"Come on! Hurry, hurry, hurry!" Rayla called over her shoulder as she and Stella ran ahead of everyone else.
Everyone else being Callum, Ezran, Bait, Zym, Soren and her newly freed parents and Runaan.
It took Callum a lot of studying and several gems that held enough magical energy, but he had managed to free them from their coin-prisons.
At first the three had been disoriented and very weakened, but that hadn't stopped them from trying to attack whichever human had been closest to them, only stopping and calming down when Rayla tackled them all in a group-hug, bawling her eyes out.
After that they spend a good amount of time hugging and kissing her and apologizing for multiple reasons.
They were also told what had all changed in the two years they were gone.
While a bit skeptical at first, they were all surprisingly quick to warm up to her friends.
Well, her parents were quick to actually warm up to the point where they were full-on friendly and joking, while Runaan was mostly stoic as always, but at least he tried to be polite.
Now they were all in the Moonshadow Forest, Rayla eager to get to the Silvergrove to let everyone there know what really happened to her parents and of course to bring Runaan back to Ethari.
"Rayla, wait up! None of us can run that fast!" Callum cried after his his girlfriend as he and everyone else struggled to not lose her.
Actually, he was pretty sure that the formerly coined elves could normally easily keep up but were still feeling weaker then they let on, especially Runaan who had been in the worst shape of the three but was still always walking somewhere at the front.
Callum figured to himself it was the thought of seeing his husband again that drove the assassin.
Also, Ezran and Soren hadn't been there before and were slower due to stopping every now and then to marvel at animals and flowers, similar to how Callum had done the first time he came there.
Lain had even tricked Soren info sniffing a fart flower like Rayla had done to Callum.
"We're here!" Rayla finally cheered when they finally reached the entrance of the village.
"We are? Is it higher in the trees?" Ezran asked, looking around and then up.
"No, it's hidden by magic! We can get it when I perform a special dance." Rayla beamed, before frowning sadly, "Though since I'm ghosted now nobody will be able to see us unless it's through a mirror or the spell is temporarily broken."
Callum felt his heart clench, knowing how much she was hurting from it.
He also heard Tiadrin hiss. When she had learned that her daughter was ghosted she had been ten times more angry as when she first heard it about her and her husband and had been ready to storm all the way over and in the elven woman's own words "beat the ever loving shit" out of every single elf against her baby.
"Then we all use my key. Now I just hope they didn't realize I'm alive and ghost me too." Runaan stated, though he was obviously also worried.
"Only one way to find out I guess." Callum said awkwardly, right away wishing he just stayed quiet when Rayla shot him a glare.
Trying to ignore the look he ran over to Runaan and lifted his arms to try and copy his graceful pose as best as he could, ready to dance along but stopping and blinking when Runaan dropped his own arms and asked "What are you doing?"
"Um, getting ready do to the dance?" he answered, not noticing Rayla's panicked face.
"You don't need to join me. Only I have to do the dance to open the door for guests." Runaan explained and then it finally clicked with Callum as he glanced over at Rayla who's face was bright red, trying to hide it in her hands as her parents flocked her sides and snickered at her, obivously having already figured out that she had made Callum once dance with her.
Runaan just sighed and got into position to dance again when Soren suddenly cried out "Wait!"
"Are we sure everything will be alright? I mean, we're sure nobody will attack us for being humans, right?" he asked, making a fairly good point.
They had already learned from multiple instances with Rayla and the handful of other Moonshadow Elves they met that most of their kind were pretty stubborn and rarely accepted change easily.
They all stopped, sharing glances, silently asking each other what to do when Callum gasped and slammed his fist in his palm.
"I got it! It's so simple that I can't believe I actually forgot about it!" he cried.
"What? Did you keep some moon opals to make some illusion for us?" Ezran asked.
"While that would have been helpful too, no. I've got something much simpler. Hang on a sec!" he held up his hands as if to keep everyone in place before running in the trees again.
The rest all looked at each other, hoping someone would know what he was up to when he already returned.
When she saw him first, Rayla gasped in horror, prompting the others to also look up with mixed reactions.
Ezran and Soren burst out laughing, Lain snorted and snickered along, Runaan looked stunned with his mouth dropping open and Tiadrin just looked done with everything while the animals just stared with their usual expressions.
"G'day mates! I'm an Earthblood Elf! How'r you an my lovely trees friends doing?!" Callum greeted cheerfully with a fake accent as he practically skipped over to them, collar, sleeves and hair stuffed with leaves and a pair of twigs tied to his head.
"No, no, no... Not again..." Rayla groaned as she slumped in place.
"Don't be like that, you sweet little flower! I might be more down to earth, but that doesn't mean I can't get along with you moon-fellas, right?" Callum didn't drop the act and just threw his arm around her shoulders, yelping when she grabbed his arm and shoved him off.
"Are you for real?" Tiadrin asked, not amused as all.
"What? I mean, it worked perfectly fine last time. Sure, most elves couldn't see us, but it had Ethari fooled." Callum defended himself.
"I... Am pretty sure he was just humoring you, Callum." Runaan said carefully, grimacing and shooting desperate look towards Rayla as if begging her to confirm his husband didn't actually fall for the ridiculous act.
"He was. He totally was." she quickly reasured him.
"Psshh! Neither of you just want to admit how great my disguise is and how you'd be fooled too if you didn't know it was me!" Callum stubbornly went on, gathering leaves around them and shoving them in a giggling Ezran's clothes while Soren was already tying a pair of twigs to his own head.
"I ask again, are you for real?" Tiadrin deadpanned.
"Ugh! I swear, normally he's very smart!" Rayla groaned, though it was unsure if she was more so trying to convince the other elves or herself.
"I'm sure he is, moonberry." Lain snickered, being the only elf to seemingly enjoy all of it.
"Hello! I'm an earthblood elf too!" Ezran giggled as he hopped over to them.
"And so am I, mates!" Soren jumped next to Ezran and then they both bowed.
"Trees to meet you!" the chorused and Rayla slapped a hand to her forehead.
"You seriously taught them that too?!" she cried at Callum who looked way too roud of himself.
"Hey, in their defence, actually earthbloods do say that in greeting!" Lain pointed out, crying out when Tiadrin slapped him on the head.
"Don't encourage them!" his wife hissed.
"L-Look, how about this? If we don't have any moon opals, we can probably find some real quick. Runaan and I used to look for them all the time for Ethari. Then we can place an actually believable illusion on you guys without itchy leaves in your clothes and when in, how about you just stay quiet?" Rayla definately offered, Runaan wuickly nodding along.
To her relief Ezran and Soren seemed to actually think it over, ignoring Callum's pouting when suddenly rumbling was heard above them
"No time. It looks like it's gonna rain soon so we better hurry, get in there, explain everything and hopefully go inside somewhere. These disguises are gonna have to do." Callum shot her idea down, looking way too happy to do so.
"Let's just get this over with." Tiadrin huffed, snatching Lain by the arm and dragging him closer to where Runaan stood, giving the assasin a pointed look, who gave a defeated sigh and got into position.
"Ethari, moon, both of you, please give me strenght." he muttered before starting his dance and opening the gate to the village.
In the end it turned out that the disguises didn't even matter as the humans were completely ignored.
Every elf around was too busy either watching in horror as Tiadrin beat up several high established elves while shouting every curse known to Xadia while her husband and daughter cheered her on, or they were cringing at the both aborable and disgusting sight of Runaan and Ethari's reunion, sitting on the ground in each others arms and trying to make out in between ugly crying.
Still, Callum stayed convinced the disguises were and would always be flawless and the true reason nobody could be bothered with them.