A Failure of a High Elf (Book One)

1.2

Written: 7/27/23
Word Count: 959

My eyes flashed open, though they stared at nothing. My legs, hooked around the branch for security, began to unclench against my will. Really, it was all against my will. I slid down the trunk, each nick of those stray bumps against my ragged nails ricocheting not in pain but as an afterthought.

Once my feet hit on solid ground, I sighed, picking up my fallen sketchbook. The sides of the pages were all black, and now a spatter of grass-textured ink adorned the rough backside.

"Alright, Philip," I said, securing the swinging stopper over the ink pot on my arm, "lead the way."

Vincent was a rough-and-tumble sort of elve. If only his skin were some hue of faint blue, his beach-thrown waves and sparkling oyster pearls for eyes befitted more an Oceanid, not a High Elf.

The Ham's glittering eyes, artfully arranged under the whitest, thickest lashes an elf could possibly have, widened. Widened large.

"I'm—" The Ham cocked a thumb back toward himself, shifting uncomfortably behind me as I took the lead away from my haven, "—I'm not Philip."

I stopped before a rolling hill, watching the slightest shiver of the golden stalks as a ripple of wind tossed their high-reaching heads to the ground, bowing before us like mere servants showing us the way.

Cocking an unimpressed brow at the infamous Vincent, I duly glared at him with all my might. If possible, his eyes grew even larger. "What? You said your name was Philip."

"No—but I—didn't..." Vincent was thoroughly confused. His Elf-Ham training had never covered what to do when met with an elva that couldn't be reasoned with.

"Never mind that, Philip." I faced straight ahead, quickening my steps up the small hill. Each crunch of the weighty stalks beneath my knuckle boots felt like a sin, felt like something an elvancy teacher would criticize me for.

Memories flummoxed about in my brain of the two elvancy teachers I'd had when I was but a tiny thing, more leg than actual body. The memories weren't...not...pleasant. Some of them.

I sighed, counting the number as the fourteenth since that glorious morning when I'd awoken in my dorm with the curtains drawn open. What awaited me was a gorgeous morning more befitting a royal palace...which wasn't too far off from Elmhurst, if I'm being honest. The palace was nearly the campus's next-door neighbor, if one didn't count the beggar district sandwiched between the two of them.

"You're...really her? The Beckett Swanmere?" Vincent scurried to catch up, his Elf-Ham suavity gone like his confused identity. Perhaps, he would make a better Philip than a Vincent. One shouldn't limit themselves over trifling matters like birth records.

Here we go.

I couldn't repress the smile curling up from my bottom lip, nor how the other side of my mouth spread wider, the smirk's landing imminent.

"Whatever do you mean, Philip? You're the one who sought me out, and you're not sure?"

"Um, it's just—" Vincent fluffed at the back of his pearl-colored hair, all of its iridescent waves shining under the sun's capacity. The morning rays really put rainbows in the Elf-Ham's hair. He was a rare specimen. I wonder if strands of his hair could be used in longevity potions. Security spells, health potions. Performance in bed potions, if that was your due. "—my name is Vincent."

"Again with this, Philip." I waved a hand through the air, realizing too late it was the one with my ink pot attached to it. The thing's rubber stopper was already leaky when it rested perfectly flat, perfectly still. At noon-hand on a clock, a smattering of ink dribbled out from the top, staining the backside of my 7th best outfit. Oops. I liked the flowyness of the shirt. And the buttons. Now, if only it wasn't a yewing rose shade, I could have been able to hide the truth for a while longer.

Ah, well.

"Why go through the trouble of telling me your name is Philip, if it isn't?"

"I...I don't know," the Elf-Ham replied seriously, and I shoved a knuckled hand into my mouth, turning away before a snort could escape.

The walk across the campus was filled with rows of weighty trees, hundreds of years old. In the stories of old—or was it the stories told by the old?—the first elvish settlers to the Goddess's Femur had landed with their bag of party tricks. Apparently, the island had been a desolate bone, not fit for any sort of creature to live. Without the High Elves, the Goddess's Femur would have remained just a lowly femur.

Beckett found it hard to believe something so unfathomable had happened within an elf's lifetime. Where had all the founders gone? Were they the old fogies scrawling on wood, recording history in the dangerous Western Sector?

"You...really aren't what I expected." Vincent refused to give up until the customary conversation was had.

I sighed. Loudly. And just when I was actually curious about history. Wait 'til I tell Professor Rorendalf.

"Alright, Philip, let's hear it." I flipped my two long braids behind my shoulders, feeling the familiar twinges on my scalp from the very top of my head where the braids began, a soothing ache that was as familiar as my own skin. "What are you so eager to hear me say? That I am, indeed, the Loon of the East? The Failure of a High Elf from the esteemed, 11th Ring family?"

Literally jumping forward at the opportunity presented to him, the Elf-Ham rushed through his words. "Is it true you threw a cat into Robin Lake?"

A wooden cat, yes.

"Hell and high-waters!" I turned to him, my brows pulling taut on my face. "Of course I did!"