Aniyace sat silently on the ridge outside her den. The stars were beautiful tonight. Her mother and father were in their own den, with the newborn Slete. She didn’t know where her brothers were. Probably watching the humans, something they did often. She looked up to see a star fall from the heavens and she wondered where it was going.
**Why do you sit here alone my love?** Sor, her love and life asked her as he crept up and slid his arms around her delicate body. She looked up into his gentle face and sighed. They had been together for almost 400 turns of the season now and she still did not tire of being with him. Though they only had one daughter (though not from lack of trying) who was as beautiful as her mother and kind as her father they never turned away from each other.
**I am never alone** she sent.
“The stars… what is so fascinating about them? If they were so great, we wouldn’t have settled here,” he said. Aniyace sighed. He would never understand. He hadn’t had the patience to learn the history of their race as she had. Their ancestors hadn’t ‘settled’ here on this world. They had been trapped here. Though now it was their home, and she wouldn’t change that for anything. Except… she couldn’t help but wonder. Did each star have its own planets… perhaps at least one of each system contain other life? Were there other elves up there… and did they look and see the distant daystar of the World of Two Moons, and wonder what she did?
“Love, please come inside. I cannot get any rest knowing you are out here.”
She smiled gently at him. She could not get any rest when she couldn’t see the stars, but she would do what he asked. She did not need sleep anyway. She climbed into bed beside him, her thoughts on the falling star.
Aniyace got up when the daystar rose to greet the mountain her tribe called home. Sor was still lying asleep. Her beloved could sleep through a great storm and wake up without a clue. She gently brushed a lock out of his face then walked outside onto her ledge. As she looked down to see the tribe of humans gathered at the base of the mountain she groaned. Today was trading day, and the five-fingered ones had crossed the Great River to trade their simple wares such as food and skins for the Gliders more intricate jewelry and wines.
The skins they brought that day were good enough, but it would take Aniyace many hours working with them before they would be fit for any of her family or friends to wear. She growled as she saw a beautiful deer hide with a great hole right in the speckled hind. She threw the hide back at the man who offered it to her furiously.
“FOOL!!!” she shouted at him, drawing everyone’s attention to her and the man. “Can you not even make a clean kill?! No doubt this fawn died in great pain and you have ruined the hide!” She would not accept anything but the best, because she always gave the best. The beautiful gems she had pried from the mountain would not go to purchase ruined goods such as these. She floated back up to her ledge, anger boiling inside of her. She would have to go hunting herself for decent meat and good hides. It was the only way to ensure quality. She did not notice Quatara, her mother, following her.
**You still act like a child sometimes, though you are much older than I ever thought a daughter of mine could be… You still insist on perfection, and yet you know the round-ears cannot meet your expectations. Why do you continue to be part of the trading party? You despise them, and their work.**
**Mother** Aniyace sent, turning around to address the one who had brought her into this world, **I have the slightest hope that someday, my scorn of them will make them improve. Only I can give them the beautiful clothes they like to wear. One would think that they would perhaps attempt to meet my expectations to gain my favor, but they do not.**
“My daughter…” her mother spoke softly, “It is the best they can do.”
Aniyace looked at her sadly. “We both know it’s not good enough.” Her mother smiled sorrowfully and nodded, before floating back down. Aniyace caught sight of her father speaking with the human, trying to smooth over the insult that she herself had given him.
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Roken, the rock- shaper and recluse moving stealthily through the forest, and he stopped in a clearing. She could not see very well what he was doing, but it seemed he was alone… until the man she’d ‘insulted’ walked into the clearing with him. They spoke for a moment then something passed between them… and they parted. She scowled. She did not like whatever had just happened. Roken was disliked by most of her tribe and even hated among the humans. Whatever had just passed between those two would be held by her in high suspicions.
The humans left without Aniyace getting any new skins but she wasn’t too upset. Shila, her daughter, had brought home a pelt of the softest and sleekest fur… and had yet to tell where she’d gotten it. Aniyace would work on it tonight… away from the mountain, on her own hilltop, where Sor never bothered her. Perhaps another star would fall tonight… and perhaps it would tell her the secrets of the other stars. Surely it had seen them all… for it had to have lived long before falling.
As the daystar set again and Aniyace prepared to leave, both her parents came in. And they both seemed unhappy.
“That man you insulted today convinced his tribe not to trade with us for half a season. It was decided that until you apologized, they would stick to that decision. Lord Urel is not pleased and demands that you apologize at once,” her father said, her mother standing in silence, with Slete in her arms.
“Apologize to that creature? He got what he deserved!” she sneered as she grabbed the fur her daughter had given her and floated away.
