I. — A NEW LIFE
⠀⠀A fool — that’s what she was. All along a fool, who saw more good in others than was worth protecting in herself. She was deluded. Tricked, she would say, though she held guilt like a spike in her heart, a nagging doubt that declared she should have known better. Could she have known any better? She was young, by her people’s standards; she claimed adulthood but five years prior, and though she carried the wisdom of a century’s worth of life, she was not prepared for someone like him. The charm, the chase. The pressure.
⠀⠀Men were short-sighted. They could perceive only what was in front of them, and if it was something they really and truly wanted, they knew how to get it. He was relentless. It was endearing at first — enough to let him take her from her people, enough to let him marry her — but it wore away fast. It was all an act. A clever trick of the mind, fooling her into thinking he was at all worth her time. What a miserable thing he was.
⠀⠀She never loved him. She knew that now. For some time she was intrigued by him, perhaps even infatuated, but every carefully constructed illusion came tumbling down within a year. Two years they were married — a mercifully short time. She would have liked to leave him herself. She would have liked to make him wake up alone one morning, her side of the bed unmade, all her things gone and the door left ajar. No note, for he did not deserve it. A quick and quiet departure.
⠀⠀Alas, they discovered she was with child. How it all changed! Now he was the one distant; now he was the one making plans to run away, for the moment their daughter was born, that's exactly what he did. Somehow that stung worse than anything else. She was under no illusion he would have been a present father, but to leave her after all he'd done — to be the one to both pluck her from her home and leave her in the bare skeleton of his own, to have made her reliant on him, to have turned her into this thing she no longer recognized in the mirror, “wife”, her face so old and yet so young, and now to leave her “mother”, hollowed out of all she might give, all she could have given to another…
⠀⠀She could not stay there. She needed to find who she was again, to recover what’s been forgotten across two long years. And her daughter… she couldn’t leave her behind, either. She was the only thing that kept Eluvitel going; she was so precious, so dear, it was unthinkable to part from her. For Elawen had her eyes, and Eluvitel saw herself in them. Her past self — her lost self. And she knew then, deep in her very soul, almost as well as she used to know herself, that she would do anything to protect her daughter.
⠀⠀So she left, found herself a seat on an elven caravan due for Y’tellarien. Thus began her life anew, and her story as it is currently known: a mysterious moon elven seamstress and her child, sheltered away for months and months and months, until finally she emerged this melancholy thing. Rumors abound of her daughter’s heritage, yet she kept tight-lipped, unwilling to give those wagging tongues the satisfaction of knowing. Despite all of this, her head remained high, almost defiantly so; she would never bow in shame again.
⠀⠀She was no fool. She was fooled.
⠀⠀A fool — that’s what she was. All along a fool, who saw more good in others than was worth protecting in herself. She was deluded. Tricked, she would say, though she held guilt like a spike in her heart, a nagging doubt that declared she should have known better. Could she have known any better? She was young, by her people’s standards; she claimed adulthood but five years prior, and though she carried the wisdom of a century’s worth of life, she was not prepared for someone like him. The charm, the chase. The pressure.
⠀⠀Men were short-sighted. They could perceive only what was in front of them, and if it was something they really and truly wanted, they knew how to get it. He was relentless. It was endearing at first — enough to let him take her from her people, enough to let him marry her — but it wore away fast. It was all an act. A clever trick of the mind, fooling her into thinking he was at all worth her time. What a miserable thing he was.
⠀⠀She never loved him. She knew that now. For some time she was intrigued by him, perhaps even infatuated, but every carefully constructed illusion came tumbling down within a year. Two years they were married — a mercifully short time. She would have liked to leave him herself. She would have liked to make him wake up alone one morning, her side of the bed unmade, all her things gone and the door left ajar. No note, for he did not deserve it. A quick and quiet departure.
⠀⠀Alas, they discovered she was with child. How it all changed! Now he was the one distant; now he was the one making plans to run away, for the moment their daughter was born, that's exactly what he did. Somehow that stung worse than anything else. She was under no illusion he would have been a present father, but to leave her after all he'd done — to be the one to both pluck her from her home and leave her in the bare skeleton of his own, to have made her reliant on him, to have turned her into this thing she no longer recognized in the mirror, “wife”, her face so old and yet so young, and now to leave her “mother”, hollowed out of all she might give, all she could have given to another…
⠀⠀She could not stay there. She needed to find who she was again, to recover what’s been forgotten across two long years. And her daughter… she couldn’t leave her behind, either. She was the only thing that kept Eluvitel going; she was so precious, so dear, it was unthinkable to part from her. For Elawen had her eyes, and Eluvitel saw herself in them. Her past self — her lost self. And she knew then, deep in her very soul, almost as well as she used to know herself, that she would do anything to protect her daughter.
⠀⠀So she left, found herself a seat on an elven caravan due for Y’tellarien. Thus began her life anew, and her story as it is currently known: a mysterious moon elven seamstress and her child, sheltered away for months and months and months, until finally she emerged this melancholy thing. Rumors abound of her daughter’s heritage, yet she kept tight-lipped, unwilling to give those wagging tongues the satisfaction of knowing. Despite all of this, her head remained high, almost defiantly so; she would never bow in shame again.
⠀⠀She was no fool. She was fooled.
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