Thicket of the Bucklebrush:  A Curiously Cautionary Tale

Once upon a time, in a tiny and remote village, there lived an elven youngling named Thicket.  He lived with his father, mother and little brother above their apothecary shop, and every day he played with the many other younglings in his tiny and remote village.  Because his village was so tiny and so remote, they rarely received travelers, but when they did, it was a grand event.  

His village relished tales of faraway and what was happening in the vast parts of the Realm that they had never seen, and very likely would never see.  Thus, it was a treat when one spring evening a faun and elf entered their village.  Both sojourners were weary from the day’s travels, but their eyes sparkled from adventures.  Young Thicket was enthralled with their stories of dodging Orc Jacks and Troll Marleys.  He was enamored when they spoke of sleeping in trees, and he was completely enraptured when they said a herd of unicorns passed silently beneath them one night.  The faun pulled out two long strands of shimmering, coarse hair.  From a unicorn’s tale, he said, and he gave one to Thicket’s father for his apothecary shelves.  

In the morning, the village made a hearty breakfast and waved the friends off as they continued upon their trek.  

Young Thicket’s curiosity had been ignited.  He thought on all the tales they shared and decided that it was his turn to seek adventures.  It was his turn to live tales of his own.  The following morning, he bade his family farewell and walked out of their apothecary with a satchel slung over his shoulder and a carefully tucked unicornbane dagger inside the hem of his pants.  His father was working on a new blade, and Thicket did not think him likely to miss an old one.  Thinking nothing of the impetuousness of the youngling, his family did not stop him.  He would, they were certain, return by afternoon, hungry and worn out.

When the sun had begun to descend over the Western Hills and Thicket had not returned, the village went searching.  Day to new day, their efforts were for naught and when the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months, their efforts became little more than watching the village gate and looking out from the village walls.  

Years went by before Thicket returned.  

By the time he re-entered his village, no one recognized him.  His mother and father had passed through the eternal veil some years prior.  Thicket’s ochre beard fell midchest, and he had become so skinny from walking so much that his head looked much too large for his body.  

His brother cautiously approached him.  

Thicket was jubilant, and he embraced his brother as if decades had been only seconds.  But his brother was not so eager.  He demanded to know what Thicket had been doing all these missing years, but when Thicket began to dive into his tales, his brother hastily shut him down.  The other members of the village did not know how to respond; while they did want to hear of Thicket’s travels, the curious youngling now seemed a very eccentric and erratic elf.  When Thicket brought up the Giant, his brother became enraged.  He shamed Thicket for leaving their village, their family, to pursue fairy tales.  Thicket said that he had not been gone that long and he did not know what had happened to make him so grown and their parents so through the eternal veil.  The prodigal elf was stymied, but this only heightened his brother’s anger.  

Thicket stayed in the village for a month.  He was not invited into anyone’s home, and so he slept in the square, under the cover of some large oak trees.  His brother was not interested in any of his tales, and the village mothers shooed their curious children away from him—for fear that they would become like the peculiar elf whom they no longer knew.  

When it was obvious that the hearts of his former neighbors would not soften to him, Thicket combed his beard, gathered his meager belongings and disappeared into the forest.

As the years went by other travelers would come through Thicket’s old village and tell tale of a curious little elf they had encountered.  An elf who lived alone in the side of a tree and who made various old remedies and various little tools.  An elf who prattled on about the mythical Giant.  An elf who had clearly been left to himself for far too long.