t first Mey used to think he could never get used to the high-elven way of life: thousands of people living together in densely packed cities, working in factories all day and night. But now that he saw it, it wasn't half bad.

He rode through a labyrinth of white houses connected by a network of cobblestone roads and concrete aqueducts, sunlight glinting off the orange rooftops to cast fractured shadows on the walls.

Some walls lay beneath a bulwark of vines, most had flower pots on their windowsills, jollily dancing in the passing winds. Banners of the House of Alinor fluttered high in the wind, the golden star on a field of red dancing with the melody of the many anthems of the state.

"Hey, this isn't so bad," said Mey, immersing himself in the glory that was this metropolis.

"Not bad at all, eh?" smiled Vil, "soon you'll get choked and want to return, I guarantee that."

"Was that an innuendo?"

"No, city air isn't that clean, not everyone can enjoy it."

"Oh," Mey shook his head, "so where are we going?"

"My friend from the southern lands gave us a gift; it's a weapon – a weapon that would turn the tide of battle, a weapon that will let us wade through the enemy like water through sand, a weapon whose mere presence would rout even the greatest daemons."

"Wow," Mey shook his head, "so what kind of weapon is this?"

"You'll see when you get there," said Vil, spurring his horse to travel faster. At times it was difficult to understand Vilyánur, other times understanding was simply not enough, or so Mey thought as he noticed how they entered the stables.

At first it sounded like the blast of a trumpet, then like the grunting of a horse, and then some noise entirely different.

And Mey was afraid; he didn't know what to make of it: the beast roughly resembled a boar, but if boars were thrice as tall as a normal person, clad in grey hide, two tusks as long as pikes, great ears flapping like fans, and a nose that danced around like a snake.

Mey took shelter behind Vil, but Vil seemed unafraid, as if he trusted the beast. No, in fact he was smiling. The beast approached them, walking fast but still as silently as an assassin, its long nose extended forwards for them.

"They're called elephants," said Vil, grabbing the creature's trunk and resting it on his shoulders. "Do not be afraid, they're gentle giants."

Mey still hid behind, afraid to make a move, but the elephant didn't either.

"Come on," Vil pulled Mey towards the elephant, burying his terrified eyes in his chest, only his instincts and love for Vil driving him. With a gentle tug Vil extended Mey's hand and placed it on the beast: its tough yet smooth skin.

"Aw, he likes you," Vil reassured, "do not fear, they're as sentient as you and me. They may not speak, but they can understand your speech, and understand your emotions."

Mey was still afraid, but a part of him told him not to be. This beast might've been a big bull, but he seemed gentler than the tamest stallion he had ever touched. Yet it might take a while before he got used to it.

"You know why we imported them?" asked Vil, "not only because they are charging fortresses, but mostly because they are immune to chaos."

"Immune to chaos?"

"Aye, even dragons may get tainted and maddened by the power of chaos, but elephants never falter. Even if they die, the enemy can spend their greatest powers but they cannot raise these beasts: these beasts and hyraxes."

"So how shall we use them?" asked Mey.

"Oh, you want to see one in action," Vil gave him the brightest smirk, "come on, I will show you."

Vil pulled him away and towards the deeper parts of the stable: more elephants tarried there, one of them gilded in the finest luxuries, with a tower on his back. With a tug of the tower he pulled down a rope ladder.

"Come on, let's go," Vil commanded, and the elephant started to move, waving here and there, still keeping the two in the tower – or howdah, as Vil called it.

...

Mey didn't even realise when his gloom faded and was replaced by amazement, he couldn't even explain if there was anything equivalent to it. But it was mesmerising, he could feel the gentle summer breeze brushing against his cheek, kissing that soft skin of his, and someone else accompanied it.

"Vil," he shied away, "please, people are watching."

"So?" he questioned, wrapping his arms around Mey, planting a bite on his nape.

A bolt of electricity shot up Mey's body, his shyness took hold of him, but Vil made him feel at peace. He didn't even know what he was doing.

"I found your weak spots," Vil laughed, "but anyway, I have a lot of things to tell you, just to share my research with you, perhaps sometime later though, when you're healthy again."

"Mhm, can you tell me in brief now?"

"It's too much to summarise," Vil said, "so do you want to go home now?"

"Not yet," Mey replied, "let us tarry a bit longer; I want to spend a couple days with you, enjoy the wonders of this city."

