When All You Have are Embers

Preface

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Preface

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When the world wishes me to know something, it will have the moon tell me.
I can feel the Earth changing, from deep underground, the dirt shakes. And now another era, after so much loss, has begun.

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Somewhere in between coincidence and third party influence, a child was born, with bright red ruby eyes. A glowing ray of light in an otherwise dark world, and the name her mother couldn't decide on before she held her for the first time, was Therris.

She was raised among good Elves, and for centuries she lived a happy life with her community, home in Elthainia.
However, there was a secret. Something Therris' parents tried for so long to keep hidden from her.

Therris' father loved her dearly, he searched for so long to know the reason for red eyes, and seemingly inability to use their magic. He told her mother everything he learned about after every trip across the Elven lake. It wasn't long before they knew everything there was to know.
      The secret her father had worked so hard to keep for so long was revealed to her on her birthday. 

That day Therris learned she was born a creature that can never truly depart from this world. Something different than either of her parents. A species of Wood Elves spoken of in Elven mythology, said to only arrive if the universe is in danger.
The planet's defence system.

Tackled with the responsibility of being what she was, Therris longed for the simplicity of human life, an ending.

When her parents passed she abandoned the village she grew up in, and for a hundred years during the first war she searched for a way to die. The journey was dangerous and tiresome, but surely enough she found what she was looking for.
In the ruins of a long forgotten university, a cure for immortality. A poem, written in the Elthin dialect before they separated into two Kingdoms. 

It read; To eradicate the spirit one must actualise the physical form of their soul, through birth, blood, true dedication to death, and then consume it. 

Therris sighed, as though the idea may sound reliving in theory, it was bound to a type of magic she swore, out of fear, to never use.
Moonlight magic, a filthy practice, and the falling of the Buried Folk. Some call it demonology, while others witchcraft. Said to leave an invisible mark on one's soul every time he uses it.

Therris pondered how far she would go to rest her head for eternity. But it wasn't long before she made up her mind.
Bothered by the idea of magic rules they convinced a Caster to temporarily loosen the cuffs on the boundaries that had been put in place for Elven creatures.

When he agreed to help her, there was no going back.

Hours of precise incantations successfully resulted in the rapidly progressing pregnancy. Hours after the initial spell, it was time. Just as Therris laid down to begin, screams from outside interrupted their plans. A fire had broken out in the village next to the city they were in, and it seemed to have spread. 

However, even in the chaos, the birth did happen. The caster, who was helping Therris took the bloody infant in his hands and stared at it. 
It was alive. 

Therris, in pain and tired from giving birth reached for the child weakly. The caster looked at the rage in her eyes as she tried to grab it away from him.
He shook his head knowing Therris's plans for the baby. He ran as fast as he could out of the building and into the crowd of people outside. 

Pushing against the current of people felt like swimming upstream, but he did make it into the forest. He fled into the woods where he hid the child, protecting what little hope it had at a physical life. 

Therris searched the burning City and forest but never found the baby.
She crept back into the shadows of the southern islands and stayed quietly there for centuries. But in time they gathered followers. People who wanted to fight.
People who were power hungry and would obey Therris for the promise of it.

They built a city over the ash and lava that once covered the island. Shortly, they had an army of Casters at their disposal ready and hungry for blood. Therris had convinced them to take revenge on the people who burned their island to the ground.

They followed Therris blindly completely unaware of her true intentions.

"Raid and burn every Kingdom and village. Kill every man and every woman. You and I shall rule this world. And if you find a girl of white hair who will not die, no matter what you do to her, bring her to me. And I will deal with her."

Now in the fiery black brick of their castle, they wait. For someone to bring her to them. So they can finally be at peace.

Finally,