Maidens, Glades, Kalach-wha-cha-cha?

I woke up because something swooshed over my shoulder. A muted curse, a thwack, then a swoosh again—

"Will you be still, demon-girl?" Khelgar grunted. "How would you like me making a racket when I stood my watch?"

"Much better than your snorting when you ain't," Neeshka called back testily… and thwack, thwack, thwack went her tail. "By Tymora, whose bright idea was it t' sleep here, in the bandits' camp?!" The words weren't muted in the least this time.

I set up and stretched: "Mine."

"Figures," Neeshka muttered sotto voice again, " I haven't seen a single blood-thirsty monster to fly your way. Oh, bother!"

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

"Try to understand the critters, Daughter. I've been around these woods for years, but your blood is new. The novelty will wear off." I enjoyed my sagacious tone, and yet something twanged unpleasantly when I called her daughter. She rolled her eyes and started to shake her blankets with an angry determination.

I consoled myself with the thought that our breakfast arrangements that day were the simplicity itself and weren't subject to a discussion. We tightened our belts and set off speedily through the whispering woods in hopes to meet the track to Highcliff only a short distance away from the camp. I am not a tracker my Father is, but I followed game trails often enough in my boyhood to chuckle at my companion's palpable relief when the wet leaves parted to show the grassy ditch lining the road.

"After you, my Lady," I gestured to Neeshka ("my Lady" sounded better, or, rather, more appropriate, than "daughter").

"You just can't wait for me to break a leg, or be a wolf-bait or something, ain't you, Father?" Neeshka wasn't inclined to accept my peace offering.

"Without me, my bravos, you would be circling the camp." I smiled and hoped that it came out as smug as a part-celestial being could manage.

It was a glorious moment. The red and yellow eyes locked, bent on producing sparks, thunder and mayhem! The air vibrated, the glow-

"HELLS' TITS!" Khelgar roared.

Alas, the glow didn't have anything to do with my demonic lady. The gates opened up, spilling bladelingd and gray dwarves… again. They barely got their footing under them, when they screamed this ridiculous battle cry "Kalach-cha!" and rushed me.

I reached with my hands up towards the sky, calling for protection, and just before the energy shielded me, went through me, I finally, finally knew that Kalacha-cha meant me. Not a name I would have chosen for a child, that's for sure. A spell flowered…not my spell. Through the blur of energy I saw a maiden turn into a badger and jump a gray dwarf- Not now, not now- Must focus- and I did. Only a few days ago, a green-eyed girl like that morphing into a furry creature would have broken my prayer. Good thing she waited to make her grand enterance.

My reader, I expect that at least some of the bards' tales had reached your ears, as pervasive as they are. So, yes, you are guessing right, it was Elanee the Elven in front of me. And, no, I have not had her for my lover, despite the abominable couplets subscribing to the opposing theory. I have never loved her or dreamed of her despite the overwhelming frequency with which elves figure in the adolescent fantasies of every other race. I was raised by an Elf. And I wasn't one. In the years when other boys found their fathers first mockingly, then seriously counting them among men, I was realizing that for my father I never will be one. Not because I was five or twelve or twenty. But because I am, and I will remain a Non-Quessir. I first accepted that Daeghun Farlong could enumerate flowers in a meadow beyond the hill by scent alone; track a mice on the moonless night by sound. It was harder, much harder to accept the knowledge that my Father remembered the minutiae of every day of his two-hundred something years. And it was not until I was sixteen and saw him washing his stern face in the creek water full of winter ice that I finally accepted that he did not simply remember; he re-lived that minutiae in his reveries. I would never forget how far away he could walk from the present and still live it. I do not know what he reveried about that morning, but I shied away with a certain knowledge that a Quessir is beyond my experiences.

Anyway, as the road dirt soaked up the unfamiliar blood, as I cam out of my trance, as Khelgar gawked and Neeshka scowled pulling arrows from the corpses, the badger became an elf again. I could now see that she was of a good height for a Quessir, and noted with an amusement the same golden hue to her hair, her skin, and her eyes that the badger's fur had. I clung to that comic connection as she glided towards me, expecting that I will need my sense of humor in our interactions.

"Forgive me," she said (but did not mean it, I was sure of it), "but I saw these… things to attack you. I found I could not simply stand by while you were ambushed – again."

Nine Hells, I did not know where to begin. Luckily, Neeshka did.

"Again? Have you been following us?!"

Elanee nodded imperiously after her words to show she's heard, but addressed herself to me: "I grew up among the druids and have seen you before. You are a peculiar man."

I bowed. At least she did not refer to me as 'thing'. Among the druids she must have learned to interact with our juvenile kind.

"Well, if you were stalking us, you should know we could handle a few bladlings by ourselves," Neeshka burst out, "so thanks for nothing, and all that. Ta-ta!"

"My name is Elanee," the elven maiden said smoothly, "and I believe there is a good reason we should travel together. The heartwoods are filling with these unnatural creatures. They are defiling both grove and glade. I must confront it, and so do you."

Barefooted and lithe, Elanee walked across the ditch, turned graciously as she reached the trees, and beaconed:

"You were going to Highcliff, Lan Farlong. It is prudent that we proceed as speedily as possible. I shall take the responsibility for leading you through the sacred lands of the Maiden Glade."

See what I mean? It's not arrogance, not exactly. It is the same benevolent tyranny we bestow upon children.

Elanee was the most beautiful woman I have seen until that day. Her voice put flutes to shame. She was even fascinated by me (and didn't bother to hide it). Yet, when her cherry-red lips parted, no matter how full and seductive they were, I heard a Quessir talking to a non-Quessir. Quite a few men fall for women who echo strongly their mothers. Far fewer fall for women or men that resemble their fathers. I am not one of them.

Not that Neeshka needed to know that yet. "Maiden's Glade sounds very appealing," I told my troops and followed Elanee, my eyes glued to the rump that had a misfortune to slim down compared to her badger form.

A muted curse, a thwack, then a swoosh again—

I smiled. That had nothing to do with the bloodsucking insects, or I was a badger-fancier.