"I don't know if you know, but the first place I warped you to was a mountain cabin."

"Ah yes, I remember, Lord Felwin did speak of how they rescued us from there, I think I even remember the coordinates of that location."

"Yeah, so that's my new 'summer palace', do you want to share it with me."

Mey looked at him with a peculiar face, "you mean you want me to stay with you . . . in a small shack by the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, with nobody but the wilderness to bother us, that too knowing how you're a city-bred noble and I'm a prince?"

"Uh . . . it's okay if you don't want to, I under-"

"Of course I would," said Mey, "I'd love to spend an eternity there with you."

*****

Like a wind the week passed, and Mey's wounds closed in. For some reason, it seemed to make Vil happier than Mey himself, maybe because he couldn't wait to get some spare time with Meneldir, or perhaps it was his yearning for the wilderness, or maybe just the usual.

"No, it's not." Vil corrected, "I need to prepare the cabin for monsoon storms; I don't want the thing I took so long to construct to be swept away by a storm."

"Come on," Mey shrugged, "you can make a better excuse than that."

"Hey! I'm not making excuses. It really is so. You don't know how strong the wind blows up the mountains, plus there are landslides to worry about too."

"Whatever," Mey shrugged, "how long will it take to warp to there?"

"A couple seconds," said Vil, picking up a crate of his belongings, dropping half its contents ere he could position himself correctly. "Ah, fie! I'm an idiot."

Mey looked with keen interest: Vil's journals were a clamour of colours and scribbling, alphabets of multiple scripts written side by side, rendering half the text unreadable to unfamiliar eyes.

"Please don't judge; I don't even remember what I wrote when I was a child."

"I won't," he replied, picking up the rest of the books and placing them atop the crate, embracing Vil's uneasy figure as he cast his spell. And so the city fell behind, and greenery replaced the silver walls of the city.

...

Not to say it was anything short of sheer beauty, even to someone used to the various abodes of nature. In the bosom of one of the many spacious coves which indent the slopes of the Green Mountains, this tranquil grove was set, and the lodge amid it. In the east they saw the sun silver as a crown above the mountains.

The grove resonated with mystical vibrations into the serene mountain air, the forest floor was warm and loamy, it's clayish aroma mingled with the scent of mountain flowers and withering leaves.

Moss-ridden stones and damaged stumps bordered the edges of the cliff which bordered the dense conifers of below, flanking the grove with the mountains to the west and the valley to the east, two roads going down: one north to the high-elf city-states, and the other south-east to the wood-elf tribe-lands.

"It's beautiful," said Mey, breathing in the thin, cold mountain air, "enough to lull a weary mind to sleep."

"I know," said Vil, walking into the cabin with the crate in hand. "That's why I chose this spot."

"You have a good taste, I'd say," Mey shook his head.

"And we have an eternity to enjoy it," said Vil, walking out with two bottles of vodka. "Cheers."

"I don't drink."

Vil paused, "wait, you don't?"

"I don't think my body can digest it. I feel sick upon consuming it, my head gets dizzy, my vision gets blurrier, and I feel the desire to throw up always."

Vil laughed, "you cute idiot, that's called being drunk."

Mey pouted, "I don't like to do it."

"Very well," he said, "I don't want to tell you how you should live your life, and I hope you don't mind either."

"I don't, but . . . why do you do it?"

"It aids me forget my many pains."

"And what are those pains?"

"Uh, nothing of importance, just that . . . I'm an idiot who cannot stand up to my own words. I tell people not to cling to the past, and to move on, yet I cannot do it myself. Like a clueless bloke I cling to the past, wishing I could change it."

Ouch, Mey thought, that hurt a part of him.

"Fucking attercops teaching children of my heroism . . . wicked propaganda, turning neighbours to foes, this will one day be our demise, mark my words, if not Morthaur is."

Mey nodded, "to me you're always a hero worthy of praise, you just don't know your worth."

"Please don't praise me falsely," Vil said heavy in scorn, his eyes blue with tears, a sudden weariness overcoming him. "I-I . . . I need a moment alone, please excuse me."

He said, his body gleaming translucent, at last he disappeared, Mey left alone outside.

*****

For a couple minutes Mey had been sitting there, flicking through the pages of Vil's childhood journal. Your handwriting is beautiful, he thought to himself. Half his journal was littered with pencil drawings, the other half in three different scripts: modern elvish, runic elvish, and dwarven runic. Mey only read the modern elvish, yet struggled with what seemed to be five different languages, only one-and-half of which he could read.

