Chapter 19 - Not as Expected

The dark elf was startled by my sudden and slightly vulgar declaration. She tilted her head as she seemed to process what I had said and looked very confused. "Eh? Do I know you?"

Luka however, had his sword pointed in her direction and ignored her question. "What?! Are you sure?!" He shouted at me.

"I'm fairly fucking sure!" I responded but held my hand out in front of him. "But, just give me a moment to confirm if it actually is her. Don't want you attacking a random dark elf simply because of a case of mistaken identity."

"Alright." He nodded and kept his eyes on her.

For her part she seemed unconcerned with the sword pointed in her general direction. In fact she had her hand on her chin and her face was scrunched up in thought. "Your face looks slightly familiar, but I can't place where I've seen it before…"

"Well let me make it easy for you. Do you have a sister named Sunny? You know, has golden eyes?

"Yeah I do, but-" Her face lit up with recognition and she snapped her fingers. "Oh! I know you! You're that merchant we hustled five months ago!"

That's pretty much all I needed to know. I don't think there's too many dark elves around with a sister named Sunny.

"Uh- No!" I shouted in annoyance and more than a bit of anger. "I'm the guy you two fucking stabbed two months ago outside Ilias Village! Your sister remembered me, you stupid cunt!"

She looked a little taken aback at my outburst, then she peered at me in concentration for a few seconds. "Oh yeah, now I see it." She seemed to look me over from where she was standing. "Weren't you fatter?

… Well, that all but confirms it. There was only a handful of people who saw me before I lost all that weight while recovering, and she was one of them.

I moved my hand out of his way and patted him on the shoulder. "Luka you can seal her now."

Wordlessly he nodded and ran forward, his sword above his head ready to strike…

He really needed to keep practicing and training. I don't know much about combat, but I'm fairly certain blatantly telegraphing your attacks like that is a bad idea.

Despite how obvious his attack was, she stood there in surprise for a moment and then reflexively brought up her hands to protect herself. "Ahhh! No, stop!"

It did nothing to help her as Luka sent her reeling with a strike to her arms and followed it up by slashing at her throat. Within seconds the air around them was surrounding in glowing pixels and her wounds oozed what looked like rainbow glitter infused with mercury.

She fell onto the ground clutching her throat and suddenly her body was replaced by a tiny doll sized dark elf laying on the ground, even her clothing shrunk. It was still strange to see Angel Halo in action. It was like a videogame or movie effect brought to life.

After a few moments of silence I spoke up. "Huh… That was anti-climatic."

Luka looked back at me and lowered his weapon. "Yeah," he agreed, "so what should we do now? Leave her there?"

"Uh, I'm not very sure. I mean, I do know I don't want to just leave her here, since she'd still be free and I think she should be serving time with Sunny in Harpy Village." I walked up to him and glanced down at her. She was about a foot tall and still laying on the ground groaning in pain. "She must have been pretty weak to get sealed that quickly." I idly commented.

I almost felt… let down. This was the woman who nearly killed me and when I saw her I was half expecting something much more dramatic to happen. Instead Luka hit her twice and she went down without a fight.

"Does that mean you want to take her to the harpies?"

"Maybe." I shrugged. "Though it would be a bit of a detour and we don't know how long she'll stayed sealed for. We don't want her suddenly returning to normal when we're traveling."

"I wouldn't have any problem with it. I want to make sure she faces justice for attacking you." His face morphed into one of stern determination. In spite of his short height and adorable appearance he actually managed to look quite serious. "You're right that we can't let her roam free."

"Alright." A thought occurred to me. "Do you still want to check out Enrika? If we want to drop her off with the harpies we should do that quickly."

He faltered a bit. "Uh yeah, I still want to see Enrika and we're already come this far."

"I gotcha." I nodded in agreement. "Actually, do you think we should ask her," I pointed down, "for information about Enrika? Obviously she knows a little bit about it if she was considering hiding out there."

She was still laying on the ground, only with less groaning, but she was still breathing, so I wasn't worried about her being dead. Though it was surreal to see an actual doll-sized person.

"That's a good point."

"Alright." As I was about to crouch down he put his hand on my shoulder.

"William," he paused, and for a moment he looked unsure of himself, "you're not going to hurt her, are you? You were angry when you saw her, but I hope you aren't going to take revenge."

