Chapter 1

As Sage stirred awake this morning, the sight of the ceiling of his room felt unfamiliar to him. In fact, in a weird and unnerving way, the entire room was alien to him. The last thing he remembered was going to sleep in this room last night and the night before last as well. But beyond that, his confusion with his own life and memories grew ever stronger.

He moved his body up to sit at the edge of the bed and gaze at the mirror in front of him. Icy blue eyes stared back at him, with a pale, almost bloodless looking skin and a nose that was placed in an almost artificially symmetrical way in the face. Sage did not recognize the face looking back at him, yet it was looking right back at him and mirroring his movements as his own on the reflecting surface. He couldn't bear the staring contest with himself for long and stood up, walking to the window to let some fresh air into his tiny chamber. The air outside wasn't much fresher then the air in the room, but it was thankfully cooler due to the morning temperatures and the slight dome of smog over the city below him.

His room was on one of the highest floors of a larger apartment complex, so he had a pretty good view over the ugly concrete behemoth below him, but unfortunately this would mean all the heat that gathered below the walls of the building during the day would eventually rise upwards and end up in his room.

It had been two days since Sage had been rescued by the some of the other tenants of this building. Rescued from being a lost and confused man, wandering the streets of Maranurr City clueless of who he was, why he was here and what he was doing.

Yes, that's right... Amnesia.

Sage had completely lost all his memories of his past life until now and not only that, but he did not even have a proper perception of himself as a person.
Him? A Human man in what appears to be his late twenties at a guess?
That didn't seem right to him, but he could not tell why.
According to the possessions that were upon him when found, consisting of; no more than a few hundred Maranurrian Dollars, twenty American Dollars and a passport which states he was a Maranurrian Citizen, these did not seem correct to him either or aid in triggering any of Sage's lost memories. What's more, Sage was unable to even read all of the English street signs, yet he fluently spoke the elfish tongue, both the traditional and the simplified, modern versions. Such fluency in both tongues was remarkably rare for a Human, more so not to not be fluent in English.

This was probably the main reason why the residents of this apartment complex even agreed to take him into their care; as a human who spoke their native tongue was more likely than not, an ally to the Elfish cause. And Elves do NOT turn down allies. Well so long as it suited them, that is.

Sage felt his own hand slapping himself, when noticing these thoughts beginning to overwhelm again. The Shaman of the clan that resided within this building had told Sage that he didn't have any superficial injuries and that this amnesia would most likely cure itself after a few days. Sage has little option but to trust these words and hope this amnesia was indeed temporary. Despite the fact this prognosis had been given by a person with no formal medical education.

Sage was torn from his own thoughts by the creaking noise of a window opening below him. At first this event was only worth a short blink of the eye, but it caught Sage's attention more as he saw a girl with short white hair leaning through the window and attaching a green-white length of cloth to the sill of her window. Weirdly enough, this piece of cloth seemed familiar to him. Identifying it as the banner of the royal family of Balmor... no, it was the flag of the Elfish nation Balmor. The royal version had a green-white-green striping with the tree of life in the centre of the white stripe, while the national version of the flag additionally had a red star, surrounded by a black gear placed above the tree of life.

Sage's curiosity had been awoken now, because this flag was not something you could just show off freely inside of Maranurr. This was a full-blown criminal act which could spark some serious trouble for whoever was flying this flag. In addition to the flag, a song now started playing, a song which Sage quickly recognized as the hymn of Balmor. This too, felt incredibly familiar to him, although he still could not properly pin down why. The girl was leaning out of the window again, watching the ugly skyline of the city in the distance, quietly singing along with the tune.

