THE FORGOTTEN PRINCESS

‘It’s for the adults dear.’

‘Get out of here you pest. We’ve work to do. Have some respect for your elder sisters why don’t
you!’
‘Tomorrow perhaps’
‘What’s she on about? Imaginary friends at her age? I’d straighten her out if I but had the time.
Someone needs to.’
‘Are you here with the tea service? No. Well then what in the Heavens are you here for girl?’
‘Father is a very busy man. Now go and be a good girl and play outside. Well then, go think
outside. Well then, whatever.’
‘Your mother is not well today Rinn. She has nerves. You’d only annoy her yet further.’
‘That’s nice Rinn, Sure. Mmmmm Hmmmm. Tell me all about it later dear. I’m a bit busy at the
moment.’
‘Tomorrow perhaps.’
‘The library is full of answers, Rinn. Go consult the librarian already.’
‘No. No. No. No. No. Goodnight Rinn!’
‘I don’t know. Anywhere but here.’
‘Rinn who?’
 Normally anomalous things stand out by dint of their differences; oftentimes highlighted
in fact because of their very unique and individual natures. But sometimes, a thing is so
unusual, as to be forgotten almost entirely amongst the routine of the everyday. The glint lost in
the dross. Overlooked as it were. The odd thing out that the world hasn’t time nor room for
anymore.
Rinn was a walking, living anomaly in so many ways, and yet no one seemed to take
notice.

*******************************************************************************

Her people, the Faen-Ru-Eryn, were an anomaly. A hidden people holed up against the
relentless tide of the modern world and its ever expanding kingdoms of humanity; kingdoms that
constantly threatened to encroach upon them from all sides. They existed as but the last faint
vestiges of an Elvish empire over which the sun had long since set. What remained was little
more than wreck and ruin. The once mighty white spires of the Elvish kingdom, the
Bryn-Ley-Erevan, had crumbled to dust at the base of their shattered castle walls. And though
the continent spanning highway of marble flagstones they had constructed, the Erdan-Tye, pride
of the Elvish empire, still largely stood to this day, testament to the skill of its bygone builders, its
once perfect symmetry was now broken by roots and choked by weeds. The Elvish empire,
much like it’s people, had become all but lost in the woods it once dominated.

Truth be told, being an Elf was a lot like being a ghost.

Alive . . . but with no presence.
Here . . . but unnoticed.
Amongst the living, but yourself a long forgotten thing, if not properly dead then relegated to the
past and left behind.
Being an elf was to be an antique in a world that had no use for such anachronisms.
Rinn hated that others might look upon her and her people with something like nostalgia, or
worse yet sentimentality, as relics of a past age that need be pitied, maladjusted as they were to
the modern one.
She longed for a time she never knew. A time that passed centuries, even millenia,
before she was born. Rinn wished for a world of elves and fey things that only exist in ancient
scrolls and the stories of elders recounted by firelight.
It was somehow made all the worse by the fact that she was royalty. What use is ruling
over a conquered people? How can one claim nobility amongst elves whose lives have been
made ignoble by time and circumstance? Who wants to be the princess of a fallen kingdom?
Her people lived hidden deep, deep, deep inside the Neverwinter Woods, their
Enclave as much a part of the forest as the trees and the other animals who abide in them. The
Enclave was beautiful . . . no doubt . . . but Rinn felt a beautiful prison is a prison nonetheless.

The Elves clung to the far edges and hidden corners of the world, a strange and fey
people that most humans considered naught but the stuff of myth and tall tales. The Elves, and
their once mighty civilization, were almost entirely forgotten in the hustle and bustle of the busy
human world, and honestly, Elves seemed to prefer it that way.
Rinn did not agree. At all. From birth she was a willful child. She chafed at Elvish exile,
even if it were sold as a self-imposed. It went against her every instinct. The ignomnity of
obsolescence, be it voluntary or otherwise, did not suit her. It is possible that Rinn’s very
willfulness was itself a product of her own strange birth.

