Moon tongue

Long before the rise of kingdoms and the forging of alliances, the elves dwelled in starlit groves, their voices woven with the cadence of a language older than time, Moon Tongue. It was not merely speech, but song, echoing through silver leaves and across twilight valleys. Every word held weight, etched with centuries of wisdom, emotion, and elemental magic. It is said that the first idioms, now passed through countless mortal mouths, once danced from elven lips beneath the moon’s gaze. Moon Tongue was fluid as water and sharp as ice: rich in metaphor, shaped by ritual, and bound to the phases of the moon. Expressions like “walking the silver path” (meaning to tread with grace amid uncertainty) or “to stir the quiet” (to awaken subtle emotion or change) began here. In its prime, the language shaped thought itself, guiding how elves saw time, truth, and even death, not as ends, but as reflections in a larger cycle. But as ages shifted and great migrations unfolded, the elves faced a changing world. Trade, war, and diplomacy drew them into contact with races whose tongues clashed and collided with their own. To survive, to unify, and to reclaim influence, the elves gradually adopted a new, shared speech, Shadow Speech. Today, it is pragmatic and far less lyrical but still flecked with poetic remnants. Elves who speak it fluently are known as “veilborne,” their thoughts trained to mask Moon Tongue’s emotion with mortal cadence. Some still whisper Moon Tongue in sacred rites or lullabies, but even within elven high courts, ShadowSpeech dominates. The change wasn’t sudden—it crept in like dusk—and now only the oldest keep Moon Tongue alive in full. There are movements to restore it, especially among scholars and lorekeepers, who argue that without it, elven thought itself begins to unravel.