Elf bard

 The night the wall was not yet a wall,

the wind carried more than dust.

It carried fear.

The southern plains burned beyond the half-built stones.

Shouts rose and broke like waves against unfinished defenses.

Men ran where they were told to stand.

Others stood where they knew they would fall.

And behind it all, in a narrow room without windows,

the children slept.

Not peacefully.

Not at first.

They clung to one another in the dark,

small hands searching for something steady

in a world that had begun to shake.

In the corner, an elf sat with his back against the cold stone.

He did not belong to them.

Not to their kind, nor their war.

He had only meant to pass through.

But the world had a way of asking more.

He lifted the instrument in his hands—

old wood, pale with age,

strings that remembered songs older than this land.

For a moment, he did nothing.

Outside, something struck the wall.

Closer now.

Then he began to play.

The melody was soft.

Measured.

Unbroken.

A language no one in the room understood,

yet every note carried something familiar—

like warmth remembered from a distant place.

One by one, the restless breaths slowed.

The quiet returned, fragile but real.

He watched them as he sang.

Counted them.

Memorized the way their faces softened in sleep,

as if he could take them with him

into whatever came after.

The song he chose was not meant for this.

It was older than grief.

Reserved for those of his kind

who had reached their final silence.

He had heard it only once before.

And now, he gave it to them.

The walls trembled again.

Voices in the corridor.

Steel against wood.

One child stirred, eyes half-open,

caught between fear and dream.

The elf’s voice lowered—

gentler now, closer.

The child looked at him, confused,

as if trying to understand a meaning beyond words.

Then the eyes closed again.

Sleep.

The melody did not falter.

Not when the door shook.

Not when the sound of battle drew too near.

Because as long as the song endured,

the world outside had not yet entered.

And for a few final moments—

that was enough.

Centuries later, the wall stood whole.

Men came and went.

They called it duty, trade, survival.

Few remembered how it began.

The room still remained, hidden behind older stone.

Unused.

Unmarked.

The elf returned.

He stood in the doorway for a long time

before stepping inside.

Empty.

No breath.

No fear.

No small hands reaching in the dark.

Only silence.

He sat where he once had.

And after a while—

he played again.

Not to calm.

Not to carry.

Only to remember.