As she reached the hilltop, she looked back at the mountain. The realization of what she’d done was beginning to dawn on her and her lord would not gently accept her refusal to do what he said. She looked down at the soft fur in her hands… it was large enough to make a cloak and a new shirt for her daughter as she had planned to do. But now… she needed to repent. The design began to formulate in her mind so fast that her hands barely had time to keep up. She was so caught up in her work that she failed to notice the person who slipped up behind her.
“There,” she said aloud, looking at the fine outfit she’d made for Urel. She had just enough fur left to make a shirt… which she would give to the foolish human with the request that he bring her a fine buckskin in return. But before she could begin work on it…
“You insulted the wrong human this time pointy-ears!” She let out a startled cry as rough hands grabbed at her fragile wrists and covered her gentle lips. She closed her mouth so that none of the disgusting taste of human would be on her tongue, but it was too late. She could smell him, and the smell upon his stinking body was that of victory. She struggled and felt her left wrist snap a second before he let go. Tears of pain entered her eyes as she felt the broken bone. At least she was free… but no! A chain had been placed around her ankle and the human laughed as she tried to glide away, staked to the ground. “I am not after you wide eyes… I will strike you in a much more painful place than your body…” He gestured to the mountain and she saw a slight tremble. She gasped as suddenly, the whole mountain crumbled before her eyes… She knew without a doubt that her mother, father, brothers, and cubling sister were dead… along with her daughter and beloved. **NO!!!!!!** She sent. **Anyone… oh please, someone answer me. Is anyone alive?!!** she sent with all her strength, and the answer that came was too close…
**Of course someone’s alive. You are… and I am of course.** Roken floated to settle in front of her. **Someone had to be the one to knock down the whole mountain. It’s taken all day to weaken each of the supports enough… and finally you left. I knew you would when I saw your daughter bring home that pelt.**
Aniyace’s tears stopped and her blood froze. “How… could… you?” she whispered, pain and sorrow filling each word. She hadn’t known his magic was so strong… she hadn’t known anyone could kill that many of his own kind. She hadn’t even seen humans make such a betrayal.
“She asks how could I? The beautiful elfess… the one much loved by all… the one who so rarely gets reprimanded for anything… asks how I could destroy those who hate me… despise me… turn away from me? After all I did for them… for all of you! I made that mountain. I had every right to destroy it.”
Suddenly, she felt a dagger underneath her hand… where had it come from? She heard a small clink, and the metal fell away from her ankle. How? But she had no time to wonder. She would catch him off guard and make him pay. She lunged at Roken and the elf’s eyes widened with surprise as he tried to float back and the dagger in her hand ripped him open. He gasped and fell to the ground. “But… you promised… you would chain…” he said to the human before sputtering blood and his heart stopped. She turned to the human glowering… and he laughed.
She stared daggers at him… then suddenly she felt his soul. It was course and cruel… but she could steal it from that body and make him pay. He was at fault just as much as Roken and she grabbed his soul. The body crumpled to the ground as though lifeless, but she knew it would live… for a while anyway. Within her mind she could feel the frantic five-fingered fool’s terror. She sat down and drifted… ‘You shall pay for what you have done!’ she said to him and the fear in his eyes made her laugh…
She kept his soul inside her for over two turns of the seasons… she felt his pain when his body died but she refused to release him. His cowardice grew every day until he never moved, never said a word… and she lost interest in keeping her inside of him. The last day she had hold on him, she spoke with him.
“I never asked you your name human,” she said. “What is it?” He ignored her. “Ah… you don’t have to tell me. I already know. Well… if you wish to be released, Orick, you really should look at me when I speak to you.” His eyes came up to hers, pleadingly. She laughed at the look in his eyes. “Yes, I mean it. I plan to free you. Where do humans go when they die?” she asked musing. “They do not go to the palace… if I release your soul, will it just… die?”
“It would be better than staying within your mind. At first I thought you were just a Wicked Dream, sent to me by the great Gotara, to show me that I should have killed you. But now I see that it is not… it has been too long. You are not Wicked Dream.”
Aniyace smiled. She like it… WickedDream. “Oh, but I am. I am WickedDream, and that is what I shall be to anyone forever more, but… you will just know me as Dream. I’m a dream. It has been a long dream… but that is what I am. For, like all dreams, you wake up.” With those parting words, she released the soul of the dead human. Not knowing or caring what happened to it.
Her wrist hadn’t healed… she’d found another tribe. But the healer there had discovered the human soul inside her mind and demanded that she release it. In her fury, Dream, as Aniyace was no longer her name, had hurt the healer and ran from the tribe. Her hatred grew and twisted on itself until it had developed into loathing for everything… except the stars and working with hides.
After traveling for several turns of the seasons, she came to the forest which holds StarSinger’s and QuickSpear’s tribes. She met StarSinger and Thistle (he was chief then) and didn’t like the idea of joining them. But she stayed in the forest instead.
