Vanysa half expected her village to be an ashen ruin when it appeared in the distance. Instead it was standing almost unchanged. 'They must have rebuilt it after the reconquest, wait, that means…' It was a stroke of blind luck. She'd stepped out of the gate and well out of anyone's view. As such, her high level 'arrival method' wouldn't be noticed. She looked down at her skin, talons, and wiggled her wings and ears. 'If anyone from back then survived, I might have more luck the other way.' She realized, and as she withdrew her wings into her body, her horns and talons vanished, and her body reverted to its human form.

She took a deep breath and clapped her hands against her thighs. "There we go! Good ole' Vanysa again." She said with a cheery smile to no one in particular.

Her walk to the village was slow and easy, and with every step she took she recognized something she'd nearly forgotten in the long years which passed between happy youth and the war years and suffering which followed. The ground beneath her feet felt as if it was welcoming her home, the village ahead looked just the same as she remembered it, and despite everything she felt a burst of warmth in her heart for that.

'Some had to have survived.' She told herself as she drew closer and saw the homes standing just the way they had in the past. The high fields of wheat waved back and forth along either side of the long dirt path, the place was so far removed from the world that they hadn't even laid out a runic path to the Central One Road. But the wheat danced joyously in the summer wind and while the sun beat the world, warming her skin, the plants seemed to beckon her onward. Their golden color, like sunlight, had grown up from the ground itself. Their gentle sway was like a parent welcoming a long absent child home again.

Of course as she drew closer, she began to see differences, she caught sight of elves before she saw humans. 'His Majesty's resettlement of the elves happened here. Doesn't Zesshi's sister run this province?' Vanysa tried to recall the ephemeral name she'd only read once or twice, but was confident in her guess. 'Aorli… that was it.' She snapped her fingers as she recalled the name and the villagers saw the walking traveler that was herself.

Vanysa waved, and villagers waved back. Travelers, she recalled, were a welcome thing if they were alone or looked like they had money. Travelers carried news, and sometimes goods for trade, and above all… 'It's finally a new damn face to look at!' She almost laughed at the thought, life in a village meant looking at the same people your whole life and almost never seeing anyone new, so a visitor was always a welcome thing.

However, any sane villager was always a mite cautious, and so it was unsurprising when one old elven male came out from the village to meet her on the road. He was a big one, despite his stooped body and obvious age. His ears were intact, but that didn't tell her anything for sure about where he'd been or how he'd ended up so far from the Kingdom where he was born.

He had on a simple green shirt, brown pants, and high work boots that kept the fields of shit and fertilizer off his body. He also walked with a polished wooden cane, and held one hand behind his back. 'If that's not the oldest elf I've ever seen, I'll buy a hat and eat it.' Vanysa told herself with wry humor as the two came close enough to shake hands.

"Afternoon, miss, I'm Sanelu, village elder." He said with a twinkle in his soft hazel eyes, he let out a half cackle, "As if that weren't obvious." He added, his mouth open wide as if there were a lot of laughs to let out. He rubbed the back of his blonde head, "And who might you be?"

"Vanysa, I used to live out here, a long time ago." The demoness answered, "I'm surprised this place is still standing after the invasion… I don't suppose…" She held her breath for a moment and the old elf waited with the quiet patience that typified the long lived races, "I don't suppose anyone else from before the war, came back here?" She swallowed hard and out of nowhere, at least to her, a welling of unshed sorrow threatened to burst forth. Her lower lip quivered for a moment. 'I thought I had nothing left in me from those days… how can you cry about it now? It's been over twenty years!'

The old elf's laughing face was gone and in its place, the deepest sympathy as he looked down at her, "Cheer up, miss. It's not all bad. A few live here who said they were here in the times… before."

"Can I ask who?" The question came out before she could even truly consider what she was asking, but once said, she couldn't take it back, and waited with bated breath.

"There's Gaffer-" The elf was suddenly cut off by Vanysa's squeal.

"The elder? He survived?!" She squeaked out as her eyes almost burst when they popped open. Her right hand touched her temple, 'Wait, no that's why I was fighting with them, he wasn't around, he could have survived if word reached him before he could come back… but he's got to be almost ninety now.'

She focused on the elf in front of her, "Can I see him?" She urged, "It's important."

The old elf pursed his lips, "There's not much left of him anymore, I'm afraid. That's why I'm the elder now, his mind started going about ten years ago now, he doesn't have much time left. I think he'd like to see someone else from back then who survived. But… just take it easy, his heart probably can't take much strain."

