Among the Birches *NaNoWriMo 2013*

Fork & Knives

Kya had little knowledge of the North: Trenton, she had seen before, but past it, she was lost. Nicholai took on the role of a guide, asking Kya where a half-elf who won't reveal his mission might go. His voice was almost threatening; she took a wild guess and recalled a small enclave up elves above Trenton some way. Nicholai, despite being from the frigid area Kya spoke of, had never heard of a tribe of elves residing near Ballad.

"There can't be a tribe there." His voice was insistent, flat. Someting in it, though, made Kya think of the barfights she had seen between humans over women, over money, and sometimes over the silliest of things, such as whether one kind of tobacco was preferred over another. (The tobacco fight, as Kya could clearly remember, was actually the bloodiest.) That's not to say, though, that Kya was scared. She was lithe enough to escape, if she had to. Still, she didn't really believe that he would harm her. But humans do snap. So she was cautious.

"There is-- or was, only a small while ago. My elder, Luka, has gone on goodwill journeys there in recent times."

"Recent? Ha! To you elves, anything within a thousand years is recent."

Kya gave no reply to him, but steered her horse-- a fine mare named Maidenhair-- slightly away from Nicholai and his steed, another fine-- but moody-- horse named Bracken.

"It is there, I assure you. But you need not follow me. I am willing to go alone."

Alone! As if I care about being alone. I have been alone by choice for a few years, wiling away my mortal's lifespan for that sort of thing. I am willing to go alone, too; don't think you threaten me with abandonment. If I went alone, I'd not be wasting this time-- valuable as it is, for who knows where Vivienne is?-- and I'd not be going to some abandoned settlement of a small, haughty enclave of elves too good to associate with the humans sharing their segment of the world.

"Maybe that would be--" but Nicholai couldn't make himself say that it would be better. He wanted it to be so, truly he did; but the words froze and silence filled the space in which he intended to inject his formal breaking of ties.

They passed trees of flaming colors and wilting ferns and brush for miles and miles. Fat squirrels scurried to pick up acorns and large, forgotten fruits of chesnuts and walnuts. One even ran along with the horses, barking at them and skillfully running between each of the mares' legs. His presence almost broke the spell of gloom that had been cast on the two travelers, but though they smiled and chuckled lightly to themselves, they could not bring themselves to speak or truly laugh. The little squirrel ran some ways off from his fine home in the cavern of an old dead beech tree, but turned and ran back when the party reached a fork in the road. Where the one path split into a T and became two, a weatherworn wooden sign stood, meant to advertise the way to two separate destinations but having been sanded down by time and the weather to betray nothing but a multitude of undecipherable grooves in the wood.

"Which way, Nicholai? One or both must ultimately arc back into a straight line, for I know that Olsen lies north of Trenton."

"I don't know, Kya. I have never heard of 'Olsen' or its elves, and I always travel from Trenton homewards along a path that leads out of the city towards the East, not North-- I've heard bad things about this path."

Which way, oh Providence? Which way to Olsen, which way to Jasper? Kya looked through the opening in the dense trees into the sky, clear and crisp. It was exceedingly cold.

"Jasper! Look!"

From the right rapidly flew what appeared to be the same levitating black ball. Nicholai looked up to see it, too, and clutched his sword helplessly. Kya clutched her invisibility shard instead, just before the thing flew over. When Nicholai turned to face where she stood, he saw nothing and no one.