Heavily laden, Selene and Cire hiked at an easy going pace through the Sunset Woods, leaving the hamlet behind them. While he was eager to learn more about his sun elf heritage, he was almost equally excited to see an elven city for the first time. By the way Selene had described the Tempest Treetops he doubted his imagination could do it justice. He kept thinking of simple tree houses linked with myriad hanging bridges.

Selene wasn’t exactly known for effusive description, so he was curious about what she was leaving out. When he had followed up with questions it was clear that she didn’t want to talk about it. She had been preoccupied since the fight in the ruins, Cire thought it had been a reaction to her injuries, but he was starting to reconsider.

For the start of the trip he gave her plenty of space to dwell in quiet. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a few of the chipmunkins following them in the trees. He wondered how many times he had been watched and not even known it. Even if he had noticed, he probably would have just thought they were regular woodland creatures.

Making it to the pass in good time, they set out of the valley, leaving the towering Twin Pines behind them. Smaller fur, pine, and oak trees dotted the landscape as they made their way over Stout’s Knob, the last hill dominating the exit into the foothills. By mid-afternoon Cire had tired of the silence and gave conversation another shot.

“So, a couple of nights ago, the night before bonding the hamlet, I had a pretty odd experience. I was waiting to bring it up with you away from the others, so now seems as good a time as any.”

Selene stopped and pulled off the trail under a sprawling oak. Dumping her pack to the ground and stretching her back, she gave him an inquiring look.

“And? What happened?”

Following her example Cire dropped his pack, but instead of stretching he sat down and took a long drink of water.

“Well, I’m still not entirely sure how to describe it. It was like I was asleep, but not asleep. I thought I had been dreaming all night, but when I came around, it turned out that I had been awake. Sort of awake? It’s hard to describe.”

Selene nodded and took the offered waterskin from Cire.

“Elven sleep. We can sleep with half our mind, and stay awake with the other. What did you do during the night?”

“I cleaned up, I think. I still don’t remember it too clearly, but I know I straightened up the cabin. Took ash out of the fireplace and picked up some mushroom pieces that Durg had left under the table. Why?”

Tapping the left side of her head with a finger, Selene answered.

“Left side of your mind was awake then. You wouldn’t have been so active if it had been the right and it would be much harder to remember, at least details. This is why we are going to my home, and why we will spend most of this trip teaching you how to be an elf.”

Cire raised an eyebrow in questioning confusion.

“How to be an elf? I thought I was going so that I could learn more about sun elves and why there aren’t that many around. I know I don’t know the culture or lore, but I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about.”

“You’re going to need to fit in, at least a little bit. If you go to the city and keep acting like a human; falling into deep sleep every night, not using your hearing and sight properly, and being so focused on the immediate, you will be received as less than a child. Even wild elves, those who live in scattered families, get a warmer reception than those who behave like humans.”

Cire frowned, he didn’t like the idea of pretending to be something he wasn’t, but that wasn’t exactly the case here. It was more like he hadn’t become what he was yet. Ultimately, he decided it was better to learn more about himself. If he had been ignoring talents that could help him in the long run, he wanted to correct that mistake.

“So, I’ve been able to sleep like this the whole time, but I haven’t been. Why didn’t you say something earlier? You must have noticed.”

“Same reason I didn’t ask why you haven’t been using your ears properly, I wanted to make sure you still weren’t lying. Also, it’s rude. Deep sleep is still the best way to manage stress, physical and mental. You seemed like you needed it.”

“Fair enough. I know that a human being reborn as an elf isn’t exactly common. I would have needed to be won over as well. Now that your convinced by my obvious incompetence, mind telling me how I am not using my ears right? I mean, I can hear things much further away and with far greater detail than when I was a human. What am I missing?”

Flashing the ghost of a smile, Selene razzed him.

“You’re missing a whole lot, but let’s stick with the ears. You don’t angle them or move them to pick up specific sounds or to listen further. They just sit there attached to that ridiculous face of yours.”

Genuinely scowling, Cire looked up and down the dusty dirt trail cutting through the mountains. No one was around for miles. Then he spotted a hawk riding an updraft, circling high overhead. He strained, but he couldn’t make out any sound from it. He could tell that he had moved his ears, but that was all.

