Chapter 1

The man sat on a wooden chair inside the house. The lights inside the house were off as to make sure that his wife has a good rest, he didn’t want to over exert herself over losing their child. He cursed himself silently for not being able to help his wife and save his child, he cursed his weakness in such a situation. His lamenting in self guild was abruptly halted by a noise just outside his front door, it resembled a baby crying. Upon hearing this noise, he walked with weary steps toward the front door, not sure what would make such a noise at this hour. Opening the door, he saw no one standing, until his gazes was directed down by the sudden increase of the crying. He saw a baby with dark brown hair, dark brown irises and white skin in a basket in front of his door.

His weary and stoic expression changed to one of shock.

‘Who could have brought this baby here? Why did they bring him here? Whose baby is this?’

While his questions remained unanswered the baby started crying even harder, he realised this was because of him. Standing at 1,80 metres tall he was quite imposing to such a small child. He decided that he could only bring this child inside, leaving a child out in the cold is not something an honourable dark elf does.

Picking up the baby from the basket, he walks toward the cradle they had prepared for their child he put the baby in it.

Man: “I hope she doesn’t wake up and gets mad because I put a baby inside the cradle that isn’t ours.”

“WAAAAAAAH! WAAAAHAAHA!”

Suddenly hearing the baby bawl its eyes out he rushed towards the cradle. Upon seeing the baby, he saw it crying very loudly, however he didn’t know what was amiss? Was it hungry? Did it need to go to the bathroom? Trying to stop himself from panicking and thinking of a solution he didn’t hear the footsteps that originated from the other room and slowly made their way to him. In the doorway behind him appeared the woman, she seemed a lot less pale and exhausted after sleeping for a couple of hours and as such was able to assess the situation better than her exhausted and panicking husband.

“Grey dear, what is happening?”

Turning around and facing his wife, Grey’s face grew pale as he did not know how to possibly explain the situation. Seeing this the woman made her way over to the cradle only to take the baby in her arms and cradle it.

Unknown woman: “Dear, you should have woken me up if something like this happened.”

The woman looked around the room until her eyes settled on the cradle them bought for their baby. Crying originated from it, the woman walked to it with a perplexed expression towards it. Looking inside the cradle, she saw a small boy crying, while he did not look anything like a new-born dark elf, she looked at him with an expression full of motherly love. Upon seeing this expression, the baby seemed to calm down a bit, allowing the woman to put her finger to the baby’s mouth. The baby grabbed the finger and released sounds of delight as he pulled on it.

The woman could only smile seeing this, because with the stillborn in the back of her head she had a lot of stress and this relieved a great deal of it. Captivated by the baby and its behaviour she wasn’t aware of her surroundings until her husband pulled her back to reality with his excuse to her earlier question.

Grey: “But Lyvia, you just looked completely exhausted so I thought it unwise to wake you until you had rested enough.”

Ignoring the protest of her husband, she picked up the baby and cradled it in her arms. Facing her husband, she decided that taking care of this baby took priority over her grief for now.

Lyvia: “I have rested enough, now while I put him to ned go and fetch Elrieden.”

Grey: “But why would you want to call Elrieden? We have only just gotten this child and we don’t even know its parents.”

Lyvia: “That is exactly the reason, Elrieden can use curse magic to find out who this child belongs to and he can remove possible curses, besides that he also has some skill in healing magic if it is deemed necessary.”

Grey: “Alright I will go to him, but please don’t over exert yourself. I know that you are very strong, but you must still take it easy after something like that.”

Lyvia: “Yes, yes, I know dear. Now hurry up, you better not let me stay up late because of your slow pace.”

After hearing this the man quickly left the house, used the multiple trees as stepping stones to make his way to the forest floor. Arriving on the forest floor he sprinted towards the denser part of the forest. This part housed a larger part of the village, housing the communal hall, the apothecary and the house of the curse mage, Ellith Elrieden. After five minutes of sprinting he finally arrived at the Elrieden house, knocking on the door it was almost immediately opened. Ellith Elrieden stood in the doorway with bags under his eyes.

Ellith Elrieden: “What do you want, Mr. Theandor?”

Grey: “Sorry to disturb you Ellith, but we need your help. A child was delivered to our doorstep and we don’t know whose it is.”

He wanted to continue but Ellith interrupted him.

Ellith: “I get it, let me get my coat and some supplies and then we can go.”

Two minutes later Ellith was standing on the doorstep with his coat and a box. After making sure one last time that Ellith had everything, he departed with Grey towards the house in the trees.

Ellith: “I didn’t know that dark elves would leave their child on someone else’s doorstep.”

