Author's Note

Birthday fic for the Zane to my Nogueira (from a month ago). :3}

After charging and unleashing the blast that felled the blood orc in our land, far north of his home in Borgandiazo, and after performing the transpiritation on that human girl, I flew back to the City of Flowers. My stomach turned as I looked down upon the trees. My toes curled at the sensation of movement without constant contact with the ground. I couldn't remember the last time I had flown. By the time I reached the City of Flowers, I could feel my stomach in my throat.

I stumbled when my feet hit the ground. Thankfully, I did not fall. I walked briskly to the elder's residence. I could feel the eyes of the younger light elves on me as I moved, and any other day I would stop and greet them, but today I looked only to the large grass hut at the peak of the city. I slipped beneath the woven grass veil and inside.

Zane stood at the log table in the center, the letter that human captain had presented to me for him lying open before him. His gaze flicked briefly to mine, and then returned to the paper and ink. "Can you believe this, brother?" he said, a wry smile curling at the corners of his lips. "The humans wish to trade with us. Now what good would their dagols, their goods or services be to us? We have no need of them."

I stood beside him, and clapped my hand on his shoulder.

"Have they come into the city with you?"

"No," I replied. "They've returned to Radiata."

"Have they let it go, then?" Zane stood upright, turning fully to me.

I removed my hand from his shoulder, and I could not help but leave my eyes to linger on the human letterhead. "There were complications."

"What do you mean complications?" he asked. "What about Hap? Where is Hap?"

"Hap's body is no more."

Zane's hands cupped my cheeks and pulled my gaze to his. The wry smile had long left his features. I said nothing more as the revelation sunk in. His hands slid from my face, down my neck, and there by the root of my hair they stopped.

"Damn them," Zane hissed, his hands clenching the leaf cloth on either side of my collar. "Damn those humans!"

"It wasn't their fault," I said. "There was a blood orc."

"But, brother, what of his soul? Surely he would have returned to us to be transpirited into the body of another."

"It's already been done."

His hands gripped tighter at the cloth. His eyes cut into mine. "I only sent one light elf to the Forest Metropolis, Nogueira."

A chill crept up my spine at the sound of my own name.

"Tell me," he insisted, "where is Hap?"

"His soul has been transpirited into the body of a human girl to save them both."

"Brother," Zane breathed. He removed his hands from my collar, and stepped away from me. His body seemed for a moment to glow, amassing energy as if he would strike. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"If the girl had died, they would have blamed us."

"And you should have let them!"

Zane paced three steps left, and three steps right. After rounds of this, he stopped again before the table and re-examined the letter those humans had come to deliver. His hands upon the tabletop, he leaned the full of his weight onto them. The energy building within him waned.

I reached for his forearm, curling my fingers around it. "Zane—"

"How long was it?" he asked.

"How long was what?"

"The last time a light elf performed a transpiritation on a human," he said, tears tapping on the letter lying open before him, "how long was it before they were consumed by algandars?"