Talentless // Fitz Vacker

// four //

 Adora hasn't been is too many quiet places, neither did Sophie considering she could hear everyones thoughts so neither of them have experiences anything like the silence of the Wandering Woods. 

There was no chirping or tweeting. No branches creaking and rustling. It was like all sound—all life for that matter—had been sucked out of the scenery, leaving thing but a thick almost tangible emptiness. 

Adora imagined that this is what it would feel like to jump into a painting. Everything around you looks like there should be life and light but alas it's just paint. 

Even the silver pebbles didn't crunch as Adora and Sophie followed Grady and Edaline down a winding path, which seemed to glow as she moved, shining the way to the narrow gateway ahead. 

A vine with white star-shaped flowers trailed up two gilded columns to an arched golden sign with looping intricate letters that spelled out: 

𝓣𝓱𝓸𝓼𝓮   𝔀𝓱𝓸   𝔀𝓪𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓻  𝓪𝓻𝓮   𝓷𝓸𝓽   𝓵𝓸𝓼𝓽.

"I've heard that before..." Sophie mumbled. Sophie racked her brain before tapping Adora's arm. "Lord of the Rings!" 

Adora beamed as she remembered the quote. "All that gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost." Adora recited. "I mean it's close enough to Lord of the Rings." 

"The Lord of the Rings?" Edaline repeated. 

"It's a series of human books. And it has elves in." Sophie explained. 

"Are the books older?" Grady asked. 

"I think Tolkien wrote them during the Nineteen Thirties or Forties." 

"That's back before the Human Assistance Program was banned." Grady smiles when their eyebrows shot up. "We used to send members of the nobility in disguise to try to teach humans our ways. The treaties had fallen apart but we still helped to guide them, bring them out of the darkness and into the new age of light. In fact, most of the great human innovations of the last few centuries happened under elvin tutelage. Electricity. Penicillin. Chocolate cake. But too many of our gifts backfires and a few decades ago the problems escalated to the point where the Council had no choice but to terminate the program and ban all human contact." 

"What does that have to do with Lord of the Rings?" 

"Let's just say there were some elves who couldn't resist manipulating the legends about elves a bit." 

"So you're saying that J. R. R. Tolkien met an elf and that where he came up with some of the story?"  (A/n is this the elf equivalent of writing fan fiction about celebrities?)

"I wouldn't be surprised. Though I'm sure he was only told bits and pieces. Do the books talk about Wanderlings at all?" 

Adora racked her brain. "I don't think so but I haven't read them for a while." 

"Then he didn't know what the statement meant." Grady motioned for them to follow him. Edaline trailed silently behind as the crossed under the arch and entered the woods. "These are the Wanderlings."

It was unlike any forest Sophie had ever seen. The glowing path wound through a sea of carefully arranged trees, each one surrounded by meticulously groomed shrubs. No two tree were alike. Some short and broad, others tall and slender. Some look stout and strong while others looked graceful and swayed with the wind. There were leaves of every shape, size and color. Some had flowers. One even had thorns. And at the base of each tree was a roand white gravestone with a name carved in plain black letters.