The miniature human followed Karamen and the rest back to camp. No, Karamen thought, they were called children. Little creatures with chubby faces. He kept forgetting. Elves rarely had offspring after all. Children were quite adorable, even the human ones. Karamen felt a brief moment of care and responsibility for this child. What was this? Was this the feeling of fatherhood? Fie Karamen! Such a feeling was not in keeping with his carefree nature. What would Tiluniel think?

“Why do you follow us?” the leader turned towards the human once they had reached the ship. “Do you seek a reward?” He was like a lost puppy, his big eyes filled with unshed tears.

“What can we give him?” Karamen asked the leader. “Even our trifles would be too sophisticated for their like,” he gazed at the bloody deer hide the human was wearing. Human civilization on this planet must have been very primitive. “Perhaps some jewelry. Tiluniel, hand over your earring.”

“Why don’t you hand over your pendant?” Tiluniel countered. “My earring contains a holographic image of my father.”

“My pendant is the only gift I got from my true love. It is a precious keepsake.”

“Didn’t I give you that pendant?”

“Oh, was it really you?”

“Stop fooling around Karamen.”

The human then said something in an indecipherable language.

“Of course this wild child wouldn’t understand Universal,” Tiluniel hissed.

“His language is not as barbaric as I would have imagined,” Karamen said. “In fact the cadences and lilts are most pleasing to the ear.” It really was wonderful to hear. Those words were like songs. The mystery of what they could mean triggered Karamen’s imagination. A vast prairie filled with hidden delights.

“I have heard this language before,” said the leader. “It is the first tongue, the language of the Bright Ones. Summon the realm mistress. She will understand the human.”

“Speaking of the realm mistress,” Tiluniel said, “why didn’t she assist in killing that wretched monster?”

“Indeed,” said Karamen, “she could have turned it to dust with one wave of her staff.” The realm mistress’ power was unfathomable. They would never have survived that last incident if it was not for her. She had scattered the mighty with one wave of her hand. Except for that last battle she had shown herself to be unrivaled.

“The realm mistress is our guest,” said the leader. “We cannot ask her to fight our battles. She has fought for us before and I do not like owing her.”

“Besides,” a woman in a colorful dress approached them, “wouldn’t it be remiss of me to interfere when the elites of the Swift Retribution had the situation well in hand. Did you not find yourself thirsting for some action during this trip?”

“We were bored indeed,” said Karamen. “If our lives were truly in peril I have no doubt that you would have entered the stage.” It was good to have her on the ship, despite the tension between her and the leader. Karamen felt much safer in her presence. Of course, safety was a boring thing, tedious even. He enjoyed chaos, especially if he was its cause of it. Still, knowing that he wouldn’t die if he messed up was something that helped him sleep at night.

“If your lives were threatened I would have definitely acted. But as always, only at the final act,” said the realm mistress.

Just then the human child said something.

“He is asking us to take him with us,” said the realm mistress.

“Ask him where his people are. We will take him back to them. The Swift Retribution is no place for a child,” said the leader. Karamen agreed with the leader’s sentiment. Staying sane on that ship was a task in itself.

The realm mistress and the human conversed for sometime.

“He seems to be quite fluent in the primordial tongue,” said Karamen to his companions. “Things are getting stranger and stranger. We shall quiz the stranger on his strangeness until the strange becomes commonplace.”

“You are a strange man,” Tiluniel said to Karamen, “but I have grown used to it.”

The realm mistress turned towards the leader, ignoring Karamen’s antics, “He says he is alone. He has never seen another human on this planet. He has lived alone for at least seven years.” Alone for more than seven years? How had he survived? Judging from his size he couldn’t be much older than ten. Perhaps even younger. How had he learned what he knew? There were many mysteries surrounding the child...if he wasn’t lying.

“How does he know the first tongue?” asked the leader.

“He says an old man taught him and died soon after. His memory is hazy. I suspect that this old man was a Bright One. We must bring the child with us.”

“There is fate between him and I,” sighed the leader. “Now that I have saved his life I cannot let him die in this forsaken place. Very well. We will bring him back to the Swift Retribution.” The leader then turned to the assembled elves around her, “Finish the mining operation quickly. Let us depart before this monster corpse attracts attention. I do not wish to call down our warcraft for a simple mission like this.”

Karamen and the rest of the arbiters quickly finished mining valein and the spheres attached themselves to the blade dancer once more.

“You called him the Wild Child,” Karamen said to Tiluniel. “That’s a good name. Let us christen him so. Human,” Karamen called out, “come forth,” he gestured. The human obliged. “From now on,” he lifted the human high in his arms and announced to the world, “he shall be called Wild Child.”

“Wild Child,” the rest of the elves grinned and cheered. There were some who didn’t though. There was anger in their eyes, but they said nothing.

“It looks like Edrach’s group has not taken kindly to Wild Child’s presence,” murmured Karamen.

“Edrach’s family was killed by humans during the siege of Aroth,” sighed the leader. “Leave him be. Edrach will not harm the human now that he is under my protection.” Karamen wasn’t so sure. Edrach was a loose cannon. He lacked the qualities of being a true warrior. He was too easily swayed by emotion.

“No,” said the realm mistress, “not under your protection. he shall be under mine. He has knowledge of the Bright Ones. It is fitting that he should be my apprentice. He will be most suited for learning the ways of weaving the elements.”

“No one would dare touch the realm mistress’ apprentice in all the worlds of our race,” the leader nodded. “You do him great honor.”

The Way of Weaving. It was a Way that Karamen had never managed to learn though he had spent decades trying. Few managed to master this art. Realm masters were rare, even in the glory days of the elves. Oh, wouldn’t the stage light up most beautifully if he could weave fire with a wave of his hand. Karamen grinned fiendishly.

The elves boarded the blade dancer, the realm mistress leading Wild Child to a seat. Wild Child seemed quite uninterested in the view of the planet as they left orbit. Karamen had been frantic with excitement during his first time in space, three hundred and fourteen standard years ago. Were all humans as lacking in curiosity and enthusiasm as this one? What a bore! He’d been looking forwards to seeing the child prance around in awe and wonder.

The Swift Retribution soon came into view, floating in orbit of the undesignated planet. Their battleship should have been called the Slow Retribution instead, thought Karamen ruefully. On its maiden voyage it had gotten lost in the aether, their navigator mentally struck by the sudden collapse and explosion of the aetherial gateway. Chaotic forces had hurled their battleship into an unknown region of the galaxy. The battle they had trained for but never fought, had probably finished a decade ago.

The Swift Retribution looked like a gigantic metal dragonfly, its soft translucent wings swirling with purple and green luminescence. A tiny hole opened in the battleship’s exterior and the blade dancer docked. Blue light illuminated the cabin of the blade dancer as it underwent decontamination. New air circulated through the blade dancer with a hiss and moments later its door opened and a boarding ramp extended out. Through his mental link Karamen could hear the ship’s rudimentary AI greeting the landing crew. The spheres of valein were detached from the blade dancer and made their way automatically to wherever they were supposed to go. The ship’s hull would be repaired during the next few hours and then on they’d go with their journey through the aether, wherever the navigator pointed.

Karamen stretched his arms and yawned. He was tired and longed for home. Home. It had been a long time since he had last thought of home. Perhaps it was the lonely look in Wild Child’s eyes that had triggered his homesickness. Wild Child had been so filled with excitement at the prospect of leaving his planet that he had been unable to talk. Karamen chuckled. It would be fun to have a human child on board the ship. Rahl had blessed him with some entertainment at last.

“What are you laughing about?” Tiluniel asked him.

“Nothing,” Karamen said. “Nothing at all.”