Author's note: This is the replacement story for 'Living a Legend'. I wasn't content with my writing and decided to stop writing Living a Legend and focus my attention on a new story; Zulandra however, is still loosely based on Selyna (the main character from Living a Legend) and a few events and characters in the plot might be similar. Reviews are very welcome, I always love to know what others think about my stories.

Setting note: For future ideas; I am modelling the elves in my story after the elves appearing in DA2 (meaning: tall, willowy frames, thin faces, large almond eyes, small features).

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own fantasy.

Prologue

Deep within the forest, we're the hungry wolves to fear
But we can see that you're the only evil creature here
Before you came we lived in peace but you have brought us death
we sing our pain up to the moon but it's a waste of breath

Black clouds loomed over the forest, hiding the weak sun behind them and covering the usual green lush in darkness and shadows. It was at times like this when she could not understand a thing about her own instincts. The way ahead was covered in thick bushes, even too thick to walk through at some points, with trees high enough to block out whatever sunlight was able to make it past the clouds... and yet her guts told her that whoever she was tracking down had been heading this way. Which made little sense as there was a wide and, although a bit muddy around this time of year, fine road that was commonly used by travelers only half a mile to the east.

But, who- or whatever had wondered off the road to this place, one thing was sure: it wasn't supposed to be here.

A loud sigh was heard from the woman who was knelt there, her fingers lightly tracing the outlines of a footprint in the mud. The woman – an elf judging by her thin frame and exceptionally long ears – had true raven hair, dark as the night that nearly reached her tailbone. Her eyes were a pale lavender, skin light despite the fact that she had lived outside mostly her entire life, and she moved with a silence that only comes from many years of practice in the art of stealth. Simple tribal armor clung to her slender body, a few pouches and small knives hanging from the belt around her hips. She barely wore any jewelry, only a single necklace made up of small wooden beads, each carved into the shape of an animal. Though the most exotic feature of her appearance was probably the vallaslin, the dark red dalish tattoo that ran in thin lines and swirls over her eyelids, forehead and neck, only to disappear underneath her armour to continue over the rest of her body.

She sat there in complete silence, most likely wondering what to do next; as it truly seemed that her prey had wondered out into the thickest part of the wood... a place even she hadn't fully explored yet. This was the first time she was out hunting without one of her clan-mates to watch her back, which already wasn't a comforting thought by itself.

Not even mentioning the fact that Ashalle would kill her if she ever was to find out.

Her mental discussion was rudely interrupted when only a few feet behind her the sound of a bowstring being pulled disrupted the natural orchestra of forest sounds, making her spin around in the split of a second; dust and leaves swirling up around her feet before being swept away in a breeze that was almost unnatural. The elf stayed there, not moving a single muscle, hunters knife in one hand as she scanned the area for possible intruders.

"Halam sahlin!"

Seconds slowly crept by before the elf heard a deep chuckle coming from behind the tree right in front of her as another elf stepped out from its cover. This elf seemed to be a great deal taller than her, but with his tanned skin, rich amber coloured eyes and sandy blond hair it wasn't too hard for the first elf to recognize him, especially since he still had that stupid grin plastered on his face.

"Tamlen? What in creators name are you doing here?!" The she-elf hissed angrily. For the moment, she was ignoring the fact that the elf in front of her actually was the person she had been looking for ever since she'd left camp – even though she had been side-tracked for a bit – as this did not mean that he could just simply distract and scare her like this to make all of her anger go away. Not that he had actually frightened her! Creators, she feared nothing!

"What?" The elf called Tamlen asked mockingly, the wide grin still present. "Thought I was Ashalle; here to skin you alive? Wasn't it you, Zula, that once said 'a Dalish hunter fears nothing'?"

"The only thing I fear is the length of the lecture Keeper Marethari will give me after I've planted this knife between your eyes!" At the sound of his threat, Tamlen's grin was instantly removed from his face as he looked at his angry friend, just in time to see Zula lunge herself at him, weapon raised and anger in her eyes. He knew she wouldn't hurt him – or not seriously, at least – but when she was in a mood like this... let's just say that it would be best to keep her an arms distance away. Okay, so maybe he had gone too far this time, but hey, he himself had all right to be angry too!

Fortunately for Tamlen, close combat had never been Zula's strongest point. It didn't take him much to avoid her attack, following this evasion by reaching upward and grabbing her hand with the knife in it, probably in order to move it as far away from his face as possible. Sadly, the blond haired elf had forgot to consider her speed while blocking her attack, causing both Zula as Tamlen to lose their balance.

Tamlen winced visibly as he fell onto his back on the woody forest ground but as he tried to sit up, he realized that he was being held down by something soft and warm. The blond elf cursed inwardly when he noticed Zula sitting on top of his stomach with a triumphant smirk on her face, hunter's knife only inches away from his throat. "Come on lethallan, you're being completely unreasonable again."

"Unreasonable? I am being unreasonable?!" She repeated, eyes narrowing in anger as she almost bit the words to him. "If I remember it correctly it was you that deserted and disappeared from the clan three days ago without telling anyone where you were going or what you were doing! Excuse me, as your closest friend, to become worried when do things like that! Not even mentioning the fact that you apparently already knew, even before I did, about my-" Further scolding was interrupted by the sound of a large being running through the thick woods and towards the bushes Zula had previously been inspecting.