*******************************************************************************

Rinn’s birth itself was an anomaly amongst the Faen-Ru-Eryn. She was born only 50
years before to a royal father, Theran All King, when he was already aged almost six centuries,
and to a noble mother, Aredhel First Mother, who was equally ancient. Ancient by even Elvish
standards that is, which is very old indeed. Elves seldom have children after their first few
centuries, not even royal lineages upon whom it is incumbent to establish a dynasty.
Rinn’s was the first royal birth amongst the Faen-Ru-Eryn, in more than a century. Rinn’s
oldest sister Arwen, heir to the Trillium Throne, was more than 300 years her senior, and her
youngest sister, Vena, was still 100 years older. The remainder of her six sisters - Estel - Nienna
- Tara - and Siofra - were somewhere between those extremes, but all still substantially older
than Rinn.
Even more remarkable perhaps was the fact that Rinn was the first Elvish birth amongst
all the Faen-Ru-Eryn in close to 70 years. This made quite a stir of the occasion. Elvish births
are rare to begin with but in the Enclave of the Faen-Ru-Eryn they had become exceedingly so.
Alarmingly so. The declining birth rate had been cause for much concern and debate. Many saw
it as further evidence of the waning strength of Elves and of their culture in its continuing
decline.
Rinn’s birth was met with surprise by her people, and even by her own parents, who had
planned on no such occasion. It was considered an omen, no doubt, but the ever cautious
Elvish people were unsure whether it was an ill or an auspicious one.

*******************************************************************************

The fact that Rinn’s mother, Aredhel, gave birth at all was also an anomaly. She, much
more so than Rinn’s father, had decades ago passed the point where truly ancient Elves begin
to disengage with the world around them. She had long before begun preparing for what the
Elves refer to as the Transmigration of souls. Rinn’s father, however, clung stubbornly to life and
duty as king of the Faen-Ru-Eryn even as he watched his own wife fade.
Rinn’s mother did not look ancient, at least not to the non-Elvish, as Elves weather the
passing of time differently than the other races. Not only do Elves age at a relatively glacial
pace, but they lose little in the way of beauty or youthful vigor along the way. Their hair will
gradually turn the purest white but they do not suffer frailties nor ailments. And while their
physical form changes little, even up to the moment of
death, their soul bears the burden and weight of the
passing centuries.

A very old Elf will begin to lose sight of the world

both figuratively and literally. Their eyes will become
ever more milky as their gaze turns inward and they
involve themselves less and less with the practicalities of
life and more and more with their own inner thoughts
and musings. Little is known about what elder Elves
experience during this time period as they do not
communicate the experience. Most go silent and spend
their hours in contemplative trance till they one day, as of
a sudden, put their things in order and take leave for
Avandor
 Avandor is less a place and more an idea, as no Elf who has departed for its shores has
ever returned. It is known variously as ‘The Shining City’ - ‘The Far Shore’ - or the ‘Feywild’, and
it is believed to be an Elvish homeland and sanctuary and place of origin. When an Elf departs
for Avandor they do so alone, and on foot, and in the dead of night unannounced, be they a
cobbler, a knight or a high queen.

There are honestly few elder Elves left in the Enclave. The siren song of transmigration
has grown ever stronger amongst the Faen-Ru-Eryn with each passing decade. As the world
moves along without the elves, the elves themselves seem to move further away from the world
and in ever greater numbers.
Those few truly ancient Elves left seem to struggle daily with their duties and their desire
to remain. Rinn respects her father, and what must be an iron will which has allowed him to
remain as the dutiful King of a fading people for so very long.

Aredhel First Mother became pregnant with Rinn in her fifth century, long after her own
eyes had turned milky white and opaque with the longing for the transmigration. She didn’t
announce the pregnancy, as she almost never spoke at that point, and she did not complain as
she bore the baby’s weight for the years’ long Elvish gestation, and then suffered silently under
the ministrations of the royal midwives. She did not cry out in birth pangs. She did not say a
thing.
She never even spoke a word to the infant Rinn, nor Rinn as a toddler. She did not say a
thing to her youngest daughter until ten years after her birth. When, in the middle of a full moon
night, she woke the young princess with a kind hand on her cheek and a kiss on the forehead
and said simply, ‘Welcome back my Queen,” before departing towards Avandor herself, a simple
cloth knapsack slung over her shoulder, unseen by anyone but Rinn.

