Elarayne - What Am I?

Chapter 17

I wake up in a warm and soft bed. The birds sing beautiful songs and the sunlight shines through the large windows.

I sit up and notice that I am in my elf form again. I didn't transform myself however... My once so beautiful dress is torn and dirty. Now that I think about it I was in the jungle with this dress. It's so long that I have hold it up in order to walk properly. Well now it's destroyed. After what? Hundreds of years?

Looking around the room I discover large windows with curtains that seem to flow with the wind. There are plants all over the room and beautiful furniture. The furniture is embedded with gold and pure white color. Just like the castles. Elves seem to like that everything fits to each other.

I walk up to the balcony. Just now I realise that I am on one of the towers which stretch far into the height. In the distance I see waterfalls and green forests.

As I go back into my room I see a note laying on the wardrobe. I didn't notice it before.

Pick yourself a dress and meet me in the ancient library.
-A

Who might A be? It could be Arexlan...

I open the wardrobe and see many dresses in different colors.

I pick a long light blue dress. It has short sleeves and beautiful gemstones on the front of the dress. It must be worth a fortune.

I hope I won't destroy it.

Then I descend the stairs until I reach the bottom. I am standing in a hallway but I don't know where to go. Just like in the High Mountains in the Dwarven Kingdom. It feels like a long time since we left. Well we would've been faster but there was this... incident.

Now that I think about it my body feels weakened. The descend of the stairs felt like an ascend. I hope this weakened feeling won't last forever.

I decide to walk right and after a few turns I reach the ancient library. Today is my lucky day. Well I think it's the ancient library. It's a library but if it is ancient ... I don't know.

I make my way through the bookshelves following the voices of elves.

After a while of searching I find them: It's Sonalis and Aurora who are sitting in a corner and discussing serious matters. It looks like that. They don't seem happy.

But as they see me a smile returns to their faces.

"Slept well, Elarayne?", Sonalis asks me.

"Um... Yes..."

"It seems you found my note. The dress fits you very much!", Aurora says.

So the note wasn't from Arexlan but from Aurora.

"Thank you. Where is Arexlan?", I ask.

"He is still sleeping. A full day has passed since you arrived in Airea.", Aurora answers.

"What? So long? Great. Our headstart towards Zolton Gubnil is lost.", I say.

"That is sadly true. But why did you come later? We were waiting for you. What happened? Surely something must've happened."

"I myself am not sure what happened. It was suddenly windy, I fell unconscious and when I woke up Arexlan was unconscious too. But then a tiger wanted to attack us and I turned myself into a tiger to fight against it. After it ran away I waited till Arexlan woke up. Then we rode to Airea."

"Hmm... Strange."

"Since that incident we both feel very weakened."

"This is serious. Somebody attacked you in a way yet unknown to us. It must be Zolton Gubnil. Who else would question the rulers among the people?", Sonalis says.

For a moment nobody says anything. There is absolute silence.

Suddenly the door is being opened and we hear footsteps approaching us.

Then from the corner of the bookshelves a young elf appears.

"Sonalis, you wanted to speak with me?", the young elf asks but as soon as he sees my shining icy blue eyes he bows in front of me.

"I apologize. I didn't mean to interrupt."

I look at him confused but then say:

"Stand up. You don't have to bow in front of me. I'm not a goddess."

"But you belong to the rulers amongst creatures. I have read a lot about you in many books. I always wanted to meet a dragon."

"I'm sorry Elarayne.", Sonalis says to me and winks the young elf to stand up,"This is my apprentice Syrio who is still very young. He just became 200 years old."

"You're Elarayne? The Elarayne who was captured and tricked by the evil court wizard Zolton Gubnil who died hundreds of years ago?", Syrio asks with a fast voice.

"Syrio!", Sonalis says to him with a loud voice.

"Zolton Gubnil isn't dead. He still lives and he isn't too far away from us...", I say.

"What? That's impossible!", he says in awe.

"Syrio come with me. I want to discuss something with you.", Sonalis says and the two of them leave the room.

Now Aurora and I are the only ones in the ancient library.

"I want to discuss something with you too.", Aurora says to me in a serious voice, "Zolton Gubnil is with this Drevok right? But we don't really know what it is in certain. If he hadn't told you in your ... what do you call it? Dream while you were unconscious? Well while he has performing his ritual while he attacked you he told you about this Drevok. I have searched all the books in this library and there are no entries about this creature. We don't know with what we are dealing."

"I know. If we learn about this creature we will know its strengths and weaknesses. Knowledge is the key."

"I agree."