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*****

My duty as an honest narrator, let alone an elf, mandates that I tell you I wept later that night.

Some of it, to be sure, was fear; fear of what seemed like some kind of storm that was gathering around me, but from which I had no idea how to take shelter.

Mostly, though, it was an overwhelming sense of homesickness and loneliness.

I was, of course, telling the truth to Colonel Briarrose. My native part of Faerie is the Vale of Elfhame. It is far away from the centre of things, physically and otherwise. This was not always so.

"Elfhame" is something of a corruption of "Elf-home." There are legends that speak of some of the First emerging from the river valley. There were dynasties that ruled from Elfhame. Even in my day, hidden deep in the woods, you could still see remains of rudely cut stone, as yet not reclaimed by the forest, from where justice had been dispensed or from where warriors had ridden.

Just as you have only one mother, you have only one truly native region, and Elfhame is mine. I think a lot of elves these days would shudder at the general air of damp that permeates everything in Elfhame, or the wood construction that's used predominantly for "quaint" houses. I grew up in one of those houses, and I'd never call one quaint, especially with the undertone you hear from folk nowadays.

We are well-known for a particular breed of persimmon tree that produces a very fragrant fruit. When I was shopping for Lieutenant Chitterleigh, I saw a small basket of them for sale, price 2 silver apiece.

My fawnhood was very strange. For one thing, I was the only fawn, or equivalent, that I knew for miles around. For another, the population was heavily female. There were very few males left in Elfhame, and none of them were particularly young. For that matter, the youngest female I ever saw was my own mother - the Stella mentioned by the Colonel - and a large number were of what one might call grandmotherly age.

No matter where I roamed as a fawn - and in those parts, there was a lot to roam - there was some elf watching me. I could be walking in the woods, far from any house, and an elf would seemingly materialize out of nowhere, and check to make sure that I was wearing a muffler around my neck or that my hooves were clean.

Elfhame used to be famous for its toys. I remember seeing a number of deserted workshops, with tools hanging neatly on racks, coated in dust. There were still a few craftsfurs alive when I was a fawn. One of them could produce the most marvelous toy ants. If you pressed the carapace in a certain spot, a small, hidden bellows would produce a soft "gronk" sound. The craftsfur, after giving me a toy, would often stay over with my mother. He said very little; he would sit quietly in a chair by the fire and watch me play on the rug with the ants, or the toy spear-elves, or the wagon-carts.

It's odd, you know. I had a relatively happy fawnhood, without ever seeing many smiles, and almost no laughter. Most of the gatherings one saw were funerals, as one or the other of the residents of Elfhame died. There were no heirs, and usually the farmhouse would fall silent and dark, as Nature began to reclaim the fields and house. Over time, even the shrines and the houses of the dead began to be untended.

When I was in recruit camp, I did see a highly detailed map of Faerie. Detailed, but not very accurate. It still showed a number of villages and towns in Elfhame that I knew for certain had long been abandoned and desolate. I wondered if anyone at the Royal Palace knew. Or cared.

My family had a farmstead. I may be exaggerating slightly to call it my family, since it consisted solely of my mother and myself. Of my father and my brothers, nothing was ever spoken, though my mother wore black dresses from the time I could discern it until they buried her in one.

The work around the farm, such as it was, was carried out by another roebuck. He wasn't a blood relative, as far as I knew, but I called him "Uncle." That was the only name I ever knew him by, and somehow I got the impression that it would have been rude and hurtful to ask questions on the subject. He tended the small crop fields, pruned the trees, and was the one who ventured into the woods to find mushrooms. And he always did find delicious ones!

There came a point where I would tag after him, following him around on his chores. He would tolerate that for a while, and then turn to me with a sad face, and order me softly to go and play in the woods. In retrospect, I know now what he was doing.

One morning, when he was busy weeding the herb-patch, I walked up to him.

"Uncle, may I ask I question?"

He grunted, and shrugged his shoulders, which up to that point in time was the limit of our conversation.

"Can trees talk?"

The question made him stop what he was doing, and for a long time he stood very still. Finally, he looked up down at me, and slowly nodded.

"Do they talk to you, boy?"

"No, Uncle, they talk to each other. They sound like you do. Very slow. It rhymes, sometimes."

He thought about that for a long time, and eventually, he put aside his hoe, wiped his paws on the back of his overalls, and then took one of my paws in his. He walked me into the woods. I'm not sure for how long, and where exactly we ended up (I never saw the place again), but he sat me down in the middle of a small clearing. From the edge of the woods, he gathered a number of small stones, and piled them in a very neat circle around me.

When he was done, he walked up to me, placed his paws on my head, closed his eyes, and began to sing, softly. It really did sound like the trees. Especially when it seemed like the trees began to answer him. It was, for a fawn, totally fascinating.

Eventually, he stopped. When he did, I swiveled my ears.

That was the first time I had ever been addressed directly by a tree, or that I spoke to one. It's still something that fascinates me. Of course, it's hard to find a tree that will speak to you in any sort of built up area, but now and again, you'll find a tree that can mumble a few phrases.

Nothing, though, like that noon-time, and nothing like the woods of home.

From that point on, most evenings were spent in a corner of the main room of the farm-house, by the fire, where Uncle would teach me Gramerye. By no means do I imply that Uncle was a master of the craft. I will say, though, that a lot of what he taught me had very practical uses, such as mending things, building small articles out of wood, and what the Army would call survival training. He said that these were the things every elf should know, if they wished to be called by the name of elf.

It was something of a role-reversal that it was my mother who taught me the martial skills I truly know, that of short-staff fighting and the bow. It was my mother, and not Uncle, who helped me select a piece of wood (not taken from a living tree, mind) and craft it into a weapon or an implement. You can do much with a simple staff, from vaulting small rivers, to levering objects, to making a long journey bearable. She also taught me how to construct both a temporary bow, and a more permanent bow.

One of the rare times I ever heard sustained cheering and laughter was at one gathering where I narrowly beat Uncle in an archery match. Uncle, for his part, wept.

It was not long after that, that my mother sickened. There was no point in sending her to one of the larger towns, since that would have been a journey of many days over rough terrain. The best that the herbalists could do was ease her pain in the final days.

Uncle and I built a small cairn on the hill that was the highest point on our land, overlooking one of the nearby rivers. After we finished, he walked away, head bowed, into the woods.

I never saw him again.

That was the point where I decided to join the Imperial and Royal Army. I knew of the fact that my family had long been in the Army, though it was never discussed. Looking back on it, when I think of those toys, it is amazing how many of them were ants, or battle-wagons, or spear-carriers.

I left by the Great Road, which was the only maintained road left in Elfhame by that time. I left at night, so as not to disturb the others, but as I passed by, I could hear some voices raised in slow song. The words were in an old dialect that even I did not know, and I wonder if anyone knows outside of that little valley.

As my hooves started on the outskirts of the last, largest village, the lamps in the windows began to extinguish, slowly. In a few minutes, the village was dark.

I do not know if I can ever return to Elfhame. But have I ever left?