Adella’s trembling hands could barely contain the waning flame that danced between them. It flickered, a pale, sickly yellow, little more than a wisp of smoke. It would be useless for most things, but as a starter for a fire it was enough… barely.

The old elf stared into the flame as she slowly kneeled in front of her pile of dried grass and pathetically thin sticks and gently nestled the sputtering light against the pile, watching it slowly grow stronger with every little leaf it consumed. It took some time, but soon a healthy bonfire came to life, a warm reprieve from the cold, inclement wind blowing through the forest.

The other elders around the pyre, five venerable members of the now extinct Elven Courts, clapped and nodded their approval, celebrating Adella’s humble feat. She really tried to feel the comfort of their words without feeling the sting of the pity behind them.

No matter how much she tried to rise above such irrational feelings, the old elf’s heart still hurt. She felt mocked, not by her peers, but by the world itself.

Magic was no longer what it used to be, and neither was she.

They were the remnants of a bygone era, a mockery of their ancient, proud race, that clung to the colourful, fancy silk robes they had once worn with such elegance. They had thought so little of their beautiful clothes then; greens, reds, and golden details were often disregarded as casualwear. Now, for some of them, those clothes were all they had left.

It took great effort to tear her eyes away from her decrepit peers, but Adella managed to sit down near the flame and focus on keeping it alive. The others stood close, chatting worriedly about little Bohllin’s fate, begging for his success.

Of course she, too, hoped for his safe return, but for the moment she couldn’t help focusing on her hands. She stared at the pale, wrinkled skin, with little marks of age tainting what had been a beautiful, perfect figure… her whole body was shriveling down, drying up like a prune under the sun.

Since the departure of the Gods, and the coming of the Silent Age of Humanity, all magic had slowly but surely disappeared from the world – taking the elves’ eternal youth with it.

Adella looked at her comrades, all of them shadows of their former beauty: grey hairs, long, crooked noses, shrinking ears and hunching backs… these were the marks of Time, something that had never before cursed their kind. There were many who couldn’t take the humiliation of seeing their regal selves disappear into this mockery, this caricature, more akin to human than elf.

With a low sigh, the oldest of all the elves present turned around to look at their caravan cart. Their mule lazily rested beside the remains of the three wheels that had chosen the worst time to break after years of heavy use. In the past, a single elf would have been enough to repair all broken parts of the cart with a mere motion of their finger; they wouldn’t have even needed the foul-smelling, stubborn mule to make the wheels turn!

But now she was the only one among them with enough gumption left in her body to cast the most basic spells. All the others were already too old and weak, and Bohllin had been born in this Age of Silence so they couldn’t even teach him the secrets of his own culture. The magic of his heritage, lost forever…

Now, they just needed to wait and hope for the boy to return with a goddamn hammer and saw. Maybe, with enough luck, this would be their last little bump in the road before they could escape from this wretched world.

“Someone is approaching!”

The other elves around the pyre got up as quickly as they could, each reaching for their own dagger and trying to straighten their posture. Even with their aged, tired bodies, they were all so desperate, pushed to their limits by the hunger and humiliation of this human world, that they were more than ready to defend themselves with tooth and nail.

Bushes rustled as someone came closer, and the elves looked at each other with anxiety mounting in their green eyes. Soon they were all looking at Adella: one word from her, and everyone would jump at once. Maybe this person could have something useful on them. Coin, some semblance of a tool, extra food for the caravan – anything would be a blessing.

One word from Adella, and they would forget all their morals – for just a moment.

Adella swallowed, trying to calm the irritation in her dry throat. Was this really what they had been reduced to? A pack of thieves? Despair did not give any time for pride, and yet the old elf still clung to the virtues and elegance of her past.

Oh, she wished she could return to the time before the humans arrived… but it was too late. Too late to cry for the broken times, for the destiny that had been stolen. Now, they could just endure and survive, at least for long enough to return to their goddess’ embrace.

