A word before the story actually starts– The Ennedi are a people that stick to ancient traditions very closely. I do not know if this will be completely boring (being my first story and me being a 12 year old- really!) but I worked long and hard on this, got banned from my notebook, got banned from my computer, but got them back, repeated process, and this is what that immense trial came up with. Feel free to add on- I’d enjoy your point of view!

The wail of a newborn babe resonated throughout the small wooden house, shaking Gwain to full awareness. He sighed in happiness, listening to the shrill but comforting cry of his child. The only other infant his wife had brought into the world had never had a chance to exercise his stillborn lungs. He got up from his lazy, cross-legged position underneath the oak tree in their front yard, and went over to the door. “Bruna, is the-”
“Oh, oh, m-may the Valar bless you, Gwain, your wife Aetherin l-lives, as does the little one!” The highly strung midwife, Bruna, tumbled over her words in her excitement. “May the Goddesses be praised indeed,” Gwain said delightedly. “Now, is it a boy, or a girl?” “Oh, sir, it’s the loudest, rosiest, most healthy-looking baby girl I’ve ever seen in all my years as a midwife! I declare, she has your hair, from what I can tell. She has the most astonishing eyes, though…” Bruna’s enthusiastic voice slowed to a thoughtful musing. “Her eyes are so deep, for an infant– green, with amber and gold flecks. Looking right through you, I declare, I thought for a second as she looked at me, that she could read my thoughts like an open scroll.” Gwain looked beyond Bruna, into the open door of his house, as if he could see through walls to the infant and wife that he was not allowed to see, according to Ennedi tradition, for the husband could not see his baby and the mother for six days. -I say,- he thought, -I wonder if the babe has a bit of her mother’s Elven spirit in her. From Bruna’s description, her eyes alone certainly sound like she has some Elvish in her. She certainly didn’t get eyes like that from me.- He grinned, thinking of his muddy blue eyes, with fiery red hair continually getting in the way of his sight. Interrupting his thoughts, he realized that Bruna was still speaking, at her original speed. “…and I was so proud seeing her cradling the baby in her arms for the first time. My stars! I should get inside and help Aetherin with the little stormy, shouldn’t I?” Gwain grinned at the depiction of his new daughter’s temperament. “Truly, she is a Stormy, isn’t she?” Bruna laughed, and hastily rushed into the house to the aid of Aetherin. Gwain walked back over to the oak tree. -A daughter! What am I going to christen as her paternal name? Maybe…Bread-and-butter? Or Codswallop?- He laughed at himself, breaking his ridiculous thoughts. -Now, for real, I have six days to decide, for I must have the name before I see my child face-to-face. It won’t do any good joking about it.- He sat down on the ground, in a welcoming hollow of the weather-beaten tree. He closed his eyes and prayed to the Valar to send him a vision for the child’s name. For three days he prayed. On the third night, as he was falling asleep, Gwain heard a faint sound like the whisper of some long forgotten hurt from ages past. Gwain blinked, several times. When he had almost dismissed the sound to his imagination, a ghostly voice resounded through the courtyard, creating vast echoes as if it was bouncing off the spacious walls of a king’s palace instead of a meager blacksmith’s yard. “Gwain, son of Gynbe, you have… a new baby. You are seeking a paternal name for this child, are you not?” Gwain nodded, not daring to speak so close to this ethereal presence. “A name… for this child.” The unearthly voice paused. “You shall name her… Taurèa, for she will be like the wind. You cannot ever tame a wind. Not unless it is of its own accord does even the slightest breeze stop in its path. Now I go, and remember well what I have said.” The fire in the courtyard diminished and flickered out. Gwain’s line of sight returned to his house and the trees beyond it. He abruptly fell back to the tree and its comforting hollows, strangely exhausted. He slept for two days. He awoke the morning of the fifth day. Rubbing his lead-weighted eyelids, he looked up. A piercing spike of a headache suddenly announced its unwanted presence. He moaned, and clutched his aching head. It felt as if a porcupine was having a temper tantrum inside his skull. Gwain shook his head to clear it, and astonishingly quickly (for a man of such slow, patient wisdom as Gwain) made up his mind that it wasn’t such a good idea. He became aware that a bad taste was in his mouth. He spit, trying to get rid of it. Didn’t work. He ran his tongue over the remains of a chalky substance that tasted faintly of swamp water and trees, inbetween his teeth and coating the roof of his mouth. He gagged involuntarily at the dusty substance in his mouth, but recovered just in time to realize the world was spinning and dissolving into iridescent waves of nothing. He clutched the side of the oak tree, the world twisting all around him. After a few minutes, he had regained his senses, to the best of his ability. His thoughts methodically went over what could have caused such a reaction from him. -Eating a bad mushroom? No. Being outdoors too long? No, by the Valar themselves, I have certainly been outdoors for much longer periods of time than five days at a time. What could it be? No, it isn’t that I’m ill. I’ve never been ill in all the days of my life.- The realization of what had actually happened hit him like a wild boar. -Of course, I’ve been drugged!- For what purposes he had been drugged, he knew not, but all that mattered was that he had been. He swiftly jumped to his feet. “Aetherin?” He ran, stumbling, to the door. “Aetherin?” He hesitated for a moment. He heard no reply. He stopped at the doorframe. By Valinor, he was not going to leave his wife and child in possible danger for ancient tradition! He rushed through the door, calling his wife’s name. He went into the bedroom. His wife and child were gone. Gone! He rushed through the house looking for them.