((I don't know if this is the place for stories, and I don't share much, but since I couldn't find a place for our own fan stories and saw a few stories here. I thought I'd share. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays)) It was unusually cold for winter in the lush green forests of the Greater Faydark. The valley lands rolling hills spread out from the great hanging tree city of Kelethin, as of yet untouched by the calamity that would be the Rending hundreds of years from now. The air itself was still with the pregnant expectation of the first snowfall in years. While smiling joyful wood elves, half-elves, and the occasional human went about their business on the tree top platforms for on the Fae had not yet been born into the world of Norrath. “I don’t get it,” I grumped with a sour expression to to woman hanging colorful baubles from every nook and cranny of the small wooden home we stayed in while she helped me recover and taught me the ways of my once hated surface enemies. Sure, I may not have hated them any more, per se, but I sure didn’t care a lot for them or their joyful smiling ways. Red gold hair shifted like a curtain as she peek from behind it and over her shoulder. Green eyes twinkling with a light of excitement and a, to me, unnecessary happiness for a mere changing to the horrible cold season. “There’s nothing to “get”, Xannis. Frostfell is just a time of year to reflect and appreciate what life has given you. To spend with family and friends. To share in do good for others as you have had done for you. Tunare herself has been said to approve of the day for it brings with it change and growth, not of plants, but mayhap of character.” Glaring at her back at the mention of the goddess that had, in my mind at least, ruined my life and destroyed the very fabric of my reality of what it meant to be Teir’Dal. “To the hells with Tunare… If she likes it, I want nothing to do with it.” Crossing my arms over my chest and turning my head to look out the window as Lyta sighed patiently. Outside the window an elderly half elf woman carried far to many bundles for her stooped frame. She made slow progress across the way, her sight blinded by the bundles stacked in her over loaded arms before her. Her arms went up and her packages flew high into the quiet chill night and down she went, having missed the step to the next platform. Landing hard she looked dazed as the parcels landed and skidded all around her. I chuckled, amused. However, it wasn’t the same. Where I used to get delight in the suffering of others, there was a pang. A tugging in my chest that I had not felt before. I did not like it. It was like an invisible unseen force was literally pulling on my heart in the old womans direction. Not knowing what it meant and even less what to do about it. I just stared. A little elf girl and boy, brother and sister by the look of them, came suddenly to the old woman. Helping her up and giving her a wide smile as she smiled back and thanked them. The girl dusting the woman off as the boy ran around like a child possessed and gathered up the packages. The elf boy balanced them atop each other far easier than the old woman and stepped up to them looking like nothing more than a stack of boxes and wrapped parcels with legs. The woman and girl traded looks and began to giggle, each going to him to help reduce his burden and revealing his own smiling visage behind the stack.Together the three of them began to walk with the children going along with her talking and laughing as they helped carry the load together. He tensed as he felt a delicate hand upon his shoulder, “Random acts of kindness. Of helping those that need help for no other reason, that they need help. With no expectation of reward beyond the reward of helping another in need.” I had a retort nocked, loaded, and ready to fly, but I held my tongue. She handed me a green plant with little red berries tied together with a red ribbon. “You are taller, can you hang this for me, right over there?” “I..” Turning over the plant in my hand I turned up to look at her. Smiling she just stared down at me, patient, always patient. I couldn’t take her look of hopeful expectation and looked away at the plant again. Knowing it was just another stupid Frostfell tradition I stood. After all, she had done so much for me, I could give her this one, tiny thing. Just once won’t hurt. Stepping before the fireplace where she had pointed I stretched out on the tips of my toes and hung it from the support beam that stretched across there. Backing up I inspected my work and nodded approvingly as she stood beside me. “That’s the last of the decorations. An important one as well. “Thank you,” she said quietly, weaving her arm into the crook of mine as she looked up at the hanging plant. “For what?” “Helping me without expectation. For the simple act of helping another. It is not a grand step, perhaps, for most people. For you though, Mr. Xannis Sul’Egna…. it means a lot.” She grinned up at me. I looked away, my cheeks growing unpleasantly hot with embarrassment but also something else. Pride? No.. not pride. Pride was something I knew well and this certainly wasn’t it. What is there to be proud of in hanging a dead plant after all? No, it was warm and made me feel … good. Deflecting from this I asked, “What is it anyway?” “It’s a magical plant we call Mistletoe,” she replied coyly. “Magical? I sense no magic in that bauble. It is just a dead plant.” “Are you so sure?” I looked to the plant again and nodded, “Mm.. It has a powerful magic, Xannis, the magic of tradition.” Tugging on my arm with her, she pulled me under it and looked up to be sure, then into my eyes. “The tradition of Mistletoe is that if two people stand under it, they must kiss and bring themselves good luck for the year. To not do so, could bring bad luck in its place.”Now she stepped onto her tip toes, wrapping her arms around the back of my neck and kissed me. Our first kiss. Truly though, it was my first kiss as well. I had kissed before, being hundreds of years old, however, this was the first one in which the act, actually had something more to it. A warmth of affection. The tingle of expectation that the person sharing the kiss, wanted nothing more from me, than just to be with me. And I with her. The Blood Terror of Neriak, my former self and all I knew, died with that kiss under a mistletoe on a Frostfell eve. Smiling up at me as she stood flat footed again looking up at me and pulled out a red fuzzy hat from behind her belt and stuffed it on to my head. Batting the white puffball at the end behind my head, “Merry Frostfell, Xannis Sul’Egna. I cracked the first smile, true smile, in an age as the snow began to fall silently outside, “Merry Frostfell, Lyta Starfall.” That was the first time I remember Frostfell. A first of many things for my long life in fact. I try to pass this feeling on as best I can, though, I’m nowhere near as cunning as Lyta was at it. I pass on to you all this message all the same. Be kind to one another. Do for others without expectation of reward or praise, simply because it is the right thing to do. That those small act of kindness build and while they may not be noticed or even remembered they will always, and forever, be felt.Merry Frostfell.
