History: As a very young child born unexpectedly to a wandering group of elves, Payi was a pleasant surprise. But there was the problem that the group was muddling through difficult terrain, and through Human territory at that. Not the humans that Winnowill was beginning to manipulate and ply with her wiles to serve the Blue Mountain elves, no - these others were tribal and savage, almost unhinged at the mere thought of elves existing. So they had to keep moving, they ran from shelter to shelter, and in one spot there was at least a little time to relax. That spot proved to be the last place that her family saw her - until, well. Later.

Payi had toddled around, learning how to run and climb, but she was still too young to realize the dangers of the world. Shining cocoons dangled from leaves in one part of this wood, with creeping catterpillars and ... other bugs, spinning them. Eating leaves or whatever-it-was they chewed. She'd never seen a butterfly, and it would be several thousand years before she did. The Preserver that 'caught' her decidedly saved her life, since shortly after she discovered this strange place, humans ran her group off and would have found her if she'd returned to their encampment nearby.

Asleep for so long, both sheltered from danger outside, and open to the magical drift of elf minds, it was actually quite a while before Payi realized she was asleep at all. There were such clear visions, the seasons as they changed, the deer and squirrels and birds everywhere? They filled her mind as well as the faintly heard sounds in her muffled ears. An elf came to her, frequently, not one she knew - and thankfully not that 'Winnowill' that was known to be able to send her thoughts out or catch stray minds within her own. Had Winnowill ever known about her, she might have been captured by elves instead of humans.

No, this elf was old, and had wandered far north. Maybe he was the same one who gently touched her family's minds, leading them away from Blue Mountain. In time, that mind was joined by others, strangers from south and north, east and west. The cold crept down to where this sheltered and now cocoon-filled glade rested. Froze it all over, but the silken Preserver wrappings kept everything inside them alive and warm. Even after the trees snapped and died from the ice, the cocoons rested under a pile of branches and hollow trees, as Payi learned the history of her people from minds of those who perished along their journey.

They were all heading somewhere, those minds. But she would not want to visit that 'palace' thing just yet. True, she felt its call, but it wasn't for her. Not yet anyway. After all, those minds told her that they'd fled it. Why would they want to go back to it now?

She didn't age inside that cocoon. She was still a mere child when she was finally roused - a sapling had grown tenuously over the long-frozen pile of tumbled branches, but was not suited to the climate as it had become so cold. It fell, and ripped her silken wrap just enough to expose her face. She woke and climbed out... to a new, white-covered and extremely chill world.

But she liked the cold! And she could still feel the minds, there were more distantly, but almost at all times there was at least one or two lingering around her. From them she gathered ideas: you can open that small wrap and that's your first hunted meal! She did still have a small stone knife, it was sharp but too large for her child hands, and she would grow into it. But it worked just fine on a groggy squirrel popped out from that shell.

She learned survival skills, though there was always a slightly bittersweet feeling from any of the elder elfin minds that touched hers - if they were better at it, they wouldn't be dead, now would they? Payi preferred the sharp end of a stick to keep a little distance between her and whatever creature she hunted - and the wood found among the cocoons was good for that, almost as hard as the stone underfoot. There were no humans here now, they had, according to one elf spirit, sensibly moved south away from the encroaching ice wall.

One day she finally saw that ice wall. Through squinting eyes, hidden under half-stiff and uncured hide clothing, she saw a glacier for what it was: inexorable and insurmountable.

She didn't need to mount that glacier to get where she needed to be, though. For one night, it was another strange elf mind that was speeding toward the Palace to the north that gave her a brief and joyous glimpse at ... another mountain, but not Blue Mountain. Bald they called it, it was bare of most big trees, and it was south east by a bit. Difficult to reach for a child. But she would only be a child a few turns of these very cold seasons. In that time Payi continued to hunt and develop marginal skills - fire making, stitching together rudimentary clothing from the skins and furs of creatures she hunted. She did become pretty decent at tracking prey, and once she discovered a spare antler from a passing deer herd, she enjoyed carving their cast-off defenses into things useful for herself!

But she wanted to talk, to shout, to laugh, to sing ... with others. She knew there were other elves. She had glimpses of their histories and their lives, all of them as they passed by her on their way toward the elusive and still-distant Palace where the souls of elves would go. There were such a variety of those elves, she wondered how many had lived and died already? Thousands, certainly, and she'd learned to count that high too, in the time she grew and traveled.

Payi was one of the few wandering elves who knew where to look and found Bald Mountain all on her own. It was still 'new' according to spirits' chatter - but it had been established nearly two hundred years before! There was a thriving community! They were eager to see who she was, what she was about... And to get her into some 'proper' clothing for once, because when she arrived she was a shambling lump of stiff and stinky hides...

***

She finally got the chance to talk to elves with her mouth instead of her mind! They told her of their own adventures, some even confirming what the dead minds had mentioned - a few years before now, there was a massive number of spirits that shot from Blue Mountain. Many of them hardly realized they were dead, some few knew secrets about the place, about their 'leader', and about her plans.

There would be nothing they could do about those plans, once they went into action. But the elves of Bald Mountain Holt were safe and secure because of the dragons they rode. Payi's only regret was that more humans didn't have the same magic that elves did - what would it have been like to one of them, seeing these amazing creatures? While there were a couple of them here and a 'friendly' tribe nearby, Payi was still baffled at their lack of magic. In many ways, she was still a child, so young as to be all but waved off by a few of the eldest in this tribe.

But plenty more enjoyed her questions, her unusual skills, and her open mind. Possibly for that reason she was chosen to head off to this place, Lantessama by name, when she was a little more grown. It had been four-hands of turns (15 or so years) since her arrival, and Payi was still flitting around the holt looking for things to learn and share. Other elves had arrived in the meantime, and one (or more) of them would be accompanying her. They had deer dragons, and that was apparently something all of the elves were curious about! Plus, they were in the middle of a winter festival! She missed the very cold and snowy climate, and always stuck herself into the highest and chillest of the aeries. You don't sit in the middle of a glacier for two thousand years, she explained, without gaining an appreciation for the cold!

So maybe there would be a dragon in her future, and then she'd be able to figure out what to do with herself, only flying!