Written: 7/27/23
Word Count: 1,327
Vincent's beautiful face cracked, an ugly thing, like a shattered mirror. "Aw, poor kitty. That temper of yours is wicked, Lady Swanmere. You should really learn to control it."
I grinned, the tips of my canines poking into my bottom lip, a tad painfully. Purposefully, I bit down just that much harder. "What makes you think I haven't? Have you heard any stories of tantrums? Of brawls in broad daylight over spilled mead? Perhaps it's just because you're an Elf-Ham, but you really should pay more attention to your surroundings. Never know when you'll have to jump into a lake to save a shivering cat."
"Did you—did you just call me an Elf-Ham?" Vincent asked, patting his chest in the clearest mock affirmation one could possibly portray. And, my fist was back in my mouth, smothering the laughter before it could hit the wind and set sail. "That's offensive, you know."
"Oh, really, Philip? The truth bothers you that much?" I formed my lips into a pout, tucking my head to the side in the way sweet people do when they hear you're sad. "How hypocritical. Tell me, Philip, which Ring does your family belong to?"
The tips of Vincent's ears turned pink. We were now back with the buildings on campus, each one made out of floor-to-ceiling glass and stubbly, stucco walls. At Elmhurst, the buildings were sharp. And, yes, they would kill you.
"The 7th," Vincent defended himself. "We help portion out livestock to all the sectors. It's very dignified."
"Not high up the chain, though," I dismissed with a wave. Already, side-glances of apprehension by passing elves fueled my fire, their obvious double-takes as they took note of the infamous Charlotte Swanmere walking alongside—gasp!—an elf! An Elf-Ham, at that! "I've certainly never heard of your family. A mid-manager, then."
"And what's wrong with that?" Vincent's defensiveness spread. His skinny shoulders stuck up near his ears, his arms crossed over his chest.
Each building at Elmhurst was a different color. Not including the white-walled dorms, each of the 13 administrative and school buildings were painted a different color. It was meant to signify the 13 Rings and their collective glory, but it was really just an eyesore.
Future leaders and all that. The students of Elmhurst Grand could never forget, not for one moment, why they were here. Why they existed, why their parents were granted permission to have them in the first place.
So that Elf-Hams like Vincent could one day maintain a mid-level managerial position as he oversaw the pig farmers, the chicken collectors, and the sheep herders. He'd probably oversee a group of, like, five farms from the Middle Sector. He might even get a right-hand elf, one who'd grown up in Pixie Territory and knew the fields and forests like the back of his hand. Together, they'd ration out the livestock for slaughter, distributing it in a timely manner throughout the year. Never kill too many, never give out lesser-quality meat.
And yet, the poor Elf-Ham named Vincent—or was it Philip?—had to walk by the bright blue building that indicated his Ring's infamous color. Any seal, any stamp, of that bright blue shade had come from some member of the 7th Ring, somewhere along the chain. Even though Philip—or was it Vincent?—would just live in a ranch house, maybe be granted two or three wives, and stare at open plains all day, he was still forced to endure the grandeur of this campus.
"It must be rough, Philip." I placed a hand on Vincent's taller shoulder. Like a typical High Elf, his shoulders were as breakable as seashells, his beauty all penned up in his face and lithe, skinny frame. "I hope they requisition three wives to you."
Vincent stared at the hand flatly patting his shoulder. His thin brows wiggled, as if unsure which direction they wanted to veer. "W-What?"
I turned away from him, pushing open the glass door textured top to bottom with the intricate pattern of seashells. I couldn't stop a spike of hatred as I regarded them, knowing the designers of this building didn't care one iota about real seashells, nor about texturizing the glass to actually reflect the feeling of seashells. What'd they use? A damn cookie cutter or a bear trap?
In disgust, I pushed open the door, entering the cherry-red building sitting in the center of the ring of campus buildings. The 13th, which closed the circle. Their business was folk. All the folk on the island. Elves, Brownies, Pixies, Mermaids, Nymphs.
Dragons.
At Elmhurst, the red building housed Headmaster Ralph, whose job was to oversee the students, while his staff oversaw which classes each student took, their extracurriculars. Etc. Etc. Write a nice report home to the Big Bads. Ahem. I mean, their hopeful parents.
The real 13th Ring Head lived in the palace redder than the sky during sunset. High Elves usually ran the gamut of peach-colored skin to dusky-black-colored skin. Ice Elves were blue to white, Wood Elves honey to brown to black, Dark Elves gray. Pixies were pink or yellow. Brownies brown like their namesake. Each of the Nymphs also took on similar attributes as their namesakes. And Mermaids tended to be green around the gills.
But the Royal Family, who granted permissions to all of the Goddess's Femur's inhabitants to get married, to move Sectors, to have kids...they were red. Red like the Hesperides who lived in the highest tops of the mountains named after them in the Southern Sector.
It was funny, wasn't it? Most of the founders' hell-wrathed, elven powers had washed away somewhere during their journey to the Goddess's Femur, similar things happening to the other creatures who'd traveled to live here—whether forced or willing. Yet, each generation maintained the same color scheme as their all-powerful ancestors, who actually took on magical properties from the piece of nature that granted them power beyond measure. Now, without a bag of tricks, all an Elf could do was run faster than the sheep they herded and jump higher than a bear's claws.
So why the hell were we still born to look as if they had magic in our blood? Whenever diplomats came from other lands—the homelands of many of the Goddess's Femur's different inhabitants—the grand scheme was to hide our depletion of magic. A consequence of a small breeding pool, my pointy-ass ears.
Maybe the Goddess whose Femur we desecrated didn't take kindly to parasites turning her bone-smooth leg into a furry landscape that crawled with bugs.
I'm just saying.
I really should tell Professor Rorendalf I thought about her theological premise, something she lovingly named the Elven Magic Singularity. She thinks if we don't return to our original homelands, eventually, even the magical bag of tricks will stop working. Then, we'll slowly lose more and more of the magic that exists in all nature and feeds our magically-thirsty bodies. Until we're nothing but husks.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind being taken down by the Goddess's Femur. I feel that's a far less useless reaction than one of the more prominent Elf-Hams on campus, who'd started spouting about Dragon's Breath curing all our problems.
Sure. As if anyone could attain something that didn't exist if they talked about it enough.
These thoughts occupied my brain as I trudged up the loudly-patterned, carpeted stairs with the broad balconies on every level. Round and round I went, all the way to the 17th floor. I only wish my thoughts could be this busy once I actually faced the Ice Elf waiting for me on the other side of more textured-glass doors. This one, indented in classic five-fingered maple leaves that existed nowhere on this blazing campus.
Snorting in customary disgust, I channeled my inner peace, one knuckle raised to knock on the wall beside the fragile door, when a voice interrupted my preparations.
"Charlotte, dear, is that you? Please, no need to knock. Come right in."