"Milda! Milda!"

With this worried cry, Mirofr, who had been standing nearby with Keltra, darted forward, quick feet pattering on the sun-baked Surdan earth. Keltra, intercepted him by reaching out with one slim arm, restraining him in that simple grip. Placing one finger on her lips, she bounded into the distance after the young Rider.

"I don't want your help." Without turning around or ceasing her furious stride, Milda sniffed haughtily and quickened her walk instead. Her voice was sudden, unexpected, an angry snap tipped in ice. "Listen to me, whoever you are. I've no need of your help. I have things to think about, and I'm perfectly capable of pondering and contemplating by myself, thank you very much."

"Have it your way, then," replied Keltra smoothly, cocking her head to the side for what must have been the hundredth time in her life – or possibly more, for everything that anyone knew. "I've no need to listen to whining little children anyway." Her voice, equally frosty, bored through Milda's heart, but the angry Shur'tugal continued walking on, faster than ever. "They, unlike the elves, know not how to act." She sniffed again, sounding even more disdainful than Milda had. "And you, pitiful human, are a horrible example, even for your meager, short-lived race."

That hurt. Keltra could tell. Milda – that was her name, she could see, from what Mirofr had said – sniffed, this time sounding hurt rather than imperious. Slowly, ever so slowly, her knees buckled. She fell to the ground, clutching her chest and whimpering softly. Then, ever so slowly, menacingly, dangerously, she rose again, pivoting on her heel to face Keltra. Milda's clear eyes narrowed; Keltra shot an evil glare right back at her. Then, Milda spoke.

"No one," she began, hands balling into fists with a movement as cold as if she were crushing a block of ice, "insults humans." She lowered her head, a thick bang falling into place over her eyes, burning, glowering, piercing deeply into the elf's – as if into her very soul. The elf held her gaze, eyes tightening, but behind the furious exterior she was wondering what Milda was really like. "Got that?" Milda crossed her arms, her voice thundering out with her next sentence. "No one."

The last move, enough to make even an accomplished human warrior shiver, only caused Keltra to raise an eyebrow. Some warriors were quite unskilled in the ways of love, and – it seemed to her – even less those of young love. As it was, she kept her gaze level and uttered a single word. "Milda."

"Don't talk to me." In a tone that can be described as – oddly enough – 'pissed off', Milda turned on her heel and resumed striding away as fast as her legs could carry her.

But Keltra continued staring, blue eyes bright and silver hair like burnished silver as she went on breaching through Milda's emotional defenses. "Trust me, Milda. I can help," she said gently.

"Oh, really?" Milda whipped around and glared at Keltra. "Oh, really? As if anyone in Alagaësia – and I don't care what they are, be it elf, human, dwarf, extinct Ra'zac, destroyed Shade, or even that foul deceased king Galbatorix himself – can understand the pain I'm feeling."

"Of course I do." Keltra advanced, her tone adrift in kindness. "It's love," she said, her voice soft. "Most people end up going through it at one time or another."

"Prove it," snarled Milda, and a tear coursed from one large, shining eye.

----------------------------------------------

I looked at her. There she was, with her silver hair, blue eyes and gentle expression. I knew perfectly well that the first part – the first part where she had cruelly challenged the mental capacity of each and every single human who exists on Alagaësia – had been a ruse to get me to open up, and I didn't want to.

Actually, a part of me did – a part that was never dormant for as long as I can remember. This, as Jarsha and Mother had often strained on me, was my conscience. I could never remember my father stressing for me to learn how to use it for my own good as his wife – and especially Jarsha – had, but I knew perfectly well that he probably had, a memory that was now lost in the twisted abyss that was my mind.

And so, it was, this conscience part of me was egging me on, trying to let the elf – whoever she was – help me. I, however, ignored it to the best of my ability; instead, I fixed the elf with a haughty glare. This time I was rebelling as before, but also curious. "Prove it," I repeated, my eyes fixed on those soulful orbs of hers.

"Certainly." She cocked her head to the side for the second – though I knew that, with the blessed long life all elves shared, it was probably her umpteenth, and I don't want to attempt specifying –- time and forced onto me a deep stare of her own. "I, young Rider, once loved he who goes by the name of Mirofr."

"Mirofr?" I backed away, feeling her eyes on mine – dark, oppressive, dangerous. "Mirofr? You fell in love with Mirofr?"

"Actually, we fell in love with each other," she answered lightly. "As have you and, I'm sure, the person you ran away from."

"This… I can't take this anymore," I growled, once more turning around and proceeding to stomp away, into the distance. "How is this possible? Mirofr never told Jarsha he loved anyone." Spinning back to the elf, who was regarding me with soft blue eyes, I stammered as she began to utter what she considered the most important aspect of this whole affair. "You… You don't know who I was yelling at, do you?"

A pause of a few moments stretched into a minute as we two females stared at each other, me not daring to talk and her testing my patience. Finally, it happened; the elf, observing me through half-closed eyes, bowed slight so that a lock of silver hair was suspended from her forehead. Her eyes closed completely as she answered the question on the air, the question in my mind. "No, I know not. As for Mirofr – he and I were good friends and eventually came to love each other. But that time has long since passed; now we are but elves who have survived through good and ill together – a pair of old, wise friends."

I almost gasped, feeling genuinely sorry for the elf. Yet, for some reason or other, I didn't feel guilty – that reason was, predictably because, she was still angry with adolescence in general and my confused emotions were flooding in a torrent of strange emotions that had never hit me this hard before. (AKA: Milda wouldn't say, but these 'emotions' that she speaks of are teenage hormones. She and Jarsha were growing closer together, and it gave her a feeling that was now pestering her with the bite of a thousand hornets.) I looked to the ground, eyes downcast. "I… I'm sorry," I breathed finally, "I never knew."

The elf gripped my arm in the silence that followed. "You are the first person aside from us who does."