The Elven King

Chapter 2: Prince Aranion

Aranion had only ever seen one other portal in his life, and that one hadn’t been wild. Like all bright elves, when his hair had turned from black to silver, marking his passage into adulthood, he’d been taken to the priests and told to look through the ancient gate they kept in their temple. He had been given a choice of weapons, and instructed to stand at attention and gaze into the portal for guidance.

He’d done just that. For just a moment, he’d caught a glimpse of a mortal child, sitting in a clearing, watching him.

The vision had been brief, and he hadn’t understood it at all. When he’d told the priest, the ancient elf had looked up at him with white, sightless eyes.

“A mortal,” he had said, his expression tight. “That’s impossible.”

Aranion hadn't known how to answer that. He’d shrugged.

“You were wrong,” the priest declared. “You know not what you saw. Keep this to yourself.”

Confused, Aranion had simply agreed, and had seldom, if ever, thought of it again.

But now, he’d just happened to stumble across a wild gate. And on the same night he’d had that overwhelming dream… Another dream of a mortal? It seemed too much of a coincidence.

The world on the other side of the gate was visible through an iridescent skin, like looking through a soap bubble. It was afternoon there. Aranion saw that the terrain was cultivated in uncomfortable angles, the way mortals did it, with patchworks of grass shorn at its head and flowers placed in rows along what looked like a gate of dead wood.

In the distance -- obscuring half his view -- stood a square domicile. Whatever spirit the materials of the building had once possessed were long gone, leaving only a hollow emptiness, like a shed insect shell. Beside it hunched a metal chariot, crouching on a sheet of some kind of hardened, blackened earth, although, like the house and chariot, the earth also lacked any healthy shimmer of life.

The entire thing made Aranion feel ill. But his curiosity was stronger than his disgust, so he kept watching.

Time moved differently in the mortal world. He wasn’t a priest, so of course he’d never studied the intricacies of how it worked. But as the afternoon progressed into evening, time seemed to move a step and a half faster.

Aranion felt more than half tempted to step through the gate. Whatever lay beyond had to be better than dying in the desert – or, worse, his intended marriage.

But the punishment for an elf’s crossing into the mortal realm without permission was far more severe than even his current fate…

No, he decided. He’d do better to keep moving. He started, reluctantly, to turn away.

It was at that moment that Aranion caught glimpse of the mortal from his dream.

She stepped out of the house carrying, of all things, a bucket -- though for what purpose, Aranion had no idea. In fact, he wasn’t even sure how he’d recognized her. In the dream, she’d been all in darkness, and he remembered her more as features and sensation than as a full woman. But this was her, he had no doubt at all. She possessed that fleeting, inimitable mortal beauty: wide dark eyes set in a heart-shaped face, lush curves, and warm, inviting skin….

Wasn’t it elves that were supposed to bewitch mortals? Obviously, the legends had it wrong. Because as the woman stepped closer to the gate, in her ill-fitting mortal clothes, Aranion felt himself more and more strongly captive to his desire for her.

He held his palm up as if to touch her through the portal. Then he caught his breath: she seemed to be watching the gate. Could she see him? It was rare, but not unheard-of, for a mortal to have fairie sight…