The voice that calls out is unknown to Gawen, a feminine ring that plays against his ears like fairy lights. But she summons them for a story, and Gawen loves stories. It's one of the few times he ever gets to see his mother, when she speaks with a mischievous grin and a twinkle in her eye as she regales him with a tale of adventure before she slips off to sleep. The boy isn't aware of how little he sees her, happy in his isolated bubble, unaware of his peculiarities. He takes happiness and creativity where he can find it, and so he jaunts along to the little meeting already gathering, familiar faces and some he might call friends lingering about to listen as the pale maiden at the front begins to speak.

Gawen hangs at the back, the enticement of coming near Maude or Lyanna crippled by his nervousness. They all have someone. Arah and Maude, Lyanna and Yael, Kianzo and Kiada, and the giant beast with the friendly smile is a stranger to the boy. He thinks about sidling closer to the cerndyr standing out in the crowd, so much like his mother's that the boy can't help but feel a sense of familiarity and peace come over him to see it, but the creature is at the very front and the boy is too nervous for such a position.

So he stands back at the edges, where the shadows of the trees yawn long and wide. It's the best he can do, and he makes sure to keep his wings and his noises to himself as Arah's tale unwinds itself like colored threads before him. Mother had always imparted the importance of silence and stillness, and Gawen had always felt like his shortcomings may have disappointed her in that way, that he could scarcely stand still without acquiring a new bruise. But those thoughts were banished by the grandiose novel the woman spun, and he was optimistic enough to let them fade beneath the sway of her charming words.

The boy is enchanted, hanging on every syllable she deigns to drop from her mouth. He doesn't dare lift his voice in questions for clarification or curiosity, though it gnaws worse than any hunger at his insides, for he is a child of intellect. But his heart feel light and joyous as she points to the crown settled on the earth. He longs for something of his own, and dips his head to press his lips to the bracelet around his forearm and the glowing green orb on the necklace at his breast, the only items in his possession. Unaware that both came from the tree and the turtle long before he was ever born.