[Griffinkeeper] 10:45 pm: The guard appears "We have weasels now!" [Firearris] 10:45 pm: askes the guard for the weasel! [Griffinkeeper] 10:45 pm: The guard gives Firearris the Weasel. [Firearris] 10:46 pm: aquires the weasel and renames it "Cat" Take that, Lumi.
Certain elves are meant to be together. The way they can tell, is through their soul names. If elf A has Elf B's soul name echo throughout their mind continuously, they know they are recognized to that person. Events are needed to trigger recognition, such as looking into the person's eyes after or during a moment of danger. Sometimes recognition can be triggered by nothing more than the sharing of thoughts or agreement, though this is rare. Recognition is not always immediate. For example, Leetah was kidnapped by Cutter, who recognized her right away. She didn't and had no idea what he was doing. In addition to this, she was already involved with someone else. She also didn't know too much about recognition, or even what a soul name was, so she didn't know why the name Tam kept echoing in her mind. Eventually it began to haunt her dreams, and Cutter, too. Recognition happens when two souls and people are perfect for each other and their offspring will have all the best qualities of both parents. Recognition has nothing to do with love. Dewshine recognized a Glider, and neither of them were happy about it. Dewshine, like Leetah, already liked somebody else. Also like with Leetah and Cutter, denying and refusing recognition began to take a toll on them both. All it takes to end the call of recognition is to make a child together, which is what they did.
Recognition will not happen before an elf is fully mature enough to have a child, but other than that, there is no way of predicating when it will happen. Leetah's parents had known each other for at least a thousand years before they recognized, and they had known each other their whole lives.
It is not a choice, and does not require the couple to love or even like each other. If the couple does love each other, then they may become life mates. If they don't, then they don't have to stay together. However, until the call of recognition is answered, the calling will get worse and worse.
If the couple does love each other, their bond, already increased by recognition, increases even more, so that if a life mate were to die, the other would likely soon follow out of grief. Treestump lost his life mate, Rillfisher, but not before Rillfisher had given birth to Dewshine. While Treestump was depressed and in despair, not caring for life any more, he still had Dewshine, and so he held on so he could raise her, and so she wouldn't have to loose both parents. Clearbrook, however, lost One-eye after their son was more or less capable of taking care of himself. She didn't have many reasons to hang on. However, Treestump was able to relate to her, and helped bring her back from the edge. The two later became love mates.
To lose a recognized life mate is to lose a huge chunk of your soul, as recognition more or less sews the two souls together.
SOUL NAMES
Soul names are the names of their souls, and are very secret. As such, they never tell it. To know someone's soul name is to know their soul, but not control it, though the name does have some power. If you were to shout, or worse, send, their soul name out of anger, it would leave them quivering on the ground. Using a soul name out of anger is the greatest taboo.
Soul names can be shared with whoever the holder of the soul name wants to share it with. Cutter and Skywise were like brothers to each other, and so shared their soul names with each other, making them 'brothers in all but blood'.
Redlance and Nightfall were love mates, but weren't recognized to each other. They later exchanged soul names. It's the same concept of a parent adopting a child. That child is theirs but not really. Nightfall's soul didn't recognize Redlance's soul, so they couldn't have a child, but they were life mates in every way they could be.
CHILDREN
Children can only be born to a recognized couple. Even though this is universal, there are exceptions. The Go-backs have given up on recognition. They live in the mountains where the troll are brutal and ruthless, and are in a never ending war for the castle the high ones came inl with the elves. As such, growing older than a few hundred years is unlikely. They could be immortal, but their way of life prevents this. As such, they couldn't wait around for them to recognize each other to have children. If they did, they would die out.
Another exception is when Leetah helped Redlance and Nightfall have a child. Leetah is a very powerful healer, and that was the only reason they were able to have a child together.
Other than these two, there are no exceptions. In order for a child to be born, the two must be recognized.
LOVE MATE VS. LIFE MATE
Elves do not have marriage or any other binding ceremonies. If they love each other, they love each other. They do not tie love and the act of making love together, and so have no concept of cheating on each other. A love mate can be someone they love, or a brief lover. A love mate is only a love mate so long as they love each other. Much like a boy friend or a girl friend. They aren't expected to stay together for life, just so long as they love each other, or they want each other.
Life mates tend to be closer to a married couple. They tend to be a recognized couple that love each other, but not always. Redlance and Nightfall are life mates, but they are not recognized. They were life mates before they exchanged soul names. A life mate is just that: a mate for life. The person you want to spend your life with. With life mates, they can use the terms love mate and life mate interchangeably when referring to each other.
SENDING
'Sending' is what the elves call telepathy. They can't read each other's minds, but they can speak to each other through them. Though all elves have this ability, some haven't used it in so long that they need to be taught, like the Sun folk, who are also beginning to loose the use of their soul names. The ability to send is unique to the elves, but a half-elf would still have the ability.
