A Failure of a High Elf (Book One)

3.2

Written: 8/3/23
Word Count: 1,229

I haven't had much experience with Nymphs. They simply aren't around in the Capital, nor Elmhurst. The closest Nymph grounds was in the Southeastern Sector, further south than even Grand Willows. But that was a community of Dryads. Similar to Wood Elves, Dryads also took their power directly from the woods, but their powers worked differently than elves.'

In our world of waning elven powers, those who retained more than a spark of magic within them were lauded, sprung up the hierarchical pole as if all it took to run a country was a few more spells under their belt than most. But the Dryads were different.

Dryads had far more transformative abilities. Elven magic was all about manipulating the outside world, while Dryads and other Nymphs directed their energies on themselves. Buffering, transforming, healing.

The Hesperide child sat like a vulture, its feet gripping either side of the dangerous spike that looked as if it could cleave its body in two...in the worst possible spot. Its hands, a burnished, purplish, cherry color, held the point jutting right beneath its butt. The child, messy golden hair covering half its face, cocked its head, the move sending shudders down my spine.

I couldn't be so pathetic as to be scared of a child.

Could I?

"Y-yes?" The wind funneling through the ravine tore my word away as soon as it left my mouth, but I cleared my throat, trying again. "H-Hello."

"You're a High Elf, lady," the child said, its words reaching me with little effort. Was it using magic to carry its words? Did that fall under the realm of possibility for the Nymphs who derived their powers from the sun itself?

"I am," I said, my hands tight on Runy's reins. If anything, I could count on my mare's speed.

"Long way from home," the child continued.

I urged Runy to keep moving now that she'd calmed herself. My own heart was pumping like mad, so the heartbeat that pulsed beneath the beast's sleek neck resonated beneath my fingers, the two of us moving in tandem.

"I'm—" I started, my voice failing almost immediately. Why bother? It took such strain to direct my words across the wind. Why did I have to talk to some child about something that wasn't even its business?

"You're...?" The child, relentless, tilted its head the other way. That spill of gold fell away from its forehead, showing maroon marks like the rays of the sun, all centered around a diamond-shaped symbol that looked more like a jewel than the fireball in the sky.

I nearly fell off my seat as I looked at it. A child with a marked forehead? Was that even possible?

"Y-You're one of the Goddess's messengers?!"

The child shrugged, its butt looming dangerously close to that jagged point below. "I might be. I could be. Or I will be."

A grimace crossed my face even before the brat was done speaking. Even with the blessed marks, a brat was still a brat.

"Alrighty, then," I muttered, turning away from the Hesperide entirely.

"A long fall awaits you," the Hesperide child called after me, not moving a muscle, as Runy and I continued our way on the dangerous trail. "If you need help, you need only look to the sun."

I shivered for the third time since meeting the Goddess's messenger child, rubbing at my arms. I urged Runy to continue until I was sure we'd left that jagged finger far, far behind. Blazing hell. Now I had to deal with the vague mutterings of a child prophet.

Was that a message from the Goddess? Accept my fate? Stop wandering all over her femur and disgracing my ancestors?

The long fall was obviously the ravine. So, at least I knew how I was going to die. The "look to the sun" bit was strange, though. Was it a Hesperide death ritual, to die while looking up at the sun? What would happen if one of them died during the night?

Who even cared what some little brat-in-training said, anyway? Who'd ever heard of a Goddess's messenger who was a Hesperide? They were the second-most reclusive race on the Femur! How could they send forth a messenger, when they kept to themselves in their scary mountains? Who would listen to them? Elves had a habit of only listening to other elves, anyway, so a Hesperide messenger was really unfortunate luck.

That kid was going to have a tough adolescence, if it wasn't having one already.

After we'd trailed a bit longer, I hopped off Runy's back on stiff, sleeping legs. I hissed in pain and toppled into the mare's side, holding on for dear life as my feet decided to wake up under a blaze of fire. Runy snorted, trying to leave me behind, but I held on, skidding along after the beast like a drunken Elf-Ham clinging onto that one elva that wasn't interested.

"Listen here, horse," I chastised Runy, "I'll be dead soon, anyway, so can you at least let me walk there on my own two feet?"

The real question was: which fall would be the one to kill me? I'd gotten pretty used to traveling alongside the ravine to my left, so unless I'd screwed up and chosen the one claw mark that actually didn't slope downward, I didn't think it was this fall. The volcano? Would the fog from the marsh cover my descent right over its lip? If one died from lava, was death instantaneous? Because if it wasn't, I was seriously considering just jumping off this cliff and hoping I hit enough boulders and jagged edges on my way down to finish me mid-air.

"Aunt Rosetta's...dead," I mumbled, more to myself this time than the horse impatiently forcing my legs to keep treading toward my doom. "I guess Mother can settle her estate once enough time passes that it's clear I died on my way there. Father will have to let her leave that place if I die, right? He doesn't want to settle his sister's affairs, and no way would he let the other addict do it. If one of them has to settle things, then it should be the addict actively getting treatment in rehab, not the one who parties like he's going to die tomorrow."

Aunt Rosetta had been a total outlier in the Swanmere family. A High Elf who was born kind. Nearly a miracle.

She'd left almost immediately after graduating with a degree in elven medicine, but she'd only gone off to the Northwestern Sector to get another degree in animal medicine. Some time in the midst of all that, she'd decided to become a vet exclusive to treating dragons, and chose to live right at the edge of hunting territory, surrounded by nothing but mountains, mines, and the Dark Elves who lived there.

I couldn't imagine doing even one of those things, yet Aunt Rosetta had conquered them all.

But she'd ended up dead...

That's right. Even if I made it all the way to her reclusive little village, there were still her murderers on the loose. Who knew why she'd died? She could've been killed by dragon hunters—illegal, every one of those mangy mongrels—who were displeased at her job title. She couldn't have been so foolish as to actually work against the dragon hunters? Right?

Right?