*******************************************************************************

And then Rinn herself was an anomaly of the highest order. Born the least princess
amongst a people who no longer had much need for kings or queens or even kingdoms. Born
during a time when Elvish births were on a precipitous decline. Born unexpectedly to a royal pair
well past their prime. Born with shock white hair, like that of her own ancient mother, which
 gleamed silver in the moonlight, and gave strange
gravitas to the otherwise youthful Elfling. Born with
piercing blue eyes that had the troubling tendency to
grow milky white when she was angry.
She cut such an incongruous figure, what with her
stark white hair and youthful blush, that she gave pause
to all that saw her. Her very appearance made most
Elves uneasy. And when her angry eyes clouded over,
giving her a haunting gaze that belied her age, mere
uneasiness was the least emotion she inspired.
She was a strange child and was estranged from
the Elvish Enclave and community around her. She had
no peer group. There were no other children. Her sisters
were all involved in either the ‘Council of Elders’, or
similar positions of power and importance. The other
adults, after their initial curiosity waned, tended to
ignore her as the Faen-Ru-Eryn had become ever the
more a dour and taciturn people and there was little
patience for Rinn’s inquisitiveness and youthful
enthusiasm.
Rinn was a child and the Enclave had long since
moved on from childish things. Rinn was a baby, and so
the very definition of hope and possibility and promise,
born to a people who seemed waiting for their own
eventual extinction.
Rinn was without direction. Rinn was lonely.
Frankly, Rinn was bored.

*******************************************************************************

Rinn was unusual in so many ways, not least of which was her energetic spirit. Always a
quiet, soft spoken people, Elves were by their nature slow to react and patient, given to long
debate and thoughtful consideration, and had become all the more so since the decline of the
Bryan-Ley-Erevan and their retreat into the wilderness. Rinn was none of those things.
She was active and curious. Hot-headed even. Prone to impulsive behavior and to
acting on instinct alone. Perhaps this was due in part to the fact that she was raised without
much direction nor guidance. At least not from the Enclave of the Faen-Ru-Eryn.

The Enclave was a small and an insular world. One devoted largely to maintaining its
own secrecy. Its borders were drawn tight and tightly controlled. Life was well ordered and
routine and lived with a lack of urgency known only by creatures, such as Elves, with extremely
long lives. It seemed no one was in a hurry to do anything nor was there much anything that
needed done. The Enclave and its citizens seemed, at least to Rinn still in the throes of her own
youthful impatience, to exist solely to wile away the time until their time was up.
Lacking friends, Rinn made her own.
She spent most of her time in a world of her
own imagination, populated by other princesses
and princes who had plenty of time for her.
And, because she was more than a bit bored
and underwhelmed by the world she found
herself in, Rinn imagined a better world for
them all to inhabit. A world built not upon the
Elven reality she found herself raised inside,
but rather one of romance and high magiks and
adventure. An imaginary world built from what
hints she found about the Elvish Empire that
had existed before.

Rinn spent countless hours browsing the

Enclave’s library for stories and tales of the
Faen-Ru-Eryn. And though she was a poor
student in most disciplines, she consumed the
histories of her people with keen interest and
appetite. She spent long days deeply immersed
in the past glories of the Bryn-Ley-Erevan. Its
conquests. Its defeats. Its heroes and villains.
Its battles won and battles lost. Its now
withered dreams and hopes.
Most evenings, long after everyone else had
left, Rinn haunted the Enclave’s High Hall
where many of her people’s most coveted relics
and treasures were housed. She would gaze in
awe at the ancient diadems worn by long dead
queens, the tattered war banners of
vanquished armies, the clever tapestries that
spun the myths of the Faen-Ru-Eryn. In
particular she wondered over her father’s own
mighty mithril sword hung in honor over his
Trillium Throne, a throne made entirely of
delicate, living trillium blooms. She would
dream of wearing those crowns and holding
those banners aloft and wielding that great
sword in battle. She would whisper to her
imaginary friends of the wars they would win,
the armies she would lead, and the legends
that would be writ about them and their deeds.
 *******************************************************************************

Elves don’t sleep but rather pass a small portion of their days in a sort of trance. This
trance is not unlike a waking dream, but allows for a focus upon subjects of the elf’s choosing.
They can relive favored memories, or practice mental exercises, or perfect skills and pursuits.
They can oftentimes work out puzzles and problems in trance that might elude their waking
minds.
Sometimes what an elf experiences in trance comes unbidden to them, from a well of
experience much deeper than this single lifetime. All elves, particularly in their youths, have a
connection to their soul much stronger than the other races. They oftentimes see, hear, even
feel, the myriad of lifetimes lived before this one.

