. In the water, I pulled my knife out and began hacking at the long grasses, which would make a soft covering to sleep upon. Both of my sisters went back up the bank and began clearing out spaces amidst the dense Cottonwood trees to sleep in. They took branches from the trees and laid them out on the earthen floor, and I clambered up the dirt bank, my feet accumulating mud, and brought them the long grasses. Then, we covered the branches in a dense mat of grass. Once satisfied, we returned to the water with the net to hunt for crawdads.

Gwen pulled up a dozen or so, and I returned up out of the river to build a fire. Robyn and Gwen followed behind with the metal pail full of crawdads.

As we chopped up herbs to go into the stew, I looked about the hidden place.

“I'll miss you Gwen,” I said. “Ilundar is very far away.”

For us, this was a place where time halted for a while. The world went on around us, but here we were unaffected in the quiet solitude of the trees.

I retreated for a moment to try out our grassy beds. Lying there, I could see the blue peeking between the green of the leaves about me. The sun sparkled through leaves. It was a beautiful moment caught in time.

Returning to them, we sat and joked and laughed and talked of our past adventures and wondered about the adventures to come. Soon Robyn would take over the headship of Theria and I already governed Narnuen. We were splitting from our path together, soon to each take our own destination. The moment was sobering and hopeful. And I all I knew was that my carefree days as an elf were soon to be over, taken over by the responsibilities of an Elvish Queen.

All pictures taken by the lovely Queen Robyn aside from sunshine through the leaves of a tree.