Author's Note: Having just finished Pale Demon I found myself upset that I have to wait until February for the next book. My brain was still spinning with what had happened and my creativity levels running high I sat down to write and this was the product of it. Hopefully with have the next chapter up soon but I would love feedback, especially since the story involves and OC. I am really trying to avoid keeping her as a Mary Sue so feed back would be fantastic. So please review!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or plot from The Hollows series. They are the copy writed property of Kim Harrison. This story is not used to gain any profit.
So the elves had revealed themselves since having hidden their existence for 40 years from both Inderlanders and humans alike. I guess I should be relieved, but my mood was only soured. An elf and yet not at the same time, I didn't know exactly what I was or what my place in the world should be. So in fear, I hid, trapping myself in that fear and restraining my own talents so that I may fall unnoticed by most. I knew I should tell someone of at least my matriarchal origins, being from the elven line of the keeper of the book, but the mysteriousness of my father… Having other people find out exactly what I am frightened me, but the thought of finding out myself terrified me even more. I knew I should search for an answer, but the thought of finding out I was half of something completely evil, worse than a demon, always pushed me away from the possibility of the truth, so instead I lived my life pretending and hiding my potential and true nature from the world.
Living in Lexington, Kentucky I was relatively easily able to succeed in hiding myself from the rest of the world. While I ran my own fairly large horse farm, it was nothing unusual for this part of the country, and wasn't especially successful since I would never let it get to be that large of an operation. No, that would draw attention to myself.
Like most elves, I loved horses and found that I worked well with them, and they with me. It made running a English style riding facility with a small breeding program, relatively easy and immensely enjoyable. Only when I was with my horses, and only my horses would I completely let my guard down. Their non-judgmental compassion the one thing that helped lessen my fears of myself. I often wished people could be that way, but it was built in most, especially humans, to fear the unknown, which I was the epitome of.
I lived alone, I always had since my mother had died when I was the tender age of seven. I'm not even sure she really knew who or what my father really was, so tended to be very overprotective of me, to the point of barely letting me attend the public school. She had been a pure elf, as my line demanded, similarly leaving me with no siblings. It had been that way for generations, whether the child is male or female; the book needed to be safely passed down through parent to child without fights that can be caused by sibling rivalry or jealousy. Somehow, when my mother passed away I managed to avoid being sent to the orphanage or put into the foster care system. As my mother tended to be very paranoid, she had given me strict instructions to be wary of others, and had kept every cent she had ever earned and anything of any valuable in a DNA protected safe within the house on the farm property we had owned. On her deathbed she set flame to herself, cremating herself live in attempt to hide her own death from the outside world so that I might be left alone. She was successful and no one was the wiser when I sent in money to pay the bills.
I continued through elementary, middle, and high school as the quiet girl with few friends but good grades. Those good grades put me through college at the local University of Kentucky where I subtly earned a degree in business. Throughout my first twenty-one years I had few friends, and the ones I did have were not very close and never really more than classroom buddies. But I was content, because I was safe, undiscovered, and I had three more loyal companions than I ever believed I could find in a person. Sye had been my first non-person friend. Osiris's Gift was her show name and she was a dappled gray quarter pony that my mother had gotten to teach me to ride when I was four. I had fallen in love with her shiny silver coat and pleasant attitude at meeting. She and I had many long peaceful rides in the undeveloped acres behind the house, and I credit that little pony with a big heart as the reason I was able to quickly at least pretend to move on when my mother died, even if my soul may have died a little with her. However, nothing is forever and I was forced to say goodbye to my first friend when colic took her at the late equine age of 26. After 11 years with her, I was heart broken to let her go, but as I had felt my mother's presence warming me 8 years earlier, Sye's warm embrace of goodbye and I love you helped move me past the sorrow and rejoice in my memories of her. Stark was a blue-merle Koolie dog, whom I had gotten when I was fifteen after Sye died. I had found that living on the farm without any animal companionship was disheartening and had found the puppy cold and abandoned on the side of the dirt farm road on my way home from school. Being needed was something completely new to me, as Sye had needed little extra nutrition than what the grass pastures had been able to give her, but Stark needed attention almost 24/7 his first few days with me. Having been abandoned, he was cold and malnourished, and I wasn't sure he would survive. But after a week of snuggling, hugs, kisses, and tears, he was completely healthy and as attached to me as I was to him.
