Abruptly she was back on her feet, pushing the thought aside, burying it. Elfstones tightly clasped, she stretched out her arm, eyes closed, summoning an image of three blue Elfstones nestled among a collection of others, their colors varied and shifting, all of them back-dropped by a wash of whiteness that caused everything else to disappear.

She focused her thoughts on the image, allowed her breathing to slow and her body to relax and disappear into herself. Where are you?

She felt a slow, insistent heat begin to rise. The magic was awake, an unmistakable presence within her. It stirred sluggishly, troubling her like an itch, then began to spread, flowing from her hand into her outstretched arm, into her chest and through her body, filling her up until she was consumed. She felt no fear as this happened; she experienced no distress. If anything, it felt natural to her. It felt familiar in the way that something you have never seen but always known in your heart feels familiar.

Show me what I need to know.

The heat turned to a brilliant blue light that enveloped her fist, swallowing it. The light intensified, building strength. She watched it happen, fascinated. The light pulsated; its steady throbbing seemed to match the beating of her heart.

Then the light broke free and shot away into the afternoon light and took her with it.

Surrounded by the blue glow of Elven magic, she rides it across the landscape of the Elven Westland, a passenger aboard a swift bird in flight. She is frightened at first, but almost as fast as it appears the fear is gone. She senses she is in no danger; she can feel the rightness of what is happening to her. She has summoned the magic, communicated her wishes, and now she is to be shown what she has asked to see. She need only pay attention to the signposts along the way. She need only take note of the path that the Druids would soon be required to follow. She must remember everything to help them do so.

She is whisked across the Rill Song and into the broad valley of the Sarandanon, the bread basket of the Elven nation. Planted fields and orchards spread away in patchwork fashion, squares and rectangles. Men and women work those fields. Livestock graze them. Homes and barns and pens mark the beginning and end of territories claimed and cultivated. Sunlight bathes the landscape, and time slows.