Wild kudu understand souls and water more than anyone else can begin to.
It is night that they slip out beneath the moon to chase the souls, drinking the sweet, clean waters of their river and listening to the wind. Their hooves touch the waves as their tongues lap at them, bothering nothing and worrying of no one. How peaceful it is to be an animal of beauty and silence. How enchanting it is to watch them.
Five elves have followed the kudu to the river. They watch them, crouching still as stone in the long grasses on rocks above where they gather, taking in the sight.
For the shortest moment in time, there is no war between them. While the moon strikes their sleek shoulders and braids itself into their every tendril of hair, this tranquility is kept alive only by the elves' silence and hesitance to move.
"They are so gentle," speaks one of them in a whisper. "It is a marvel that they cannot be trained."
"They can be," refutes another, "but it is clear that they wish to decide when that will be."
They are all quiet once more. The kudu, one by one, lift their heads from the river and finish their drinking, slowly gathering together inland again before heading back into the forest.
They would have stayed if the elves had not been watching them. But they know. They always do, no matter how quiet you are or how still you sit. They know more than a mere elf can begin to fathom. They know the spirits of the water, and they know rivers, and they have hearts made out of the seashells themselves.
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Passersby ➵ ONC 2021
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