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In the early days of this world when elves were young the gods walked amongst them. Then the unkown reaches of the Underdark was empty and humans had not evolved, and creatures of myth were more plentiful than they are now, when they are hunted and destroyed if they even raise tooth or fang against unforgiving civilization. There was as much peace as there could be, and as much laughter as their could be - elves were carefree and mixed, gold and silver and dark, winged and ground-walkers, wolf-changers and the static ones. Magic or the warrior arts, sleight-of-hand or the nature lore, there were no distinct classes - one learnt what one wanted to, lived what one wished to, followed what one intended to.
Amidst all of this lived a Goddess who was as happy as she would be, with an entourage that was as large as it was seemly. She was beautiful as a winter's sunset and cheery - her silvery laughter like exquisite streams of cool delightful water, her wit sharp and her burning temper, but her followers adored her and she returned the feelings. She liked to dance with them, twirling under the sun and whirling under the moon. There was one particular follower that she secretly liked above the rest - he was handsome even by elven standards, with silvered hair and amber skin, light of eye and quick of step. A mix, in fact - of elves of the sun and the moon. Magic was his craft - with a flick of the wrist he would create all sorts of lovely things for her, and wait breathlessly for every word of approval, every smile, every gesture. When he neared her, she seemed to forget all else - when she neared him, he blushed and his normally quick tongue tied itself into knots. This relationship certainly amused and elated her followers, that she would take such pleasure in a mortal. They were happy for a while, though neither voiced their true feelings, neither denied them either. Perhaps they even enjoyed that joining of two souls to be one. One day howver, it chanced that another Goddess visited her Court. Since all the Gods were brothers and sisters she was welcomed with due honor, and she stayed for a while, chatting with her sister, dancing with her sister. They became close, and the visiting Goddess was invited to stay. Now the old one - we shall call her the Bright One, and the other, Dawn, to avoid confusion, though the Gods of that time took no names - was happier than she should be, for she had two that she adored with all her soul, along with her followers that she adored with all her heart. Yes, the better-liked follower did seem, to the Bright One, to be less attentive than usual, and sometimes, imagined or not, she seemed to catch him smiling at Dawn, and sometimes Dawn acknowledged the smiles with some of her own, and sometimes not. It is not known if such things were imagined or otherwise, and in this case, we do not particularly care. At first she dismissed such notions as fanciful, and laughed them away, but then jealousy was born and began its steady walk through the halls of her heart, and she did not laugh any longer. She brooded, and did not dance, did not joke or play, only watched the follower with burning eyes on her throne of flowers. Well then, this follower, at first, tried to cheer her, but with cold words she drove him away. Her other followers learned not to try and near her, though they knew not why - they could not know that for the first time, a God had learned hatred and jealousy, and the pain that rides with them. It seemed to the Bright One that they began to laugh and dance with Dawn instead of with her (though she did not realize that it was her new temper that caused this), and worse yet - her own follower did so as well. Darkness was the next to be conceived, in her heart, and it seethed inside her, a searing lick of flame where once only that unnamed emotion had burned instead. When the inevitable happened, it happened in a sorry way. She stole up on him and Dawn one day, under an oak that bore roses without thorns. They were unaware of her presence, and he was with trembling hands, in the midst of giving something to Dawn. It was a small gold heart with a spiral of blue obsidian, on a gold chain so fine it seemed that it should break. And his words tore at her: he was saying to Dawn, 'This gold pendant would represent all my heart and adoration, with it I pledge my entire being. I would give it.' but she would hear no more of it, for snarling like some maddened monster, she leaped from her concealment and bore down on them. She cursed them both and used her power against the one she called sister, and though Dawn tried to defend herself, hatred and anger lent the Bright One more strength, and Dawn was driven away. Then the Bright One turned on her follower, who was rooted to the ground in disbelief, the heart slipping through frozen fingers onto the ground. The Bright One froze him there as she summoned all her followers, then she turned on them and killed them all, screaming through it all as if it was herself that felt the clawed blows, eyes maddened, heart broken, until at last, drenched in crimson pain that was not her own and was her own, she returned to him. He was horrified beyond measure, and could not speak a word, but her bloodlust had not been sated. For long days afterward she tortured him slowly, driving off those who would interfere, with sufferings worse than what I have experienced, and what the yathallaren have inflicted since this city had been built. And at the end of it all when she deigned to let him die she finally saw him move his mouth as if at last about to speak, and she bent down to hear him whisper, 'The heart was for you. The heart was for you. The heart was for you.' again and again with his dying breath until his spirit departed.
I know it. Apparently, daring not approach her, he would have given Dawn the heart to give to the Bright One, since he thought that he had fallen out of her favor, and only Dawn could approach her. She was past stunned, and her heart that she thought broken, shattered again, and was destroyed. She fled from him, until her feet all unknowing took her to the bloody field where she had killed those she had once adored, and dazed, she chanced upon the gold heart that lay on the soaked grass. But when she picked it up, it turned into a spider on her palm and scuttled away, bringing her sanity with it. She pursued it, but it disappeared into the grass. She withdrew away from the world as Time progressed and all grew older - and since she had known hatred and evil, so some other Gods and creatures alike became tainted with it, as everything was linked in those days. This Goddess, the Bright One, wandered until she found the Underdark, and she walked its endless tunnels of darkness, where she slowly forgot heartbreak and continued to learn hatred. Eventually when there was the great battle and the dark elves, the ones who had not been part of her follower fled, and she was one of those waiting from the shadows. She turned those she took to evil and guided them to the darkness, changing their eyes, changing their minds, and turning them against the light. She took a name that should be known to you, many names. She decreed, eventually, that the female was higher than the treacherous, stupid male, perhaps suppressing part of the memories that pointed that all that chanced was her fault, not his. And because part of her, a small part, still did care, she decreed that none should harm the spider, for one of them, out there, was his heart.

 

Quite vivid. Love it.

 

I'm sure I've seen that somewhere else...

 

Nice to read, and a really good story. You could call it, 'When Elves were young'