{Video; UN: elvenking}

[tauraran]

{He is a king without his elegant trappings - but, really, he doesn't need them. The robe he wears catches the light with the smallest of motions, glittering faintly as if precious jewels are woven in the fabric. His hair is bound into a single thick braid that lays against his back and his circlet is elsewhere - as are his rings.}

How many parents reside in Lunatia? Are you separated from your children if so? {The flickering light on the table before him is all the illumination he requires as he works on a sketch. The drawing depicts trees and a variety of animal life beneath their mighty boughs.}

My fear for my son increases by the day and I have found no relief for it. I hardly realized how helpless I could feel as a father.

{His attention shifts from the sketch of the forest to a second sketch of a face much like his own - yet different enough that it must be his son.}

Comments

[tauraran]

{Elven marriage customs are deceptively simple. That is why they do not bed rashly. Sex is often all that is required to tie two Elves together for life.

Thranduil has been a bit...lax...with that custom since he entered Lunatia. But it does help to stave off his fears and loneliness.}

Your desires are just, but I wonder how long you will be able to decide where you can and cannot go. The land cannot be owned, yet many try and many have died for the simple crime of trespass.

[arrowroot]

Oh, I have no intentions of owning anything. Their lands are their lands. I only want to help them recover from the devastation they've experienced.

[The choice of where to go and not go has less to do with ownership and more to do with how other groups delegate their resources and tasks and how even the most basic needs of aid can wind up tangled in bureaucratic red tape.]

There are places we can't go for entirely different reasons. Cantha comes to mind, as it's been blocked by rising of Orr and inaccessible for centuries now.

[tauraran]

Orr? {He believes he heard that correctly. If she instead said a "rising of Orcs", he knows well how to silence that: with arrows and blades.}

You are attempting to be diplomatic; to ease the pain of all of those who have suffered in one way or another. I do not envy your duties. Few victims are grateful for a helping hand. Their pain interferes with any good will they might feel.

[arrowroot]

A former human kingdom that sunk beneath the waves of the ocean centuries ago. It returning wasn't a good thing, though. It was overrun with Risen - undead minions of the Elder Dragon Zhaitan.

Truthfully I've found it to be the opposite. Many Elonians were extremely grateful for the aid we brought and the enemies we took down. The ones that weren't were few and far between, and often loyal to one of the destructive forces causing the strife to begin with.

[tauraran]

Undead... {That word - so descriptive - makes his blood run cold. His eyes close when she speaks of the Elder Dragon. No, Orr is not on his list of "must visit destinations".} This Dragon... He brought them back?

[arrowroot]

Yes. Zhaitan was the Elder Dragon of Death and Shadow. He turned our Orrian ancestors into his minions.