Cada’s Journey
In the forgotten village of Virelen, nestled between the ancient Elvenwood and the whispering Silver Peaks, lived a quiet girl named Cada. With eyes like storm clouds and hair the color of raven feathers, she rarely spoke, but her thoughts ran deeper than the roots of the oldest trees.
Cada was the daughter of a once-great hunter, but after her father’s mysterious disappearance into the forest seven winters ago, her family fell into silence and shadow. The villagers whispered that the forest had taken him — that he had gone searching for the “Heart of Elvenwood,” a mythical gem said to pulse with the spirit of the land itself.
Most had forgotten him. Cada had not.
On the eve of her sixteenth year, a strange wind came from the woods — warm in the dead of winter. That night, Cada dreamed of a stag with silver antlers and eyes like fire. It bowed to her in the dream, then turned and walked into the forest.
She woke with a purpose.
Without telling anyone, she packed her father’s old satchel: a worn knife, dried fruit, and his journal — the last thing he left behind. Before the sun rose, she stepped into the forest, drawn by a pull older than memory.
The Elvenwood was alive.
Trees whispered in a language she didn’t understand. Shadows moved where there was no light. Yet Cada pressed on, guided by flashes of silver — a flicker of fur, the glint of antlers, and the haunting echo of hooves on leaves.
Days passed. She crossed rivers that spoke in riddles, climbed cliffs guarded by stone-faced owls, and walked paths that twisted like thought. Along the way, she discovered her voice — not in words, but in song. The forest responded to it. Vines unraveled. Light bloomed. The deeper she went, the more she felt part of something vast and old.
At the heart of the forest, where even the bravest dared not go, she found it: a clearing bathed in golden mist. The silver stag waited. In its eyes, she saw her father — not lost, but changed, bound to the forest by choice. He had become its guardian, trading his life to protect the balance between man and nature.
The stag knelt, and from the ground rose the Heart of Elvenwood — not a gem, but a seed pulsing with light.
Cada understood. Her journey was never to find her father, but to carry on his purpose.
She returned to Virelen, the seed in her hand, and planted it at the center of the village. From it grew a tree like none had seen before, and from that day forward, the people lived not beside the forest — but with it.
And Cada, once silent and shadowed, became the voice of the woods.
