The sun sends light through the thick canopy of trees, causing dappled light to dance upon the forest floor, warm and majestic, humble and serene. Haeldaris walks through the dense underbrush, his leather boots damp with the morning dew. For twenty years he has lived in the citadel upon the mountain, and for as many of those as he has known how to walk, he has gone into the woods, first accompanied by his mother or his father and then, later, in a solitude which he so loves and cherishes, for in it sounds a voice unheard. And this he does now, on this morning, as he has done so many times before, the mysterious longing tugging gently yet insistently upon his heart.
His auburn hair glistens and shines in the slanting sunlight, its darker hue made to appear more brilliant, as if afire, in the rays of the sun. Neither of his parents have auburn in their hair, but his father has told him that his aunt, his father’s sister, had hair almost the same color as Haeldaris’ own. He wishes that he could have met her and come to know her, for all that he has heard of her has touched his heart deeply. Yet even so, he feels a kinship with her both deep and wide, and in his heart of hearts he has long welcomed her as a companion of life, to be ever at his side in gladness and in sadness, in wonder and in play, and in whatever the future of his life may yet hold for him who is the heir to the throne of Telmerion.
Drinking in the warmth and brilliance of the light, Haeldaris closes his eyes and raises his face toward the heavens. And all the while he opens wide his ears and listens to the rich sounds of the forest, whether that be the rustle of the breeze in the leaves of the trees overhead or the soft call of a dove in a nearby tree or the sound of silence itself, encompassing and permeating all.
And suddenly he hears an unexpected sound: the crack of a branch under a booted foot not far away. Opening his eyes he spins around and searches for the source of the sound. He is surprised by what he sees. A woman emerges from the trees appearing almost as if she has lived ever in their midst, hidden by them as one would be hidden by a veil. Her beauty is radiant and pure, of a kind far deeper than beauty of the flesh, though through the flesh it shines.
Drawing near to Haeldaris in but a few broad steps, the woman stands directly in front of him and reaches out a hand and gently touches his chest, partly as if pointing and partly as if seeking to make contact, through the body, with his heart that beats deep within. Then her face bursts into a radiant smile that lights up her features in such a way that the very uncreated light seems to shine in and through her. And she seems to be youth itself—as if sprung but this morning from the womb of the dawn—and yet also old far beyond her years, with a memory reaching back to the very foundations of the earth.
“You are Haeldaris,” she says, in a voice that enfolds him and seems to cradle him on all sides and to fill him with consolation. “You are the son of Eldarien Illomiel, the inheritor of the conjoined blood of the Galapteä and of the Velasi. I knew them both, Eldarien and Elmariyë, the siblings who in their littleness and humility were the hope of our hurting world. And I rejoice to see them live in you, just as I rejoice to see you, seikani, live, child of the light, infinitely and eternally loved.”
“W-who are you?” Haeldaris manages to say, as their eyes interlock in a prolonged gaze of mutual beholding.
“My name is Relmarindë,” the woman replies, her face still bathed in joy. “I am one of your people, though you see us not. Hidden now from human sight but kept in the shelter of the light, we watch over all of you. In our veiledness we keep our ceaseless vigil of prayer and of play until the coming of the promised one, the Dawnbringer, who shall fulfill every hope and longing in the intimacy of joy and the joy of intimacy.”