Sage could not resist his burning curiosity any longer. "Hey... Girl!" He yelled. He had to ask the girl about this. "What you are doing there, is actually a pretty strong crime."
Immediately after this declaration, Sage regretted the choice of words as he realized how easy they were to misinterpret.
The head of the girl twisted in the frame of the window until she looked straight up at him. Brown, curious eyes, below an untidily cut white hair stared back at his face, surprised and a bit scared too, but quickly changing into a state of open hostility.
"What'cha gonna do, Half-ear?", she called back up at him in Elfish words, as her hair was falling down the sides of her head, revealing long, pointy ears and prominent cheekbones. "Report me to the police?"
Sage wanted to call an apology down, but the white-haired girl had already pulled her head back in, and closed the window, leaving the heretical flag slowly wave in the morning breeze, yet no longer blasting the song of a hostile nation all over the city.

"Great..." Sage thought sarcastically, as he pulled his head back in. "Where ever I go, I make friends."
As if searching for an excuse to change the subject of his thoughts, Sage felt his belly started to growl. His eyes turned to the clock and he realized with slight surprise that it was still six o'clock in the morning. A whole two hours before the breakfast would even be prepared. He sighed.

The elves were treating him well, but they were just not offering the right amount of food. An Elf with his 50 Kilos of weight could survive the entire day on a diet of sugary fruits and seeds, but that didn't mean his 95 Kilos of Human body mass could endure the same diet. Sage was almost constantly hungry and he knew that he needed proteins in his diet, which would barely be found in this place.

"Screw it..." Sage thought and pulled a blue robe over his shoulders. The clothes which the Elves had given him looked admittedly somewhat ridiculous, yet they widely cut, large ceremonial dresses were the only thing he could properly wear, as even the largest of Elves were merely reaching his chin with their foreheads and had nearly half his width on the shoulders.

After getting dressed, Sage unlocked the door of the tiny apartment and went down the eerily quiet floor until he reached the main staircase. The apartment block was old and built a dirt-cheap concrete box style which was popular in the 1960s. This style provided the much needed space for the booming Human population. However that was back nearly 50 years ago. In the present day, Humans were mostly gone from these types of buildings and had been replaced by huge Elfish family's, who considered themselves independent clans.

This building alone housed approximately maybe 300 to 350 Woodelves, living together in a community so obsessed with preserving their own culture, it would literally rather commit a crime then open up to the city around them.

When Sage thought of it once again, it was rather surprising actually that the Elves of this clan had actually saved and sheltered him. Lucky for him that he could speak their language, otherwise the Elves who found him out on the streets would have more likely threatened him with guns, when he wandered into their territory.

When Sage reached the ground floor of the apartment building, a wide entrance hall opened in front of him. This part of the building had been altered the most by its occupants to suit their needs. Dozens of small apartments had their walls torn down to make space for their industrial-level kitchen, the massive dining room, the grand entrance hall and the Clan leaders' quarters. He turned left to enter the dining hall. It stretched widely in front of him with seven tables each over 20 meters long and hosting each 40 chairs, on which residents could sit, eat or listen, plus a smaller table at the end of the hall, in an elevated position for the Clan leaders' family to sit at.

Again, Sage held himself on the left side of the room, until he got to a huge two-winged door, leading into the kitchen of the Clan. Looking around, it was almost a trip in time back to a 90s industrial kitchen, except for the oven which seemed to have been recently renewed. Another door led down into the food cellar, but Sage ignored it and went straight for the fridge. He was hungry and determined to each whatever protein-rich food he would find.
Of course he was disappointed with what he found. Despite the fridge being bigger than him and considerably wider, it was almost completely filled with fruits, vegetables, honey and even cake. Again, his stomach rebelled, demanding food that would make him feel actually fed, instead of these empty sugars which the Elves were so addicted to.
Luckily for him, as Sage dug a bit deeper, he could find something at least resembling what was yearned for, a loaf of brown bread and eggs. For a short moment the bad consciousness came back to haunt him. After all he was stealing the supplied of a group that possibly saved his life without their consent, but again, his stomach growled, but louder this time, shutting his brain up. With a quick movement that almost seemed instinctual, he opened a few of the kitchen counters doors until he found a salt, oil, butter and a pan which he quickly put on the stove of the kitchen. A drop of oil and a buttered bread later he was about to crack the first egg open, as an amused voice from the other side of the kitchen spoke up.