“Nanna!”

Before she could finish drawing a breath, a voice called out from the bushes. All the elves looked at each other, confused, recognizing Bohllin’s voice. Why was he sneaking around like that? Goddess above, he’d given them such a scare! They would certainly have to chastise the boy as soon as he came out where they could see him.

They all relaxed, letting out a deep sigh at the same time, as Bohllin’s two little hands pushed out of the bushes in a submissive gesture. Tension returned to their faces as he emerged not on his own, but carried by someone else… a young girl dressed in a filthy robe, with a black habit covering her hair like some tiny nun.

A human! One whose inexpressive demeanor and wild, intense blue eyes sent a violent shiver down Adella’s spine.

“Bohllin, what in the Goddess’ name is the meaning of this?” the old woman spat in rugged, vulgar elvish. The fear was too strong for her to embellish her words, and she was far too distracted as she looked the pair up and down. The elven child’s leg dangled and twitched slightly as it hung there, visibly aching.

The boy swallowed, put his hands down, and shook his head.

“It’s alright! It’s alright! She’s, uh, she’s not trying to hurt us!” Bohllin still stuttered on his words when speaking the tongue of his ancestors. “She’s good!”

“They all say that, all the time!” One of the men, Nidharme, punctuated his words by waving his dagger, his old face tightened in an angry frown. “There’s always some ‘good soul’ among them who claims to pity us, only to stab us in the back the moment we believe them!”

“But this one is a child…” intervened Indemma, standing by the old man’s side and shaking a finger at him, “She probably doesn’t carry anything good anyway! Look at her - just skin and bone!”

“What about ransom?” The ever-pragmatic Lissian smirked, rubbing his hands together, “Maybe they would pay to recover their precious child…”

“She’s good, she’s good!” Bohllin kept repeating, visibly disturbed. “I swear!”

“Oh be quiet, boy. Don’t be so naive.” Nidharme walked over to the children, still holding the knife. “It’s in your age to trust others, but it’s time you learn that you can only trust your kin! Now, let me–”

“Excuse me?”

The elves stopped bickering for a moment, their eyes focusing on the little girl with various degrees of indignation.

“I cannot understand a word of what you’re saying,” she stated, her inflection failing to denote any emotion, “but Bohllin’s leg is injured. He is also quite heavy. Can we fix him? Please?”

Once more the old elves looked at each other. Adella approached them, pushing the violent Nidharme aside without even blinking as she looked down on the uppity little girl.

“Has your father never taught you to keep quiet while the adults talk?” she said, now in the dialect of the Dogenbandrian Isle. It was a harsh, throaty language that still hurt the elf’s throat when speaking for too long.

“No,” answered the child.

“Well, he did a lousy job raising you then!” Adella grinned and crossed her arms, lifting the tip of her nose, in smug satisfaction with her barb.

“He didn’t do a job at all, I never met him.” The girl shook her head, “Father did teach me that though. He also taught me that speaking in other languages in front of people is rude.”

The elf lady’s grin disappeared there, who was this sassy child?

“Alright, first of all, your father is an ignorant pig. Second of all, did you meet him or not?”

“Father is not my father, he’s the Father. And he is not a pig, he’s a human. He is a bit on the chubby side though, but he gets real mad if you call him pig to his face. Sister Arianna always says to never be so shameless, but I remember that other day when Catalina was scribbling on–”

“Child! Child, focus!” Adella stopped that memory right there, before Gabi could continue her thought, “... What is it that you want? None of your kind help without wanting something in return.”

Gabi rubbed under her chin, as if thinking very carefully on her answer. Was she going to actually ask for something? Adella looked at Bohllin, incredulous, while the boy gave her an apologetic smile.

“She’s kind of daft,” mumbled the little elfling in his awkward rendition of their dialect.

“I guess I just want to be like Saint Martha, ma’am.” The girl finally spoke up again, “Helping people is the right thing to do, she always said. And she ascended. So I want to do that, and ascend too.”

