Part One: What They've Sown
Under the Starry Sky
Manu sat at his kitchen table, unsure of how to feel. A tray of fruit, that he had cut without thinking, rested untouched on the wooden table. He sat in the darkness, with only the light of the moon illuminating the room. The drapes were pulled across the opening to the balcony, and for the first time, he realized how cramped the kitchen felt with them closed. He felt small, insignificant, and strangely naked without his human illusion.
He had been outplayed by the Talikas, and backed into a corner. He doubted his friend Motiwala had any idea that his brother would do such a thing. However, he could not be too sure. He would not blame his friend for acting in the best interest of his family, and would not hold it against him. Were the roles reversed, Manu knew he would have done the same thing. It was the spirit of the game that the noble Houses played with each other. There were no rules, only traditional guidelines.
The only comfort he felt was that his now fiance, Chaya Talika, was even more unhappy with the engagement than he was. After he had accepted, she had let loose her full primal fury onto her father, screaming and roaring obscenities at the Lord until he had nodded his head and politely dismissed Manu. The House steward had met Manu at the gate with a quill and ink and the terms of the engagement already drawn up. The entire thing was planned out to the end, Manu had realized as he signed the contract while still within earshot of the rampaging Chaya. When had finished with his signature and had affirmed it with the seal of House Amin, the steward handed him a sealed roll of paper which he informed Manu was a note for twenty thousand Crowns.
The roll of paper, with the blue wax seal of House Talika, sat on the far side of the table from Manu. He was almost sick to his stomach to touch it, but he knew that he would eventually have to do so in the name of House Amin. Not only did he know he had to use it, but he knew he also had to marry the tigress daughter of Lord Talika, and then, as was expected in aristocratic life, have children with her.
He felt his head slowly drop back and look at the ceiling. He did not even know if elves and humans could interbreed. It would be easier for him to tell Chaya he had no interest in sleeping with her and let that be that, even though it would bring immense shame to both of their Houses, and to her personally. The nobles would make jokes about it long after Manu's name faded away into history.
He closed his eyes, pushing his doubts and concerns out of his head and trying to focus on what his next steps needed to be. The next morning he would meet Motiwala at the Chamakeela Fort and then tour the properties and towns. It was a formality, as he already intended to purchase them, but it also made sure that Manu knew exactly what he would be getting himself in to. At the end of the trip, he would formally sign the papers and take ownership of the territory, with the exclusion of the portions that would be granted to the Talikas. Soon after that, he would meet with the mayors of the townships that would then be under his authority, and then he would meet with the managers of the fields. Somewhere along the line he would hire staff for the Fort, and move in there as was appropriate.
A week after that he would be married in a wedding ceremony that would change his life forever.
He opened his eyes and stared into the dark ceiling. With a wave of his hand, it disappeared, and he looked right up into the starry sky. The moon looked down on him solemnly, a big white eye that was almost fully opened. It was comforting in ways that he could not describe. It was warm, like the embrace of a friend, but it invoked a feeling of incompleteness in him that he had never felt before. It was as though a part of him was missing. He stared up into the night sky, wondering what it was that would make him whole.
A streak of light in the distance caught his eye. It glowed with a lavender light, and started out as a pinpoint in the night sky, but grew larger as it traveled across the night sky. A shooting star, he realized, a small smile fighting it's way onto his face. He traced the path of the star as it moved, and noted that it was growing larger as it moved overhead. He watched it, flummoxed, knowing nothing about the study of the heavens.
The light twinkled out of existence, and Manu frowned. It had felt like an omen, sent to him from the moon itself to give him comfort in his troubled times.
He almost missed the light flaring back into existence directly over his head, and he looked up just in time to see a lucent lavender, pale green, and royal purple cosmic beam shoot down in the night sky and soar between the mountain tops of Duren.
Manu's instincts kicked in, and all his troubles were forgotten. He sprinted to action, grabbing his sheathe that laid against the wall and sprinting out the door to his house. He stood under the starlight for a moment, revealing his elven form for all the stars to see, and then covered himself with his human form once he realized his error. He looked up at the sky at the right moment, and watched as the beam of starlight sailed down into one of the mountain valleys behind his villa. He heard a crackle of strange energy, unlike any he had heard before.
The night suddenly felt very warm on him, as though he had a blanket draped over his body. He looked up for a moment at the light of the moon, patiently watching over the land below. He felt his heart beat with unknown magic, and he knew in an instant that his entire purpose in life had just fallen down from the heavens, and the moon itself wished him to seize it.
Sprinting with elven speed in a human form, Manu sprung into the summer night. He leaped over stones and ducked under branches, refusing to let anything slow him down. His bare feet hardly touched the ground as he moved too fast to keep them in one place for long. His robes snapped around him, trailing behind him as though struggling to keep up. He leapt over a bush and interrupted a family of deer that jumped awake and looked at him, startled, but to him they were just a brown blur as he ran by. He felt the power of the moon giving him new life, and for the first time in a very, very long time, he felt as though he was truly an elf. He used the hand not holding his sword to grab onto a low branch, and he used his momentum to swing forward through the air.
The night was strangely quiet as Manu came to a stop on a rocky outcropping overlooking the valley. He had been here many times before; however, the normally serene and tranquil forest was marred tonight by a brightly glowing sphere in a patch of broken trees. Frightened birds flew away, and he could see other animals scurry away. Leaping down the rocks, he made his way down the mountain, somehow knowing with a primal certainty that his feet would find the safest and swiftest path. It was the moon magic, he was sure of it. It was powerful tonight.
He came to a stop at a bit away from the glowing orb. The ground around where it had hit was blackened from heat, although Manu could see no residual fire and saw no smoke. The orb was clearly pure energy, and it continued to crackle and spark with cosmic power. The hair on his arms stood on end, and goosebumps crawled over his skin. The air itself seemed to simmer as though the whole event was a mirage in the desert heat.
He put his hand on the hilt of his sword and took a few steps closer. Suddenly, the sphere disappeared with a strange low rumble, and the clearing disappeared from Manu's eyes as they struggled to adjust to the sudden darkness. He covered them with his free hand.
When he removed them, he had to rub them again to make sure he was seeing things correctly. A figure stood where the orb once was. Their skin was a strange dark lavender and their face had strange glowing diamond shapes below their eyes. The eyes were pale and glowed faintly with unnatural light. The most amazing thing though was that pale glowing dust seemed to drop from the figure's skin, and then twinkle out of existence like the stars themselves. The figure's long white hair was in a single braid down their back, and it seemed to radiate with the very light of the moon. They wore a strange robe-like garment with a pleated skirt that ruffled gently in a wind that Manu could not feel.
He froze, not knowing what to do. It was only after a few seconds that felt like hours that the figure seemed to notice him, and, in turn, Manu noticed the curved purple horns and the pointed lavender ears.
An elf.
"Step no closer, human." The figure said, her voice slow and rhythmic like a musical instrument. There was power there. "I will make your death a painless one."