When an elven child is born, the whole community gathers to welcome him into the world.  As his mother endures the travails of birth, the elves of her home gather about her, singing, rubbing her belly, rubbing her back, her feet.  They drum, they play pipes.  Elves are a people who produce few children, and who revere nature as a sacred force of the gods themselves.  Therefore, there is no holier occasion than the birth of an elven child.  An elf's first memory is usually of the moment when he is held up to the other elves of the community of his birth, and they sing to him their love and welcome.

        Shaundar Sunfall was no exception, although it seemed to him there were faces in his community that he did not remember seeing there.  But the next earliest memory he had was of holding his baby sister.

        It was just like the other memory, singing and love and pipes and welcome, but he was one of the people singing this time.  He remembered holding his mother's hand and she smiling at him with love and joy and pride, her blue, blue eyes alight like a spring sky.  He was very young, maybe 20 or so, and it was unusual for a family to be bringing a new child forth so soon after his own birth.  He remembered some whispers that it was unnatural, which is what inevitably comes of a mixed union such as that of his parents, but most viewed it the way that his parents did - a great blessing.  Shaundar wasn't too sure about it all himself.  After all, with a new baby, he wouldn't be the baby anymore, and he wasn't certain that he approved of that.  But his father had come home, which was uncommon in those days, and that probably made it all worth it.  He remembered how his father also smiled at him with love and pride, his bright blue eyes gleaming through the golden hair that marked his mixed heritage.  And he remembered the moment that his sister's dark head had first peeked into the world, and the moment that she greeted it with a glorious cry.

        His father eased her from her mother's body and held her up for everyone to see.  She had her mother's look to her - blue, blue eyes, fair silvery skin, and hair the colour of twilight.  She was, for all intents and purposes, a moon elf.  No sign of the mixed sun and moon elven heritage, not like Shaundar and his father bore, and although Shaundar didn't remember being taunted at that age, he remembered, even then, a great sense of relief that this was so.

        And as the assembled elves began to sing their welcome, Shaundar's father pressed his tiny little sister into his hands.

        "You are the big brother now, Rualith," his father said, calling him by the childhood name he'd been given, which meant "Little Star."  He placed a hand on the side of Shaundar's face and guided it upwards, until all Shaundar could see was his father's sharp blue eyes.  "She will need you to protect her and take care of her.  Can you do that, son?"

        Shaundar looked down at the little bundle in his arms, who looked back at him with her own sky blue gaze.  She had stopped crying and was gazing at him with the puzzlement and wonder that all newborn babes seem to feel.  Then her little mouth widened into a smile and she gurgled happily.  And Shaundar was overcome with a fierce sense of love and protectiveness, and he made a vow then and there that no one would ever harm this precious little bundle.

        He looked back into his father's piercing gaze, which often made him feel small and uncomfortable, only this time he did so without a trace of those feelings.  "Yes sir," he swore solemnly from the depths of his spirit and heart.

        Shaundar and his best friend Yathar used to spend a lot of time together, even when very small, because their fathers were both in the Elven Imperial Navy, and served aboard the same ship.  The war was over, of course, but that kind of bond never seems to fade, and their fathers were as inseparable as they.  The boys never minded bringing Shaundar's little sister Selena along for the ride, because her spirit of mischief was as well developed as their own, and she really wasn't that much younger.  It seemed to Shaundar that they were always in trouble.  Maybe they even were.

        Their world was called Myrua, which meant "Emerald Star," which is what it looked like from the sphere's homeworld, Toril.  It was nestled in a cluster of many small worlds growing like fruit from the cosmic tree that the northmen called Yggdrasil's Child, and most spacefarers simply referred to as Garden.  Such a place was naturally very attractive to elves, being so obviously full of life, and perhaps that's why a large contingent of Elven Navy personnel and their families had settled the Great Tree in the early days of the Unhuman War.  But it was also a pirate haven, due to the large numbers of interweaving passageways between the great branches, so the Navy were kept in fighting shape, war or no war.  Still, the elves who called Myrua their home loved it and the tree it grew on, and they secretly called it the Great Oak, or affectionately, "Old Man," in honor of Rillifane Rallathil, the elven deity of forests and of trees, who they firmly believed must have made it especially for them.

        There was even a public school for the children, which was a point of great pride for the People of Myrua, being as most major cities in the heart of "civilization" did not have such a thing; although, being elves, courses, requirements, and rules were less than you might expect.  Not attending because you weren't in the mood to do so was perfectly acceptable by the school - although it may not have been acceptable to your parents.  Shaundar's parents were supportive of the need for education, so he would be sternly lectured if he ever missed more than a couple of days at a time.  This may not seem like much, but elves seem to rarely need the firm discipline and punishments that human children require.  An elven spirit is innately connected in a small, barely perceivable way, to those of the rest of his People, and so the disappointment of your parents was more than sufficient as an active deterrent; at least, most of the time.

        But as Shaundar began to grow up, going to school became more difficult.  As he grew older, his schoolmates began to learn about the world, and acquire the prejudices of their parents, and Shaundar and, to a lesser degree, Selena, began to learn about those prejudices in a different way.

