This scene takes place before Elara’s adventure begins.

The sun was just beginning to stretch its golden fingers over the forest’s edge when Elara unlatched the shutters of her apothecary shop. Morning dew still clung to the mossy eaves, and the air smelled of damp bark and woodsmoke. A faint breeze stirred the herbs strung from the ceiling. Bundles of lavender, yarrow, and sage swayed gently like bells.

Inside, the shop was quiet. Peaceful. The way she liked it.

She tied her auburn hair back with a strip of linen, her fingers deft from years of repetition. Light filtered through the windows and caught the glass bottles lining her shelves. Hues of amber, green, and cobalt danced across the walls. Each bottle was labeled with a careful script. Dried roots crackled softly as she ground them into powder with her mortar and pestle. The motion was rhythmic, soothing, and steadying.

On the hearth, water simmered in a wide clay kettle, filling the air with the scent of mint and rosemary. Today’s tinctures would be for minor complaints: sprained wrists, spring coughs, aching joints. Nothing urgent. Nothing strange.

Just life, as it was.

Elara stepped outside to gather a few sprigs of lemon balm growing near the fence. The village of Edgewood was only beginning to stir. A pair of doves cooed from the eaves. Far off, a cart wheel creaked.

By midmorning, the first visitor arrived. Old Marnen the cobbler grumbled about his knees but never failed to bring her a pouch of sweet tobacco in exchange for salve.

“Elara, your balm is the only thing that keeps me walking,” he said as he settled onto the stool by the fire. “Though I wouldn’t mind if it made me faster, too.”

She chuckled and handed him the tin, still warm from the shelf. “It might, if you stop planting yourself like an oak every evening with a pint and a plate of cheese.”

“And miss supper?” he said with a groan. “You are asking the impossible.”

Later came Serra Rindle and her two boys, one of whom had stepped in a thorn patch while chasing a frog. Then young Tessa arrived with her grandmother’s old remedy for headaches, hoping Elara could help her make it stronger. Preferably without tasting like burnt moss this time.

And always, her mind wandered to thoughts of the forest.

It waited quietly beyond the cottage garden where she lived with her aunt Mae. Its shadows stretched long and green. Its songs wove through birdsong and breeze. Elara often gathered herbs there, but never ventured too far into the depths of the forest. Not yet. But she had always felt its presence. It watched her in a way that was not unkind. Just patient. As if it already knew something she had yet to learn.

There were parts of herself she did not fully understand. Her ears were not as sharply pointed as the forest elves, but the curve of them still always caught glances from villagers who thought they were being subtle. Her senses were sharper than most. She could hear the river before she saw it. She could sense the weather before it changed. Sometimes she dreamed of things that later came to pass. None of it had a name, not one she used aloud. 

Her aunt Mae called it a gift. Others called it odd. Elara had learned to stop calling it anything at all. But the word was always there, on the edge of her thoughts. Magic.

That afternoon, she sorted dried violet petals into muslin satchels while a gentle rain tapped against the windows. She hummed a melody she could never remember learning. It might have come from her father, though he had never spoken much of his people that she could remember. Not openly. Not often. However, she had only been three when he and her mother vanished. Hardly old enough to remember much of them. He had been an elf, and she, a human. 

A knock came just as she placed the last bundle on the shelf.

A traveler stood outside, soaked through, with blistered heels and a fever coming on. She brewed him a tonic of elderberry and goldenseal, settled him near the fire, and gave him bread with honey. He said little. She asked nothing. That was the kind of place her shop had become. A quiet space where people could rest without explanations. She liked it that way.

By nightfall, the traveler had moved on, and the kettle was empty. The shelves were a little more bare. The air was thick with the scent of thyme and smoke and lavender burned low. Elara closed the shutters and locked the door. Her arms were tired, but her heart was calm. This was her rhythm. This was her way.

She walked home beneath a sky brushed clean by rain. The villagers passed her in silence, just as they usually did when she was outside the confines of her shop. That was how it had always been. The villagers never really accepted her as one of their own. Sometimes she yearned to be normal, to spend her evenings in the pub, laughing and singing as the others did. 

Still, the stars shone brightly above, and the night was clear and beautiful.

Back at the cottage, Aunt Mae was waiting for her with a warm cup of tea and the comfort of familiar conversation. Outside, the forest rustled softly in the dark, as if breathing with the land.

Elara had no idea how much would change in the seasons to come.