Vanysa flashed a gentle little smile the old elf's way, "Course. I understand."

The walk through her former village was truly a surreal experience, every home rebuilt on the foundations that must have been shattered to dust, not even a scrap of broken wood or thatch from before was left scattered around to say there'd ever been anything gone wrong. The villagers dressed the same as she remembered them, and compared to the fast paced and ever-changing wider world of the Sorcerous Empire, this place looked virtually frozen in time.

'If I could rewind the past for hundreds of years and look at this around me, the only thing I think I'd see as any different are the faces.' She reflected on that as the lazy walk of people who had no reason to rush or hurry anywhere, went on as it did just in the old days of her bygone childhood.

And everywhere she looked, there was a memory. A stump where taller boys pretended to be even taller. A tree under which she'd had her first kiss, with a little heart still carved into place by a boy who became a man, and a man who had his face peeled away by a ratman before her eyes.

Nobody recognized her, but a few faces she saw, she knew right away, her heart jumped in her throat when she saw a young boy in the face of the man who had a mattock over his shoulder. "Afternoon." He said and tipped his hat made of wheat fibers to her before he walked on past.

Vanysa watched him move on as if she'd seen a ghost, her eyes followed his back as she followed the elder through the place of her youth as if she were a visitor.

She didn't need his directions. The house was rebuilt, simple wood logs stacked together with mud and straw for insulation, and a thick thatched roof made of many bundles of straw secured by ropes in an over under fashion in both directions.

"Gaffer, you got a visitor." The elder elf said, and Vanysa slid past into the well lit room. There was no other space, and little in the way of furnishings. A bed, a wooden shelf which held boots and work clothes side by side, a table, and an iron pot over a fireplace that had no flame lit.

"A visitor? Does that mean I can go out and play?" He asked as if he were a child and the old elf was his father.

The old elf sighed, "A bad day, I guess. No, no, I mean a visitor for you."

"Should I come back?" Vanysa asked.

"No, stay with him a while, he might come back to himself, and he likes visitors." The old elf said to her and gestured toward the bed where Gaffer lay.

Vanysa went to the table, took the rough wooden chair and brought it over to the bed. "Hey Gaffer, I'm a friend of your moms." Vanysa spun the lie, he looked so helpless there, confusion on his face. She struggled to recall something that would help, and snatched out a name from the darkness she had to hope he would remember. "Sania's mother." She used the name of her almost forgotten Grandmother. The woman was a vague, distant memory in her mind. A plump shadow in a doorway and a few locks of hair that were long, straight, and white, waving in the light beyond.

"Oh, course, course." He said and nodded over and over. "Can Sania come and play…?"

"No, I'm sorry." Vanysa put a hand on the old man's face. "But there was a story she wanted to hear, and she said you told it to her, I'd like to tell it to her too, if you don't mind telling it to me?"

"Story, yeah she likes stories." Gaffer answered with a happy and childish nod. "What story is it?"

"The one about the Red Water and the mocking stone." Vanysa urged, but kept her voice full of anticipation as the old man, who thought he was a young boy, wiggled about on his deathbed.

"Oh… that one. M'kay, yeah yeah, sure." Gaffer answered, and his eyes were alight with boyish eagerness even set within a graying face that was not going to live much longer.

"So papa told me this story, an he said it came from his grandpa's grandpa. It goes way, way back. So… long, long time ago, way way far far away, so far that the long river had another name, gods showed up, an these gods didn't like the world. They said it was nasty. They said it was brutish. They said it was short. An they said it was gonna die like a world before this world. But even though they hated what the world was gonna be, they wanted to save it. So they made different things out of magic to try'an help. Some made beastmen cause they said men were bad and needed to be gobbled up. An some made demons that were wise an made em to teach and to guide like momma's an papas."

He swallowed hard and rolled onto his side, "But some of them gods were tricksters, an made tricksy things to trick folk with bad hearts. An one of em was a mocking stone, it granted wishes, but never quite what was wanted. Like if you wished fer yer teeth to stop hurtin, it'd knock em all outta yer head. An if you wanted a kid, you'd end up gettin a goat, an if'n you wanted a sickness to stop, well you might just die."

"Wow, that's a… quite an item." Vanysa said as bits of the story came back to her mind.

