Part II – The Amorosi
Chapter 3 – In the Beginning
Location: Arbola Forest
Timeline: Sixth Age, 45th Year, Spring
Arbola Forest, bathed in the soft, nascent light of Spring, was a picture of serene duplicity. Everything looked so pristine, so harmonious, but I knew better. The tensions of the council chamber were a cancer eating away at its heart…
Center Vale pulsed within Arbola’s sacred heart, a grove where the Grand Oak’s towering boughs, carved with Alyssa’s sigils, cast dappled sunlight across whispering arbols. A faint hum, like Alyssa’s grace, wove through the air, blending serenity with an introspective weight. Beneath one of the lesser oaks, Nathily sat on a mossy root, her golden hair aglow, her luminous emerald eyes faintly radiant in the shade, their glow unsettling even the sparrows perched above. The air around her, usually so vibrant with the life of the forest, felt heavy with her unspoken anxieties. Her face, so young and pure, was a mask of confusion. The whispers of the council, the disdainful looks from her peers—they had finally broken through her façade of quiet determination.
As a public space, the vale thrummed with bustle—Amorosi artisans carrying woven baskets, scholars clutching scrolls, cooks, tanners, bakers, and more all moving with purpose – yet their glances at Nathily often lingered a bit too long for her comfort. Then it was that The Council members Helena and Ardala passed nearby, their robes swishing against the grass. Nathily noticed Helena’s dark eyes narrowing as she leaned toward Ardala, her voice a sharp whisper: “That adopted Amora unsettles me… her strangeness threatens our harmony.” The young elfess also heard Ardala’s reply was muted: “We must tread carefully, Helena…”
Nathily’s heart tightened as she met Helena’s strange look—a glare laced with hostility that deepened her unease, though its source eluded her. She watched as the pair moved on, their whispers fading into the vale’s bustle, yet their continued gossip prickling her skin. Irked by the encounter and restless from The Council’s continued deadlock about her future, Nathily was unable to find the solace she’d come her for. Why do they fear me? she thought, her composure cracking, insecurity surfacing like a tide. Without thinking, her fingers gripped a sharp stone, and in a rare defiant act, she traced a sigil into the oak’s bark, its lines jagged with frustration. Yet guilt swiftly followed; she spoke words of healing into the tree with trembling hands hoping it might help the arbol repair itself. Breathless, she sat back down and prepared to meditate.
Meanwhile Dallegheri was approaching. The oldster was carrying a bundle of scrolls in his hands and his yellow-white hair cast a halo over him in the sunlight, yet his earth-green eyes were troubled as they met Nathily’s uncertain gaze. Although the elfess was not of his bloodline, the Lore Master’s love for Nathily was boundless – it was in fact a warmth she clung to, never knowing that Dallegheri too was oft ill at ease because of her strange aura – yet it was a mystery he buried beneath a kind smile. “Nathily, my dear,” he said, his voice weathered yet kind, “you look burdened. What troubles you?”
Nathily rose to hug her grandfather, a question rising from her heart. “Sit Nonni, and talk with me. The others… they look at me as if I am an aberration. A mistake. Even my father…” she trailed off, her voice cracking with the pain of her father’s disapproval. “I know he wishes I were different.”
Dallegheri took her hand, his gnarled fingers warm and reassuring. “Child,” he said, his voice as soft as the rustle of leaves in a gentle breeze. “You are not a mistake. You are a miracle. And one day I’m sure you’ll emerge as the most beautiful of our people’s song.”
“Tell me a story, Nonni. Tell me…of our people’s beginning. Tell me about The Arbols. Tell me anything at all!”
“Come with me,” the old librarian said, guiding her to a carved bench beneath the Grand Oak. As he sat down, Dallegheri’s scrolls scattered like leaves and Nathily quickly helped him to gather the parchments as the breeze swirled scents of pine and earth around them. Once they were both seated, Dallegheri’s frail hands unrolled unrolled one of the scrolls, its ink faded yet vivid. “The beginning, Nathily, is a tapestry of myth and mystery,” he began, his voice rich with lore. “As for The Arbols… most have forgotten their true nature. But some of us still remember. After all, one must understand where we came from, before you can truly know where you are going.”
