Hollow

Chapter 2: Impression

On the plus side, he had no dreams conjured by an Entice trying to offer him exquisite wines and handsome men for once, so that's a plus.

But on the downside, when he finally comes to, he's chained up in a tiny cell that smells like moldy cheese and sewage and his ankle stings with pain as a result of getting shot with a crossbow bolt. He always wondered what Aeliphor must be like, but he did not expect this to be the way he would get to see it. So far, he's not impressed.

If anything, he's starting to think leaving home was a mistake. He wanted to prove to his guardian that he was ready, and look where he ended up. Who knows, maybe the next person to come down here will be some Tessian magister who'd just bought him as a slave. He was constantly being warned that that was always the fate of elves who ventured too far from The Living Forest, but he didn't want to believe it.

'Surely humans can't all be that bad,' he would always think. 'There must be some good ones among the racist assholes in Tessiavar.'

Now the joke's on him.

He was stripped of his bow and quiver, his furs. His leather armor. Everything. His leg hurts every time he moves it. His hand has burned with that searing pain he felt when the horror grabbed his wrist back in Nestamund. Without his glove to hide it, the corruption is open for the world to see.

The pain settles in his wrist and he takes a moment to look down at it, turning it over to briefly examine the violet mark on the back of his hand. Black ink festers under his skin, starting at his fingertips and spreading to his palm before stopping there.

He wishes he could remember what caused this. Where it came from. Why it's happening, but he's got no clue. The guards took one look at the spreading corruption and most looked at him as if he were a demon, though he has grown quite used to those looks whenever humans see his pointed ears and the mark of his clan on his forehead. To humanity, those make him almost no different from the monsters that crawl out of the Horror Reach.

"Running, rocks rigid on the forest floor scraping feet, snapping twigs, rustling leaves and rivers, rapid and roaring giving the rush of nature, of home. The Living Forest."

Llwell gasps and looks up at the cell door, but no one is there. Glancing around the cell, he still finds no obvious source of the voice. It was the same voice as before. The boy who told him about the Jeal.

He keeps looking around as if expecting someone to strike him down from the shadows, but nothing happens. No movements, no sounds, nothing.

"You don't have to be scared. I want to help. Like you. Only I can't help like you can, I can only help by helping you help others. If... if that makes sense," the boy says.

The corruption on Llwell's hand spreads a bit more, crawling up to his palm and over his wrist, where it stops. He sucks in a sharp breath and tightens his hand in a fist, leaning forward to combat the searing pain.

"Crying, cracking, corruption creeps its way beneath your skin. Something so dark can bring so much light, lifting, looking through the mist only works when you can see a spark. You are that spark. Or... are you the mist? It's... it's hard to tell."

Llwell lifts his head again, and he flinches back as there is now a young looking boy, he can't be older than twenty, sitting in front of him in the cell with one leg crossed and the other propped up with his elbow draped over his knee. He's dressed in a dirty patched farm tunic and a massive straw hat that covers most of his face and head, but he can see that the ends of his hair are white, hanging in front of his pale face.

He's staring down at his hands, fidgeting with his sleeves and slightly rocking back and forth. "Hot, burning flesh with the ice of a flame. Melting, mustering, mixing the darkness with your skin. A canvas of flesh, painted with the devil's brush. Black ink, spreading, splitting, scarring until nothing is left. You're scared, but you don't have to be," he lifts his head enough for Llwell to see under the wide brim of his straw hat that his eyes are the color of pale lavender. They are dodgy, somewhat vacant, jittery, skittish like a mouse.