Fading Light

A New Life

                                                                                  14 Years Later

The pounding of my footsteps and the swishing of the other runners bounce throughout the forest around me. I pump every ounce of energy I have into my legs. Someone on my left catches up and aims an arrow right at me. My instincts kick in and adrenaline pulse through my veins, guiding me to dart up a tree, pull out my own bow and arrow, and fire at my opponent while flipping backwards, all before I could hear his own arrow leave his bow. Mine nails him right in the shoulder and he falls. My feet land back on the ground and I keep going. As I rush through the beautiful ebony trees, I breathe in the fresh oxygen, fueling my body even more.

I spot a wooden figure a couple of feet in front of me. I grab my Ulinor mini knife and prepare to throw it at the cut out, when someone appears out of nowhere and jabs his sword at me. I immediately duck, grab his wrists, and hurl him into a tree. He slams into it so hard, it sounds like he's a tree himself that fell to its death. I take my Ulinor and swipe it across the cut out's neck, cutting it clean through.

I pick up the sudden beating of another pair of feet behind me. Whoever it is, I will not let them win. My eyes immediately spot a thick, brown vine hanging from a nearby tree. I speed up towards it, grab a hold of the vine, and swing myself entirely around the tree with such power, as if my body is a mighty machine. I slam myself into my opponent to the ground, face-planting him right into the autumn leaves decorating the forest floor. Once he's down, I front flip forward and continue my way onto the track. After dodging more opponents and striking any targets I find, I spot the winning flag standing in the distance. The sight of it sparks hope inside of me, fueling any remaining traces of adrenaline like rockets. The flag approaches me within seconds and is just out of my arm's reach.

"Larissa!"

The sound of my name breaks my attention like a mirror splintering into a million pieces. My adrenaline halts in its tracks when someone flies right toward me on a vine, steps onto my shoulder as leverage with enough force to knock me down and grabs the flag.

"Time!" someone shouts. I stare up at the winner who joyfully swings on the vine from my pit of defeat. He looks back at me with his confident grassy-green eyes and smile.

"See? You cannot let anything distract you. Not even me."

***

"You had to pull that one on me," I say to him. "For once, I almost had the flag."

Fagin releases a chuckle that fills the open air. "Like I said earlier, you can't let anything distract you. That's the one weakness you have had ever since I began training you."

The sunlight peaks through the trees of our forest home and bounces off his long strands of silver hair. I'm almost awestruck from his natural beauty. Before he saved me that night, I rarely heard about elves. Stella told me how magical they were, that they lived deep in the woods, and they possessed such beauty, even Mother Nature herself was jealous. She showed me pictures of them in one of her storybooks. They were tall creatures with pointy ears and did appear beautiful, though they looked 2-D in the illustrations. She even told me about the elves who worked with Santa up in the North Pole, but they were shorter and wore goofier outfits. Even my two-year-old self enjoyed the taller elves rather than the other kind.

"I want to braid your hair," I say to Fagin, changing the subject.

He looks at me puzzled. "Well, that was completely off topic."

"Yes, because it is too darn gorgeous to just sit there on your shoulders. You've trained and protected me my whole life. At least let me do something for you in return."