Dart is the first-born son of Moonshade & Strongbow, and was a blessed youth born of Recognition. HE is one of the original Wolfriders of the saga ElfQuest. The comic series opens with Dart as an wolf-riding elf, part of a forest tribe who is exiled from his homeland. He grows up in Sun Village, under the tutelage of Suntoucher.
Tactician
Dart’s father Strongbow is renown in his generation for having the best Archery skills. Strongbow teaches all that he can impart to his son, but as a young adult-elf, Dart witnesses the Wolfriders split apart from Sun Village. Only he and the family of Woodlock & Rainsong remain in the desert. Dart purposed to remain with Sun Village and impart all he had learned from his father towards the defense and betterment of the peace-loving Sun Villagers.
His first order of business as the town-defender was to domesticate the native desert jack-wolves, and to recruit a unit of archer-riders from sun village. It is by the defensive-tactics of Dart and by the far-seeing wisdom of Suntoucher that Sun Village continues on prosperously while other elf-villages on the world of two moons, including Palace of the High Ones are ransacked, disintegrate, are invaded, and are otherwise upturned throughout the multiple series of elfQuest.
Windkin’s peril
As all the elves including those born early in the series elfQuest wax into the endless adulthood of later years, the human race who dwells on the same planet emerges from a stone age into later and more advanced eras of civilization. As the Hoan G’Tay Sho tribe exemplifies, the humans revere and near-worship the elves, making offerings in hope that spiritual blessings may become upon their progeny.
Thus, by the later-developed series ElfQuest: New Blood, Windkin goes on a scouting mission from Sun Village, across an ocean. After a long flight, he discovers an “Aztec-style” civilization of elf-worshippers, and he is captured by the Dark Priestlord. Savah advises Suntop to seek our this peril, who is protected by Dart as the leader of his search-party.
This is where Dart and Suntop find the “Forevergreen” and begin a new holt in the jungle. His tribesmen become Jethel, Yun, Shen Shen, Dodia, Chot and later on, several human children. It is this tribe that first meets with the New Wavedancers, mer-elves and kin who sometime swim upstream the tributaries of the forevergreen. Thus, in the later years of Wendy Pini’s ElfQuest: Hidden Years Dart and Suntop have a role as strong as Cutter in the elven destiny of Tribal Reunification.