Brief on Fae of Leaf and Vine to Dal

Dal,   Have you started your journey to Urna'low? There are things I want you to know before you arrive.   Once upon a time in our history elves were fae. We became elves when our trees were destroyed and had to find a way to keep going without them. By now the pain of breaking from our trees is gone - elves are bound to the Empress and it's hard to imagine any other way. But back in the day some elves chose to bond with dragons instead, and some never stopped trying to return to the trees.   My suspicion is that if there is any place where unbound elves still live it is in Urna'low and I want you to be prepared to navigate this if you find it. So far we have seen elves who stood with the Empress, elves who stood with dragons and became Kindred, and now I have seen elves who clung to trees and fae. I don't know what you will find in Urna'low but here is what I know of our widespread people:   I know little about the Kindred but I think they chose close family over the history of songs and trees. Dragon clans are loyal and protect their own - I wonder if Kindred would respect the oaths we've sworn and uphold above all. At the very least we have loose allies amongst dragons - Haze, Onyx, Basalt, Shrouded Petrichor, Tide.   For elves who stayed with trees, the Empress is a monster, a terrible forcible dictator who chained us all with no ability to turn away. It is possible that she did harm to the trees that unbound elves surely see as sacred - I can't say. For this history, I have nothing but sympathy. It is nearly impossible to find common ground with such a story - for us she is the boughs of a mighty tree that shields us from the sun. For them she might as well be a carpenter.   I expect that elves who wish to return to the trees would see me (a winged Hand) as a strange contradiction, maybe enough to be worth considering how the millennia have made new things possible. I'm the student-daughter of the Treeborn who salvaged elves from the Fae of Leaf and Vine, who sheltered cuttings of trees that would have otherwise been lost. I'm the Hand of someone who went to war against our fae cousins.   Use all that information as you need. Tell me if you need more; know that my ultimate goal is to draw connections between all of the things the Fae of Leaf and Vine became.   Heiassa