Rinn’s connection to her own immortal self and her past lives was always strong.
Stronger than most. Another anomaly perhaps. Rinn’s experiences were vivid indeed. While in
trance she saw the Elvish Empires as they once were in all their might and glory. She wore
crowns and wielded swords. She raised kingdoms up and laid kingdoms low. She wove
powerful magiks unlike anything the modern Elvish Enclave has ever seen.
She found herself spending more and more time in trance, preferring it to the dullness of
her daily routine. There was simply more there. Life was bigger, more magik, more meaningful
and in many ways more real than her reality in the Enclave.
But still, her experiences while in trance were a one way street. She could, to some
extent, relive her own fantastical past, but she could not influence it nor interact with it in any
meaningful way. It was beautiful but lonely. And like her imaginary friends it left her unfulfilled.

Until one day, while deep in trance, standing atop the ramparts of an impossibly tall, pure
white castle wall, watching the tides of a battle far beneath heave to and fro, a battle fought
between majestic Elves in shining armor and hideous green beasts of fang and pure fury, she
muttered to herself, ‘Pitiful. We once beat back endless waves of orcs only to now hide like
feckless faeries in the forest. Utterly pitiful.’ She shook her head and then after a heavy and
loaded pause continued, ‘Fine then, I’ll just do it myself.’ Which seemed to Rinn a curious thing
to say as it seemed entirely out of place given the scene unfolding below.
 And then, in the vision, Rinn asked of herself, ‘Don’t you agree dear princess?’
Rinn was stunned by what seemed like a question directed her way. ‘Me?’ She
answered. ‘Princess me?’ She asked.
‘Who else?’ Responded herself. Or rather her past-self. Or someone. Or something. It
was all rather confusing really. She had never experienced anything like it in trance. And to her
knowledge, neither had any Elf before her. ‘No other princesses around by my reckoning and so
I suppose you will have to do. I guess I ought have said we will do it ourselves.’ Her vision
continued.
Rinn was silent. Dumbfounded.
‘Agreed then.’ Said the vision coldly and matter of factly. ‘Your training starts tomorrow.
Arrive early. Don’t be late.’
And at that, the vision ended, and Rinn snapped back from her trance to find herself
folded comfortably in meditation on a woven mat in her room, mystified but thrilled by what had
occurred.

*******************************************************************************

And the training did indeed begin in earnest.

From that moment forward Rinn experienced a level of communication unlike that of the
average elf in trance. In some strange manner she spoke to herself, of herself. It was very meta.
She advised herself from the distant past and learned things unspoken for ages. She taught
herself arts and magiks and swordplay long forgotten.

It was always the same past-life with which she conferred in her trances. The same
vision. It wasn’t a daily occurrence, sometimes weeks or months would pass without contact,
and each time Rinn would grow concerned that her strange mentor had abandoned her. This
idea was devastating. But, the vision always returned for another lesson. Rinn didn’t know
exactly who her mysterious teacher was. Her vision was cold and brusque and uninterested in
Rinn outside of the lessons she wished to teach her. Rinn had only managed to catch the
briefest glimpses of the speaker through their shared eyes, stray reflections caught in jewels or
off well burnished breastplates. She was fierce and she was beautiful. She was almost terrible in
her loveliness. Rinn adored her.
 She whispered to herself while in trance, ‘You are a nature wielder, a channeler of wild
magiks, a Bladedancer and a princess of the blood. You are meant to bring peace to the realms
through your people’s might. You are the firm fist of a kinder world. This world is ours. This world
is yours.’

She was taught the ways of a forgotten world. She practiced, out in the forest away from
the prying eyes of her family and the rest of the Enclave, what she learned while in trance:
She learned to channel her will into her sword so that it smited her enemies with fearsome
blows that belied her own size and strength.
She learned to truly dance with a blade in a way that gives force to grace and was both beautiful
and fearsome to behold.
She learned to bend the will of nature to her own and make of it both shield and weapon.
She learned to bring forth her wrath as a blinding white fire with which she burnt her enemies to
the ground.

