Riverain was a country known best for its port cities along the western coast and progressive government. Elkney was a landlocked fiefdom pressed against the Skerra-Kar mountain range, Riverain’s eastern border, that only exported apples and apple-based dishes and beverages. As one could imagine, its inhabitants weren’t the worldly sort.

Rather, Elkney-folk were the type who believed and perpetuated beliefs about elves being little impish beings who snacked on babies or how dwarves were a strictly male race or that the bodies of the deceased would rise as undead if embalmed without garlic cloves in the mouth. Isolated and wary of strangers, travelers who were unfortunate enough to happen upon Elkney weren’t greeted kindly - more-so ‘tolerated’. They would be given rest at the town’s common house if willing to pay and told to keep to the western roads, as the mountain-range was treacherous and the forests beyond it home to the ‘bae nerrer’, the ‘child-snatchers’ - a misguided warning over the Faan-as-syy elves, who fled the continent two hundred years prior.

‘And never,’ any sensible Elkney-man or -woman or -guard would say, “never follow the path by the creek into the woods.’

They’d neglect to explain what was buried there, deep in the thicket.

The path itself - if one could call it a path - was distinguished by a lighter shade of grass that hadn’t grown in the same direction and spaces between the trees, and after the creek forked away it was nearly impossible to follow with overgrowth. Children occasionally managed to, still, and grew up to tell their own children that it must’ve been fae-addled, the ruins they found.

Six massive stones, alternating between three- to four-times the height of a human man and each as thick as a mule’s length, were arranged around a stepped mound. The circle tapered to a seventh monstrosity with the likeness of a sharp-eared and serene-faced woman carved into its base. And sat before her, at the peak of the mound, an alabaster altar that had long-since been overgrown with foliage. While dirtied and vine-strangled, the stones showed no signs of erosion or disrepair. They could have only been built and kept by the Faan-as-syy, but the wood-elves were a lost to the centuries - and the henge might as well have been erected within the decade.

They were as beautiful as the wellspring of flora surrounding them, but none of the townsfolk visited or prayed to the patron goddess whose name they couldn’t place.

Fifty years prior, when Lord Osten’s keep was still being built and the town’s orchard a yard of saplings, the henge had been discovered and promptly forbidden, though no one made any effort to section off the site. No one talked of it, save for wiley children who wanted to see it for themselves and the parents who warned them off it. To speak about it was to invite its bad luck, or to remind those who’d seen it themselves of its unnerving height, of the sensation of being watched. No one had ever entered the circle, and no one had gone at night. Whatever was there, it be suicide, Elkney-folk thought.

Nonetheless, someone trampled over dead branches and pushed aside knee-length grass, headed straight for the clearing of the Circle. And the quarter-moon had risen hours ago. He could hear them approach.

The lower, western foot of the Skerra-Kar Mountain Range was known for its seemingly endless forest and hilly terrain. Asides the rivers and tributaries that cross-hatched the woods, rocky pathways merged off Riverain's marked roads and meandered inward and onward. Rumor has it that they were tread by elves native to the continent centuries ago, abandoned since mankind settled on the western coast. Regardless, despite the possibility of running into woodland beasts, it lowered a traveler's chances of encountering thieves and charlatans (or guardsmen) on the highway and provided a change in scenery -- and a thicket of trees for privacy. For some, the delay it cost to navigate the region was well worth that privacy.

Fene wasn't paying more attention than was needed to the trail before him, his gaze straying off into the trees while he looked for a suitable place to rest. The moon was still high enough that he might be able to carry on for another hour, but he didn't think his aged mare could, and Orfelin Port was still another two weeks to the west.

One pack was tossed over his shoulder, another two hooked to the sides of his horse's bare saddle as he walked beside her, a firm hand wrapped the reins. Fene was a tall and attractive young man, with dark hair and a handsome, olive-toned complexion that did nothing to warm his cold eyes. Fine leather boots and a sable cloak that tented at his hip where his sword was sheathed suggested he was a wealthy merchant, or perhaps the son of a noble - or maybe it was the way he held himself, with an easy confidence. And he traveled alone, save his horse.

Fene squinted through a haze of pipe smoke and musk, working hard to keep his distaste from showing in his expression. A few patrons glanced aside their conversations and a young attendant looked nervous as he stepped up to the landlady's desk and tapped to get her attention. As plain as he dressed, he was no commoner, and rich men stayed in places like the Velvet Landing in the Canette-Deville district, not in shabby little taverns named after their owners, like Margarot's. But he had his reasons for keeping out of frequents of the upper class.

Fene was a young man of twenty or so, tall, with black hair he wore a little past his shoulders and handsome, olive-toned features that did little to warm his cold eyes. His leather boots and black breeches were fine and tailored, and his sable cloak tented at the hip where his blade was sheathed, suggesting he was a wealthy merchant or perhaps the son of a noble - and anyone who possessed a title or a moderate sum of wealth might recognize him as just that, the only son of Marquis Valerian to the north.

"Excuse me, Old Madam," he said, and Margarot glanced irritably up, then raised a brow in question. He didn't answer it. "do you have open rooms?"

A half-hour later, his mare was stabled and his belongings in a small room on the second floor and locked away, which suited him perfectly. He wandered downstairs and towards the table the least occupied - a man slumped into his stew at the far end. He sat away from him, meaning to mind his own business until the attendant rounded to take his order.

The Swallow was a famous merchant vessel known for its speed, captained by Shermire the Old, who once left his youngest on the docks of a little port city in Visolkia after a selkie impregnated her with its child or so insisted the overly-friendly deckhand who was trying to strike up a conversation with Fene - and only succeeding at agitating at his already stripped nerves.

To his credit, he wasn’t even this patient, usually. While his features were olive-toned and warm, strong enough to be handsome but not too severe, they did nothing to melt the coldness in his eyes - Fene was not a very personable young man. The only son of Marquis Valerian, the Lord of the northernmost county, it was odd to see him so far south and with low-end passage for the western continents, no less. But Fene was sure those with the reference to recognize him wouldn’t be concerned with price when travelling, and so here he was at least safe from the nobility.

What worried him was if he was still followed.

The Gods must have been feeling generous, because just as the boy was about launch into another long-winded story about the time Scarre, Shermire’s half-dwarven steward, had drank the entirety of a Baersaeelian naval crew to their beds, he was called away to haul another passenger’s belongings up the ramp.

“Aye! Can you help me?”

The voice was clear, if a bit scratchy and high-pitched, sounding as if a child was stood in reasonable speaking distance, but in any which direction Jerrimend St. was vacant.

The stars barely reflected in the canal on a night like the one in question, the sky had been overcast for the better part of the week and showed no signs of clearing - and it wouldn’t be any better for it. The oversaturated ground squelched in protest when trod and clung to passerby boots, looking like unpleasant chocolate cake crumbs wherever it was tracked, and the water might reach the lip of the canal and lick at the cobbled safe-zones should it rain one more time. The only reliable light sources were the street-lamps scattered across Sheppard, lit by arcane flames that wouldn’t die inside their glass enclosures.

The windows of the white-painted townhouses were dark and the doors locked, potted flowers and greeting stone statuettes of benevolent diirae - garden sprites - sat on well-worn porch steps, the only faces present. Everyone who lived on Jerrimend had holed up for the night, as it was so late it was near dawn. Certainly, the square would still be lively with its lavish inns and not-as-lavish taverns, but the outskirts of a middle-class housing district -? And yet, there had be a voice.