"Yeah, but the gods left, got on the river and came this way, and the story goes that one of em got horny… what horns gotta do with this I dunno, but traded the mocking stone to someone for a night… nights're free though, they come after every day, so I don't know why he needed to do that… but anywho, he traded the mocking stone for one, but didn't tell the one he gave it to how to use it to avoid getting tricked. So he used it a whole lot fer lil things, an one day he said, "I wish to be rid of my wife." an the stone told the wife what he said, next chance it got, so she kilt him dead, granting his wish."

More of her memory came back to her as she heard him speak, 'Right the mocking stone messed with everybody around it until… a man who loved gold more than anything, made a wish he lived to regret.' She gave him a playful little grin, "You tell such a good story, but the part I can't remember, how did Barintacha get it, what happened to him? Where are the red waters supposed to be? What about the mocking stone?"

Then the boyish delight began to fade and she watched the old man come back to himself. "Vanysa… is that… is that really you? You look like you haven't aged a day… am I? Am I dead, did I die, did you die, are you welcoming me to heaven?" He pursed his lips, "Heaven could have picked a better age for me… everything hurts…"

She felt a twinkle come to her eye, her recollection of his personality was unchanged at least, a little irreverent and affectionate through and through. "No, Gaffer, I didn't die. And this isn't heaven. I look the same because… it's complicated." She stroked his wisps of gray hair, "I just, I need to know things. I'm tracking down the legend of Barintacha's origins. The red water, the mocking stone. Is there anything you can tell me?"

Gaffer snorted, "I haven't told that story for a long time. Most of the old folks, they want it to die, we're probably the last ones who know of it at all."

"What do you mean?" Vanysa pressed.

"The other villages don't tell it anymore, I talked to a few old timers like m'self while we were on the run, swappin stories hopin for something new to tell the young'ns. A few knew it but wouldn't tell it, the rest didn't at all an the ones who knew it, said not to spread it. They probably all dead now, as long as it's been and given how many didn't make it through the bad times." He coughed a few times into a shaky, wrinkled hand. "Seems like some young folk took to huntin for the red water an the mocking stone and never came back, long time ago anyway. If'n you really want to know… the old castle, the one that was abandoned hundreds of years ago after the Beastmen Kingdom became our neighbor, it's s'posed to be built on both. That's where the story ends, a haunted castle of blood, nightmares, and betrayal over gold and dreams."

"Thank you, Gaffer… tell me, is there any way I can repay you?" Vanysa asked and put her hand over his heart. She then cocked her head and added, "Don't say somethin pervy either, I toldja, this isn't heaven."

He laughed and coughed and then shook his head. "No… not that, I'm too old for that… just do one thing for me. My whole body hurts, my mind, it's going, and whenever it's gone, I spend all day afraid because I don't recognize anyone… I'm stuck here, imprisoned in this body with no way out… you were always a special girl… I-I know that, now that I'm aware again… and I'd never ask this of anyone if I weren't desperate. But please… kill me. Kill me as painlessly as you can… I'm tired of being afraid and imprisoned and confused and… I just want it all to stop. Can you do that for me?"

"Course." Vanysa said without hesitation, he blinked several times when she answered promptly.

"I was expecting an argument." He said, and looked at her with truly sorrowful eyes. His weakened palm came out and took her hand in his, "Whatever it was that happened to you that made it so easy to say yes, I'm so sorry it happened, and that none of us could protect you from it."

Vanysa bent over the old bed and kissed his forehead, "You were always one of my favorites, old timer. Thank you for being you, now just relax, and I'll make this as painless as I can."

He nodded, and she put her finger to his ear, he closed his eyes, smiled, and she reverted to her demonic form. The talon pierced his ear through the hole, hit his brain, and skewered halfway through the center. His body stiffened by reflex, but then it was done, he went limp. She returned to her human shape, and not even an ounce of blood was left behind as proof of her mercy. She put the blanket over his body, rose to her feet, and made to leave.

On her way out through the village, she saw a few other familiar faces all grown to manhood or womanhood, but none seemed to know her. 'I guess it's true, you can never go home again.' She thought and put a hand on the old elf's shoulder when she encountered him again as she was making ready to exit the other side of the little village. "Thank you for the help, old man. Gaffer was glad to see me, he's asleep now, so let him rest for a while before you go see him again. I guess it was too much excitement at once." She gave the old elf her most charming smile, and he gave her a polite nod in return.

"Of course, and you come back any time, we always welcome visitors." He said to her with the sort of polite smile she recalled using with outsiders in the past.

Vanysa took the hint, "Of course." She nodded in return and left her village without another word to a soul, and made for the abandoned castle.