Adella blinked twice. Ascending? Saint Martha? Probably another of those human cult delusions… it really didn’t mean anything to the old elf, but yeah, there was an undeniably selfish drive under this selfless act. The kid was being completely upfront about it, but what shook her most was that choice of words. People. Helping people. You’d have a hard time finding a human who would refer to demihumans as people these days…

The elf could no longer simply scrutinize this girl’s intentions with magic, but something inside of her was telling that this kid was, plainly, too upfront and slow to think of a convincing lie. After staring into the girl’s eyes for a few moments, Adella sighed and turned to look at the others. She spoke in the human’s dialect, perhaps out of some sense of courtesy.

“Bring out some bandages for poor Bohllin’s leg, it does look bad.” Then she turned around, looking the tiny girl in the eye, “...What’s your name, human?”

The girl carefully helped Bohllin to stand, letting him hop over to the arms of another elf, before turning to Adella.

“Gabrielle. It’s nice to meet you.” Her answer was quick and automated, a practiced speech. Was it really nice to meet this woman? Gabi wasn’t sure, but she knew that was the kind of thing a person should say when meeting others.

“Well, Gabrielle, my name is Adella Misundrë… my thanks for bringing my child back. If something had happened to him, I would have blamed myself forever.”

Gabi shrugged, peeking behind the elf in front of her to check on Bohllin. The other members of the caravan were taking quick care of his twitching leg, checking on the skin even as they laughed at the boy for being so clumsy.

“He was trying to get inside the chapel to steal things,” Gabi stated matter-of-factly, “That wasn’t very nice of him.”

“We need some supplies to fix our cart and rejoin the caravan…” Adella really didn’t want to show it, but being reminded of her child’s misdeeds deeply ashamed her. “... Wait, Chapel? Oh Goddess, and today is Cult Day, isn’t it?”

“Today’s Goodday.”

“Oh Goddess, the place must be full of humans!” The woman completely ignored Gabi’s correction, “Did anyone else see Bohllin?”

“No.”

Adella sighed in relief, delicately removing the sweat beading on her brow.

“But if you try to get close you will be seen, and Father hates demihumans,” Gabi stated this, too, as an immutable truth . “You’ll all get in trouble.”

“Ugh… I guess we’ll have to look somewhere else for–”

“The Chapel is the only inhabited structure in this forest,” the girl immediately interjected, repeating a phrase she heard the nuns saying several times to lost travelers, “There’s a mine on the side of a mountain here, but all the tools have already been looted.”

Adella pressed her palm to her face, sighing as her hand slowly slid down and pulled her wrinkled cheeks.

“Perfect, brilliant even… oh Goddess, why have you forsaken us…?” The elven woman lamented under her breath, trying to keep her despair hidden from the rest of the people around the pyre. “And we really can’t lose more time, if the rest of the caravan gets too far from us we will lose our way… urgh… maybe I can try to cast, maybe if I push it enough…”

Gabrielle couldn’t really understand what was going through the elven woman’s head. So many different grimaces and little twitches, her and there… Her eyes felt angry, but the girl wasn’t sure if this woman was angry at her, or at something else. She really must have wanted those tools…

Saint Martha always helped those in need.

“I will get you the tools,” Gabi said, nodding twice.

“Wait– really?” Adella’s eyes went from the floor to the girl, but she was already walking back into the forest. “Wait! You won't tell them about us, will you?”

“No.” Gabrielle answered without really turning. “I will get you the tools. Wait here.”

She offered no further explanation, no calming or encouraging words, and in a moment, the little girl was gone.

Adella sighed, turning back to her family. They were in a better mood now that Bohllin was back, and the problem with the tools had completely escaped their minds for now. Maybe that was for the best.

She would keep quiet about this, for now. Adella saw no reason to tell them their hopes were now placed in the hands of such a strange little human girl.