"You know..." a young, somewhat sarcastic female voice said. "What you are doing there is actually a pretty strong crime."

Sage looked up with the expression of a child stealing cookies, only to look into the face of a confidently grinning, young Elf with white hair and a caramel-toned skin. She had brushed her hair now, revealing that what Sage had identified as untidily cut was actually a traditional elfish haircut, which mourners wore. Her left eye covered by a streak that was slightly longer then the bang over the right brow. All in all she was the embodiment of a young, conservative Elf, even wearing a traditional Dyun, a wide, armless top with no cleavage that obstructed any idea of her body's shape, if it weren't for the green skirt she was wearing.
She walked over to him, around the kitchens counter to stand close to him.
"I was against helping you. You can't even be left alone for a single day stealing your savior Clan's possessions." said the Elf girl with the bitchy tone confidence of someone who felt superior.

"I'm just hungry. How did you even know I was here." Sage tried to object, but the Elf interrupted him by a bunch of stuttering noises and raised her finger as if she was about to make a statement to him.
"You cannot just walk into the kitchen and steal the Clan's food. As Grandniece of the Clan's Leader, I'm obligated to report this." she said with a truly bossy undertone. But then she took another breath. "UNLESS that is… you agree to help me with the breakfast preparations."

Sage gave her a confused look, followed by a not less confused "Eh..?"

The Elf pushed her hands into the hips and responded: "Like hell I'm going to let this chance slip to get some extra help on the kitchen service this morning."
Her tone was still as confident as before, but much less threatening.
Sage gave her a mistrustful look, then nodded to the pan and the eggs again: "Does this mean I'm allowed to fry these?"
"Go ahead." the girl stated. "... but I'll get my share."

Sage nodded. This was probably a much better offering then he could've expected from her and even better than being reported to the clan leader... or whoever was responsible for the supplies in this clan.
While he was cracking the eggs open onto the frying pan, the girl sat down on the kitchen counter watching him with the curiosity of a child observing a foreign animal's behavior. Sage did not have to ask to get her to talk again.
"So... the Human who lost his memories..." she said, obviously as a conversation starter.
Sage glanced up from the pan, surprised at the girl which was, despite her significantly heightened position still looking up at him.
"Don't be surprised." the girl said. "We haven't sheltered Humans here in... a lot of years, I guess. And my Granduncle only agreed to it, because you were able to ask for it in the traditional elfish way. Either you're the most elaborate spy ever sent into such a boring 3rd class tribe like ours or you are an ally in serious trouble..."
Sage swallowed quietly, focusing on turning and salting the egg in the pan properly. He didn't like where this was going.
"So... which one is it?", she asked, obviously determined to keep this conversation going, even though it was more a monologue at this point.

Sage sighed and lowered his head, understanding she was not going to stop.
"If only I knew that..." he replied short-spoken.
A grin was her reply, a surprisingly curious, youthful grin: "Alright. You don't want to tell me. I will find it out anyways. After all, I have sufficient material to blackmail you."

Sage rolled his eyes in slight annoyance on this never ending flow of words coming from the Elf.
"It's... just a few eggs." Sage tried to justify himself as he pulled the pan off of the stove. Before he could even get one of the eggs, the Elf girl had already pulled out a fork and skillfully lifted one of the eggs onto her plate.
Sage recognized she was teasing him, testing if he was going to fight back again on her micro-aggressions.

"What even is your name?" he asked while trying to pull the remaining eggs onto his own plate using a fork. Unfortunately as it turned out, Sage severely lacked the dexterity in his hand, which the Elf had displayed.
"Kyu." the girl responded. "Kyu Ptaha..."
"I would introduce myself now...", Sage responded as he crammed pieces of what were once pretty good looking fried eggs onto his bread. "... but apparently you already know everything about me."
Kyu laughed slightly: "Actually, I know precisely nothing about you."
"See?" Sage asked with a bitter undertone in his voice. "This is precisely how much I know about myself. And now if you would excuse me..."