Grey: “I don’t think it’s a dark elf. It looked more human with a white skin colour, dark brown hair and eyes.”

Ellith: “How did a human baby get delivered to a dark elf home deep in one of the great forests?”

Grey: “I don’t know”

The conversation ended with that last exchange of words. Making them both realize that this is quite the surreal situation. After several more minutes of striding across the forest floor they reached the house in the trees and made their way to the front door. Grey opens the door and sees Lyvia sitting on a chair with the body cradled against her heart. The scene looked very calm and almost natural, except for the fact that the mother and baby looked like two opposites because of the skin and hair colour of the dark elves being almost completely the opposite of what the child’s skin colour and hair colour was.

Lyvia: “Ah dear, you came back fairly quickly. Thank you for coming at this time Ellith, we’re sorry for waking you up so late.”

Ellith: “Don’t sweat it, shamans don’t sleep that much either way. Now let us see if everything is okay with the child, and let’s see who the child’s parents are.”

After Lyvia had laid the child in the cradle. Ellith started with checking the pulse of the child and looked at him with his mana sight to see if there are any abnormalities. Having found none he checked the body for any curse marks and concluded that the child was fine, except for a little malnutrition. In the meantime, the couple looked on from a small distance.

Ellith: “Alright, he doesn’t seem to have any abnormalities and seems very healthy aside from some slight malnutrition.”

The pair were at first startled by his remark because they didn’t expect anything and after that, relieved because the child was okay.

Ellith: “Now, let’s find out who this child belongs to.”

The reason why he brought a box with him is to carry the required materials for the ritual he was about to do. The ritual involved reading the mana signature of the child and trying to find one that is the same of comparable. This makes it easy for people to find their children over longer distances, however it requires a skilled curse mage and certain materials and knowledge that is not available everywhere. It can also only work on small children, because their mana signature and their parents are still very comparable at a young age.

After setting up the circle he started chanting from a strange language. The words he spoke and the intent behind them appeared in front of him, until he finished his chanting and the words transformed into a mark on the child’s body. The mark represented the intent behind the words and connected them to form a magical effect. The mark would normally give the chanter a general idea of where the parents were, what they looked like and who they were.

Ellith: “Well, this is odd.”

Lyvia: “What is it, are they very far away?”

Lost in thought for a moment Ellith was unable to answer the question of miss Elyvia.

Ellith: “N-no it’s not that, I’m not getting any information on their whereabouts, anything really.”

Grey: “But how could that be? This ritual is supposed to find the parents, right?”

Ellith: “Yes, but through the mana signature. So that can either mean that the mana signature has changed drastically in the time between the birth of the child and now of the parent or the child, or the parent has blocked this kind of tracking magic.”

Ellith: “I don’t think it is the former option, because otherwise I would get the location of at least one parent.”

Grey: “How could they do that to a child!”

Lyvia interrupted Grey before he could continue his rant.

Lyvia: “Ellith, are you absolutely sure that you won’t be able to find its parents?”

Ellith: “Yes”

Lyvia: “In that case, we will adopt him”

The expression of both Grey and Ellith turned to those of surprise and quickly transformed into doubt for Ellith and shock for Grey.

Ellith: “Are you sure that that is a good idea, the parents might want the child back. Especially if they’re people who are either able to pay for such magic or use it.”

Lyvia: “If they want him back they can come here and decide on what they want, either way I doubt they want a starved child.”

Grey: “Lyvia, are you sure that this is a good idea. It could also be a mental trauma due to the stillborn and this could only make it worse, and besides that it isn’t even our child.”

Lyvia: “Grey, I’m saddened and will in no doubt have grief over our lost child for the coming time. But, we can’t leave this child to the wolves and we are ready to raise a child. It may be not birthed by us, but raising a child is not only giving birth to it, isn’t dear?”

Grey: “Yes, that is true. But”

Before Grey could even start his sentence, he was interrupted by Lyvia.

Lyvia: “Grey, dear let’s decide this tomorrow. I doubt Ellith would like to endure this marital discussion and he is also tired. I will put the baby to bed, if you could please escort him home.”

Ellith: “Please lady Elyvia, that is not necessary. I will be taking my leave after I have gathered up my ritual materials.”

Five minutes later the materials were gathered and put back in the box. Both Lyvia and Grey wished him good night and a safe trip home with Lyvia having the baby cradled in her arms. As Ellith left the house he sprinted towards his home for half the way, making sure that they thought that he went home. Then he bent off to the right in the direction of a less dense part of the forest.

“I should inform him before the rest finds out, only he knows how to handle this.”