A stream of green mana flowed into the ground from lavender-colored hands and wrapped itself around perfect rows of small herb plants. They breathed in the Earth Magic, swelling in size and putting out healthy, green stalks and leaves. Keolah eased off on the mana gently so as not to startle the herbs before cutting it off entirely. She straightened, brushed dirt off of her hands, and looked down at her garden to examine her handiwork. Ginger, basil, garlic — she looked forward to cooking and making potions with them.
With her gardening done, she set out for an evening of entertainment. A low building sat in the middle of the human side of the town of Ordenburg. A gas lamp stood outside atop a metal pole, illuminating the front of the tavern. A creaking wooden placard hung above the door, swinging from a narrow pole by a rusty chain, displaying a faded image of three spears crossing one another. The smell of grime and alcohol assaulted Keolah’s nostrils as she stepped into the building lit by oil lamps. A few brown human faces glanced up at her before going back to what they were doing, drinking and eating and talking amongst one another.
The sound of music rang out through the low murmurs of conversation. While most of them wore drab clothing of grays and tans, the bard was clad in a heavy patchwork coat made up of swatches of different colors.
“So you are here, Keolah Kedaire,” Delven greeted her in elvish, then added in the human tongue, “Hello. Have you got a request?”
Keolah grinned. “Play a song about the Windriders.”
“As you wish,” Delven said lightly.
Delven sang a song about mysterious elves who rode giant birds, and told a tale of their heroic adventures, about how one Elen the Excellent fought the evil necromancer Jeckhan.
Through the mud brick walls of the building, she spotted a deep green aura approaching, and suppressed a groan. That was her father’s aura. He stormed into the tavern, his face livid.
“Keolah!” he growled, ignoring the faces of the tavern patrons turning to him in startlement.
“So you are here, Father,” Keolah replied the formal greeting with forced politeness.
Father ignored her. “What in the name of Zaravin the Wise are you doing here among these humans?”
Keolah scowled. This again? “Why do you hate them so much? The Riskel are very peaceful.”
“They’re thieving scum!” Father spat. “They have no art, no culture. They’re vulgar, savage barbarians.”
The bartender came up and said in stilted elvish, “Sir, I must ask you to quiet down or leave.”
Father glared at him, grabbed Keolah’s arm, and dragged her out of the tavern.
“This isn’t still about Kithere, is it?” Keolah wondered with a sigh once they were outside.
“Don’t you dare mention her name to me,” Father retorted. He stormed off toward the elven half of the village, and she reluctantly followed, if only to continue arguing with him.
“Why shouldn’t I? She’s my sister.”
“She was your sister,” Father snapped. “Until those baseborn humans took her from us.”
“Mother says she’s still alive,” Keolah said.
“Your mother was just trying to spare your feelings,” Father said. “I say she was just giving you false hope. Kithere is dead. My eldest is never coming home. And it’s all the fault of those humans.”
“That was three years ago,” Keolah pointed out. “And a different group of humans entirely.”
“What difference does it make?” Father said. “All humans are scum. We should have driven these humans out of our land generations ago.”
“Need I remind you that they were here first?” Keolah grated out.
“Don’t lecture me on history.” He slammed a lavender fist into the trunk of an elven home. It creaked and visibly shifted under his violently flaring aura.
“The house didn’t do anything to you,” Keolah said with strained patience.
Father backed off and lowered his hand, unclenching his fist and stepping away from the tree. “Look. Keolah. I’m worried about you. I don’t want you associating with their ilk.”
“I don’t see how it’s any of your business if I do. I’m an adult.”
“You’re twenty-three,” Father said. “That’s barely more than a child. In the old days, an elf wouldn’t have even been considered an adult until they were over a hundred years old.”
The serene voice of her mother said, “We haven’t been immortal in a long time, Kaymore.” Mother glided toward them, bare violet feet pale as dust hardly seeming to touch the ground. Her sunny yellow aura always made Keolah think she seemed happy, but today her tone and expression were anything but.
“Rezaline.” Father’s amber eyes met Mother’s silver ones for a moment before he cast them to the ground in shame.
“The native humans of Rascalanse are not so great a threat that you must yell at our daughter about them,” Mother said smoothly.
“I won’t lose two daughters to humans,” Father said firmly.
“I can take care of myself.” Keolah folded her arms across her chest. “Besides, these humans are nice. The Riskel are friendly, and they tell the most fascinating stories.”
Father made a face. “It’s bad enough that you even learned their language.”
