Prologue: In Dreams
I remember the day I first saw her. I was but a puling babe, weak and wan. I wanted nothing more than a suckle and a nap, but she had badgered her own sire and mam into bringing her to the warm place where I lay for her first look. She was short, thin and covered in dirt and smells of the outside world. I was fascinated with her, as who in my position wouldn't be? Soon, things began to get muzzy as I finished suckling and burrowed in under both the warm, sweet-smelling straw and my mam's fore-paw, and dreams began, much like this one; dreams of the future, dreams of remembrance, all wrapped into a large, hazy ball, impossible to unravel.
She came the next day, and the next. Soon, I began to perk when I heard the light and stealthy pad of her feet, forewarned by the peculiar odor she emanated that it was her and not some other, strange and unwelcome visitor in the place I slept and lived in those young years. Well I recall the process by which we were bonded, life to life, until death claimed one of us. Never did either of us dream in those days... I am ahead of myself. I should tell of how it was in the beginning, not how it ended, for that is well-known now, even to we Mabari. This dream is about how it was at first, not how it ended years later; that dream is for another day.
For many cycles of the moon we ran through the stone halls of Elera Cousland's home, learning the smells of all within and without, the visitors, soldiers, merchants, elves, nobles, the cook (how I loved tormenting her, only to be rewarded for it later!), the priest (Elera and the priest never could seem to be in the same room for more than the span of time it took to sniff each others' behinds human-style before they were at each others' throats like rats over a rind of cheese), and most especially, when Elera's elder sibling brought home a mate and they begot offspring, I had to learn their scents most particularly. Elera insisted, and I was happy to oblige her in this. The pack defends it's own, after all.
Beyond that, I had fairly free roam of the place; Elera was often off on her own doing sneaky things with locks, doors and other humans' undergarments which I found quite amusing, but which seemed to upset people when it happened. Elera was never caught or attributed to it; it was hard on the elves, however, despite face-saving measures by Elera's sire. And yet, even with that, elves flocked to the stone halls of Elera's home, because they knew that Elera's father and family treated them well; better than nearly any other human who would use them, despite the occasionally high rate of elves who had to be turned away after an 'incident' which was never adequately explained.
Throughout it all, Elera grew adept at stealth, finessing locks, combat with human weapons, preferring 'bows' and especially 'blades', particularly those which grew from each fist like a steel tooth, which she used to great effect. She delighted in attacking both from the front, and the flanks and rear, where she could do far greater damage. Add to that her budding knowledge, picked up from who knew where, of brewing and using foul-smelling concoctions which had ill effects on those who were touched by weapons dipped in the gunk, and she was quite the minx.
Soon, though, we were grown, and times began to grow darker, though we were unaware just how dark things truly were until the day we met the human called "the Warden"...