Eschew the feelings of anyone but yourself.
Make wrong in your heart what is not the way.
-- Gromning Addlebury, fourth theologian of Wayness
Nobody expected her to kill herself. Nobody could imagine it, so nobody tried to do anything for her. They denied to themselves that she was so lost. The masks everyone wore when communicating hid her from everyone. And that is what she wanted.
-- from the Report of the Elvish Council Concerning the Death of Avery Simbolen
Avery walked through the fields and hills of the Varnden Wood every chance she got. It was a place she could wonder at nature and forget her life for a moment. It was a place where she cried at the waste she felt she was. The beauty of the wood was overwhelming to her.
She felt others thought it was "just a wood." She felt that others thought there was always someplace else better than the wood. Someplace more magical that this simple wood. But to Avery this was the same as any other place. Different, but as magical as any other she had ever seen (which wasn't many).
Her friend Jory had brought her to this wood. He told her of a time he met a traveller in this wood, a traveller from a very strange place. Jory said he wanted to meet another traveller so kept returning, but he had never met anyone again. Avery thought that she would meet a traveller herself some day. The magic was that strong.
The monks of the Wayness wandered this wood alone sometimes, but they would hide from you if you came upon them. Avery would find them in their hiding places and try to get them to walk with her, but they would not. They felt they had to be at one with themselves in this wood. Avery wanted to share it with them, but they would have none of it.
