The elfin from Vere'brius

chapter 2

I'm currently sitting at a table at home with gramps. Ilinya's sitting with us, but dad is currently on patrol. Gramps was going over my Orcish languages, not nearly all of  the with the amount of tribes out there. Normally my dad would help me with that but it was one of the rules my grandfather had set for me. If I wanted to be allowed to the Sentinels early I'd have to be able to bring something to the table and not be a liability to the rest of the team I'd be working with. And even though not all Sentinels knew Orcish or any of the Goblin languages, it was useful. There were greenskins in the forest after all.

"The meaning of: Garsum harlag do gol krog?"

An easy one. "Leader, we need to make haste." I answer.

I could feel a bit of pride welling up in the old elf, though he tried to suppress the link sharing that. "Good, your language's are developing steadily. Now for some of your questions. You had something about magic, right?"

"yeah, one of the books spoke of the magic that we use, Lightening, and how it's specific to just the elves. It also so spoke of the fact that it wasn't the only power we've got. What are these powers? My telepathy isn't one right?"

"No girl, it isn't. There is a reason why we call you special. It isn't just your lack for patience. Your what we call an Enigma. Enigma's come in various forms and unlike the other forms of magic isn't race specific. They can do various seemingly impossible things. If I remember correctly your father encountered a goblin who had the ability to create fire from nothing and manipulate other sources of flame to a certain degree. As for the other abilities elves possess, we are magically protected against our surrounding. You probably haven't noticed that you never experience discomfort through cold or warmth. The other race's do experience this. It can cause them a lack of sleep or just excessive sweating but in worse occasions their skin turns reddish and irritates, at worst their toes and fingers may freeze off. That is under quite extreme circumstances though."

"We're also not entirely immune, just resistant." Says Ilinya as she sets her own book down and she looks at me. "You'll have noticed that when you change your clothes or get out of bed in the morning that you do actually feel cold for a moment as the passive magic of our race kicks in. And if you're ever snowed in, humans and orcs aren't the only ones that lose fingers or freeze to death. Elves do to, it just takes longer. The pain lasts longer too..."

"ahem" Gramps gives her a glare and returns his attention to me. "No need to turn all macabre on us. Though you are right, it's not like an elf can't burn to death..."

"what do the other races have for magic then?" Our Lightening is awesome after all. It allows us to jump higher and mirror the acrobatic displays of a squirrel! Not only that, I heard that if someone became adept enough at it, he or she wouldn't even affect the leaves on the ground, wouldn't leave a print in the softest dirt and could walk over the thinnest branches. It can't be that the other races had anything anywhere as cool.

"Well it sort of follows a pattern, in that each race seems to have a passive and active ability. The passive is inborn and activates automatically, the active takes time to take control of, as you've noticed with your own Lightening. Also, not everyone is able to learn it as fast as the next person. Always to a certain degree though. It's also important that it's not just the intelligent species that hold magic. Several animals and other creatures have magic as well. Ents couldn't even live without the magic that allows them to move."

"But what are the abilities of the other races?"

Ilinya clears her throat and imitates a certain someone saying. "Patience girl, goblins, orcs and men live but a century. You'll have millennia let the elf say his thing without interrupting him. Questions can be asked afterwards."