How foolish were the gods to think not of man.
How profoundly foolish they were to think not of those that dwell outside their microcosmic view.
They have only wrought darkness upon themselves in their ignorance, and death to their people.
For in their twilight, as the black drake's wings sundered mountains and his great jaws devoured the son of Amonn, whilst the eldritch armies marched upon their capital and lay waste to their realm, the All-mother lie locked in pitched battle with an essence of dark that she wished had not stirred memory. They battled until life began to leave her heavenly form, and with a desperate swing, she slew the entity. But before its essence was extinguished, it spat its vile darkness upon her daughter's homeland, Ithriel. In its deep amber forests lay the Goddess of Flora and Fauna, blissfully ignorant to the darkness that fell from the heavens and now lie trapped 'neath her woodlands. The darkness festered as it met with the waters, infecting its subterranean rivers with its sorcerous ichor. And from that oily obsidian basin crawled man, a curiosity of both chance and destiny: foolish and fleeting in form, but resilient and ambitious. Despite their hardship, through their blind tenacity alone they crawled to the land above their sunken birthing place and history was born anew. Elvish memory lost, dwarven lore forgotten, a new age awoke, yawning and grey.

And out from that chasm from which they crawled, ages of growth and ages of torment came with them. And there, 'neath the evergreen cloak of the whispering forest, is where we lay our scene.

Twenty years wasted in silence, sworn fealty to naught but the soiled earth.
As years passed on his heart grew cold to men who favored not but gilded stone.
Only in slumber did he find solace from his bitterness, mulled for a lifetime.
Dreams of mythic ventures beckoned through the astral winds.
The belfry toll of witching hour echoes through the misty evening air,
As dreams ride swift upon their resonant chime.
Her voice, so clear and gentle still, calls out like a whisper yet cries as a scream
To coax his heart to wander her temples of oaken shade.
His feet carried rocks across the damp cobblestone, with each passing step growing further from home
Into the murky forests of the whispering trees, to breathe in deep the lands where elves now weep.
Crawled from the prison of his complacent distress
To set forth upon this most glorious of quests.
To far feral woods and all lands that lie between,
His destiny awaits at the foot of his queen.

(Wanderer:)
I have searched for one measure of jubilance in my heart when I look to my home.
I have scoured the regions of my mind, dimly lit by memory, to find what mirth is left for king or country, and I have found nothing. I look to elders and gods for guidance, but my pleas fall upon deaf ears. I look to the castles of men and gaze along their mighty towers, their golden crowns and shimmering thrones, and it seems naught to me more than a foul and arrogant collection of stone. And so I found myself again standing before the great whispering forest. The sprawling garden of oak and ash is my place of worship. The swaying of the wind seems to speak to me, it whispers of secrets long forgotten and stories that I have yet to hear in song. So I believe the wilderness claims something much more precious than silver or gold, mystery.