Silvia woke up in the middle of the night. David had laid her on a little blanket. As she lay there, all the memories started to seep in. All that depended on her. What had happened to her life, all the pain of the country, the yells and screams of the victims in war, the smell of fire, and the feelings she didn’t understand all welled up inside her at once. Each time she saw David she felt something almost like fear. She wasn’t supposed to be afraid! She was supposed to be fearless, intrepid, and daring. And for her parents, their eyes, usually so strong and kind, were filled with tears and with pathetic weakness in her mind’s eye. She didn’t want to think of those feelings, or her parents’ misery. And what of her arm? She would be disabled forever as the poison spread. It would eventually reach her lungs and kill her, and no matter what she did, she would always be that way- if she didn’t hurry, vengeance for her parents would be impossible. She curled up on her blanket, rocked back and forth. She cried the night away.
She woke up, and realized that she had cried herself to sleep. She didn’t know that she had fallen to sleep until she had woken up. And she knew that she could not break down any longer. She had to be strong and face what had happened.
Then, seeing the particles of white sand, the princess recollected the silvery hair of the woman in the tower. Silvia felt humiliated, being knocked out cold, looking like a fragile little girl. Thinking of that truly did lower her morale. The elf princess looked around her, seeing complete desert. The sand was icy cold and looked as white as snow. The campfire illuminated the sand’s beauty even more.
She looked at her arm with remorse, a long scar etched on her skin. That night she had left her kingdom, something had attacked her. She attempted to bend the arm, but it wouldn’t budge much. She pushed it, and felt the excruciating pain rushing through her arm and hand.
Her many doctors had all been puzzled. It seemed that something had injected large doses of solanine into her bloodstream. This poison didn’t seem to come from the usual garden weed of nightshade, but the evolved version of its kind. Because of its special qualities of its taste, the evolved plant was usually referred to as Bittersweet Nightshade. Its blossoms had concentrated doses of solanine poison and had evolved to a stunning, violet blossom. The fluid was a paralytic. But her doctors had given her herbs to counteract the poison. It also seemed apparent that the thing that attacked her had thought the process through. In order to stop the poison from spreading, she would have to keep exercising the affected area everyday. But her elbow had already been somewhat unable to move, due to the potent venom.
Silvia had been dealing with this problem ever since she mysteriously been attacked as she left her parents’ forest. David strode by her and Silvia stopped bending and hid her arm’s long scars. But David had seen the cut and had kneeled down to look her in the eye. She didn’t meet his gaze, and played with some white blossoms nearby.
“Silvia, what happened?”
“To what?!” she snapped. She was extremely defensive about her partial paralysis which had suffered for years.
“Your left arm. It seems almost stiff….”
“Yeah, and what does it matter?” she hissed.
“What happened to you?” David didn’t just seem curious, but sincerely concerned.
“Why do you want to know? I’ve only just met you. You think I can trust you with everything?” her throat tightened. She continued. “… and besides … it’s not a very interesting tale.”
“Not very interesting? Well I don’t see everyone having to bear that scar around town.”
“I got poisoned.”
“What kind of poison?” David leaned in closer to her.
“Bittersweet nightshade,” suddenly words started to spill out of her mouth against her will. “The poison will spread, slowly paralyzing me. When I get very angry, the pain worsens and the paralysm spreads a little farther. The poison has already spread to my left elbow. My arm has had trouble … working properly … but I’ve managed to keep the poison at bay. And- if you must know- when it spreads to my lungs, it will kill me.” She didn’t feel like talking about it anymore. “Time to go to bed.”
She turned her back on the human and realized why she spilled out her secrets to him. She needed a friend.
David could see the lonliness in her eyes, but said nothing. He then recollected of how his mother’s illness was much the same way. In fact…didn’t Dr. Herri, the guest at the inn, say something about paralysis? And that it was heard of in the north? His “witchy eyes” were not able to penetrate those starry elven eyes’ story very well.
That night, when she was laying down on the sand to sleep, and Starlight was snoring loudly, she spotted David’s sleeping form violently shaking with cold. He muttered something that Silvia’s sharp, elven ears could not discern. “Silvia.” Silvia then jumped, thinking he had woken up when he then said her name, but realized he was still asleep. She took her thick, white and gray, fur cloak in her hands and laid it carefully on top of David. Then, her cautious nature kicked in. She didn’t even know him. She had just divulged secrets to him simply because he asked. He seemed rather familiar. An eerie vision of a chemist loomed in her mind.