After the tough academic high school years where I took every AP class possible in order to get a scholarship to college, a feat I was successful in, I bought Ivan, a black as night Warmblood cross with a small star on his forehead. He was my beautiful black beauty knock off with completely unknown breeding, huge talent, but green and seemingly lacking a fully developed brain. I had gone out looking for a calm horse that I could play with out in the fields, a quarter horse or paint preferably, but I had gone to look at him anyway. I hadn't ridden much English in the past, having not used a saddle at all most of the time. I fell my first time jumping him, but it didn't matter. I knew as he looked at me with a 'what are you doing down there?' expression on his face that he had picked me and that I absolutely needed to take him home with me.
He was a tough horse to ride at first, his focus coming and going, spooking at things no other horse would spook at, but he would do anything for me. He was the epitome of a momma's boy in horse form and through him I gained a love of English riding and especially of jumping. On good days he would help me where my riding was week, forgiving my faults and helping me despite them. On bad days he would get nervous and run at jumps afraid I would catch his mouth as past owners had abused. But I was patient on those days, and I rarely fell, and when I did I could see in his eyes as his stared at me on the ground that he was incredibly sorry and had never intended that to be the outcome. And I loved him even more for that, besides I was rarely hurt beyond a few bruises.
When I was twenty and Ivan eight, I came home from school to find him lying in the field, obviously having rolled, kicking at his stomach, and looking at it in pain. Fear had filled me; colic. The same thing I had lost Sye to, however I had only had Ivan for 2 years and he was far too young for me to be ready to say goodbye to. So instead of being the smart horse person I believed I was and making him get up and walk to try and get the colic to pass, I fell down on top of him and started sobbing, wishing that he would just be okay. And after about three minutes of crying, he nuzzled me off of his belly, got up, and resumed grazing like nothing had happened.
That was the first time I scared myself. The first time my paternal heritage and the possibility of what my father was and made me petrified me. I had never been a big user of magic, knowing minor ley line skills at best and I had always preferred the feel of the wind to the earth. Yet I had wished and willed for my horse to be okay and for the colic to just disappear and it did. It made me think about when I had found Stark. I cried and hugged him and told him it would be okay, when I feared otherwise, and against all odds, he was. That was when I understood that I might have the power to heal, an ability I had never heard of an elf having. That was when I fearfully wondered what else I could do, and I realized I really didn't want to know.
After I graduated college, I used my inheritance money to turn my property into a working horse riding facility. The money plus a degree in business helped me get Otepa Farms off the ground as a lesson facility. I had bought a handful of pleasant horses and ponies as school horses, horses that children immediately loved, and began to pass on my 18 years of equestrian knowledge. As the business grew I found myself wanting to branch out a little, buying a broodmare and breeding her to a local jumper stud. I found I loved having a foal around so I continued to breed two to three mares a year, selling the offspring after some training for a little extra cash. Like the name of my farm Otepa, which I took from the Greek (which was the only thing I knew of my father was that was his home country) word Φτερά, meaning wings, my farm had taken off to a point where I could live on my income and small enough to keep me under the radar. I had Stark and Ivan, who I now used in local shows, and I was content with my life. Maybe not truly happy, a fact I admitted and accepted, but pleasantly contented.
But there was one small fact that threatened to uproot and displace my entire life. Something that I couldn't run or hide from less it kill me like it took my mother. The book was a strong force that wasn't made to stay dormant. My mother had tried to disregard it and it slowly stole the life from her instead. It was an old book, a large part in aiding the elves in the war against the demons. Said to have been a gift to the elves from the angels before they migrated completely from this realm, the Biblio of Daimons was a collection of all known demons at the time, stating roles, strengths, and weaknesses. It had basically sat idle, like me, never reaching its full potential, being seen by few of great importance since my line had migrated to America. Thus leading to many of my ancestors dying before the age of 100.
As much as I feared sticking out, I feared death more. And even little isolated me could tell that times were changing. Elves were visible again, day-walking demons existed. I did not want to end up like my mother, abandoning my child. As strong as I was, I wouldn't wish my childhood on anyone else. Therefore it was time for me, Aria Danae Hallowell was going to have to leave my bubble of security and go to see the man who was looking to be the head of the elven race. I had to go see Trenton Kalamack.
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