Rinn became more powerful by the week and by the month. Her abilities grew to rival
even the greatest warriors of the Enclave of the Faen-Ru-Eryn. And though Rinn was eager to
show her father and her sisters her newfound skills, her newfound self worth, she was cautioned
by the vision, by herself, to bide her time, until the others were ready. Whatever that meant. She
champed at the bit of her own impatience.

*******************************************************************************

During one lesson in particular, while learning the intricacies of storing and then
summoning her blade from a realm her mentor called the ‘Eternal Armory’, a very difficult lesson
indeed, Rinn broke down in frustration and demanded answers from her vision. She demanded
petulantly, and near to tears, to know who the vision was, and so, in a sense, who she was. She
demanded to know why she couldn’t tell her family, and what was the purpose of all of this, and
what the vision wanted of her, and why she had been chosen at all.
For the first time ever her past-self paused mid-lesson and seemed to consider Rinn’s
demands. Her vision’s brow furrowed, which of course furrowed Rinn’s own brow, as they
looked out the same eyes. Those eyes narrowed and her vision replied, ‘Fine then. I’ll show you
our great disappointment and our great shame.’

The scene of Rinn’s trance changed rapidly, causing her mind to spin in vertigo, until she
found herself looking out upon a crowd at once foreign and yet oddly familiar.
The scene was obviously one from the distant past, as the Elves gathered in front of her
were stood at attention in a majestic hall, the likes of which no longer existed amongst the
Faen-Ru-Eryn. They were dressed in finery and bore rare arms and armor the quality of which
was seldom seen in the Enclave. The wood carvings, the jewelry, the robes, the dresses and the
suits, all were indications of the Bryn-Ley-Erevan, the once mighty Elvish Empire, before it’s
complete collapse.
The crowd assembled stood in hushed anticipation, all eyes focused on a single figure
that stood kneeling before Rinn, or rather before Rinn’s past-self in the vision. The kneeling
figure presented itself humbly in anticipation of Rinn’s words. And though the figure was as
young as Rinn herself, still well in the bloom of youth, and though Rinn had never seen this
particular figure humbled by anyone, Rinn recognized him. Her own father, the All King, bowed
before her.

‘Young Theran, you stand before me as the last hope of the Faen-Ru-Eryn.’ She said,
‘After the death of my dear son, at the traitorous hands of Neverwinter’s human filth, our people
suffer for lack of leadership. I will give you my granddaughter’s hand in marriage and you will
ascend to the All King.’
And then the view of her youthful kneeling father was lost, obscured, as he was handed
a mithril sword of unparalleled craftsmanship, a sword almost as large as Rinn’s father himself,
the same fine sword that now sits above the Trillium Throne. For that brief moment Rinn could
see her own vision’s reflection captured in the sword. A proud face, high and mighty and
adorned with a stag horn crown, the crown of a long dead queen which Rinn recognized from its
honorary display in the Enclave’s High Hall. And though Rinn recognized that face, from the
brief glimpses stolen before, she did not recognize the eyes, white as full moons. and cloudy as
a stormy sky. Nor did she recognize the expression, clouded as it was with grief and anger.

‘And I give unto you the sword of the All King.’ The vision continued as it handed the
magnificent blade to the still kneeling Theran. ‘The sword worn by my father and his father’s
father. Use it to lay low the enemies of the Faen-Ru-Eryn that seek to lay low our kingdom. Seek
my son’s revenge. Wield it unto the renewed glory of the Bryan-Ley-Erevan, for surely we shall
all perish if your hand proves unworthy.’
At that the trance ended abruptly and Rinn snapped back into full consciousness in a
cold sweat, more confused than ever, with the queen’s last words lingering hauntingly in her
head. ‘Do not be a disappointment like your father, dear princess.’

*******************************************************************************

Rinn unfolded herself from her meditative state and ran for the High Hall quick as her
swift legs would carry her. She threw the doors wide and ran inside. Sure enough, the stag horn
crown lay exactly as she remembered, encased behind glass atop a display wove from the
living branches of the giant maple tree in which the entire High Hall hung. A plaque of burnished
silver mounted beneath the crown bore this inscription, ‘Royal Stag Crown of Queen Anethra
First Mother of the Bryn-Ley-Erevan - Oathbound Keeper of the Fey Kingdom’. It was the same
crown that Rinn had seen in her vision. The same crown that Rinn herself had worn while in
trance.
 The implications were difficult to parse. Rinn stood frozen in a mild shock her head
spinning with the weight of it all. Anethra was grandmother to Rinn’s mother Aredhel. Anethra
was Rinn’s own great grandmother. And yet, Rinn herself was somehow Anethra as well, or at
least she once had been. An Elf’s trance revealed only that same Elf’s immortal soul, and the
many lives that soul had passed through while journeying to the present. No other.