"What?! No!" I almost shouted in response and he quickly retracted his hand. "Sure I'm still pissed over her stabbing me and then forgetting who I am, but I'm not going to fucking torture her."

I couldn't imagine doing something like that. I felt nervous just standing near her, in fact, and kept worrying I'd somehow step on her by accident.

"I know, but I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't suddenly do something you'd regret."

"Aw, you're a good friend Luka and I appreciate the concern, but there's no need to worry about that. I'm too nice a guy to do something like that."

He seemed relieved. "That's good to know."

I worry that he's more concerned about me than himself… Which probably isn't that far off the mark unfortunately.

"Anyway, we're wasting daylight here." I crouched down on the forest floor and gently poked the tiny dark elf's shoulder with a finger. "Hey, before we get going we need to ask you a few questions."

She ignored me for a couple seconds before sighing in annoyance and swatting at me. Massaging her head for a moment, she sat upright and looked around at us in confusion. "… What the fuck happened?"

"Luka's sword," I motioned to it, "sealed you, so you lost all your power and got turned tiny. It usually turns monsters into animals but obviously elves don't really have any animal parts. And before you panic or freak out, it's not permanent but it will last until for a while."

"What?!" She tried to stand up but seemed a bit woozy and fell back on down. "How long?!"

I considered whether I should have told her the truth or not, though it's not like I actually know that much.

"Oh not too long, maybe a few days to a week at most. After that you should revert back to normal. It depends on long it takes to build back up your own energy." I tried to be vague to hide the fact I wasn't particularly savvy about the finer details on how Angel Halo worked.

"Un-undo it!"

"Can't, I'm afraid." I shrugged. "Neither Luka or I have the ability to do something like that, even if we did I don't think we'd be inclined to do so. I'm sure you understand why-"

"I-I don't deserve to be treated like this!" She sounded a little desperate. "I haven't done anything wrong!"

"Well, except for attempting to stab me to death and then not facing any justice part. You're not going to be put to death or hard labour or anything like that." I said that mostly to assuage her fears somewhat and stop her from panicking. I didn't want her suddenly running off into the forest. "So I'd recommend taking a deep breath to calm down." That was about all she could do at the moment. The sudden height difference was not treating her well, though she took my advice and took a few breaths to calm her nerves.

I could understand why she'd be so afraid and on the verge of panicking. I doubt I would have reacted differently if I was suddenly a foot tall and surrounded by people planning on imprisoning me.

"Now before we get going," I started, "I'd like to ask a few questions. First, what's your name? I only hear Sunny refer to you as Sis and obviously that's a nickname."

Shifting her position to get more comfortable, she did her best to avoid eye contact with me and mumbled under her breath. "Moonbeam."

"Beg pardon?" I leaned in, since I genuinely didn't hear what she said.

She frowned and spoke a little louder, though not by much. "Moonbeam."

"Moonbeam…" I said as if tasting the word. It wasn't what I was expecting, though not even I'm sure what I was expecting. "It definitely fits with Sunny."

Moonbeam crossed her arms and huffed. "Mum though the matching names were cute."

It was amazing how unthreatening and almost comical she seemed. This was the woman who nearly killed me, sitting on the forest floor looking like a petulant child. The massive size difference definitely played a role in that.

It seemed Luka felt the same way, since he didn't look as on-edge as he did only a few minutes ago. He was more focused on the forest around us than Moonbeam.

"And, in case you never got my name which you probably didn't, I'm William. How far away is Enrika from here?"

We didn't really need to know that, since the path was still clear, but that was to sate my own curiosity more than anything else. It wasn't like I even had a watch with me to keep track of the time.

She eyed me suspiciously. "Why do you want to know? What are you planning?"

"To visit it of course, maybe do some trading and buy some wares." Possibly beat some people up if they're xenophobic enough to trigger Luka. "Both our armour's Enrikan," I motioned from me to Luka, "so we wanted to see if they had any more gear like this."

She glanced between Luka and I a few times before sighing. "It's a little further down that path, an hour at most."

"Alright, not that far," I glanced over to Luka, "we can probably get there and back to Iliasburg before it gets dark."

He nodded. "If we hurry we might even be able to started down the path to Happiness Village."

"But then we'd still be on the road when night falls." I pointed out, since he obviously forgot about that very important fact. Otherwise he wouldn't have suggested such lunacy.

