Ravien

3

The steady jostling of a horse gently rocks me back to consciousness. The pain in my thigh has subsided and my head hangs over the horse's roan neck. Fighting back the headache that's come with being hung upside down for so long I gingerly lift my head. The Sriat that tied me up is sitting straight-backed on his mount, eyes trained ahead, his attention drawn away from me.

Tentatively, I try to right myself, struggling with the new ropes tying my arms and legs together. My thrashing draws the attention of the Sriat and he glares down at me, "Stop that! You'll fall off the horse."

"At least then I'll be rid of you brutes!" I hiss back. The quiet attempt at speaking reminds me of how dry my throat has become and I start coughing, convulsing as they rack my body.

Sudden worry sparks to life in the Sriat's eyes and he lifts me up into a sitting position on his horse, placing me directly in front of him. He lifts a waterskin to my mouth, the cool liquid soothing my throat. 'Great, now I can't escape if I tried.' I think as the coughing subsides.

"My name is Kasrit by the way and we're not brutes. If anyone's a brute it's you elves."

As he says this my retort dies on my tongue and I lapse into silence. "What have the elves done that's made such a revered race hate us so much?' As I contemplate his words the sky darkens, the Sriat begin to fidget, and eventually, we stop.

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We'd long ventured off the stone path and instead found ourselves in a copse of oak trees. Their rough bark and dark green leaves stretched into a canopy above us through which we could just barely see the moon. The Sriat had tied me to a tree the moment we'd stopped, confident the magic-imbued ropes would keep me contained leaving me to watch as they set up camp. With practiced efficiency, they unloaded their jade colored tents and set to making a fire.

Snorting, I had to keep myself from bursting out laughing at their fire-making attempts. Although they had set up camp in less than ten minutes, they were struggling with the fire. It was clear these "rangers" were a new unit. They'd gathered damp branches and were allowing the wind into the infant flame, smothering it. Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore and called out, "Hey I know I'm a worm and all but that's definitely not how you build a fire!"

The leader, Mriat, turned to glare at me. His helmet was still on and his utter frustration was visible through his stance. "How're you supposed to build a fire then?"

"Well for starters you could get some dry wood."

"How're we supposed to get dry wood when this entire forest is drenched."

"You could always let me go? I'll dry the wood for you" a sly smile growing on my face.

"Ya damn elves all think you're so special. Just because you can do magic you think we'll let you go. Ha! Fat chance." Nevertheless, Mriat lumbers over to my tree and crouches behind me, dagger in hand. "You try to run and it won't just be my knife that gets stuck in you, ya hear?"

"Aye, aye captain!" I shout mirth dancing in my eyes. Still grumbling, Mriat turns his attention to my bonds and in a few moments, my wrists are free. Standing, I rub the sore spots, already starting to crackle with my purple hue and bounce lightly on the balls of my feet to get the blood flowing. After a few more minutes my wrists are healed and I stride over to the makeshift fire pit.

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Joints cracking, I crouch and start passing a little ball of plum colored lightning from hand to hand. I'd never quite been able to get a hang of the spell-based magic they taught us young elves and relied more on my intuition than anything else. Feeling the ebb and flow of energy through my body I coax the ball into growing in size and set it to spinning, my focus absolute. When it has reached a suitable size I toss it into the pile of damp branches. Steam rises as the water boils off and my lightning jumps from log to log. Each point of contact becomes a small lilac flame with a white-hot center. With a small whoosh, the entire pile goes up in flames, warming an area at least ten feet around.

Ecstatic that my extremities can enjoy a little warmth, I hunker down next to the fire and start weaving a little blanket out of the oak leaves scattered on the forest floor. I look up when I realize that utter silence has fallen and am greeted by the open-mouthed gazes of the entire unit of Sriat.

"What? You never seen a fire get lit before?" My little jab seems to knock them out of their shock and Kasrit timidly opens his mouth to say, "We've seen fires before it's just... no one's seen an elf, much less an elf doing magic, for the last 500 years."

Now it's my mouth that hangs open, surprise filling my body like an icy potion. "You mean to tell me that nobody has seen an elf for half a millenium? How is that even possible? The Masters always said that every race outside of the forest reveres the elves."

"HA!" Mriat lets loose a booming guffaw, "Revere the elves? You're joking, no one's given a rat's tail about the elves since you damn near tried to end the world!"

"E-end the world?! I have my gripes with my people but I never thought they could be so evil. Why would they ever want to end the world?"

"Who knows, you elves are all the same, thinking you're better than the rest of us. Your race forgot their ancestors, that they were descended from us Sriat and were given magic by pure chance. Instead of banding together with the rest of us, you secreted it away and used it to kill us in droves. If your magic hadn't faltered the day you most needed it your foul race would have spread its poison across all of Elsinore."

At the end of his tirade, Mriat spat at my feet and left me there. Too stunned to move I sat there, still at the foot of the flames as the men finished setting up camp and retired to bed. In the morning they came out to find me, hair carelessly shoved away from my face, staring into the last embers of the fire, the flickering flames still imprinted in my mind's eye.

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Thanks so much for reading!

So, Ravien's finally found out what the elves have done. What do you think she's going to do about it?

Tell me what you think. :)

Till next time.