“So, teach me. I’m willing to learn.”

It was like he had shaken loose whatever anchor had attached itself to Selene. With her attention redirected, and a target for her frustration, Cire at least had her talking. They spent the rest of that day, and the next, teaching Cire the basics of using his elven abilities.

Elven vision wasn’t telescopic, but it could magnify. Cire learned to relax his eyes to induce the effect. He could sacrifice vision at a distance for greatly increased sight at close range or vice versa. The experience left him disoriented at first, but with practice he finally stopped feeling dizzy after each attempt.

Early on he had taken a fantastic tumble and nearly fallen down the side of a small gorge. After that he stopped trying to practice while hiking on anything but flat clear trail. Working with his ears was more comfortable, as it didn’t give him a sense of vertigo, but it proved more complicated.

At first he would watch Selene as she pointed out something, like a small lizard, and then angled her ear towards the animal. He thought it was a matter of concentration, until he realized that she wasn’t just moving her ear, she was moving each part of it individually. The pointed tip curled and flexed almost like a finger. Wobbling, the lobe twisted and stretched, making her ears protrude further. By the time they stopped at the base of the foothills, with the densely packed trees of the Shadowed Forest looming before them, he had started to develop a rudimentary technique for ear movement.

Neither Selene nor Cire wanted to enter the forest during the night. Selene even proposed that they spend a day or two at the campsite preparing themselves. If they got caught by a group of monsters or enemies amongst the trees their best recourse would be a mad dash to the settlement. The best tools they had moving forward would be silence and stealth.

Around the campfire they continued to work on Cire’s training. Selene introduced the elven handtalk alphabet. It wasn’t anything like sign language he had seen before. Each finger angled in reference to an imaginary straight line conveyed a different meaning. It gave the signals an angular and rigid appearance compared to the more natural flow of the signing he was used to. Not that he knew any sign language besides “bullshit,” that sign was easy to remember and hilarious.

Thoroughly overtaxed, Cire welcomed the respite of sleep with open arms. Selene wasn’t so gracious. She insisted that he practice elven sleep, this time with the right side of his brain staying awake. At first Selene shook him awake minutes after he fell asleep. Then, one of those times, he hadn’t fully awoken.

Cire felt high. He’d had his fair share of trips to the hospital for broken bones, and whatever he was on right now, was leagues stronger than any painkiller he had ever taken. The stars streaked through the night sky with long comet-like tails. Spinning under him, the ground felt alive and pulsing. Selene’s eye’s hung like twin pools of thunderstorms on a pitch black canvas. Words floated out of her mouth and he could swear that he saw vibrations waver through the air.

Swimming through the stars, images of his friends melted and reformed. Maisy’s head on top of a chipmunkin’s body ran through constellations. Stacy and Leslie sat with each other watching him curiously. Andreas and Nicolas both waved and then merged into one person. Busily eating one star after another, Durg feasted on the heavens. Flames consumed them all as Stout, wreathed in fire, set the world ablaze.

Staggering to his feet, Cire screamed as he felt his flesh melt, and then cackled as he flew into the sky carried by the embers. The world below him surged with shapeless shadow suffocating the conflagration. Raindrops started falling past him, raindrops in the shape and color of Selene’s eyes drowned the sky.

Cire fell. He crashed into the earth and hurtled through time. Parents, children, siblings, friends, all people he knew, but had never seen invaded his mind. They pressed into his awareness and then it was gone. Cire was lost in an ocean of eternity.

“Cire, wake up.”

He heard the words, but they lay beyond the horizon, their meaning foreign.

“Cire, wake the hell up.”

Pain pulled him through the world and suddenly he was present. He was laying down next to the campfire with Selene leaning over him. A stinging pain faded on his cheek.

Sitting up slowly, Cire ran his hands over his face and rubbed it hard. He looked out over the grassy foothills and down into the forest below, centering himself. Nothing he could remember made any sense, but a deep sense of purpose resonated inside him. He felt drained and refreshed, physically ready to slay a dragon, but mentally hung over.

Groggily he croaked, “What the hell was that?”

“Didn’t have a good first experience in the “trance”? You were sleeping with the right side of your mind. We call it the “trance”. It has entirely different uses than its opposite, and can be revelatory. Elves carry their trauma and joy close to the heart, we don’t truly reside within our emotional selves except within the trance,” Selene explained with a soft tone uncommon for her.

