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Chapter 3

Seconds, perhaps minutes, passed before anyone spoke. It was an elderly member of the council of whom Visis couldn't remember the name.

"Elguard number 20, Visis, what do you pleas n concerns of the accusation that you murdered elfguard number 36, Ceridwen?"

"I... I plead not guilty..." said Visis, trying to sound confident but trailing off at the end.

"Envil scoffed. "Oh, really? Is that so?" He snapped his bulky green fingers. Two cloaked figures, seemingly faerie as evident from the pale pink fingers) entered the room, each with fingers clasped tightly around a coffin. They crouched down and placed it on the ground, and after glancing at Envil for clarification, prised open the lid, revealing the contents. Inside the coffin was the limp corpse of Ceridwen, her short pink hair stained with blood. The whole left side of her face was bashed in gruesomely as if someone had smashed a rock on it.

"This body was found near the entrance of the Mother Tree, seemingly only seconds after it was attacked. A couple meters next to it we found...." started Cecilia, dragging out the last word as if to sarcastically add tension. Envil snapped his fingers again (Visis guessed that he was the one doing it because only his strong firm fingers could do it loud enough) and one of the faeries got up from the floor, anti-climactically slipping as he went, and ran to the left wing of the room. A few seconds later, he entered again, pale pink skin blushing furiously, and presented Envil with a large chunk of trine flesh. The colour rushed from Visis' face as quickly as it had come to the faerie's. She had forgotten about the trine flesh. What had happened to it after she crashed into the tree? She looked under her arm, not sure what she was expecting to see. Whatever she was expecting, nothing was there; just a musty air. When she crashed into the tree, this must have been where it went. Right into the head of another elfguard.

***

After some shameless begging and stammered explanations, the High Council believed Visis' story. But she wasn't going to get away with it that easily. Innocence aside, it was her carelessness that caused Ceridwen's death, and the Council wasn't going to go easy on her for her 'cutesy' or 'clumsy' personality. She still had to be charged for it, and the fine they made Visis pay was no easy debt.

"Leave," said Envil simply. Visis took a step back, shocked at how abruptly it was put.

"Wh- What? Leave where?" she stammered, in too much a state of confusion to comprehend the situation.

"Out of the village, orcbrain," Envil snarled back, his fists grasped tightly around his daggers.

Visis' world came crashing down around her. "Wh- I - leave? But I didn't do anythi-!"

Envil's arms swung up to Visis' neck, giving her two clean cuts on the back of her head. He simply scoffed as the banished elfguard collapsed to the ground. "Leave," he repeated in the same spine-chilling monotone as before. "Death is no light matter, and we can't have clumsy little elfguards like you killing without a care."

Visis didn't move from the floor. This was the end. This was the end of her. They could've put her in prison. Cut off all of her limbs as punishment, that would have been amazing in comparison.

To be separated from the tribe.

An elfguard's worst nightmare.