He made no mistake, Vil was truly a shy friendless bloke, much like Mey himself, save for the fact that he grew up with children his age – children who bullied him for his differences, taunted him for his 'general incompetence and noble heritage'.

At an unspecified time during his academic years he got his name: Sarmäcil, translated literally it meant 'spellsword' or 'caster of enchantments', but in the metaphysical sense it could mean 'illusionist' or 'saviour', though there was ample room for translation error (so he wrote). Lord Felwin himself gave him that name, praising him for his eagerness to learn and restless spirit, hoping to invoke respect for him amongst his peers, but it only backfired and alienated him more from his now jealous classmates.

There were some mentions of Mey in the journals, referring to him as the only friend he ever had, with the exception of a griffin. A griffin: one he and his friends had rescued as a hatchling and fed to adolescence with their own rations. And fate repaid him: one night when the vicious fiends came for him, Cirhael their leader's name, the griffin saved him by plucking out Cirhael's left eye, breaking his wrist with the force of her talon, killing his dog with her beak.

"Vil," he sighed, filled with horror and anguish. Even as a child, Vil was fairly morbid, giving vivid descriptions like 'puddle of blood' and 'anti-citizen behaviour', and the worst thing was being beaten bloody was not a rare occurrence in his childhood life. Why he and not me? Mey wondered as a small pain seized his heart. Now he knew why Vil would avoid meeting him every other week, pushing their meetings to once a month or season. Maybe Vil didn't trust him enough, or maybe he didn't want him to worry about him.

"Sorry for the departure," Vil returned to him, scaring Mey to the bones. "The vodka was bad."

"Vil," Mey leapt at him, embracing his frail figure tightly, tears welling into his eyes. "I'm sorry for you, I really am. You've suffered horrors many could not imagine, I know now."

"It's alright, I'm alright," Vil cuddled back, "that's in the past now."

...

For two hours they sat together in each other's embrace, exchanging stories like traders. For long Vil talked about his childhood, and for long Mey talked about his own past and experiences. At last they both calmed down, a wave of glee following.

"Vil, I'm sorry for what I tried to do," said Mey. "I didn't know about your past."

"Nay, forget it, it's in the past now," said Vil. "Their actions aided my development anyway, and right now we have other matters to tend to, mainly that which is coming for us."

"Right, Morthaur," Mey shook his head, "but tell me so: why is he upon us, not like we are the sole power in all of Mundus anyway."

"Technically we are," said Vil, "just that the cold war between us Red Elves and the White Elves is what divides us."

"I don't think you've ever told me about the Reds and Whites, I just know we are Red."

"Oh, I haven't?" asked Vil. "Fine, I'll tell you."

Vil reclined back, "we were not always a union of nation-states, but once we were a real empire. It was Lord Darrian of Alímar, who united the warring city-states, forming a Second Elven Empire out of fragmented nations. But the only difference was: the first one was an uncontested power in its time, and this one is but one of the many great empires of Mundus, or rather it was, although for a brief moment it was the sole power."

"Ah, I know that," said Mey, "but when exactly did the second one collapse?"

"Right after the war against the Aerryan Dominion, although it actually fell from within," said Vil, "not that I'm actively endorsing or lamenting it, but many of us saw the emperor as superfluous, but we could not decide which political ideology to align ourselves with. A civil war followed, and then a schism."

"Ah, I see. So I know that we of the Red Elves believe in reinventing society into democratic communes, but what of the White Elves?"

"The White Elves are more of tradition and conservation; I don't really know their part of the story very well, but whatever it is, it must be convincing. All I know is: this isn't a conflict of who is right and who is wrong, but which system is an evil-virus-of-Morthaur and which system is a slightly-less-evil-virus-of-Morthaur."

Mey laughed, "That's such a good way to put it."

"Anyway," Vil looked to the mountains, "I would never consider someone less equal than me just for being born and raised differently, even if it is an enemy."

"I wouldn't either," said Mey, "also I need to know: what happened to Darrian? Did he die or abdicate?"

"From what I am come to know, he left willingly," Vil replied, "many say he attained divinity, I do not know, but I'd like to meet him some day, if I can."

"I hope you do," a bright smile curled up upon Meneldir's face, "and mark my words, some day you will."