"We can camp." He countered.

"We could." I begrudgingly agreed. "It's just that I'd rather not. I mean, going to Happiness Village to drop her off and then come back is pretty much a day long trip by itself. If we do what you want we'd camp, get there, get to Iliasburg before dark, and then I just know you'd insist we'd use what little daylight is left to start going north. Now if we time this right we can stay another two whole nights at the Sutherland Inn, instead of having to camp."

"Uh," Moonbeam spoke up and had her arm raised, "if you're taking me with you where am I going to sleep?"

"I don't know," I shrugged, "we'll make a tiny bed out of blankets for you or something. We'll figure it out."

"I have another question." She looked a little apprehensive. "How are you going to carry me? You're not going to stuff me into a bag are you?"

I sighed in annoyance. "You can ride in my pocket I guess."

Fucking hell, I hate dealing with the logistics of handling a prisoner. It was worth it though, within a day she'll be under the watch of the harpies while I don't have worry about her running around. It's tying up a loose end.

"But, I still have a few more questions for you." I jabbed my finger at Moonbeam. "What were you doing at Enrika?"

"I've been hiding out there, trying to figure out what to do next." She sounded resigned to the fact that she was… well, our prisoner. "After uh, stabbing you, Sunny and I split ways. She was freaking out and going on about none of that would have happened if she, um, didn't listen to me. I tried to calm her down and convince her to come to Enrika, since it's hidden and friendly to monsters, but she ran off."

Luka perked up when she mentioned monsters. "Enrika's friendly to monsters? I heard it didn't like outsiders."

She shrugged her shoulders. "They like to keep to themselves I guess. I mean, you'll get a few stares but nobody's going to throw stones at you."

"Huh," he was contemplating that new piece of information, "how many monsters are there?"

"I don't know, uh, I saw plenty of elves and dark elves."

"While that's very fascinating," I cut in, "you didn't really answer my question. What were you doing at Enrika?"

"No, I did." She half whined. "Without Sunny I didn't know what to with myself. I knew she was turning herself in to the harpies , so I couldn't just pack up and leave her behind. I spent most of my time trying to con- er, recruit people to help me free her."

"Ah, that makes sense. I got the impression you were a schemer." Not a particularly good one, but a schemer nonetheless. "Though, what were you doing out here? There's nobody else around and I doubt the trees are interested in whatever spiel you had prepared… Unless there's alraunes or dryads near by." I mumbled the last part and eyed up the surrounding trees.

"Uh, about that… I haven't had any luck convincing anyone to help me, so occasionally I come down to the road to see if there's anyone travelling it in the hopes of, um… ambushing them if they're by themselves…" She trailed off and sheepishly looked away.

"Wow…. seriously?" I stared at her in disbelief. "You're a horrible person."

"That's just despicable." Luka was frowning and outright glaring at her.

"I didn't actually-" She started but I cut her off.

"You know, trying to abduct random men is how you got in trouble with the harpies in the first place and that lead to you trying to abduct me. Which failed when you stabbed me." She flinched when I snapped at her. "So then, after that incident you decide the best course of actions is to keep trying to abduct people because it worked so well the first few times."

Was I being a little too self righteous? Nah, I was only verbally chewing her out.

She elected to stay silent and didn't meet either of our gazes. Though I wasn't sure if it was because she felt genuine guilt over her actions or just didn't want us reprimanding her more.

"Alright, I think that's about everything we wanted to know, unless you have any questions." I turned to Luka and he shook his head. "Okay, no that's everything. I guess we'd better get going." I quickly emptied out my jean's right pocket and then placed my hand on the ground next Moonbeam. "Well, come on. It's a pocket or the backpack and I don't think you want to be crammed in there."

Slowly, she stood up and walked onto my hand. It felt fucking surreal having a tiny person actually standing on my hand. She crouched and grabbed a finger to avoid falling over as I carefully brought her to my pocket. "This is probably going to be as awkward for you as it is for me."

It took her a moment to climb inside and get adjusted. I ignored the urge to scratch my leg as I felt her wiggling against me to get comfortable. "Settled?"

I heard her sigh and felt her shift a little bit before answering. "Yeah."

"Good, let's get going." With that we set off in the direction of Enrika, plus one miniature dark elf who I had to take great pains to avoid hitting with my arms as I walked.