"What's in there?" Tamlen asked, not taking his eyes off the source of the sound as he waited for Zula to climb off him before standing to his feet. Their argument could wait for a little while longer, as they were relatively close to their clan's camp and any enemy heading in that direction could cause a lot of harm.

Before she responded, the raven-haired elf nocked an arrow to her dalish bow and drew the string "The tracks were shemlen." By now, Tamlen had also readied his bow, both elves aiming in the general direction the sounds had been coming from.

They did not have to wait for long as a distressed brown-haired human burst out of the bushes only a split second after they had finished aiming. The human however seemed to be a lot less aware of the elven hunters than they were of him, as he almost bumped into Tamlen; who in his place was gentle enough to kick the human in the chest just moments before they actually would have coiled with each other, causing the man to fall back flat on his ass even before he fully knew what was going on. And by the time he did realize what was happening, the human was already crawling backwards towards the other two humans that had joined them in the small clearing, each of them looking more afraid than the other.

"I-It's the Dalish!" The man that had been kicked down exclaimed, the fact that the Dalish weren't in the least of bits loved or known for their outstanding reputations towards humans clear in the tone of his voice alone. No, even the most foolish of men could understand that their people were feared and hated by humans over anything else.

Which made it quite impossible for Zula and Tamlen to let them go without risking them betraying the current location of their camp.

Unfortunately for the humans, it was exactly that mutual knowledge that made the elves decide their fate after having only exchanged one look between each other. They couldn't take the risk of their clan being chased away again by the nearby human villagers. "You've stumbled too close to our camp, shems, and we can't trust vermin like you not to betray our location." Zula announced darkly, pointing the arrow on her bow towards the first human.

"Anything to say in your defense, shems?" Tamlen added, following his friend's example and aiming for the other shemlen.

"L-look, we didn't come here to be trouble. We just found a cave." After having squealed out these words, another one of the humans took over the word.

"Yes, a cave! With ruins like I've never seen! We thought there might be, uh..." All of the sudden, the man had stopped speaking and instead nervously stuffed his hands in his pockets, causing a rather large stone to fall out and roll towards Tamlen's feet. If possible, the three humans paled even more after this happened – they were dead.

Trusting Zula to keep an eye on their prey, Tamlen broke aim in order to pick up the strange stone in front of his feet. It almost seemed like part of a tablet, decorated with strange symbols and signs. Wait... he recognized this! He had seen it many times before, but never like this. To be entirely honest, he hadn't even believed it to still exist somewhere out there as an ancient artefact- "This is Elvish." He mumbled in surprise before making eye contact with Zula. "Written Elvish!"

It took a few moments for the words to sink in, but when they did the raven-haired elf focused her attention back on the humans. "What a wonder it is to see such stalwart bravado in one such as yourself." Her words were spoken on a poisonously sweet tone, though the non-suspecting humans seemed to relax at her compliment nevertheless. It did not last long. "It is heartwarming, truly, to see that there are yet humans willing to risk a slow and torturous death in pursuit of our most sacred treasures." Immediately after finishing this sentence, Zula released her arrow and watched at how it buried itself into the first man's chest. The two humans could do nothing but to helplessly watch at how their companion fell to the ground, never to move again. "See it as a warning. Now, tell us where that cave is."

"And don't even think of lying, we know where to find you." Tamlen added as he placed his arrow on his bow again, having put the tablet safely away.

"J-Just to the west! ...I-I think." As he spoke the words 'I think', Tamlen aimed his bow at the human's chest. 'Maybes' were of no use to the elves. "No! I-I'm sure! There's a cave in the r-rock face, and a huge hole just i-in-inside! But there is a d-demon that-"

More he wasn't able to say before an arrow had made it to the small space between his eyes, which at the same time became the sign for the remaining human to start running, and fast. A hissed curse escaped Tamlen's mouth as he reached over to snatch Zula's hunters knife out of the sheath on her thigh and threw it at the man's back, who fell forward into the bushes they had come from on impact. It surely seemed like the human would even rather had taken his chances with the 'demon' back in that cave than with the Dalish elves out here.

Silence once again returned to the clearing, bringing along an almost visible tension between the elves. It seemed like they were just about able to slit each other's throats if one of them even did as much as opening his or her mouth. They just stood there, staring at the place where they had seen the last human collapse until Zula finally decided to move and kneeled at the closest human victim to collect her arrows.

"You could at least have allowed him to finish speaking."

Gritting her teeth in annoyance, Zula chose to ignore the words spoken by her companion and instead to focus on the task at hand; retrieving her arrows. She took a tight hold of the arrow, gathering every bit of concentration before slowly pulling it backwards and out of the wound. Unlike she had suspected, it actually seemed like she would get the arrow out without breaking—

"Fine. If you're going to be like that I just have to find that cave they were talking about by myself."

SNAP!

Anger filled lavender eyes glared up only to find that the other elf was no longer there; he was already making his way towards where the humans had said this strange 'cave' would be. By himself. Again. He just never learned, did he now? "Halla's nuts." The she-elf muttered as she reluctantly rose to her feet once more; this time to chase after her clansmate and to hopefully actually prevent him from getting himself killed or something alike... at least until she was done with him. For all they knew this could be a human trap after all!

And if this really was a human trap; she was so going to kill him.

Elvish – English

Halam sahlin – This ends now.
Lethallan – Casual reference used for a female with whom one is familiar.
Shemlen/Shem – The original name of the elves for the human race.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to place a review, they make me happy~