        It wasn't as though the other children were ever friendly.  When Shaundar came into the lunch room, all except Yathar would get up and move if he sat at their table, and it didn't seem to matter if the table was populated by sun or moon elves, among whom there was a very strong division.  The gold elves looked down their noses at him, saying that he was "a mongrel" and that his family was a "disgrace to the blood."  The term "gray elf," always insulting even to the full moon elves for whom it was intended, was used with fair frequency in his presence, and then someone started adding inflections to his family name that changed it from a description of a sunset or a shooting star, to "sun that fell from grace."

        But on the other side of the gold elven snobbery was moon elven contempt for the gold elf within him.  He gathered that they thought of him as arrogant and self-important, because it wasn't uncommon for them to get together in packs, hunt Shaundar down, and rub his nose literally in the dirt, saying things like "So do you think you're so good now, Sunfall?  Think you're better than us now?"

        He would try to tell them that he didn't think any such thing - quite the opposite, actually.  But it failed to help him.  Perhaps it was the way he said it, for his accent was probably more gold than silver elven, having learned to speak from his father's mild, cultured tones.

        To his credit, Yathar, being bigger and stronger than the skinny, gangly kid that Shaundar was, always stood up for him; but he couldn't always be there, and Shaundar went home many a day with a bloodied nose and bruises on his eyes.

        Maybe part of the problem was that Shaundar was possessed of the gold elven aptitude for book learning.  He was a shy, quiet, scholarly lad; and to passionate moon elves, this was an oddity that did not go unnoticed.  He was always at the top of his class in scholastic arts, mostly without even trying, and this managed to infuriate the proud sun elves as well, who felt that one of their "own" should hold that position.  Or maybe it was simply that Shaundar never fought back in his own defense.  Yathar and his father alike were exasperated by this, and Shaundar didn't really know why he didn't - except maybe on some level, he believed he was a freak and deserved the derision of the rest of the world.

        This was all bound to change the year that Selena also entered the school.  It started, actually, with his history instructor.

        His name was Ty'leth Symbaern, a noble gold elf from a well-respected gold elven family, and for some reason he took an instant dislike to Shaundar from the moment they met.  Shaundar remembered well how the master's amber eyes narrowed to slits as he entered the room, and already he knew fear of the elf lord; for he held that rank here on Myrua, the leader of his clan.  Shaundar bowed to him with perfect courtly etiquette, as his father had taught him.  "It's an honor to meet you, quessir," he said quietly, using the formal term for an honorable elf lord.

        But the elf lord scowled darkly.  "Did I give you permission to speak?" he demanded.

        Shaundar, somewhat confused, replied, "No sir."

        "Go sit down, Sunfall," was the only answer he got.

        So he sat down.  With a further glare in his direction, Lord Symbaern began the lesson, which was about the history of lost Myth Drannor.  This was a story that Shaundar knew well, because his family had been formed just after the fabled city's fall by some of the survivors.  His father had been one of the now near mythical Ahk'Faern, a soldier of magic; but he was conscripted by the Navy into the Unhuman War when the Army of Darkness, mostly goblinoids led by a trio of fiends known as the Khov'Aniless, the "Trio Nefarious," descended upon the elven kingdom of Cormanthyr and destroyed it.

        But Shaundar's father believed in honesty, no matter how much the truth hurt, and he had confided in his son that elven arrogance and hubris had a great deal to do with Myth Drannor's fall.  He told his son a terrible story of how, at the passing of the last Coronal and the apparent assassination of his heir, the noble Houses of the city had fought for the right to take up the Ruler's Blade; how one-by-one they were deemed unworthy and destroyed by the power of the Sword; how when others, first moon elves, then common elves of all sorts, then Sha'Quessir, had tried to take up the Blade they were cut down in the streets; how finally it had all degenerated into a mass of infighting and chaos in the streets; and how the Srinshee, High Mage guardian of the Blade, had taken it and the legendary Rule Tower and disappeared; and no one knew where, or even whether or not she and the sacred Sword had been destroyed.

        So needless to say, Shaundar was rather surprised by the day's lesson.  "Today," Professor Symbaern announced as his students settled in, "we study the destruction of Myth Drannor, and the human conspiracy at the heart of it."

        Shaundar raised his hand and was ignored.  "Many of the noble houses thought it a bad idea when the Coronal Eltargrim Irithyll permitted the expansion of the city of Myth Drannor to other races," the Professor continued.  "He felt that living in harmony was the only way in which the People would develop and survive.  So we taught them our secrets, our magic - and of course you see how our kindness was repaid."

        "But that's not the way it happened at all!" Shaundar burst out, unable to contain his indignation.

        Yathar cast him a glare that said firmly, "shut up," but Shaundar wasn't about to.  "Oh really, Sunfall?" sneered the elven lord darkly.  "So then, since you know so much more about it than I do, when I was there, who told you otherwise?"

        "My father was Akh'Faerna," Shaundar replied proudly, "and he told me what really happened."

        The Professor was less than impressed.  "Is that so?" he returned with a raised eyebrow.  "Well, I was Akh'Faerna too, of the rank of Arshaalth.  Your father . . . ah yes, I think I remember him, Nikym, wasn't he?  And a completely inept fool.  You can join me for detention tonight, Sunfall, and spare me any further pronouncements of the idiot who sired you."

        Shaundar turned red with rage until the rest of the class began to snicker, and then his eyes filled with tears.

        He sat for his detention that night - and the next night, and the next.