So! I went through some writer's block recently (a whole truckload of it), but I'm back after getting a new idea! And I'm making this chapter a little bit longer for your patience (aka literally almost 3 thousand words.) I introduced like five billion new characters! Also, Merry Christmas! (It's 12/25/19!) Isn't it kinda cool that I'm posting the 25th chapter on the 25th day of the month?
Mira rushed over to the bookshelves, leaving her friends behind.
Going over to the nearest shelf, she grabbed a random book and sat down on the floor.
When she saw what she grabbed, she gasped.
The title read:
A Guide To Elf and Fairy Species
Turning to the next page, she read.
Elves are, though not as common nowadays, what most people think of when they hear the words "Nature Species." But the Nature Species are not only Elves and Fairies, but Nymphs, Dryads, and Nereids.
Most of these have limited contact with humans, so little that they may view humans as a threat. Be wary when approaching one of them.
That was the first little paragraph at the beginning, then the next page were the table of contents.
Table of Contents
Section 1: Features
Page 1: Elves
Page 2: Fairies
Section 2: Behavior
Page 3: Wood/Tree Elves/Fairies
Page 4: Flower Elves/Fairies
Page 5: Water Elves/Fairies
Page 6: Fire Elves/Fairies
Page 7: Air Elves/Fairies
Page 8: Earth Elves/Fairies
Section 3: Culture
Page 9: Wood/Tree Elves/Fairies
Page 11: Flower Elves/Fairies
Page 13: Water Elves/Fairies
Page 15: Fire Elves/Fairies
Page 17: Air Elves/Fairies
Page 19: Earth Elves/Fairies
The next page.
One distinctive feature of the Elves are their pointed ears, which, in some cases, can look threateningly sharp at the points. The Elves usually either have sharp or soft features depending on what kind of elf they are. A list of elf species and the corresponding traits are listed below:
Tree Elves usually have sharp ears, and usually have pale skin with freckles or brown skin. The male wood elves usually have brown hair, or hair the same color as the wood they represent. Female wood elves also have brown hair, but can sometimes have green hair in rare cases. Males typically have short hair while females have long hair, but recently male elves have been seen with shoulder-length hair and females with short hair. The height of a tree elf is usually around the same height as a human, or maybe taller for males of certain wood types. All wood elves have brown eyes.
Wood Elves usually are almost indistinguishable from tree elves, except that wood elves are usually a few inches shorter than their tree elf counterparts.
A freckled boy and a brown-skinned girl sat in the sun.
Flower Elves- Not to be mistaken for a flower fairy, flower elves typically have softer features than wood and tree elves, resulting in some cases of flower elf/ human or flower fairy/ human hybrids looking like dolls. Flower elves have large eyes, with perfect, unblemished skin. Females usually have long light blond or brown hair, or hair the color of the petals of the flower they represent, while males usually have shorter or shoulder-length hair, light blond or the color of their flower. Females and males look a lot like children, even into their late teens and adulthood. Even when they become old, they're undeniably adorable. There are different kinds of flower elves
Water Flower Elves are one kind of Flower Elf, representing flowers that grow in water, who usually have long hair. They have blue eyes.
Land Flower Elves represent flowers that grow on land.. They have brown or green eyes and shorter hair.
A boy and a girl, one blond, one brunette, stood in a field of flowers.
Water Elves are unique (like the air, fire, and earth fairies) among the elf species since they are not related to plants. Female water elves have extremely long light blond or blue hair, sometimes with blue streaks in it. Males are the same, but their hair is shorter. Water elves usually have blue eyes. The shade of blue depends on where they live, for example, ocean water elves have darker blue.
There was a picture of a woman and a little girl standing in a river, both with blue hair and eyes.
Fire Elves have sharper features than the rest. Fire Elves can have either bright red, dark red, or black eyes with red or black specks. Their hair can be any shade of red or black. They kinda look like either an adorable child or your high school bad boy/girl. It depends.
A little redhead girl and a man with black hair stood posing in the picture, the man glaring at the camera while the girl tilted her head to the side.
A girl who was distinctly familiar, an almost exact copy of Mira's childhood pictures.
Mira hurried to read the rest.
Air Elves usually have white or gray hair, not the old guy kind of gray. Their hair can either have white or dark gray streaks, their eyes are light gray with dark gray or black specks, or dark gray or black eyes with white specks. Both female and male air elves have long(ish) hair. They are the only elves that can fly.
