A/N: The dead human child and Ruscion's fever will probably have some significance later on in the story, I have an idea in my head, but I haven't completely got it worked out.
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I released the taught flax string, barely noticing the 'phtt' sound as the arrow thudded into the bark, I was already yanking another out of my quiver. Vipers watched from within the grasses, but they deigned to approach, and I ignored them. All my attention was solely focused on the one tree before me, and all I was thinking about was peppering it with arrows, as many as I could shoot from my bow. It was good target practice, and a good outlet for my building rage. I felt like every arrow was another drop evaporating out of me, misting away through the air.
"You sure are pissed off with that tree." Adalesk commented, walking up behind me.
I stopped, just about to let another arrow fly though the air, and let the bow fall slowly to my side as I returned the arrow to my quiver. I didn't look at my sister, I just glared at the ground in silence.
After a while, I found words to describe the turmoil within my heart. "Father was a seasoned fighter, Adalesk, he could've easily defeated those Taurocs." My words were quiet, but the emotion beneath them was not, fury and unrest radiated from every spoken syllable.
Adalesk smiled slightly, I didn't see it as my eyes were pointed firmly to the ground, but I could feel the corners of her lips twitch up at the corners. "So that's it." The tone of her voice was so knowing and so perceptive that I looked up in confusion.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, it was like she could easily read what was going through my mind, even though I had pretty much summed it up for her, she was able to delve even deeper. It surprised me.
Adalesk merely shrugged, and I suppressed a snort. Just like her to be so pandamn tenacious when she knew something I didn't, or knew something I did know, but didn't know that I knew it. I turned away with an overly expressed rolling of my eyes. Call it overkill if you want, I felt like it. "Why are you here, Adalesk?" I said in an emotionless voice. She knew the best that I liked to be left alone when I was slaughtering trees.
"Chen… needs a favour." Adalesk said hesitantly.
"The blacksmith?" I asked.
Adalesk nodded, "who else?" she pointed out, there was only one Chen in bamboo village. Only one we knew and loved. "Anyway, he needs to get some soulgems picked up from Plume for the fighter's weapons." She said, still in that same, careful tone. Why? Was she worried that I'd say no? I hadn't been into Plume for a few summers, it'd been a while. As she said this, I watched her eye following a Cactopod capering behind the trees. The Cactipod in the Shining Moon Forest weren't strong and were easily dealt with when they attacked, but they were rather aggressive, annoyingly so, and their needles were painful. I would know, I took a few once in the arm when I was collecting some to be made into sewing needles for the Seamstress and the Tailor. Only one word can truly describe the feeling - OUCH.
My father, whilst walking through the forest, had encountered a child lying on the ground nearby once. He couldn't be more than nine summers. He had fallen foul of a Cactopod, the multitude of needles protruding from made that fact plain enough. The curious thing though, and it was a very curious thing indeed, was that the child was a Human.
Either way, it had been a sad moment, my father had told me, as when he reached the little boy, it became apparent that he had died some minutes before. He was so young. Too young to die like that, alone, in agony, no-one to help him or give him comfort. It was such a shame.
The Elder had arrogantly refused Thalion's request to give the boy a funeral. 'A human dies every day, there's nothing unique that gives a need for remembrance.' Those were the exact words he had said, before sending us on our way. Bastard. The boy was just a child, he had never deserved to die, was it too much to offer one ounce of respect to the death of a Mocker's Bird?
Besides, there had been something unique about his death. It had been within the realm of the Elves, and the nearest human village was from our village and the forest. At least two weeks walking, and one week's flight, not constituting the stops for resting. So how did he come to be there? To die there? No-one knew.
We held a private funeral for him ourselves. At night, while the village was bound by sleep. Just me, my father and Adalesk.
My father had carved out a little boat from a sapling, which took about a day at least. Adalesk preserved the boy's body with a simple freezing charm. Next sunset, we'd placed his little body in the boat and pushed her out into the Silme Lake. My father had then taken a blazing arrow and shot it into the stern of the boat. He and Adalesk had stayed to watch in grave silence until the fire had taken hold, before they headed back to the house, leaving me there in solitude. I watched as the strength of the wood in the boat, weakened by the searing flames, gave way, letting the child's body slip though it and into the water, sinking far below the surface where the fishes would nibble on his still, still toes.
"I'm sorry it had to end that way." I'd whispered softly, before standing and leaving the scene to return to the house, as the last remnants of the fire had passed away into the water, leaving nothing but damn charcoal and ashes floating on the water.
"To be honest, Chen asked me, but I was wondering if you wanted to come?" Adalesk said, bringing me out of the memories, "normally he'd ask Ruscion, but he came down with that fever the other day…" she tailed off into silence.
I nodded, "Yeah, I remember, Mother's frantic about it." I said dryly, moving to yank the arrows out of the bark and replace them in my quiver. I would clean them later on in the day.
"So do you want to come?" Adalesk asked.
I snorted, "Obviously. I haven't been to Plume in nearly two summers!"