Rinn wandered the High Hall in a daze, walking amongst the relics of her ancestors, and
wondering where and how she fit in. She lovingly handled her mother’s royal robes of state that
had hung in honor ever since the night she left in transmigration. Rinn had never known her
mother who was well gone from this world long before the night she actually left. She wondered
about the armor and weapons and rings of grandparents, uncles, and aunts with renewed
interest.She looked at the family heirlooms, not just as Rinn, least princess of her father’s noble
line, but also as Anethra, last great Queen of the Bryn-Ley-Erevan. This outlook made her more
proud than ever of her people’s grand achievements, but also ashamed of her people’s great fall
into obscurity and into a defeated retreat.

Rinn pulled down her father’s sword from where it was mounted above his Trillium
Throne. She had never had the temerity to touch it before, much less wield it. It was a King’s
blade. A weapon as ancient as the Faen-Ru-Eryn. Made of the finest mithril it weighed almost
nothing despite its length. She was amazed to find it easily swung in a single hand though it was
near shoulder height. It felt familiar though she’d never held it.
She wondered about her father, Theran All King, and why he had hung the sword above
his throne. She asked herself why he had seen fit to retire his blade when the it seemed needed
now more than ever. When the Faen-Ru-Eryn were in retreat and hounded by their enemies
why had he seen fit to lay down his weapon.
Rinn practiced a few passes with the blade before putting it back in place. It felt right
somehow. She wondered whether she would have had the courage to wield that sword in her
father’s stead. Would she have the courage now if given the opportunity?

*******************************************************************************
 Though the idea that she might somehow be her own great grandmother was
unsettling, to say the least, Rinn was determined to continue her lessons. And though
somewhat uneasy with Anethra’s criticism of her King father, it only served to strengthen her
resolve not to be a disappointment herself.
More than anything Rinn worried that she might lose connection to the Queen, to her
own past-self, before her training was complete and before her purpose, whatever it might be,
was revealed.
The intrusion of past-lives into an Elf’s trance does eventually begin to wind down. The
intense closeness to one's own soul tends to recede as an Elf ages and normally fades entirely
by adulthood. It’s referred to as ‘The Drawing of the Veil’, this sense of distance from one's
immortal self, and for most Elves it is a time of sadness and adjustment.
Rinn in particular dreaded ‘The Drawing of the Veil’.
As that time approached Rinn began to feel a bit desperate, certain that she had been
given these experiences and this power for a reason, but uncertain what exactly to do with it.

Rinn didn’t necessarily agree with her mentor’s characterization of her father as a
disappointment, and his rule as a failure, but she did feel that the slow ebb of life and blood from
the Faen-Ru-Eryn was indicative of a general malaise that haunted her people. She had tried to
raise an alarm, going so far as to address the issue with her own father even, only to be told
that hers was the impertinence of youth and that she simply lacked patience and a long enough
outlook.
Perhaps her father wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t right either. The state of the Faen-
Ru-Eryn, her people, the Elves was not right. Not by Rinn’s estimation anyhow, nor that of
Anethra apparently.
Perhaps there was truth to the idea that she lacked a long outlook, as she was still
decades away from what the Faen-Ru-Eryn consider proper adulthood, but she saw things that
others don’t. Rinn’s outlook was unique amongst her people in that she had an awareness of
her past-self much stronger and clearer than the others. Hers was an outlook informed not
solely by this lifetime but lifetimes lived before. Anethra spoke to Rinn directly and perhaps she
even spoke through her.
But, Rinn’s hope burned bright. Hope for herself and hope for the Faen-Ru-Eryn. She
refused to see herself as conquered or as part of a conquered people.
Rinn hoped that by might and by right, by any means necessary, she might raise the
Bryn-Ley-Erevan once again!