Two
The Full Brook embroiders the edge of the north-western
path. If you follow it, it promises itself again and again as a guide, but it
is an insincere companion and entices you only to dead ends, deep into nowhere.
In the deepest of nowhere, four shopping trollies are tipped on their sides to
form stepping stones across the brook, caving uneasily underfoot. The brook
sulks in milky stillness; a sheen of scum caught on its surface by the dam
formed at the trollies.
This is the place of the Walstad, the dwellers of the upper end of a stream, or a well. They were called the Walstede d’Elves.
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