MORTALITY
The wolf riders are the only mortal elves on the world of two moons. Any offspring of theirs will be mortal, however, if one of the parents is immortal, then the life span of the child is increased, but the child is still mortal. The only way for them to become immortal is to have an extremely powerful healer, such as Leetah, clean the wolf blood from them. By loosing their wolf blood, they loose their bond with the wolves, and their senses aren't as sharp. They become a wolf rider by name and kinship with the other elves only.
MAGIC AND GIFTS
Some elves are born with gifts, regardless if the parent has them or not. Suntop can project his spirit out of his body, something neither his father nor mother can do. Leetah can heal, and neither of her parents have magic. Strongbow is so gifted with a bow that when he aims for something, he never misses. Rayak can make things levitate, including himself and others. Not all elves are gifted, in fact, a majority of them aren't. But as they mature their gifts grow stronger, and they are able to do more with their gifts the more they train. They teach themselves how to use their gifts because it is extremely rare that they should find another elf with the same gift. Gifts are never random and out of control until the possessor of the gift learns to control it. Rather, the gift is minimum until the possessor learns how to use it. Instead of growing into their gifts, they make their gift grow with them.
THE STORY
There was once a world where the shape shifters lived. On this world were trolls and preservers, who were kept more or less as pets to the shape shifters. However, there was a problem. They were running out of resources, and their population was growing. So they set out in a ship to travel the universe. After staying at one planet for a while, they would leave again, exploring and satisfying their curiosity. To help preserve them, they called on the preservers to make 'wrap-stuff'. Wrap-stuff is very much like a spider web that the preserves blow from their mouths and wrap the person or thing in. One completely wrapped, the person or thing inside is set in suspended animation, and can last forever.
There was the scroll of colors that showed their past, present, the other worlds, and all the possible outcomes of the future. There were navigators, who were always preserved in wrap-stuff, who found new worlds and navigated the ship there.
Eventually, they found a world that delighted in the presence of fairies and elves. They took the proper form and began to make their way.
Many, many years after the evacuation of their original planet, the trolls, still primitive, began to develop a consciousness. They didn't like the ship, and so, while in the middle of navigating the ship to the correct time and place, the trolls cut open the wrap-stuff with a suddenness that startled the navigators, making them lose control. The ship, now in the form of a castle, flew to the wrong time, 20,000 years behind the original goal.
The humans were primitive and barbaric, much like the trolls, but more advanced in he realm of conscience. When the confused elves stumbled out of the castle, they were met not by the medieval people they had planned on, but by a primitive tribe of people who, out of fear of the thing that had fallen from the sky, killed and massacred a majority of the elves. The elves, trolls, and preservers fled, the trolls eventually hiding under ground, the preservers in the woods, and the elves eventually spreading out.
Tamain was the high one, as the first comers are called by their shorter descendants, who took the form of a wolf while pregnant with Tamorn. With elves, the pregnancy term is two years. Tamian gave birth to Tamorn, but kept her wolf form and stayed with her pack, leaving the elf baby with the other high ones. Tamorn had wolf blood in him, making him mortal. He is seen as the founder of the wolf riders.
10,000 years later, Cutter is born, and is the tenth chief of the wolf riders, a tribe of mortal elves who are bonded with the wolves, teaching them to 'send'. Until the humans burnt the forest down around the elves' ears, they had thought they were the only elves on the world. All they knew of their origins was that the high ones came out of a huge mountain thing that fell from the sky.
Eventually the humans, who still hate the elves, or pointy-eared-demons, burnt down the forest, forcing the wolf riders to take shelter from the trolls. The trolls tricked them and threw them into the desert, where Cutter met and recognized Leetah. Two years later, Suntop and Ember are born, the first set of twins to be born to either of the tribes, and possibly to the Elvin race in general.
Cutter goes on to discover the Gliders, residents of Blue Mountain. Because the gliders are tall and can glide, as the high ones are said to, and because they live in a mountain, as the high ones were said to have come from, Cutter mistakes these for the high ones. In fact, these are not the high ones, but the first generation to be born on the new world. Winnowill, the head of the gliders, enslaved and tricked the wolf riders, even going so far as to steal Suntop from Cutter and Leetah.
The wolf riders leave Blue mountain with Suntop, and go in search of the castle the High ones came in. They are attacked by the mountain trolls, who are far more vicious and have stronger, better weapons. If it weren't for a rescue by the Go Backs, the wolf riders would have been wiped out. Together, the two tribes fight a war with the mountain trolls for the castle and win. Then the wolfriders go back to the forest.
For more details, go to your local library and rent books 1 – 4 of Elfquest.
[Griffinkeeper] 10:45 pm: The guard appears "We have weasels now!" [Firearris] 10:45 pm: askes the guard for the weasel! [Griffinkeeper] 10:45 pm: The guard gives Firearris the Weasel. [Firearris] 10:46 pm: aquires the weasel and renames it "Cat" Take that, Lumi.
Gender:
Points: 1836
Reviews: 245