Silver Shadows - Elaine Cunningham [104]
All joined in the feasting and the sharing of summer mead, a wondrous honey wine distilled from flowers and fruit. No green elves kept bees, but they carefully harvested a part of that stored nectar that they found in hollowed trees, adding to it the essence of wild raspberries and elven magic. The result was far from primitive. Arilyn would easily place the mead alongside the best elven wines she had tasted.
At a certain, very prescribed point in the celebration- when the elves were growing merry and before the satyrs were entirely given over to impulse-the mid-summer prayers were chanted and sung. The elves venerated the Seldarine, particularly the god of the forest, but homage was also paid to the gods of their visitors.
At last the music began. A lilting tune played on panpipes was the traditional invitation to dance. As the merrymakers joined in, so did other instruments: pipes, shaken bells, and pulsing drums.
For a while Arilyn only watched. There had been midsummer festivals in Evereska in the days before her mother's death, but she had been deemed too young to take part. Nor would she have been welcomed to many of the celebrations. Among the elves there were subtle, sacred overtones to such times that none other could share. Yet there was that about the music that drew her steadily closer to the dancers.
Arilyn had never quite understood the mystic fascination the elven people had with dance, nor was she particularly skilled. Yet at the urging of Hawkwing, her protege turned mentor, she had dressed in a filmy green gown made for dancing away a warm summer's night. It was by far the loveliest thing Arilyn had ever worn. Gossamer-soft, light enough to float around her as she moved, it captured the clear, fresh green of a perfect summer day. It was also the scantiest costume she had ever put on; the skirts were short, and her arms and legs were bared for dancing. At Hawkwing's insistence, Arilyn wore a wreath of tiny white flowers in her hair and had left her feet bare. Oddly enough, all the elves were dressed in similar fashion. There was no deerskin tonight, no ornaments of bones or feathers. It seemed as if the folk of Tethir had stepped back for one night into a still more ancient time.
Hawkwing had already joined the dancing, wearing proudly the emerald that had been Arilyn's midsummer gift to her. Most of the gifts exchanged were simple: fruit or flowers for the most part, but the memory of the purely feminine joy this gift had ignited in the girl-child's eyes warmed Arilyn still. She worried for the child; Hawkwing was too young to hate so passionately and to kill with such ease. It was good to see the girl whirling in Tamsin's arms, laughing as gaily as if she truly were the carefree maiden she should have been. The sight was well worth the cost of the emerald-yet another of Danilo's costly tokens. As she enjoyed Hawkwing's happiness, Arilyn doubted Danilo would disapprove of the use she'd made of his gift.
The child caught Arilyn's eye, and her thin face lighted in a smile. Hands outstretched, she ran to the moon elf and pulled her into the dance. The circle began, the final dance that would celebrate the solstice. Arilyn moved along with the others, not caring that her steps were not nearly so light or intricate as those of the fey folk. There was something about the festivities that made such matters unimportant.
Arilyn allowed herself to be swept away in the peace and joy that the circle dance wove around them all, knowing that this would be the last part of the festivities in which she would join.
Among the elves, midsummer was a time when marriages were celebrated and lovers rejoiced. Children born of this night were considered a special blessing of the gods. Even those elves who had no special partner often sought out a friend