Still blinking his eyes and rubbing his temples, Cire grumbled under his breath. When he looked Selene in the face his eyes were shooting daggers.

“You couldn’t have warned me? I feel like I been wrung out and hung up to dry.”

Selene shrugged and chewed on a piece of jerky before handing Cire a piece.

“It isn’t normally that bad. It helps us process our experiences. Elves take in so much that we notice far more about the world than we consciously realize. The trance helps us draw connections we wouldn’t otherwise put together and unravel mysteries we don’t understand. If you don’t learn to enter the trance on your own, the stress will build up and you’ll go insane.”

“Go insane?” Cire’s voice spiked an octave.

“Not until you reach three or four hundred years old, but eventually yes. It’s rare, you didn’t seem to have any problems reaching the trance with assistance, I don’t think you will have any trouble. I wasn’t sure if you would be able to enter that state at all, but it’s a good sign when you’re so young.”

Standing up and pacing next to the fire, Cire tried to make sense of what Selene was laying out. He knew he had been approaching his life so far as a human with elven abilities, but he hadn’t gotten anywhere close to wrapping his head around what that meant. Nodding, begrudgingly, he released his anger and took in a long, deep breath and bit into breakfast.

Selene had to prod Cire to speak this time around. He was either sulking, or mulling over the strange memories that every trance produced. Redirecting him would be a better course of action.

“Anything you want to do today? We should try to rest as much as possible, but some light activity will help keep us aware. You’ve been wanting to summon your keep and I still haven’t shown you the ability I received.”

Perking up immediately, Cire shoved the remaining smoked jerky into his mouth and chewed it aggressively. Roughly swallowing, he cracked his knuckles, and shook out his hands.

“I still don’t even know how to do it, just that I can. You haven’t even told me what you got, but I am willing to bet it’s something like Durg and Kalani’s gifts. Durg can summon armor, which is good, because his current set is on its last legs. Kalani has a magical trident from the settlement bond and the territorial bond gave her access to infernal magic and another skill or two I think.”

Standing next to Cire, Selene held out her arm. At first he thought she was pointing to the forest, so he looked down the hill, but when he looked back he could see tendrils of purple-black mist swirling out of her hand. Gradually the mist took the shape of a bow and with an arrow nocked in place. Blowing away with an unfelt wind, a gorgeous, and clearly magical, bow was left in it’s place. Grey metal with an ephemeral string held an arrow that was clearly still swirling with mist, both solid and insubstantial.

“Now I don’t have to worry about running out of arrows, so you and Durg won’t have to carry extra bundles. It hits hard, has great stats, and the arrows are partially incorporeal. They will be able to hit ethereal monsters, like ghosts, but they will also pass through some armor and deal more damage.”

“Wow, can you summon it every day like Durg can with the armor?” Cire asked with obvious envy in his voice.

“Yup, I still packed my bow though. Just not nearly as many arrows as I would usually bring. Now hold your hand out and concentrate on summoning the keep. That’s all it should take, my bow doesn’t need an incantation.”

Cire followed her advice and held his hand out before him while focusing his vision on a small flat piece of ground across from them in the small dell. With Selene’s summon a small amount of mist had emanated from her hand, in comparison, Cire’s entire body poured out a thick billowing cloud. Wild streaks of neon purple light splintered through the mist like chain lightning.

The mist cloud crawled along the ground like a living animal, tentacle like tendrils snaking out to grip soil and rocksto pull it forward. Settling into the area Cire had concentrated on, the mist climbed upward into the sky. It began to solidify until a four story blocky stronghold emerged.

Swinging down, a large drawbridge crashed to the earth. Clicking chain links heralded the portcullis raising up from behind where the bridge had been, revealing a set of thick, ten foot tall, black metal doors. Rigid stone, capped with a parapet, imposingly towered over them radiating an aura of strength. Lastly, a blank banner of violet unfurled down the center of the front wall and the doors swung open.

Cire looked to Selene, who was staring wide eyed in stunned disbelief, and then back to the keep. A smile affixed in place, as he commented.

“Now, that, makes me feel like a lord.”