Chapter Six: Human Lovers

The rest of the Silvergrove might have backed down, but not them. Most of the survivors had needed a full day to recover their sight from that flash. Moonshadow elves were creatures of the night, their eyes weren't made for that kind of light, especially so abruptly. The intruders had fled while everyone was still blinded, and the Moon Pool had been tainted. All anyone knew was that there had been two humans and a Startouch elf, many of their comrades were now dead, and Rayla, now a human lover on top of everything else, was the cause of it all. The ten of them found it rather liberating as they left the Moonshadow Forest; no blood binds, no life flowers, no rules, just tracking down a traitor and ridding the world of her.

Finding and trialing the eight elves had been surprisingly quick, with the queen herself doing most of the work. The new Dragonguard was made up of the following: a rare Startouch elf, two Sunfire elves, two Moonshadow elves, and three Skywing elves including Ibis. Rayla was out of her Dragonguard uniform and back in the outfit typical of her kind, having resigned from the position for the time being. Perhaps one day, she would return to carry on what she now considered a noble legacy, but for now she was to help Callum. They would be leaving any day now.

Rayla recognized the two Moonshadow elves; lifting her ghosting off of themselves had been their payment of sorts, a condition for being allowed on the Dragongaurd. They're names were Lykis and Malin, the fathers of two of her old friends who she otherwise hadn't been particularly close to. They ignored her completely and refused to acknowledge her presence through others as well. Though Rayla was in the chambers, there was predictably no acknowledgement of her as they approached the Dragon Queen.

"Queen Zubeia." Lykis spoke, "I've received word from the Silvergrove. There is a small splinter group of ten young elves that have left us in pursuit of Rayla."

The Dragon Queen's eyes narrowed, and she gave an agitated huff through her nose. Malin picked up the message as Lykis bowed deeply. "Be assured, the elders have spoken out against this; this is against everything the Moonshadow elves stand for. The mage Ethari refused to craft them life flowers or provide them with blood binds as this isn't a proper mission. The rest of us may see Rayla as a traitor and human lover, but we respect and accept your decree that she is not to be harmed. They left with the scorn of our people on their backs."

Rayla was hardly surprised, though she wondered who these ten were. The elves might have respected the dragons, but they didn't truly answer to them unless they were the current ruler of Xadia. Not even former kings and queens had full sway over the elves. She imagined that the splinter group had justified their actions this way; they would accuse the moon dragon of lying and go off on their own anyway, not caring if the decree was real or not. Probably some softheaded teenagers. Had she really been so impulsive herself once?

"We swear." Lykis said, his head still bowed. "Should they come back at all, they will be severely punished."

"And where are they now?" the queen asked.

"We don't know, but they're coming here. They know she's here." Malin said. The dragoness sighed through her nose.

"The fools." she said mournfully. "Do they not know about the thinning air up here?" Malin and Lykis looked sheepishly at each other.

"A thousand pardons, Your Majesty." Lykis said, again bowing. "A few in our village have never been particularly studious."

"Very well." she said. "Descend the spire until you meet them and tell them to turn back before they kill themselves. And warn them that I am very displeased with them for going against my wishes. Take a couple of other guards with you for numbers, should they try to overpower you."

"Yes, Queen Zubeia." The two Moonshadow elves bowed and promptly ran out of the room, racing past Callum who had been listening just outside the room.

Callum, like Rayla, had been completely ignored by the two since they had arrived at the spire. The only reason he knew they could see him was because he occasionally caught one of them looking at him in disgust and could hear them refer to 'the human'. They refused to use his name. Callum wasn't too hurt, he had pretty much expected this from any Moonshadow elves on the guard given how they had already treated Rayla back in their village. Frankly, he didn't want or need the approval of such cold, unforgiving people.

As Rayla and Queen Zubeia spoke, Callum turned around and walked outside, making his way to the pinnacle. The pinnacle, he had learned, was a fine place to think. It was quiet, usually private and there was something calming about being above the clouds. Today, he was a bit disappointed to see the Startouch elf, a woman appearing to be around his aunt's age, named Kaiya. Somehow he wasn't surprised that she'd seek solitude occasionally. The mystery of Aaravos' crimes continued because now, the rest of the Dragonguard eyed Kaiya with a slight unease, with her being the only other Startouch Dragonguard in recorded history. She claimed she understood, and whenever this was brought up, the perpetrator would immediately apologize for their small-mindedness. She was meditating, peering one of her eyes open to look at him.

"Prince Callum." She greeted courtly. Perhaps it came from Callum's own refusal to see her as another black-hearted Startouch elf, but she had been one of the nicer elves to him from the start.

"Kaiya." He replied shortly.

"Can I help you?"