Cloud Elves are a kind of Air Elf that usually only has white or light gray for their hair and eyes, and usually have softer features and more childlike looks compared to the rest of the Air Elves.
Storm Elves are a kind of Air Elf that usually has darker grays and black for their hair and eyes, usually with sharper features and are more likely to have anger issues.
A grey-haired and gray-eyed man floated about two feet off the ground, reading a book.
Earth Elves are more... down to earth. Get it? They have short brown hair and tanned skin, sometimes with freckles, sometimes not. Their eyes are brown, green, or blue. They are often a little short and childlike in appearance.
A freckled brown haired girl faced away from the camera as if someone had called her from far away.
Mira decided to read the rest of the book later, shoving it in her bag as Harry and Alex approached.
"Guys!" Harry yelled, "There are more rooms!"
It was true, three sets of huge wooden doors were in different parts of the room, one directly across from where they came from, and two on either side.
They decided to go right first.
In there, a circular room with a huge glass dome around them, the same kind of chandelier as before hanging from above.
Through the perfectly clear water, they could see fish rushing past.
Sketches were scattered on tables around the room, unfinished paintings resting on easels.
Magic.
Another door led to a hallway, also with glass walls, showing more marine life.
They peeked through the doors in the hallway, seeing multiple plain bedrooms, neat as though they had never even been touched by dust.
They left the glass area and went back to where they came from.
Now, to the left.
It was like a house, with comfy couches and warm fireplaces.
Wandering around, they saw nothing remarkable and went outside, to see a huge field of grass, the sun high in the sky, and a forest in the distance.
They ran back through the doors and to where they came from, before going to the last door, the one in the middle.
Mira and Harry eagerly dragged Alex along with them, excited to see more magic.
This time, it was a huge room, the word room couldn't even begin to describe it.
A massive dome ceiling loomed overhead, columns rising up to meet it, also with a chandelier.
Like a mix between a mansion and a greek pavilion.
If they wanted to, they could've jumped out between the columns and gone running barefoot in the grass, the sun shining above them, a gentle breeze ruffling their hair.
It was much larger than they thought, archways and columns in a never-ending masterpiece of architecture.
"Wow," Mira breathed, looking up at the huge ceiling.
A set of stairs reached up to a second floor, and the group ascended.
This time, instead of gaps they could've jumped out of since this was the second floor, there were balconies and more chandeliers than they cared to count, windchimes sounding in the background.
They went back to the first floor.
Walking out to the field, they saw a brown-haired boy with pointy elfish ears running around in the grass.
Green met green.
They stared.
He stared back.
Then, the boy ran.
Ran all the way to a forest.
Holly's POV
Holly picked some flowers near the edge of the forest as she twirled around, humming a quiet song.
It was a quiet afternoon in the Forest, some of the children running around in the grass or helping their parents.
"Oof!"
Holly fell over, dropping her basket of flowers as Elwood knocked her over.
"Holly! Help!"
"What is it now?" Holly grumbled, this was the third time Elwood did this today!
"There are," Elwood lowered his voice to a whisper, "humans here-"
"Elwood, I've had enough! Stop making things up and help Mother!" Holly said, grabbing Elwood's ear and dragging him to the fields where their mother was feeding the birds.
"Mom! Elwood's slacking off again." Holly said, marching up to her mother.
"I'm not slacking off!" Elwood said, removing Holly's hand from his ear, "And could you not? You could've at least let me stand up straight so I wouldn't hurt my neck!"
"Shuddit! Your neck is fine."
"Yeah! But I wasn't lying, I swear! There really are humans near the forest!"
Their mother whirled around, "What?"
"It's true!"
"No, it isn't!"
Mother whacked them both upside the head, "This is a real issue, Holly! And you, Elwood, should've come to me first!"
She ran to the soldier training grounds, "Commander! Humans are near the forest!"
"They shouldn't be able to go here!"
"But they are here, Commander!" Elwood yelled, running up to them, "I swear!"
The Commander was doubtful, humans didn't have the necessary amounts of magical energy to come here.
Sighing, he went to go tell his troops.
No harm in being prepared.
"Soldiers! According to," The Commander, otherwise known as Elder, gestured to Elwood, "him, a human has been seen near the forest."
Murmurs broke out among the gathered people.
"Silence! It is unknown whether or not they are dangerous, keep your guard up."
