“Green, I miss green,” muttered Tilka.
The Waldvolker had spent three days crossing the southern wastes. Two days before she reached the forest and her people.
“Why must I make this blasted trip every year? It’s not like we can’t grow the spice on our own,” thought the forest guard.
Tilka was the last of her kind, a warrior elf whose father had been a great king. Her mother was a medicine woman who left the woods for love and later returned after the death of her husband.
“How are you holding up, Moocu?” Tilka asked her Smoo. The beast snorted and shook its head to show its displeasure with the journey.
“Not much farther to the oasis; you can rest there,” replied the elf.
“Damn, sand gets into everything. I hate this stuff,” grumbled Tilka, picking the crystals out of her ears.
The days grow short, and the nights become long. The wise woman sends the warrior elf to the circumscribing sea.
“It’s time, love. Saddle your smoo and go fetch me the spice, or there’ll be hell to pay come winter,” Ursula would say.
Spice makes various medicines to treat winter ailments. The wise woman would have no spice but the Gipsons, who lived across the wastes.
Tilka reached the oasis at dusk. The elf and Smoo rested for the night, leaving before sunrise the following day.
“The sands move closer to our forest each year. Damn, those Outlanders for cutting down the barrier trees,” said Tilka.
She saw how the Outlanders’ selfishness caused more soil destruction each year, reducing the land between the waste and the forest.
The journey neared its end when the elf noticed birds and scrub brush. “It won’t be long, now,” said the elf.
Tilka relaxed when she saw her home in the distance. She transformed from a warrior to a Waldvolker seeker of peace and harmony.
“Time to deliver this spice, Moocu; then it’s home and sleep,” said the elf. She would report her observations to the council in the morning. Until then, it was family and friends.
The warrior elf lay in bed, hoping the elders made the Outlanders see their folly.
“We will see,” murmured Tilka, who drifted off to sleep.
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