“And I like their food!” Keolah went on. “You should try it sometime—”
“Their food isn’t clean! They cook it with strange machines and not magic. Trickster’s balls, they mate in their kitchens and defecate in their bedchambers. And they don’t even use magic to clean. They use… soap and water. Filthy.”
“Kaymore,” Mother put in gently. “There’s no need to invoke the Trickster.”
“Well why in the Abyss not,” Father grunted. “He’s the only one that could explain all this. Why humans took my elder daughter and why my younger daughter loves them. If having to share our home with humans isn’t some sort of divine joke, I don’t know what it is.”
“I don’t think any divine influence was involved.” Keolah smirked.
Father sighed. “Let me tell you, if you ever come home with your belly full of a half-elf baby, I’m going to skin alive whoever fathered it.”
“You do that,” Keolah said. “I mean, if I slept with a human man, it wouldn’t have been by my choice.”
Father snorted softly. “You don’t fancy a single one of them, for how much time you spend with them? Not even that one in the ragged, hideous coat?”
Keolah put her face in her palm. “Father, I like girls. This is hardly unusual.”
“Fine, then.” Father put up his arms in surrender. “Go cuddle up to some human woman.” Without another word, he stormed inside the house.
Mother shook her head and made a clucking noise. “Don’t mind your father, Keolah. For all his talk, he won’t actually do anything.”
“Yelling is still doing something,” Keolah murmured. “And words are possibly the greatest tool or weapon at one’s disposal.”
Mother went quiet for a long moment, and turned to look off through the village. The cluster of elf-grown living-wood buildings bore needles, while the native plants tended to have thorns or large leaves.
“Maybe you will finally be the one who mends this broken realm, then,” Mother said.
“Me?” Keolah shook her head. “That’s not a job for one person. It would require more and more people working together, breaking down barriers and building bridges.” She sighed. “I can’t even convince my own father to try a bun.”
“Little by little,” Mother said. “You won this argument today.”
“How is it winning if I was fighting with my own father in the first place?” Keolah said. “I don’t think you can achieve victory over other people like that. You have to attain consensus and cooperation.”
The wind tugged at Keolah’s green hair, and she pulled it back out of her face. It was her favorite color, almost the same shade as her aura, though times like this she regretted having to share both with her father. Kithere had inherited Mother’s violet hair, itself a lovely shade, but now Keolah thought that her father must have to think of Kithere every time he looked at his wife.
“You have to follow your heart,” Mother said distantly.
Keolah chuckled. “Mother, I know you mean well, but that advice already sounded trite when I was twelve.”
Mother turned back to her and smiled crookedly. “What would you prefer, then? I could tell you that you are destined for great things, but you are not the superstitious sort that believes in destiny. Tell me seriously, though. If you could do anything with your life, anything at all, what would it be?”
“I want to learn,” Keolah said immediately. “I want to study different places, different people. I want to know what happened in the past, and how things are in the present. I want to learn languages, hear songs, share stories, make friends, travel everywhere, eat strange food, and see things I’ve never imagined.”
Mother leaned back against the wall and looked to the sky with a calm, mellow smile. “And you won’t be able to do all that here.”
Keolah sobered and looked to the ground, and sighed. “No. I can’t.”
“Don’t be afraid of your father. If you wish to leave Rascalanse to go explore the world, he won’t stop you.”
Keolah lifted her head and looked toward the human part of the village. Their buildings were rough, but looked like they actually belonged here, built of mud bricks the color of the hills around them, archways over every door.
“Do you really think I should?” Keolah asked.
“Does a mother ever want to see her children leave home?” Mother grinned crookedly. “I don’t want to lose you, but I know I cannot keep you forever.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” Keolah said.
“Have any of your human friends traveled much?” Mother asked. “You could ask them for advice.”
Father’s words did nothing to stop Keolah from going back to the Three Spears Tavern. Keolah had no trouble picking Delven out from the crowd of humans, with his amber aura and vibrant coat. His lute sat at his side, propped up against his chair. He wasn’t playing it at the moment, his attention instead on a bowl of stew.
“Sorry about yesterday,” Keolah said.
Delven waved it off. “Not your fault.”
Keolah slid in across from him and leaned her elbows on the table. “Delven, what’s the world like outside?” She addressed him in his own language.
“Well, that’s a big subject.” Delven grinned.
“Yeah, don’t tell me, don’t tell me.” Keolah waved a hand. “I want to see it for myself.”
“You want to leave Rascalanse?” Delven asked.
“Absolutely!” Keolah said. “You’ve traveled a lot, haven’t you? You’ve been all over the world?”
“Been all over Kalor, at least,” Delven said. “There’s a lot of this world outside this continent, but I’ve never seen it myself. Plenty of stuff to do and do here in Kalor, though.”