Blossom's POV
Blossom quietly tied her sister, Delilah's, hair into a braid.
"Done!" She said, tying the ribbon with a flourish, "Off you go, now!"
Blossom, a fifteen-year-old flower fairy, watched her younger sister skip away to talk to her friends.
Unlike elves, fairies had wings and were much smaller, though not as small as movies and cartoons depicted them.
Still, it made life harder.
Blossom, though older than a lot of her friends, was the shortest at barely five feet tall.
She was glad her friends didn't make a big deal out of it.
Blossom stood up and dusted off her knee-length skirt, tossing her blond hair over one shoulder.
"Now, where is Clover..." Blossom mumbled, looking around for her brother.
She walked out to the fields, still nothing, only a brown-haired boy tackling what looked like his sister.
Blossom had realized, though her mother had assured her otherwise, that there were so many wood and tree elves compared to flower ones, but she knew she couldn't complain.
Because she thought of the water, fire, and air elves, who distanced themselves from the rest and had recently taken a huge hit to their population.
There were only one hundred water, fire, or air elves left in the clans, most of them lost or dead.
Not even enough to fill a human elementary school.
Then, she saw her.
A girl, no taller than four foot eight, running to the forest.
A fire elf, Blossom's mind said, even though she had never seen one before.
Rose ran over.
"Blossom! They say that a human is here! Multiple!"
"No way! The last one that came here was before I was born!"
A group of soldiers ran around, yelling for everyone to go back inside their homes.
Screaming.
"Why is everyone screaming?" Mira asked.
"I dunno," Alex said, looking at a little blond girl near the edge of the forest.
"Let's go!" Harry yelled, grabbing them both and running to the forest.
Until two men leaped in front of them.
"Stop!"
They skidded to a stop.
Awkward silence.
"Hi?"
Ash was a twenty-year-old wood elf in the army, running to the forest.
The Elves had been hunter by humans before.
He knew that this might be his last battle.
So, he ran straight to the edge of the forest, jumping in front of an unfamiliar group...
...of children.
And if he was right, one of them was Elven.
A Fire Elf if he was right.
He stared.
They stared back.
"Hi?" The girl asked.
"Commander!" Ash yelled, running back in the forest, his partner keeping the group outside.
"Yes?"
"The group of humans... there's a fire elf."
The Commander whirled around, "Are you sure?"
"Yes! I'm sure! She's heavily glamoured, though."
"What do you mean?"
"Well... She looks like an elf, except her ears aren't pointed."
Mira, Harry, and Alex were lead through the forest, awestruck at the entire society hidden by the trees.
A girl touched a dead flower and it bloomed, as though it had been like that the entire time.
"...Guys?"
"Yeah?"
"They aren't gonna kill us, right?"
"I don't think so."
"Okay."
~5 Hours Later~
"So, you're telling me," Mira said squinting at the soldiers, "that I'm an Elf."
They nodded.
Alex and Harry glared at the soldiers.
"Can we just, y' know, forget this ever happened and let me go?"
The soldiers shook their heads.
"No can do, we've been on orders to find all Fire Elves possible since the Hunting 30 years ago. The Fire Elves took a huge hit."
"Mommy, look at this!" Mira stuck out her hand, which had a tiny flickering flame.
"Mira," Lauren said, sitting down next to her daughter, "we're different. That's why we can do things other people can't. Be careful."
"Why though?"
"We're different than them, and they don't like that."
"Okay," Mira said sadly, she wanted to show everyone!
"Can I show Dad?"
"No, Mira. He's not like us either."
"Oh."
"Okay."
"But even if Mira's an Elf, we aren't!" Harry said.
"Actually, the blond is, you aren't."
"Why can't I have normal friends?"
"We're magical, what did you expect?"
"We gotta go! Cya later!" Harry said after checking his watch, it was already 7pm!
"Wait-!"
They were already gone.
"... But they didn't meet the Fire Elves yet!"
"That was pretty cool," Mira said.
"Pretty cool? We just discovered a hidden race of magical Elf-people! And you're an elf! And your ears are pointy now! And-"
"Okay, okay, I get it! I'm an elf."
"Do ya feel any different?"
"Not really."
"Try to do something!"
Mira squinted her eyes hard and tried to make her hand light on fire.
3 minutes of staring later, a tiny spark appeared in the center of her hand, promptly extiunguishing itself.
"Cool!"