Sage sunk his teeth into the bread and eggs in front of him, feeling a deep satisfaction from the mere taste of something which registered as 'real food'. He forgot about the manners, which he didn't know where he learned them from and demolished the meal before Kyu would even finish her first egg. She gave him an amused grin in response to that display.

"I think we should add more beans to our diet, as long as you're here..." Kyu said. "Even though they aren't so popular with the kids."
"Beans?" Sage asked, while suppressing a slight cramp in his belly.
Kyu nodded swiftly: "Yeah, rich in proteins. I knew you Humans need a lot of it, but I didn't know it was this severe."
Sage sighs and scratched his head: "Yeah... I didn't know either."
Kyu smiled and picked up another piece of egg on her plate, pushing it into her mouth. After a short break she grinned: "Alright... break time is over. Go into the cellar... third door on the left side. We have our fruit supplies there. I need 3 kilograms of strawberries, two kilograms of peaches, 10 loaves of white bread, 6 bunches of bananas, a kilo of gadaias and 8 liters of yogurt."

As Sage did not immediately react, Kyu clapped twice and hushed him towards the cellar entrance.
"Go, go, we only have one and a half hours left and we need to be done with the pre-preparations before my Nan comes downstairs."
Sage looked at the door confusedly but decided to follow Kyu's order to keep the peace and earn his eggs on bread. As he entered the cellar the first thing he noticed was how new it looked. Modern compared to the rest of the building and illuminated by neon tubes, giving it an almost bunker-esque vibe. Sage was even more irritated when he looked left and right and saw modern doors with digital locks lining up against the wall. Only as he walked down the floor a bit, he encountered a door that could simply be opened by pulling on a doorknob. Freezing cold gushed into his face as he looked into the room and a light turned on, revealing a huge, cooling room with store-shelves lined up in aisles that carried a multitude of easily perishable foods.

He walked in and looked through the shelves, finding the gadaias first. It was a fruit native to Maranurr and very popular among Elves for their high amount of calories while still remaining heretically sweet. It had a long, almost pill-like shape and was roughly as big as a large human fist, with the largest one reaching the length of a child's lower arm. Sage places two bags with 500 grams of weight on his arm and continued his search, soon finding large 2 liter canisters of natural yogurt on the ground. He picked one of them up and carried them quietly out of the cellar to Kyu who prepared some kind of oversized mixing machine in a corner of the room. Then he went back to get more supplies of the list and repeated the process. After his 3rd round he spoke up again: "Kyu, what's behind the security doors in the cellar."
Kyu responded with one of her confident, mysterious smiles and said: "Oh wouldn't you like to know that?"
Sage wasn't having it. Standing in the kitchen with crossed arms he stared at her until she noticed him again.
Annoyed she said: "It's the lifeblood of this clan. It's heritage. It would be worthless to a human like you. Such as; religious artefacts, ancient tools and texts which we keep preserved. Stay away from it or I won't guarantee I'll let you survive this."

"She's pretty radical..." Sage thought to himself as he turned into the cellar again to get strawberries. She didn't sound like she was sarcastic or even just exaggerating. It was weird to see such a young girl getting so pissed over a few pieces of very, very old stuff. On the other hand, Elves had a reputation for being ardently backwards on their customs and believes, something which got them a lot of trouble the humans that pursued a strictly progressive way of politics. He got back up again and placed the fruits very close to Kyu, to see what she was actually doing. It seemed that his previous observation was correct. It was indeed a giant mixer, which Kyu was filling with unnervingly large amounts of strawberries and sugar.

