Forest Walker
Early morning dew still hung heavily on the greenery, waiting for the sun to dry it's kiss from the leaves. The young half-elf was not that patient, however, and as she skipped along the path, slivers of green stuck to her bare feet. Her voice carried into the tree tops, an enthusiastically sung elven ballad called "The Forest Walker". The girl knew all the words by heart - even the ones she didn't understand. What was 'un-not-quieted love' anyway? It didn't make much sense to her. Who'd want a mean ole boy, anyway, when they could talk to the deer and the birds.. the bunnies - oh! and the big cats! Papa said that big cats were meaner than little boys, but he'd never met Roynar Corineth.
"Here comes stupid Kaleyl! Look," he'd say as he would pretend to draw back an imaginary bow. "I'm Kaleyl! I'm gonna be a ranger!"
Then he would clutch his belly and roll upon the ground in hysterics.
"That's all right," she thought. "One day I will be a ranger, and I'll live in the forest, and have plenty of furry little friends and I'll never have to see your ugly face again! And if you come in my woods, my friends the birds will poop on your ugly head!"
She snickered into her hand, looking about as if she thought someone might be by reading her thoughts. So what if she wasn't a full elf. Whoever said half-elves couldn't be rangers? She remembered the words of her papa...
"Kaleyl, you can do anything you want to, if you believe in yourself. Don't let others lay a dark blanket over your dreams, Kallie."
Her papa was the smartest man she knew, so he had to be right. Besides, there were plenty of half-elven rangers.
She stuck out her tongue to the mental image of the boy elf.
"So nyah to you, Roynar. Nyah, nyah, NYAH!"
Silently satisfied with herself, she picked up the second verse of the song, a surprisingly resonant voice echoing from her small frame. A mother bird chirped her annoyance at the intrusion, but the girl only sang that much louder, thinking her performance encouraged.
"And nooooobody can rememeber her naaaame.... the beauty they callll Forest Walkerrrrr...."
Taking a deep breath of air into her lungs, she continued louder still, and more than a little off key.
"When the elllllves... Hey!"
Up ahead in the middle of the path was a little bird, it's wing bent at an awkward angle. It hobbled and jumped and flapped it's uninjured wing, a pitiful chirp straining from it's tiny throat.
"Birdie!"
She hurried over to it, arms outstretched.
"It's a good thing I brought my pack along!"
The fact was, Kaleyl never went anywhere without that pack. It was an old hand me down backpack of her papa's, covered with patches and stitch marks, and it was comically big, giving her the semblance of a turtle when it was full. And it was always full. Inside was a hodgepodge of herbs and salves "borrowed" from her mother's cabinet, along with strips of cloth and bits of food - some seed, dried meat. The girl called it her "ranger kit" and she even slept with it.
The bird, however, was unimpressed, and wasn't very receptive to her attentions, however, and hobbled away from her, squawking and carrying on something awful.
"Birdie birdie! Don't run! I'll fix you!"
She continued after it, and shuffling in her crab-walk of pursuit. The bird flopped it's way off the path and managed to gain a bit of flight into the trees off the path. Not even thinking twice, Kaleyl ran after it.
"Birdie! Come on... I won't hurt you! Let me fix your wing!"
Stopping several yards into the woods, the sudden silence startled her, and she stood straight, looking around with a slight bit of trepidation.
"Birdie?"
Her voice trembled just the slightest, and her big eyes widened unblinkingly as she heard a shuffle in the brush behind her. Turning ever so slowly with eyes clenched tightly closed, she snuck one eye open. Her mouth fell open, and the other green eye twinkled open wide with it's counterpart, and a soft awed gasp quickly filled her lungs.
It was spectacular, a solid white masterpiece of creation, breathtakingly elegant, perfect. The little half-elf didn't move, stunned into respectful silence as her eyes absorbed every twist of the golden horn atop it's snowy head.
"You're beautiful," her words barely audible across her pink lips.
The creature watched her with it's impossibly dark and glossy orbs for what seemed like an eternity, but it was only a sparse moment later that the vision of beauty trotted away into the forest with a flip of it's frosty mane and flourish of it's tail.
"The Forest Walker." Her lips formed the words silently, curling then up into a bright smile. Turning on her heel, she darted off for home.