Later that evening, after Therin had retired to the small house below, Lira found herself sitting with Thalanir on a wide platform woven from living branches.
The night air was cool and smelled faintly of moss and blooming vineflowers. The green lights still danced among the trees, now slower, softer, like floating embers of an unseen fire.
Thalanir sat across from her, his white robes catching the moonlight, the green vines threaded through the fabric seeming to glow faintly. His hair shimmered like silver silk, and the delicate crown on his brow glinted each time the wind stirred the leaves.
"You wish to know more," he said, not as a question but a gentle observation.
Lira looked up from the flowers still in her lap, and nodded. "I do. About… your kind.
This place. How everything feels alive here."
Thalanir smiled, slow and serene. "Because it is. We are not separate from the forest, Lira. We are its song, its echo, its memory."
He looked out over the canopy, voice soft but sure. "Long ago, before the cities rose and the towers reached for stars, the first elves were not born from wombs but from roots. We came forth from the oldest trees, shaped by wind and sun and deep soil. We were not made — we were grown."
Lira listened, silent, still..
"Our ancestors did not build homes. The trees offered them. They did not plant gardens. The earth gave what was needed. And in return, we learned to feel as the forest feels, to bend without breaking, to listen without sound, to bloom in stillness."
He turned back to her, his expression thoughtful. "The vines you see entwined in our clothing are not decoration. They are part of us. Some elves grow thorns when angered, or blossoms when in love. Others call roots to walk beneath their feet, or summon petals to cloak them from harm. It is not magic in the way your academy teaches it. It is memory, passed down through bark, through breath."
Lira blinked slowly, her chest tight with wonder. "And me? You said I carry something… similar."
"You do," Thalanir said.
"But it is quieter. Older still. As if your spirit once slept beneath a tree for a thousand years and only now has begun to wake."
A silence stretched between them. Then Lira asked softly, "Is that why your people touched me? Gave me flowers?"
Thalanir nodded. "They feel the forest in you. And perhaps," his eyes softened, "they see what I see. That you are not merely visiting this place. You are returning to it."
Lira looked down at the flower in her hand, now faintly glowing with the same light as the trees around them.
She whispered, "I don't know what I'm becoming."
Thalanir reached forward, and with gentle fingers, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Not becoming," he said. "Remembering."
The moon had climbed high, casting silver pools of light through the leaves when Thalanir stood and extended his hand.
"There is one more place I wish to show you," he said softly.
Lira hesitated for only a moment, then placed her hand in his. His touch was warm, steady, grounding.
They walked in silence through the softly glowing village. The tree-homes above had quieted, and the green lights parted gently before them like fireflies making way for something sacred. The path narrowed, guided by low-hanging vines and small blossoms that opened as they passed.
Eventually, the forest opened into a small clearing unlike any other. In the center stood a tree, massive and still with bark the color of moonstone and leaves that shimmered faintly with hues of green, gold, and lavender.
It radiated peace… and age.
Lira slowed, breath caught in her chest. "What is this place?"
Thalanir's voice lowered into reverence. "This is the Silvanthir, the Tree of Remembering. It grows where time runs thin, where the old stories sleep. Most trees speak in seasons. This one speaks in lifetimes."
Lira took a slow step forward. The grass underfoot felt warm, as if the earth itself welcomed her. As she neared the tree, a low vibration hummed in her chest, not unpleasant, but heavy with meaning. The leaves above shifted, though no wind stirred.
"Touch it," Thalanir whispered.
She stepped closer. Her fingers brushed the bark.
The world fell silent.
Then...
A rush of images poured through her. Not like a dream, but a memory.
She saw herself, not as she was now, but robed in flowing cloth of forest-white, vines braided into her hair. She stood at the edge of an ancient glade, her hands raised in blessing as trees bowed toward her. Creatures, some she knew, many she didn't, gathered in a circle of peace around her. She was chanting, a song without words, and from her feet, life bloomed.
She saw her own face, older, wiser, radiant with something unnameable.
She heard a voice, her own, but not, saying:
"Let what is broken root again. Let what is forgotten bloom."
Then,... silence...
Lira pulled her hand back with a gasp, swaying slightly. Thalanir stepped beside her, steadying her gently.
"You saw something," he said.
Lira could only nod, her eyes wide. "I… I was someone else. Or maybe… myself. A long time ago."
Thalanir looked to the tree with quiet respect. "Then it has remembered you. And you have remembered it."
A faint glow pulsed at the center of the Silvanthir's trunk. A crack appeared - small, like a smile - and from it, a single leaf drifted down.
Lira caught it without thinking.
It shimmered in her hand — silver-veined with soft gold.
Thalanir touched her shoulder. "Keep it close. It is a gift — not just of memory, but of recognition. The forest knows you now. And when the time comes… it will answer your call."
Lira stared at the leaf, breath trembling.
She didn't yet know what it meant.
But something deep inside her, something old did.
As they stood beneath the Silvanthir, the sacred leaf still glowing faintly in her hand, Thalanir turned to her with a gravity she had not yet seen in him. The playfulness of earlier was gone, replaced with something solemn, deeper.
"You have been seen," he said quietly. "By the forest. By the memory of what was."
Lira looked at him, unsure what to say. Her heart still fluttered from the vision, the echo of that ancient version of herself.
Thalanir stepped closer, just enough that his presence felt like shelter, not pressure.
"I was not born like others," he said softly, his voice carrying the weight of centuries. "I am both stag and elf, guardian and wanderer. I walk the in-between, the shifting thread between form and purpose. And in all my years, I have only ever felt this call twice."
He looked at her now, not as a guest, or even as a human, but as someone who stood on the edge of something vast.
"Lira," he said, her name a quiet melody, "I offer you my vow of protection. Not as a passing kindness, but as a sacred bond. If you accept me, then wherever you are, no matter the realm or distance, I will come when you call. Even if I must cross shadow and flame."
Lira felt her breath catch.
His eyes glowed faintly now, like starlight through leaves. He slowly knelt before her, a gesture of deep honor among his kind, and pressed one hand over his chest.
"If you would allow it… I shall stand beside you as your guardian. Not to bind you, but to rise when you fall, and fight when you cannot."
There was no pressure in his voice, only promise.
Lira stared at him, the silver crown in his pale hair, the vines across his white and green robe, the stillness of a being who could become a stag, a storm, or a shadow.
And something inside her whispered: Yes.
She nodded, words caught in her throat.
"Yes," she said softly. "I accept."
The air shimmered, just briefly — a ripple of forest magic.
Thalanir stood again, his expression unreadable for a breath… and then it softened. "Then it is done."
From his wrist, he drew a thin blade carved of ancient wood, etched with silver.
"May I?" he asked, raising it slightly.
Lira held out her hand in answer.
He made a single, shallow cut on her finger, respectful, precise.
He pressed blood drop on his broow, and the forest seemed to hush around them.
Where blood touched, a faint glow pulsed once, then twice, before sinking into his skin like ink into bark.
A spiral of leaves etched itself into the back of Lira's hand, a living mark.
"You now carry the mark of the Hollow Crown," Thalanir said. "If ever you are in danger, it will glow… and I will come."
Lira nodded, her throat tight, her hand still tingling.
"I've… never felt this safe," she admitted. "And it's frightening."
"Safety is not the absence of fear," Thalanir said, "but the knowing that you are no longer alone in it."
They stood like that for a while, beneath the Memory Tree, beneath the moon, protector and protected.
And somewhere in the forest, old magic stirred again, remembering, recognizing, watching.