Leaph and Kallon sit at his camp by the fire and talk about old times. There was many stories about the spying on the she-elves and of course a few more stories about getting drunk in their youth. They talked about how Leaph's father passed and finally how he became the Elder of the Wild Clan. "Kallon? Why did you and so many elves leave the forest?" Leaph asks. Kallon gets quiet and looks into the fire. "I don't know everyone else left. I can only tell you why I did." Leaph sits and nods for Kallon to begin his story.
"Back then, we were very young. You were walking through the bazaar about the time I stole some fruit from a cart. I had the cart owner, several of the guard elves, and you all chasing me to get it back. I ran out of our clan boundaries and darted into the forest. I remember I ran and I ran. You were right behind me the entire time. Even after the adults stopped you were still chasing me down. I finally lost you when I jumped in the trees. When I stopped running I stopped on this huge branch. I sat down to catch my breath then you were right under me laughing. You quickly climbed up the tree and sat next to me." With a small laugh Kallon continues. "You took it upon yourself to grab the fruit from my arms. What you did next, I couldn't believe then and I still can't believe it now." Leaph stares into the fire. "I took the fruit from you and cut it in half. I gave half of it to you and the other half I began to eat myself. Wow, we were no older then 7 or 8. You know, on my way back home I was stopped by the guy at the cart. He asked me if I ever caught you." Kallon looks up. "What did you tell him?" Leaph lets out a loud laugh. "I told him that I caught you. When you tried to run again you lost the fruit. A couple of small wild boar came and ate the fruit." Kallon looked at leaph questioningly. "What?" Leaph looks at him with a straight face. "Yeah, when he repeated the answer I looked at him and told him he was right." Kallon scrunches his eyes in question. "Why did you share the fruit and then cover for me?" Leaph smiles. "Because Kallon. I had seen you out and about. You always wore old tattered clothes and sometimes you had bruises on your arms and legs. I knew who you were. I followed you to have them believe I would catch you and get the fruit back. I climbed the tree and joined you because it was the best time I had in a long time. I cut the fruit and ate it with you a symbol. That a high elf and a low elf broke bread together and therefore created a bond. I had no friends growing up because of my station and everyone was afraid of my dad. I knew you had a hard life and I wanted to be your friend. Man, when my father found out, it was the end of the world to him. He couldn't believe his son would befriend someone like you." Kallon looks at Leaph. "Someone like me?" Leaph loses his smile and continues. "Yeah, someone like you. My father said everything about you. I could never be friends with a low elf. A commoner who would amount to nothing. An unworthy little wretch that would smear his family's good name." Leaph looks over to Kallon who looked so disappointed. Leaph stands up and walks around the fire to sit next to Kallon. Kallon looks into Leaph's eyes with a tear on the edge waiting to fall from his beautiful deep blue eyes. "That's what my father said. I told my father that he was right. You are a low elf. But you are so much more. You are my friend, my confident, my brother. He could try to drive us apart, but it would never work because you're special to me." Kallon's tear finally fell and when it ran down his cheek, Leaph removed the tear drop with his thumb. Kallon smiled. "Then as we grew up, we were inseparable. I couldn't go out hunting without you following me around. I mean in fairness, you couldn't go anywhere without me either. We made a promise to each other that no matter what, we would be together. Then flash forward to the age of 16 and we grew up. Our clan elder was getting up there in age and our clan was looking for someone to take his place. We both went to school for this. We studied together every single day. The closer to the day to vote got, the closer it got to just you and me as candidates. The clan elder and his council couldn't decide who to choose between us so they were going to have us both. That way there would be someone to speak for the high born and someone to speak for the low born." Leaph smiled. "That's right. Then we promised that if we both couldn't get it then whichever one of us they chose the other would be the advisor so we were always together." Kallon laughed. "You do remember. Then they backed out of both of us and said they can't break tradition so they chose you as the next clan elder. That was the night your father came to me and told me how you would be better without me. That was the time I decided that I wouldn't make it hard for you. So I left. I went out to the tree we shared the fruit and thought of a place similar to home but just different enough were I could try and move on. So I left and ended up here where I've been the past 2 years." Leaph put his head down and sighed. "I never wanted you to leave. I wanted for us to be together like we promised to be. Together forever. Then I go to find you and, nothing. You were nowhere to be seen. It took me almost those 2 years to find you again." The two sit there and stare into each others eyes for a few seconds. Kallon leans forward and hugs Leaph tightly. Leaph happily returns the hug twice as tight and they sit there for several minutes. Leaph is the first to start to pull away and pauses long enough for Kallon to lean in and press his lips to Leaph's in a soft but hungrily passionate kiss.
