Overview
The Elves are the eldest people of the wood and the stone, a kin spread across three lines — the High Elf who keep the silver city of Aelfarion, the Silver City, the Dark Elf who dwell beneath the caldera of Vulkanis, the Volcanic City, and the Half-Elf who walk between the two. They are the people of the long word: patient beyond measure, proud beyond reason, and curious in the way of a thing that has all the time in the world and spends it asking. To the young races they are a warning and a lullaby at once — the warning that the bargain outlives the bargainer, the lullaby that the light in the wood was there before the first axe.
Habitat
The wood is their country. Glimmerwood is the elder wood, where the paths shift and the pale light does not stay in one place, and the holds there are carved from silver-bark and woven light. The deep forests of Ironwood Grove hold the bear-halls and the hollow trunks, where the old trunks carry the roots thick enough to bear a sleeping giant. The silver city of Aelfarion, the Silver City stands where the wood meets the high ground, its towers set like pale teeth against the dusk, and the caldera of Vulkanis, the Volcanic City is the dark answer to it, where the Dark Elf keep their forges in the heat of the earth.
Appearance
The elves are tall and lean and slow, their limbs long as a bow-stave and their posture a thing of held patience. The skin of the High Elf runs from luminous ivory to soft golden-cream, and the eyes are pale blue to soft silver-grey; the Dark Elf are the ash-brow and the soot-gold, their skin a deep grey-cream with the underlight of the forges showing at the temples. The hair falls long and uncut — pale silver, cream, and ash on the light side, iron-grey and black on the dark — and the ears are long and taper to a fine point. The clothes are woven of the wood's own light and the leaf-fibre of the deep forest, pale grey-green and silver on the wood side, and soot-brown and iron-grey in the caldera. An elf is 1.78 to 1.91 m tall and weighs 59 to 73 kg, and an elf's hand on your shoulder weighs as much as a promise.
Behaviour
The elf does not hurry, and the elf does not forget. The day is measured by the promise, which is also the calendar, because the wood is the only clock the bargain needs. An elf keeps the word the way the wood keeps the light: slowly, and forever. The High Elf keep their trances in the silver city and speak the long word that outlasts the speaking; the Dark Elf keep their forges in the caldera and speak the word that the fire keeps; the Half-Elf keep the two words at once, which is why they walk between and why the two sides both claim them and neither will keep them. The elf's patience is not kindness and its pride is not cruelty; it is the long arithmetic of a people who have already outlived the argument and will outlive its ending.
Warfare & Markings
The elf fights rarely and for the long. The wood-forged blade is pale silver-wood and iron, and the bow is of the same, strung with the promise-light that is cold and kept in the word. The war-marking of the High Elf is the Cliff-Notch in the left boot-heel; the Dark Elf carry the Forge-Scar, a line of cooled soot across the right knuckles; the Half-Elf carry both, which is the mark of the between. The elf does not break formation and does not break the word, and the elf who breaks the word is not killed but unremembered, which for the elf is the heavier sentence.
Magic Alignment
The elven magic is the long word, and the long word is the bargain made honest. The High Elf keep the divine light of Solathis, the Dawnfather — Trance, Fey Ancestry, and the Cantrip, with the Long Word as the signature — and the light of Glimmerwood is the same light as the dawn, only slower. The Dark Elf keep the fire-word of the caldera, the forge-light that is the dawn's dark twin. The Half-Elf keep the between-word, which is why they are the only elves who can speak to the young races at all without the glamour-wall between them.
Religion
The High Elf serve Solathis, the Dawnfather, and the dawn is their promise and their clock. The Dark Elf keep no dawn; they keep the forge, which is the same promise with the light taken out of it. The Half-Elf serve both, which is why they are the intermediaries and the errand-carriers of the wood, and why neither the city nor the caldera will fully claim them. The name of the god is the promise, and the promise is the memory, and the memory is the end.
Society
The elf is ranked by the keeping of the word. In Aelfarion, the Silver City the academies count the masters by the longitudes of their trance, and in Vulkanis, the Volcanic City the forges count the masters by the depth of the soot. The Half-Elf live in loose company — a list of people in several places — and are counted by the word they carry between. The elf's house is a hold of silver-bark and the elf's door is low, and the guest who steps across it is already in the bargain's path, so the welcome and the sentence are the same act.
Home
Glimmerwood is the elder wood and the first home, and Aelfarion, the Silver City is the silver answer to it. Ironwood Grove holds the deep forest and the bear-halls, and Vulkanis, the Volcanic City holds the dark forges beneath the caldera. The Half-Elf are at home in the between, and the between is where the young races find them when they need the word carried.
Relations
The elf regards the Human with the patience of a thing that has all the time and the Human with the impatience of a thing that has none. The Dwarf and the elf have the old treaty of the wood and the stone, kept by the word and the forge. The Gnome is the small kin, the Fae Folk is the wild kin, and the Half-Elf is the kin that the two sides both claim. The elf does not make friends quickly and does not break them quickly either; the bargain is the friendship and the friendship is the memory and the memory is the end.
In the Story
The elves are the oldest voice in the wood, and the wood is the oldest thing that keeps a promise. When the Fae Folk bargain and when the Half-Elf carry the word between, it is the elf's long arithmetic that is counting the cost. The story asks what happens when the young races outspend the patience of the old ones, and the elves are the answer that is already in the wood, waiting to be kept.