Etwas the Elf and the ghastly gale.

Once upon a time, Etwas the Elf was running through the tall grass, under the canopies of clover and around the stems of tall grass when the bright full moon punched a hole through the cloth of clouds that held its light.  Wind rose and rattled the dry weeds and far away. In the distance a man or animal keened a high note.

Dry leaves tumbled past the elf and over head, born in the hands of the mysterious stream of air.  Muttering was picked up from caves where they had echoed for centuries and carried to Etwas' ear.  Only the concussions of falling rocks and hard-swung axes interrupted the history being told through the breeze.

Snow rose atop glaciers and tumbled down into the valley where Etwas stood, sharpening her knife on a blade of grass.  The ancient flakes, as dry as if they had never been water settled stealthily in Etwas' hair and clothing or stung at her hands and cheeks.

The blades of grass resonated with the wind and amplified its sounds and cushioning its touch.  Soon the leaves were playing a tin amplification of forgotten sounds carried from the distant place where the gale began.  She saw two squirrels hide in the roots of an ancient pine and a fox curl inside the hollow for warmth and companionship.  Far away, a wolf sang a song of fear.  Shadows cowed the tops of trees and animated the roofs of houses, huts and mushrooms.

The pines strummed the same old song the grasses sang, conducted by the furious animal of air.  Ancient conspiracies originally whispered boomed from canyon to mountain.  The dark tricks of unremembered schemes were retold in the moaning.  Religions and ideologies gathered and tumbled through the foreign flow and lifted the hair, fur and feathers of every creature under the wind.  Tornadoes were pushed aside.

Etwas held a cranberry up, on open palms over her head.  The scarlet fruit rose into the unnumbered fingers of the mysterious wind which took the berry, breathed happily and settled into a still and bright night.  Nothing remained of the wind but a message, "trick or treat."

And ever since then, when things get really weird, Etwas listens quietly and watches.