“I’ve heard stories about Zarhanna, the mythical homeland of the elves, and I’d really like to see it someday.”
Delven snickered. “It’s not really very mythical. It’s right across the ocean. Not like they’re hiding it or anything.”
“If I were to want to leave Rascalanse and explore the world outside, what would you recommend?” Keolah asked. “Do you have any sort of advice for me?”
“You’re going to need a guide.” Delven winked.
“You’d want to come with me?” Keolah asked. “It would be nice to go along with a friend and not by myself.”
“I was overdue for leaving Rascalanse anyway. I was only staying to help out a friend.” He grinned at her.
“You’re not trying to flirt with me now, are you?”
Delven laughed aloud. “You know I’m not interested in people that way. I flirt with everyone, but I don’t mean anything serious by it.”
“This is great, really. You can show me all the sights, and since I know the human language, I’ll be able to talk to people and won’t be such a burden.”
Delven raised a finger. “You know there’s four major human languages spoken in Kalor alone?”
Keolah’s face fell. “Oh.”
“Don’t worry,” Delven assured her. “You’ve learned the most common one, that most people are going to be able to recognize, at least. If we run into anyone that only speaks Flylish or Doralisian, I can translate for you. And there’s not many people who speak only Hlayan. But hey, if we ever do visit Zarhanna, you can translate elvish for me there.”
“Um…” Keolah groused. “There’s two elvish languages, and they’re completely unrelated. I only speak one of them. And I don’t speak gnomish, dwarven, or trollish, either. Not that that’s saying much, I’ve never even met a gnome, dwarf, or troll.”
“Well, maybe you’ll get the opportunity, then,” Delven said. “When do you want to leave?”
“I’ll need to pack some supplies,” Keolah said, then made a face. “And I ought to talk to my father first.”
“I’m sure he’ll let you go when he sees how much your heart is in it.”
“No,” Father said firmly, slamming his hands on the kitchen table. “I absolutely forbid it.”
“Father—” Keolah began.
“Keolah, it’s dangerous out in the world.” Father sighed. “You’ll stay here, and marry some nice elven woman. Or,” he added begrudgingly, “Some tolerable human girl, if you absolutely must. If you want to go somewhere else, you can go to one of the other villages in Rascalanse. Wishingsdale, maybe. Your mother has cousins there.”
“Father, I don’t want to stay in Rascalanse forever,” Keolah said.
“One young elf girl out in the world alone stands no chance.”
“I’m an adult, not a little girl. And a mage. Most humans don’t do magic.”
“You’ve never seen Flylish thunder sticks, though, and I hope you never have to,” Father warned. “They’ll just point them at you, and boom! Metal bullets flying through the air faster than you can react.”
“Besides, I’m not going alone,” Keolah said, brushing aside his warnings. “Delven said he’d come with me.”
“Delven?” Father repeated, narrowing his eyes. “Is that the name of your human friend? The one with the ugly coat?”
“Yes. He’s been all over the place and knows a lot of things.”
“And what makes you think you can trust him?” Father asked.
“He’s my friend,” Keolah insisted.
Father made a disgusted noise.
Keolah stood up and went over to the window, where a warm breeze was drifting through. “I want to see the world. I want to see everything there is to see. I want to know what ‘winter’ feels like—”
“Just get a Frost Mage to conjure you some snow,” Father interjected.
“—I want to see an ocean—”
“There’s an Illusionist in the next village.”
“—I want to know what it feels like to sail. I want to ride a train, touch a dragon, stand on a volcano, run in the snow, explore a cave, dance in the desert, soar above the clouds…”
“Someday you’ll outgrow these childish dreams,” Father said. “You don’t really want any of that. You’ll come running back home two days after you see the filth that’s outside of Rascalanse.”
Keolah spun about to face him. “I’m going, and that’s final.”
“You are not.” Father rose to his feet, knuckles turning lavender as he clenched the edge of the table.
“What are you going to do, ward me into my room for the rest of my life?” Keolah retorted.
A yellow aura moved into view. “Keolah. Kaymore,” Mother said gently.
Father let out a heavy breath and let tension drain out of his body. “Rezaline.”
“I’m going,” Keolah said, more quietly. “I’ll be fine. Alright?”
“No, it’s not alright,” Father said. “I won’t stop you, I can’t stop you, but I’ll be worried sick about you, you know that don’t you?”
“I can live with that,” Keolah said. “I can’t live with staying here my whole life, with dreams that cannot be fulfilled, forever wondering about what could have been.”
Father had no response to that.
