when the trees bend and snap in the breeze, words are lost upon their ears. they are keen-hearted, keen-eyed, keen-eared-- but sometimes in the darkness their eyes do not shine sharp enough.
the trills fall from the hunters' lips like water from a waterfall, clear laughter of a spring: birds, they seem, to the untrained ear, birds laughing their joy in the morning mist. but they are wolves ahead, and may the hunter guide you, and the tracks are fresh.
himeleth learns the thryss-aew before she can even speak the people's tongue: the languages are not so different, trills and silvarin words follow each other with ease in speech patterns hewn from wood and air and starlight-- but one, the first one, the one rooted in every nightingale's heart, the tongue the trees taught the children of pava-adar is secret, guarded, kept from prying ones who do not understand. it is difficult, after all, to learn a language that has been fed to elflings with their mothers' milk and their grandmothers' tales, ever since they reached for stars the first time, when you are not one of them, when you do not know what paths the hunters take in the depth of the forest.
it is a language of soft cadences and sharp breaks, sharper turns. it is a language few are taught beyond childhood: those who have the privilege of this understand, despite not being told, that they have been allowed to walk where the earth is sacred, the trees the ground the sun, even the air they breathe.
it is a language for the deepest, darkest prayers. it is a language of song, a language of joy, a language of beauty and rain and bitter tears.
it is a language of gods for gods walk through the forest, and leave their light shining upon the leaves, leave their laughter in the air, and chipping sparrows take it in their hearts, their little beating hearts, and whisper it to the children in the light.