excerpt from my NaNo novel

I know it's awful.... :P "A poor thing, but mine own." Sorry for the goofy formatting. I'm not sure why that's happening.

When reading this, it might be well to note that elves were usually things of terror to the medievals. Even though this is a fantasy, I've chosen not to have Tolkienian elves in it. If it does end up having elves in it, they'll be a little different.

A week or two later, Aldric was riding one day in the woods alone, except for Sir Ricwulf. It was the same where he had first been found by Lady Eadwyn. It was as beautiful as it had been the first time he had been in it. It was a fairly large wood, part of a great line of forests that stretched for many miles. In the cold winter, it was, of course, very different; the white trees held out naked branches, almost as if in supplication to the spring. A cold wind fluttered indecisively in the twigs and fallen dead leaves. The few birds that remained were drab, uncolored things.

“This is a strange place,” said Ricwulf. “I have never been inside this wood during winter before, and it is far stranger when the trees are bared and the birds are gone.”
“I see your meaning, Ricwulf,” answered Aldric, “but this forest has ever been strange, and not less so in summer. I have been in this forest, and sometimes have bethought myself to have seen one of the elvish folk, or perhaps a unicorn.”
“If such things be, then they would be here.”