Keolah thought she might mention that she might even be able to find her sister somewhere out in the world, but decided to diplomatically bite her tongue on that. It wouldn’t help, and would just make Father fly into a rage again.
Seeing as no response seemed to be forthcoming, Keolah went off to pack. This would just be like a camping trip into the hills and forest, only longer, she figured. She touched the side of the closet, and the leaves covering the door slid aside. Her pack lay at the bottom, and she rifled through it to make sure her usual supplies were still present. Enchanted self-coiling rope, canteen of endless water, magically anchoring hammock, and a few healing and curing potions. It would do, she figured. She added to it some traveling rations and her favorite book. Now she felt ready to take on the world.
Keolah shielded her eyes against the morning sunlight breaking over the Thorndelle mountains and filtering down through acacia trees. They passed by the old Ordenburg fort, its gates unguarded and its walls in ruins. She would have liked to have seen it while it was still standing. From the size of the pile of rubble, it must have been grand once.
“So, how’s it feel to be leaving home?” Delven asked.
“Well, I’ve been out of the village before,” Keolah said. “I’ve gone camping in the hills, and visited the neighboring villages. But this certainly feels more… dramatic.”
“Did your family give you much trouble?” Delven asked.
Keolah sighed. “Mother is very supportive.”
“And your father?”
“Let’s not talk about my father.” Keolah pointed. “Look! Goats!”
Half a dozen goats perched in the limbs of an argan tree. One of them paused and looked over toward the two of them, chewing its cud and giving them a blank look.
Delven chuckled. “I’ve seen a lot of things in this great, big world, but goats in trees isn’t one of them.”
“How do goats in other places get at tree fruits, then?” Keolah wondered.
Delven opened his mouth to answer and paused consideringly. “I’m not really an expert on goats, but I’d imagine they eat other things elsewhere.”
“What’s the best way to get out of Rascalanse?”
“Hranon Cut, to the southeast,” Delven replied. “The only way I know of, at any rate. There must be a pass to the north, into Flyland, but I don’t feel like going into Flyland right now.”
Keolah grimaced. “Yeah, I don’t, either.”
“You’ve encountered Flylanders before?”
“They kidnapped my sister,” Keolah said. “Swooped in right across those mountains, and she was gone.”
“I’m sorry,” Delven said. “I didn’t know.”
Keolah shook her head. “It was years ago. But yes. Let’s not go that way. Not right now. Even if I thought she were still alive and being held captive or something there, I’m not… I don’t think I could confront them right now. It would probably turn into a fight, and while I can throw fire around and all, I’ve never actually… used it against another living being. Do you know what I mean?”
“I get what you’re saying,” Delven said.
“I’m not leaving home to go looking for my sister,” Keolah said. “I don’t even have any realistic expectation of ever seeing her again.”
“Who knows?” Delven said. “Maybe the Trickster will show you a way.”
“I don’t expect the help of any of the gods, least of all the Trickster,” Keolah said. “No gods. No destiny. None of that goatshit.”
“I didn’t realize you were so bitter about it,” Delven said.
Keolah sighed. “After she was taken, I prayed every night and every morning for her safety. I prayed to Aeris to shelter her from harm. I prayed to Distrae to fend off her enemies. I prayed to Ozelin to speed her steps home. And I even prayed to the Trickster to blind those who would harm her and lead them astray.”
“And nothing happened,” Delven said.
“Nothing happened. And my mother was so certain that she was still alive and would return to us. She almost seemed surprised when it didn’t come to pass. Her ‘prophecies’ never come true. Most of them are so vague as to mean nothing anyway. I don’t think it’s possible to actually tell the future, anyway. Either it’s going to be inaccurate, or it means people don’t have free will. And I much prefer the idea that we have free will.”
“That’s fair,” Delven said. “So, what else did Rezaline say?”
Keolah groaned. “Do you really want to know?”
Delven grinned. “I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t, now would I?”
“Fine,” Keolah said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you. She said I was ‘destined for greatness’. She said I would see and do things that no other elf has done before, that I would build a bridge between worlds and make peace between enemies older than time. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You know she told every single child in Ordenburg that they were destined for greatness, when she thought nobody else was listening?”
Delven laughed. “Well, maybe it’s true. Maybe they all are!”
Keolah shook her head. “In a way, I’m glad to be away from Ordenburg, not just for the prospect of seeing the world, but of being away from them. Why don’t we talk about your parents, for a change? I think I’ve gotten enough of mine.”
“Eh, not much to tell.” Delven shrugged. “They had enough children that they didn’t care what the fourth son did. Doesn’t really matter, I suppose. I haven’t seen them in ages.”