When she noticed Sage's look she instantly hushed him away again.
"We still need more fruits. And when you're done with that, I need you to prepare the pudding." she said.
"And what exactly do you do?" Sage asked, having no real idea how to actually cook a pudding.
"I make the fruit cocktail." Kyu replied while taking the first round of yogurt out of the mixer and into huge pots. "Or at least start doing it. My Nan and Taym will help us at 7:30 am."
Sage sighed and nodded surrendering. He went back downstairs and collected the rest of the ingredients for the yoghurt.
"How do you even pay for this?" Sage asked.
"Sharing..." Kyu responded simply. "Everything we collect in payments, welfare and wages is collected by the clan and we use it to buy everyone food and maintain this house."
"That sounds quite unfair to those who work..." Sage instinctively objected.
"That sounds like something a Human would say." Kyu responded nimble-witted.
"Touché..." Sage responded and sighed. Helplessly he looked around in the kitchen. Kyu followed his looks and drew some smart conclusions from it.
"You know how to fry eggs, but not how to make pudding. Interesting detail." she noted. "Okay then, let's switch up tasks. You start cutting the pineapples and oranges and I will prepare the pudding..."
"Is she... analyzing me?" Sage wondered when she watched the young Elf continue to rush through the kitchen as if she was doing this on a daily basis.
She went to pick up huge bottles of soy milk from below a kitchen counter, then got a pot with at least 50 liters of capacity and began filling it with the milk. Sage sat down and grabbed the Pineapple peeler next to him and started to peel the thick skin off the fruit. He made progress, slow, but steady and to his own surprise, didn't cut himself in the process.

In the background, the milk was already foaming as Kyu started to fill in a powder that slowly began to solidify the milk. This was the moment when another person entered the room. Sage didn't even notice her at first, only when her hoarse voice echoed through the mostly empty kitchen, he looked up from the fruits in his hands.
"Good morning, Kyu..." she called.
It was an old Elf lady, with short, white hair, cut in the same manner as Kyu, which gave them an almost creepy family similarity. Even the clothing was similar, except her skirt was longer, and she wore a cotton jacket additionally to the dyun, which had a dark purple color. Also, the old elfish lady had the right side of her face entirely covered in elfish tribal tattoos and Sage had the sneaking suspicion that they continued over her entire body below the dress. The old woman noticed Sage before he could say anything.
"I see, you got yourself some help." she said.
"Good morning, Nan..." Kyu responded and nodded. "Yes, Sage was kind enough to help me with my kitchen service. You know how much I hate it."
"Indeed." the old woman said. "Back in my days..."
Kyu let out a dramatically loud and annoyed moan, which made the older Elf stop talking and instead leave out a quiet, amused giggle. The elder Elf walked towards Sage, clearly scanning him as she came closer. Sage knew Woodelves had very good eyesight, better than humans at least, so she would probably noticed the spots of sticky juice all over the robe that the elves had given him, as well as perhaps the spots of fat that frying the eggs had left on his clothes. Would she judge him for it? Something told him she had some form of authority here.
"So, you're that human boy without memories."
The way she said it was clearly telling him that this wasn't a question but a statement and Sage noticed the same kind of observant awareness, he had spotted in Kyu. He only nodded as a response. What else could he answer with?
A warmer smile appeared on her face and she said: "It does seem like nice Humans exist after all. I hope you find your memories soon, so we can get some clarity about you. My name is Hlaya. Hlaya Ptaha."
Again, Sage nodded, but for the sake of politeness, he added: "Yes, I hope the same. And my name is Sage... Sage... Smith, if I remember correctly."
He actively had to recall the picture of his passport to know his name. This definitely wasn't normal.
Hlaya took some of the peeled pineapples from Sage and placed them on the kitchen counter, cutting them into small little pieces and collecting the juice that ran down the cutting board. A few, quiet minutes later another Elf, a man, maybe in his late 40s entered the room. Kyu's Grandmother just strictly said: "You're late Taym. You let a Human and an old woman beat you in terms of working morale..."
This was clearly a pretty harsh criticism as the man gave Hlaya an offended look, but didn't dare to speak up further. The Elf referred to as Taym, seemed to confirm what Sage had suspected about the authority of Kyu's Grandmother.
Quietly, the man got to the cupboards of the kitchen and took out long, but small spoons that looked like someone had just cut an empty wooden ball into two halves and attached them to the end of a stick. He picked up drinking glasses too and carried all of it into the dining room. Kyu and Sage only had one more opportunity to actually talk and it was a brief one when they both stood in front of the pudding pot and used ladles to fill the somewhat slimy goo into smaller pots.
"Hey Kyu..." Sage asked quietly and slightly afraid too. "How often do we actually have to do this kind of kitchen work?"
Kyu smiled: "Don't worry, the kitchen service rotates among the Elves who do not work on a daily basis. I have it roughly twice per month."
Sage sighed in relief, as it was pretty clear to him that Kyu would most like use him again as support for this task. She just seemed ALOT like the kind of girl who would do precisely this.
Seconds later Kyu picked up two of the pots and started distributing them on the different tables. Sage mimicked her behavior, same as she started to take small pots with a sprout-salad that Hlaya had prepared into the dining room, which slowly started to fill with guests. To Sage it seemed somewhat weird how almost everyone in this huge apartment complex was attending this dinner. It did not seem that anyone really had an interest in dining in privacy, although if there was someone, Sage would most likely not see him here. Instead, Sage heard an almost irritatingly loud layer of conversations, echoing through the dining room.