How could she think that he was simply human or that he reesembled the the one of the enemy’s leaders? David couldn’t even control ten people if he even tried to make them fight the enemy’s cause. How could he be related to the chemist when the chemist was full of scorn, and malice, and David was full with the opposite?
“No! Don’t hurt her! Don’t touch Silvia! If you dare- No! SILVIA!!!” Silvia jumped. Her thoughts were interrupted as she jumped from David’s scream. His scream echoed off the cold sand dunes, and Silvia felt only panic. What if the enemy could find them because of this? She shook him by the shoulders, but David, no matter how restless he was, wouldn’t wake up. “Let go of me!” Then Silvia only saw a single option. She bound his mouth and plugged his nose. The screaming stopped. Peace and quiet ensued, but something was going completely wrong out there in the complete stillness. Something was out there, and whatever it was, she didn’t like it.
David was having one of the most horrible dreams of his life. Others involved giant scissors cutting him in half, and others were those painful memories of his father leaving. This one was worse, not because it was more violent, but because David didn’t know what was going to happen in this hellish nightmare. The worse part was that the dream seemed so real like it was going to happen. David’s heart filled with panic, not peace, as his sleep continued.
“Erilic! I am being driven insane by this madness. That elf princess- that elf brat- knows too much. She’s already figured out how to stop us! She has gotten the boy of the prophecy. What are we to do?!” David heard the man’s voice in the darkness. The voice sounded familiar, and he didn’t dare try to place whose voice that belonged to. “The sorceress of Emlick is dead, killed by some mad music, and the general let the boy escape from his clutches, and so did Elena! I am out of ideas!” David heard complete rage enter his voice. “Don’t just sit there, like a useless sack of potatoes!!! I’m out of schemes.”
David heard a deep, rumbling voice answer, “Then come up with a better scheme.”
“Fine, Erilic, I’ll send you. What about that? If you don’t come back with the dead body of the elf, or her head, at least, I’ll cut out your insolent tongue. Don’t come back otherwise. Bring back the horse. He could be used to carry our weapons during our conquest. And the boy…yes…the boy…Bring him back alive.”
A large net covered the entire camp site, and fire embers flew everywhere, burning everything in its greedy grasp. Silvia felt a fear for spiders, but that fear wasn’t anything like her fear of fire! Its rasping breath called out to her, saying it would like to hold her in its painful embrace, to burn her, to hurt her. She yelped when it caught onto her tunic. She tore part of her tunic off to prevent the spread of fire to her body.
She had forgotten the large net that covered their campsite. It wrapped around her, seemingly attracted to her by some magnetic force. She tried to tear away from it, but the net started to radiate some form of blue light, pulsing with energy. This entire situation didn’t make sense! How did the enemy obtain a Forbadian net?
The Forbadian net was only able to be obtained off the coast of the Northern Peace Havens, the Ice lands, and nowhere else. The owners and creaters of the net wouldn’t sell or lend them to anyone, no matter how much money was given to buy or borrow one. The use of the net was to trap any sort of magical beings. It would have no effect on humans, however, even the ones that did have magic. However, it would attract towards seers or prophets.
The net would only stop trapping people once the commander or user of the net had been “stopped” in Silvia’s terms (which basically meant “killed”).
Silvia had a flashback to when she was in that tower with Elena and David. She remembered that whip. Silvia only felt a fear for fire bacause that whip had been used against her before, but the blades had been submersed in fire. Gold was deadly to an elf’s bloodstream. Its particles would melt in their blood, and the infected blood would continue throughout the body, shutting the body down as it went, and making platelets stop clotting. Gold would make an elf bleed to death if it entered their bloodstream.
Silvia snapped herself to the present. She felt the sting of the blows on her left hand once again. Those memories were too painful to even recollect without bringing those blasted tears to her eyes. Still, her eyes wept enough tears to fill a room. Her parents. Her poor parents. She couldn’t think about the past now. She couldn’t think about what had happened to her parents. She wouldn’t remember that horrible day.
She had no option but to think about the present. She drew her twin blades behind her back and tried to hack her way out of the net. She knew it was useless the moment the net started to form again over its broken bonds. She yelled for Starlight to help her since he could gnaw through the rope with his Alphian abilities. But it wasn’t Starlight who rushed to her side.
David came and wrenched the rope, in a frenzy to tear the rope apart. Silvia saw a look in his eye that terrified her; that look was so similar to the enemy’s chemist. That chemist was one of the two forces that led the attack throughout the Peace Havens. There were even accounts (told to her by her chief spy) that the heartless man had deserted his family many years ago. For some reason, Silvia only realized now, the chemist had never ordered for David’s peasant village to be slain.
