Elven Legacy

Chapter 35

Day 6

Kili

The last rays of evening sun beamed through the open windows of Rarima's Home at a sharply slanting angle. The building stood two-stories tall and had many separate rooms, each one painted in bright colors. But the large communal room downstairs was where almost everyone liked to spend their evening. Patients and caregivers – who, sometimes, you couldn't very well tell apart – ate their meal together after the desert sun had forfeited most of its intense heat.

They sat on wooden stools, cushioned floor mats, colorful rugs, or directly on the ceramic floor tiles. Games like chess, checkers, and various other strategy or logic games were quite popular. Sometimes, Kili's best friend among the patients, a fifteen-year-old named Nahiris, played the pan flute for everyone.

Nahiris' mind suffered great distress and loneliness, because she felt she had been mistakenly born as male, and was, in reality, female. Her body was thin and her face quite androgynous and comely – for now. She knew it might very well change as the years passed, and Nahiris felt deeply troubled by this.

Her parents hadn't known what to make of this situation. Nimisians, in echo of their beloved God, always tried their best to be as tolerant and open-minded as they could. Even so, Nahiris proved just a tad too unusual for her parents' comfort.

Kili had been spending a lot of time with the teen.

'Where I come from, the ones that were in-between, or androgynous, if you prefer,' she'd told Nahiris once, 'were seen as deeply important and precious people. They held a special knowledge and experience that others did not. We cherished and valued them.'

'I wish I could live there,' Nahiris had replied, with a voice that was on its way to becoming undeniably male.

Kili, with a small, sad smile, had said, 'I wish that too. I miss my people . . . but they're all gone.'

Most of the community at Rarima's Home listened, and put on a kind, patient smile whenever Kili mentioned her past and her origins. Whenever she implied that she was the last, the only remaining elf in the world.

They assumed her mind was troubled, like some of the other patients. That she was making up stories. That her shimmering green-black hair must've been some strange birth defect or anomaly.

Because, after all, the history books were crystal clear. The last community of elves, which used to live in the North of Fellera, had gone extinct five centuries ago.

If they knew the truth, about me, about all the horrible things I've done, about the demon realm – they would not smile kindly then.

Even so, Nahiris believed her. Believed she really was the last of her kind; a long lost race. More than that, she loved listening to Kili's stories about the Elves of the Laeth Sea.

This evening though, Kili's other friend, Pamiyun, was the storyteller.

The oldest caregiver here, Pami was a spry, fearless woman who practically ran the place but would never admit it. Nimisians were usually quite humble about that sort of thing.

Presently, Pami sat in the large wooden rocking chair, in a corner of the colorful eclectic room. She was halfway through the popular tale about the two old men who get lost in the desert – one is an Eonak warrior, the other a Nimisian city-dweller. They must set aside their differences if they're to survive.

"But the scars of their hatred run deep," Pami recited, a glint in her wrinkled brown eyes. "Can they really stop fighting now?"

Kili smiled. She found that Pami's eyes always sparkled with something mysterious, as if the old woman harbored some important secret, which she hadn't yet revealed to the world.