Tales of the Hollow Heart

Chapter One: Secrets

"Come on, just one more?" Esvelie pleads to Engom the shopkeeper, her eyebrows furrowing in feign heartbreak. He sighs, stroking the beard on his bulky chin. "Esvelie, my child, this is the fifth text you've borrowed this week! I've surely warned you time and time again that dabbling in Shapeshifter Magic is risky business. Moreover, I don't want to be the poor fool who takes the heat for enabling it!"

"Nothing dreadful has come of it thus far and I haven't made my actions evident. Nobody will ever know!" Esvelie quips back peevishly.

With an irked exhale and an unintelligible murmur, Engom disappears into a small doorway just behind the shop's front counter. Esvelie tiptoes and leans forward, curiously listening for Engom's whereabouts. Moments later, he returns, startling her back a couple of steps. With a scrutinizing look, he tosses a small, leather-bound book onto the timeworn wooden countertop. "This is the last one." he sternly admonishes.

Eyes beaming, Esvelie bounces forward and swipes it up, tossing back a short-winded "Thank you, Engom!" as she rushes outside.

She tucks the book snugly beneath her right arm, hidden from unwanted snooping. The small walk is uneventful and delightfully void of meddlesome onlookers, much to Esvelie's relief. Woodline is a terribly ordinary Eleaf-inhabited village on most occasions, save for the casual yet cantankerous gossip among the townsfolk. The village exists as a border separating the woods from the moors, which continue North into the lowlands of Kalveyr and eventually merge into the cliffside coastal kingdom of Vastbrine. Its prominence overlooks the entire country of Leafeira. However, pondering the ever-increasing laws sanctioned throughout the kingdom leaves a bitter taste in Esvelie's mouth. In her eyes, they have done nothing more than dampen the once immaculate charm of her woodland home.

Esvelie zips behind a small cluster of quiet houses, using their sun-greyed wooden walls to shield her movements as she tiptoes through areas normally littered with Eleaven presence. However, just at the edge of civilization, a jarring voice stops her in her tracks. Head snapping toward the unexpected noise, she sighs in relief to find that it's simply a fellow town dweller named Broadvir Oekson. Esvelie considers him no more a threat than the average fruit fly. He's an elderly man whose matted gray beard nearly reaches his stomach and his washed-out, gray robes drag the earth beneath him, clearly too large for his hunched-over frame. A withered hand clutches desperately to a rotting wooden cane. Broadvir is known for lacking most of his mental functioning, generally doing nothing more than tootling around and mumbling nonsense about curses and tall tales. Esvelie phonies up her most convincing act of politeness. "Hi Broadvir. It's good to see you! I really don't have time to chat right now. I'm a little busy."

He jabs a bony finger toward Esvelie's arm and she shifts her focus downward to see the exposed edge of her book's spine. It appears to have shifted from its hidden position, and stifling a nervous laugh, she shoves it back beneath her arm with the palm of her opposite hand and says, "Just doing some light reading since the weather is so nice! Also, it's quiet by the woods, so..."

Interrupting her meaningless babble, he whispers, a mad look in his bloodshot charcoal eyes, "Ah, just as legends have foretold; the chosen heroes are being called upon to purge the land of its curse." His trembling hands hover inches from Esvelie's face.

Shaking her head and trying to pay no mind to Broadvir's delusional rambling, Esvelie promptly excuses herself. Carelessly waving goodbye and pushing the bizarre interaction to the back of her mind, she ventures into the thick of a particularly tree-laden area, and as she approaches the base of an unnaturally large tree trunk washed with the slightest periwinkle tinge, Esvelie places her palm flat against the raised bark, releasing a quick, soundless ripple of energy. The tips of her pointed, leaf-formed Eleavean ears tingle from the simple spell cast. Mere moments later, a small, brown squirrel with a cream-colored belly peeps its head down from the mass of green above. It chatters cheekily and leaps down, skillfully landing on Esvelie's waiting shoulder. She grins and excitedly exclaims, "Acron! Engom finally gave me the shop's last contraband text!"