“I want to know who came before us, Nonni?” Nathily said quickly, hoping to direct the tale of her sometimes long-winded grandfather.
Dallegheri’s wrinkles softened, a smile creasing his parchment face. “Ah, you seek the roots of our tale, do you? Then heed this: only the elusive Mylars trod this earth before us Amorosi.”
“Oh, come now, Nonni, are the Mylars real?” Nathily scoffed, dismissing the legend of these diminutive “caretakers” no one she knew had ever glimpsed.
“Quite real,” Dallegheri insisted, wagging a finger as if scolding in jest. “The Mylars and we Amorosi were Terra’s original races, though they preceded us by eons.”
“So that was the Beginning of Time?” Nathily tried to piece the story together in her mind.
Dallegheri chuckled, patting her head as one might a pup. “Not quite, my innocent Amora. The Mylar’s ‘birth’ marked Recorded Time’s dawn, but much transpired before—events even our lore barely grasps.”
“Then how do we know the origin of the Mylars?”
Our History of the Ages claims that Pan and Ahnya, emerging with Terra’s genesis, set about populating it—Pan with his flora, Ahnya with her fauna—until Pan, ever the libertine, seduced Mother Earth herself, birthing the Mylars, the first of our young world’s peoples.” Then in a whisper he added, “Though there are some who believe that another besides Ahnya was the ‘mother’ of the Mylars.”
[Ahnya is the Amorosi name for the goddess Gaia – that lumenarc who Lucifer and I used to create Terra. You’ll recall that the Mylers were not birthed by Pan and Gaia, but instead the union of Pan and the first human woman Lilith – in a breeding session orchestrated by me].
“Who could that be if not Mother Earth herself?” Nathily was surprised, yet intrigued, by the oldster’s allegation that strayed from Amorosi official history.
Dallegheri’s eyes flickered, a cynical note surfacing as his voice lowered. “You’re not ready for that… conspiracy theory yet, child.” And before Nathily could object he continued, “The Mylars were indeed Terra’s first, but when we came along they happily shared the planet with our people. They taught us to commune with beasts, showed us their maps of our flat earth, and even shared some of their secret technology with us. But alas, those good times didn’t last.”
“What happ–?”
“Do you remember,” The decrepit elf interrupted as he thought better about the direction of his story, “the event that is dearest to our people? How did our mother birth us?”
Unable to resist the tale that had been drilled into her as a student in The Glade, Nathily spouted, “Our goddess Alyssa cascaded forth one quiet summer’s day from a shimmering waterfall that fell gently into a lovely secluded forest glade.” Smiling, she went on, “And that location is now the very heart of Meridia Forest – the most ancient of Amorosi abodes.”
“Very good,” Dallegheri nodded, pride swelling his frail frame. “Pan, lounging by the pond, piping his tunes and preening in the water’s mirror, chanced upon her birth. Struck by her beauty, he named her the Goddess of Love and, in his predictable fashion, seduced her. From their union sprang we Amorosi, and our brethren the Atlanteans, together we comprised Terra’s second race.”
[This tale, Dear Reader, is again more fantasy than fact. Alyssa’s waterfall debut—poetic, but hardly true. Like myself, she was a fallen lumenarc that had the unfortunate fate of siding with Lucifer in the Great War of the Heavens. As for Pan seducing Alyssa? Rubbish. I paired her with Adam first and —the Amorosi are thus my handiwork, not Pan’s dalliance].
“So this was all in the First Age?” Nathily asked, engrossed in the tale and forgetting her own troubles.
“Indeed,” he affirmed. “For millennia, Mylars and Amorosi coexisted with Pan, Ahnya, Alyssa, and Terra’s teeming creatures, all under El-Aba’s silent watch from Illyria above—a harmony overseen by The Great Father.”
Nathily tilted her head. “So only the Mylars and Amorosi knew Terra before The Evil One unleashed Death, Hate, and Temptation?”