While Sage was still searching for a place to get some privacy, Kyu tugged his arm and dragged him along.
"Come and sit with the Gang..." she said, leading him ahead and practically dragging him to a somewhat lonelier corner of the 7th table in the hall. The seats here were not completely filled and obviously, whoever enjoyed some privacy during his breakfast would go here. Aside from some loners, there were three people sitting on the table. Two of them looked like sisters, with the older one having long, curly and red hair in addition to a bright skin-color and blue eyes, while the other, younger one had short, straight red hair in addition to a pale skin-color and turquoise eyes. The third one looked completely different from the other three, including Kyu. Even Sage, who did not actively know all that much about Elves, was legitimately surprised to see someone like her in this place.
The third Elf was clearly not a Woodelf. Instead of the slim, slender figure of the Woodelves, she had a tiny, yet somewhat stocky body type. Her head was disproportionately large with huge, black eyes in her skull and a tiny mouth, which upon opening revealed a line of razor-sharp teeth. She had long blue-ish hair and her skin-color had a gray, somewhat unhealthy tone. When she stretched her short fingers for the pudding bowl, Sage could see small webbed skins between her fingers. A Riverelf.
"Now... who's this?" the Riverelf asked with a blink of her large eyes. In a very, very weird way, all of this made her look somewhere between cute and creepy.
"Sage," Kyu said. "The Human without memories... you know... that guy."
"Of course we know." the older redhead responded. "The entire Clan is barely talking about anything else in the recent days. But what is he doing on this table?"
"He owes me a favor, Titania." said Kyu in response. "He agreed to help me with our mission today."
A slight moan escaped the mouth of the redheads, while the Riverelf seemingly opted to stay quiet and listen for now.
"Really?" the younger redhead asked. "Another mission?"
"You could go to school, for a change." the older one said. "Or at least let us go to school."
Kyu shook her head. She was completely in her element right now, this was clearly visible.
"The revolution is right around the corner and you know it. Mum and Dad will both come back and when this happens, all of us need to be prepared." she said in the tone of a General, motivating her troops for a battle. "We meet after dinner in our base! I'll bring "the Steaks"."
Sage looked at the reactions of the redheads, but the redheads just looked back at him, scanning him. Then they all three turned to the Riverelf, giving her looks as if asking for her opinion. But the Riverelf didn't respond and instead quietly spooned the pudding from the bowl. And ultimately, no one responded, letting Kyu have her will.
Just why did Sage get the suspicion that this was not the first time things turned out this way?