"No, I just came up here to think." Callum told her. "The Moonshadow elves are in trouble. A few of them are coming here for Rayla, but the queen is taking care of it. Rayla…" he trailed off.

"Not to be rude, but what else did you expect?" Kaiya asked, not even opening her eyes as Callum approached her. "As far as us elves are concerned, you humans are just barely above animals, at least until recently. Those sorts of relationships have always been frowned upon, especially after Aaravos."

There he was again, Aaravos. Despite the warnings that this was a mystery better left alone, the figure was becoming more fascinating to Callum. His thoughts were interrupted when a pinkish-purple light caught his attention, glowing from his bag. He dug his hand into his bag and pulled out the key of the elf in question. The star rune was glowing that pinkish-purple, perhaps reacting to Kaiya, whose eyes were drawn to the key.

"Hm, say the demon's name and it shall appear." the elf said, seeming entirely unsurprised for it unlike everyone else. "How did a human mage stumble upon the Key of Aaravos?"

"My stepdad, King Harrow," Callum began and sat beside her, allowing her to look at the key more thoroughly. "said it's been in our family for generations. That Aaravos was a powerful archmage. Queen Zubeia said he did some bad things and that he was imprisoned by the Dragon King."

"Both of these are true." Kaiya nodded. "I'd imagine you humans must sing his praises in books and songs, or those of you who know about him."

"Why would he have anything to do with romantic relationships between humans and elves?" Callum asked, seeming not to hear her words about humans revering Aaravos.

Back in the main room of the spire, Rayla was getting used to the idea that her former friends had come to kill her to preserve their collective honor or whatever it was. She supposed it made sense from their perspective. It must have seemed sick to them, or maybe they thought it would be a mercy killing. She honestly couldn't care anymore. Over a year go, they had abandoned her based on an assumption, not that she herself didn't deserve it, and in that very moment Callum had been there to dry her tears. They had dropped her like a rock and he had stuck by her. Every fiber in her being told her that she would do the same and choose him over her former comrades a thousand times and not lose a wink of sleep over it once.

"Thinking about justice, human lover?" Rayla turned to face the speaker, a Sunfire elf who was looking at her with scorn. She might have only known this particular guard for a couple of weeks, but it was quickly becoming tiresome. Janai warned them upon his acceptance into the Dragongaurd that her younger brother could get like this, but Rayla didn't think he'd be this obnoxious.

"Amer." She muttered, though she didn't bow and looked wholly unimpressed at him. "You might say that."

"That's Prince Amer to you, Moonshadow elf." Amer spoke in a haughty voice, as if his title meant anything here. Rayla didn't see the need for it. Callum was a prince, and he certainly didn't flaunt his title around. They were all Dragonguard here, and they answered only to the queen, although Ibis found himself something of an unofficial leader in her absence. Even if they didn't, she wasn't one of his subjects. After the first few taunts from him, Callum had rather bluntly asked the queen if royalty could even serve on the guard. To their shared frustration, she had told them that there was no rule against it, however odd it may be.

"Really? I seem to remember you denouncing your claim to your throne after Janai –"

Amer shot an arm out to grab Rayla, but she leaped away with no trouble and continued to watch him alertly. "Don't you mention her name to me!" he spat, his haughty attitude giving way to rage. "She's as sick and tainted as you are. It's a joke that she's on the throne, leading our people. It's almost too perfect that your humans are related, you know? I'll bet that whole family is depraved and –"

Amer didn't get another word out before Rayla punched him in the jaw. Before either knew it, a massive blanket of dark feathers appeared between them and spread, separating them. It was Ibis, who had summoned his mage wings for the added space it would create between them. His stern gaze shifted between them like a father separating his arguing children, but it softened on Rayla when he saw tears spilling over in her eyes.

"What happened?" the Skywing elf's voice was soft to her as she turned around and stormed away, rubbing the tears off of her face. Even though she had heard from both Callum and Ibis that there was no shame in it, she still wasn't used to crying this way. Some part of her still felt that it was pathetic and weak of her. She could hear the argument fading as she ran away from them, Amer yelling and Ibis somehow keeping calm in his face. All was quiet when she walked through and shut a door. She wasn't sure which room she'd entered; she just threw herself onto the bed and cocooned herself in pillows and a blanket. Well after the war had been called off, there had been those who still sought to make trouble with the humans and casted scorn on her and Callum's relationship. It was such a beautiful thing, how could people be so cold as to deny it?

Aaravos smiled as the green joined the white and golden aura of the staff. He had always been particularly fond of the color green. Around him, the land bore scars of attack. Earthblood elves weren't warriors, they were mostly healers, and as such Viren and Claudia had done most of the fighting this time. It was their redemption, he supposed, for being so foolish as to not see Concordia. Earthblood elves called a large, wooded valley their capital city, many now broken and opened doors leading to large den-like structures built into the ground itself, so as to be invisible to unknowing eyes. These elves prided themselves on living with nature, they wouldn't sacrifice trees for personal dwellings.

