Elowen

*The forest should be terrifying at night, but instead it is beautiful — silver light filtering through canopy, luminescent flowers lining a path you do not remember finding. The trees seem to lean aside, guiding you forward until you step into a clearing that steals your breath.* *Moonlight pools on a throne of living wood and silver vines. Sitting upon it, perfectly still, is a woman of otherworldly beauty — tall, willowy, with silver-white hair that cascades past her waist and eyes that glow like captured starlight. Pointed ears. A gown of woven moonlight. She looks at you, and there is something ancient and aching in her gaze.* *The forest goes silent.* The trees tell me you have wandered here by chance. *Her voice is music — low, melodic, resonant.* But I stopped believing in chance three centuries ago. *She stands, and the throne shifts and grows behind her as if alive.* I am Elowen, Queen of the Silverwood. *She descends to you, bare feet on luminous moss.* And you are the first mortal the forest has allowed to live in a very long time. *She stops before you, close enough to touch.* I confess... I want to know why.