711492

Chapter 14 - Happy Birthday

"Kratos, Easthallow is too far," my mom said, bringing up a new and valid point. Once, I had asked my parents how far the closest city outside of Ettrail was and they had told me days. "You wouldn't return today."

The date was Nuvёmme 10th, and it was my seventh birthday. Birthdays always fill me with a sense of pleasure that I cannot seem to find anywhere else. It was a day I spent surrounded by my friends and my family. My parents would cook my favorite dish for dinner and present me with a trinket I'd be ecstatic to have. We never had much, so more often than not it was something they'd made with their own hands, which was perfectly fine. I have always loved receiving homemade gifts. The last year's gift was a beaded necklace. After a month or three, I began wearing it under my shirt as someone had once told me it "kinda looked stupid". I right-hooked them in the face and went about my business. At first, I did not believe them—it looked great, especially over my winter coat—but eventually fell to the superstition that handcrafted accessories looked out of place with my plain brown hand-me-down clothes. If my memory serves correct, I should still have it around here somewhere.

"Not unless I have one of the druids to escort me using their arcane." I watched Dad wink to Mum. He had his plan all thought out. The druids could use their arcane to save him travel time by flying or teleporting directly there. Dodging all the trees and wild animals that would try to kill him for meat instantaneously would save hours upon hours. It was the perfect bypass. 

"Ah," Mum said, coming to the conclusion that she knew what he was doing. "Yél-K'nai is the only one who'd actually be willing to do something like that..."

"Exactly," Dad responded.

Following them, I passed a bunch of identical doors—the entrances to each of the druids' personal offices. Some of the doors had their names plastered across the door for decoration. Zuvuli, Immeril, Finnēhad, even Charlotte and Cragla had name plates. Maybe it was a prestige thing. Maybe it was just to inflate their egos.

I stopped behind a pillar sticking out of the wall when I noticed my parents stopped, too. Dad knocked on the doorframe of a wide open door and a trill yet gruff voice said "Come in," just beyond the threshold.

None of us had never known Yél-K'nai to keep his office door shut. Regardless of the fact that he preferred to stay out of debates, never giving his honest opinion, he was quite an open guy. I think he just wanted his privacy when it came to his beliefs because the rest of the druids could easily come to a decision by themselves. All they needed was his vote at the end of it.

"Kratos, Ciel," Yél-K'nai greeted them with a somewhat cheery timbre, "what brings you here today?"

I heard my father take a deep breath before he spoke. "I would like your permission to travel beyond Ettrail's gates, to Easthallow, on this day, Yél-K'nai Eukanova." He remained formal when speaking. I think both Mum and Dad held a lot of respect for Yél-K'nai, unlike Vox and Zuvuli.

If there was one thing I truly knew about Yél-K'nai Eukanova, it was that he hated his name. He brought it up a lot, usually when the littlest elflings had trouble pronouncing it. He often questioned—out loud—why his parents would give him such a weird name. Yet somehow, I didn't think Yél-K'nai's name to be all that weird, at least in pronunciation. Written out, it was definitely strange.

Unlike Ehlarke's name—who I will admit had a really strange name—I didn't know if there was some strange story behind why he was named Yél-K'nai. Ehlarke was given his name because the druids who were the druids when he was born asked his parents what they wanted to call him, and I suppose they didn't really want a child. At least that's what it sounded like to me. His mother had said something like, "Eh, it's a lark. Oh, that's good! His name is Ehlark," and his father suggested adding an e to the end to make it Ehlarke, perhaps so they wouldn't seem like the worst parents out there. I don't know why I recalled that story as told from Ehlarke's funeral. Quite a few of the druids had odd names; in my opinion. Ehlarke, X'ek and Yél-K'nai were only a few.