Dallegheri’s voice lowered as if guarding a secret, “After the Age of Harmony, the Mylars receded from the world – leaving the Amorosi and Atlanteans to roam free, yet even then, tensions brewed—for although you believe our people to be wholely good, that’s hardly true. Among our ancestors while many pursued art’s solace, there were some who chased power. Perhaps this is what opened the door to The Evil One, mayhap it was something else. Yet either way, Baal-Zebub’s minions have plauged us ever since.”
“Why did Alyssa permit evil’s rise?” Nathily wondered.
Dallegheri sighed, “Perhaps she tests us? I know not. Yet our History tells us that Azazel’s arrival shattered Terra when he came—mountains rose, seas surged, continents split. The First Age thus ended in cataclysm, with countless Mylars and Amorosi lost.” His voice softened, love for her tempering his tone. “Yet myths endure, like Sanexpury’s poetry.”
He then handed her a fragile scroll, its verses etched in Third Age ink. “Read this beautiful line, child,” he urged.
Nathily’s voice trembled as she read from the ancient paper: “One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.’”
“You are not different, my love. You are exactly as you should be. One day, the world will understand you.” And grasping her hand, he continued, “It’s my fault, I should have given you Sanexpury’s poetry sooner.”
“Sanexpury – I’ve heard of him, but only in passing. Who was he?”
“A was a poet from Meridia’s Third Age – he traveled with the Mylars, naming them ‘Little Princes.’ In his view, their small stature belied a vast knowledge we Amorosi could only ever envy.”
“But what happened to him?” Nathily asked. “Where can I read more of his writings?”
“I have another scroll in my library but sadly, much of his writing disappeared when he failed to return from his last visit to the Little Princes. Whatever became of him, none know. Yet here is another verse that I recall…”
“And those who fear the storms, who cling to the shore of what they know, Will never know the great wide sea, Or find the island in the mist, where true selves grow.”
A flicker of light ignited in Nathily’s eyes. The poem, so simple, so direct, spoke to the core of her being. It was a call to a truth she could not yet name, a confirmation that her desire for a life beyond her people’s traditions was not a flaw, but a destiny. The poem did not speak of peace and harmony. It spoke of storms and great wide seas. It spoke of a journey into the unknown.
Dallegheri watched her, his own thoughts a tangled mess of hope and fear. He, too, had secrets, even from himself. He believed that he was guiding Nathily down a righteous path, that her destiny as the first female Azora was a blessing from the gods. But he was blinded by his own foolish devotion, chained to a secret he dared not reveal.
Yet that was a fruit not yet ripe. As it was, Nathily and her grandfather talked for some time more, before the librarian took his leave and returned to his council duties. For her part, Nathily went home, feeling inspired.
Later on, twilight cloaked Arbola as Dallegheri entered his bungalow after a long day. Within his sanctuary of knowledge, candlelight danced across cluttered scrolls and artifacts. Exhausted he fell into a chair, his hand absently reaching towards the jade pendant that was hidden beneath a cloth – its Ramosian origin a secret known only to Dallegheri and his long-dead father.
Memories of Inanna and the scandal she led him into —his proposal to his father to consider an alliance with Garrick during The War of the Ghast—stirred regret. Against his will, his secret envy of Rian surfaced and a muttered remark escaped his lips: “Leadership tests the heart, as Rian knows too well.” Again he touched the trinket, Inanna’s allure a private wound yet a desperate consolation he had never been able to shake after all this time.
A knock broke the silence, followed by a messenger, breathless, standing at the door. “Librarian, the council summons you tomorrow. A vote is imminent.”
Dallegheri nodded in reply, yet his cynicism flared. More debates, more discord. As the messenger left, twilight deepened around the Lore Master’s abode, with Arbola’s trees whispering of trials to come…
How exquisite, this tangle of myth and mortal doubt, a drama I now savor though I missed its bloom! Nathily’s radiance, Dallegheri’s secrets, the council’s rift—all threads in a tapestry of strife I’d have tightened, had I but seen. The Amorosi’s flawed tales, their hidden divisions, were chaos I claim in retrospect, for I, Azazel, am the weaver of fates, and Arbola’s unrest, though unnoticed then, was ever mine to relish.
The Apocrypha of Azazel 