Earthblood elves were timid, small things, probably thanks to living in those underground dens. Clad in cloths made from durable leaves and thin, brown horns that branched out like a deer's antlers. And, as their name would suggest, several of them were bleeding, many looking on with fear. The magical Earth Emerald, a magnificent green orb - in truth, an Earth primal stone - half buried in the ground and fastend in place by vines, had been violently dug up and had gone a dull dark green, it's light and power having been stolen by that strange staff. The three carried on with no trouble, the surviving elves too shaken and fearful to make a move.

It was only when they were clearly gone did one elf retreat into her dwelling and craft a message. A message of death and warning, to be sent to the Dragon Queen.

"Aaravos loved a human?" Callum asked.

"It was before he even joined the Dragonguard." Kaiya said. "No one even knows what her name was, but they had a son."

"So, humans and elves can…" Callum trailed off awkwardly, and Kaiya smirked at his reddening face. He was probably thinking of that little Moonshadow elf of his. Kaiya herself couldn't remember being so young, but she felt the same toward her husband back home, and to the now-grown children they had born a few hundred years ago.

"Have children? Yes." Kaiya said. "In fact, human mages like yourself aren't as unheard of as everyone says. There are old rumors of humans performing magic without primal stones, but no one knows if they really existed and in any case it certainly didn't stop the unicorns from creating the stones. Those who believed they did also speculated that they were not purely human, that they had elven ancestry. Nobody knew anything for sure, though. You're just the first confirmed case of a true human mage."

"Elven ancestry?" Callum asked, mystified. He considered it. He had only the faintest memories of his father, and he supposed breeding with only humans would easily strip the line of any physical elven traits over hundreds of years. But it still seemed farfetched, even against everything that had happened, how quickly his life had changed when Ezran had first found that egg. His destiny, his views of elves and dragons, his belief in what was even possible with his own connection to the sky? Was his own lineage now to be thrown into question, too?

"Aaravos's son was said to accompany the humans to the west. The rest of the elves didn't trust him thanks to his father, even though he was vocal in his disapproval of what he'd become. The humans, though, adored him and accepted him as one of their own. So, he went with them to the west, and no one knows what became of him. He must be long gone by now, though."

"How long do half-elves usually live?" Callum asked.

"Longer than a human, but shorter than their elven parent." Kaiya said, and continued when he asked what she meant. "We elves, our lifespans vary with our kind. Startouch elves like myself can live for thousands of years. I'm sure it I try, I can remember the first days of the contenant. I'd say the shortest lived are probably Moonshadow elves. Must have something to do with how the moon always waxes and wanes, its elves lives are also the shortest. Lucky Rayla, she'll probably only outlive you by a mere fifty or sixty years. It's one of the reasons there's such a taboo on these kinds of relationships, everyone says the elf is just setting themselves up for heartbreak, and when they were around, half-elves were usually ostracized for some perceived impurity. Now no one can really look at a romantic relationship between and elf and human without thinking of Aaravos."

"Thanks for that." Was Callum's sarcastic reply. Frankly, he could have done without the reminder that he would parish well before Rayla, thereby leaving her alone. Of course, in light of the discoveries he had made during this conversation, he didn't necessarily have to leave her all alone. If, someday, they could…

Callum's face burned. Children? With Rayla? The thought was startling. He was sixteen and she was seventeen; they were far too young to be thinking of that sort of thing, not that the lower half of his body seemed to really care at the moment. Besides, there was far too much going on for that. He still needed to become an archmage, they would need to find a place to settle down, try to garner the support of whoever they can before they could actually get started. He stood up so fast, it was a wonder he didn't fall over, quickly thanked Kaiya and she snickered to herself at his awkward walk as he left her to her meditation once more.

There had been little trouble finding the mirror and deducing that something was off about it, mainly that it showed a luxurious library with a roaring fire rather than any reflection. With times still so volatile in the human kingdoms, it was quickly decided that General Amaya and Commander Gren would be the ones to deliver the mirror back to Xadia, with Amaya saying they would receive help from the Sunfire elves to make it to the Dragon Queen as quickly as possible. A trip that shouldn't take more than a few days at the very most unless Amaya got caught up in her visits, which wasn't likely to happen even with Queen Janai or Callum. Amaya knew very well that this wasn't a social call, this was the last trace of Viren in the kingdom and all agreed that they wanted it gone.

Author's Notes: I just remembered this is rated T, can ya tell? Who here thinks this talk of elven ancestry will come back? And what of Aaravos's fondness for green? Next up; back to the Moon Nexus and Claudia's jealousy gets the better of her! Ooh, so daring! Review.