“The music. It might have lasted for a moment, or perhaps eternity had quietly passed as I stood transfixed at the edge of the forest. When it stopped, I felt my heart ache for the slowly dying beauty. The player, a slight elven lass, surely a princess of an ancient clan, turned to me and smiled. “Milady,” I said, “Pray tell me what gift I might give you in return for the song that graced my ears, and what life of service do you ask, that I might chance to hear it again?” She but bid me take her instrument, this bright and perfect lyre, and to bring it here, to play it here that the joy given me might be passed on and peace grow stronger. Or at least that’s what I tell people to sell more tickets.” —Emmedriys, famed bard of Evermore