David came and wrenched the rope, in a frenzy to tear the rope apart. Silvia saw a look in his eye that terrified her; that look was so similar to the enemy’s chemist. That chemist was one of the two forces that led the attack throughout the Peace Havens. There were even accounts (told to her by her chief spy) that the heartless man had deserted his family many years ago. For some reason, Silvia only realized now, the chemist had never ordered for David’s peasant village to be slain.
There were too many things that were happening that interrupted Silvia’s train of thought. David looked like he was going into a frenzy. He eventually succeeded in creating a large enough gap for Silvia to escape through before it closed again around him. He had sacrificed himself for her. Silvia felt her chest constrict when David yelled out to her, above the roaring flames,
“Silvia! Run!” She wouldn’t let David stay captive. She wouldn’t allow for the enemy to torture him for information. Even though he knew none, they wouldn’t believe him if he confessed how ignorant he was. She wouldn’t let him become their thrall. In the tunic’s belt, there was a velvet pouch.
Silvia removed an object, and blew on it, making it expand. The object became a case. She opened it, and inside was her stringed instrument. She picked it up as quickly as she could and started to play. As she lost herself in the full power of the instrument’s voice, she hear the ringing notes were so warm with passion- not so painfully, searing hot like the fire dancing around her. She felt so much hatred for the enemy just then. For what they were trying to do to David.
As she played, she forgot her fear of fire. As she played, she forgot the enemy. As she played, she only remembered David.
The flames died down, they no longer danced merrily. Now they had a sort of dead glow to them. As the flames died, giving a last rasping breath, Silvia saw a handsome man with hair that stuck up like a raging fire. The hair was golden with red and orange streaks in it. His skin was at first, a healthy shade of peach, but now, the skin got paler and paler. The eyes were strangely orange with a living fire inside. As the flames around the man danced one more time, so did the flame in his eyes. The net released its grasp on David, and crawled away from him, and bunched itself into a pile.
“I had a dream,” David murmured. “It was about Erilic. He-”
“Who’s Erilic?”
“He-” David nodded to the dead form of the fire witch, “-must have been Erilic.” It was just then that the Alphian stallion had just woken up. Silvia then asked,
“What does ‘must have been’ mean? What was your dream exactly?” David then started to explain what had taken place in his mind. Silvia seemed to barely be able to wait for him to finish. David could tell that she was evaluating the info to see what possible move the enemy might make and she wanted to share what she had found.
“David! Do you realize what this means?!” Silvia started to look very excited. “You have heard the plans of one of the Cyrus’s leaders! Can you tune into these at will?”
“Umm…who? The Cyrus?”
“Oh, yes. I don’t think you know them by that name,” Silvia’s eyes started to flicker with an angry flame at the very word. “The Cyrus is that organization that’s creating chaos. They’re the enemy.”
“Oh,” David said simply.
“So, can you tune out other possibilites?” Silvia asked.
“Possibilities?” David asked, surprised.
“Well, what seers predict is not necessarily set in stone. It is really the most probably course set. So, can you choose which visions to see?”
“I don’t know. They just come randomly … I guess….”
“Well…you never told me you could hear voices. I thought seers were supposed to predict the future. But then again, I missed out on a lot of the action and only on the way here did I find out David’s the boy of the prophecy, and how he’s some seer, but hey! That’s pretty cool! So…can you see the future? Am I still this good looking five years from now?” Starlight teased the astonished David.
“Well, I did see the flames and I heard the same music that just happened. I dreamt about it when that sorceress had us.”
“They are obviously afaid of me,” here Silvia smiled- she’d apparently missed out of Starlight’s and Davids’ out loud thoughts, “They need more animals to bear more weapons which means the end is near, and they’ve recruited more people. But you can tell that they are interested; extremely curious. They probably want to either torture you for info, or try and convince you to join them.”
“Which do you think is more likely?” David asked.
Starlight and Silvia looked at each other, a knowing look in their eye. And then Starlight said,
“Torture.” And that was the end of the conversation. David then went to where he was sleeping, a thin cloth cvering over the sand, and went to lie down on it. He spotted the fur blanket that Silvia had put on him in his sleep. He picked it up.
“Silvia … where did you get this?”
“I killed it. I skinned it afterwards.” She said, getting back to her blanket.
“You killed it?” he repeated. The little voice inside him whispered curses about Silvia, but David pushed the voice away. He squirmed uncomfortably. He never liked the killing of animals, but decided not to pick a fight and wanted to change the subject as quickly as possible.
“You don’t need to ask people to repeat themselves, David.”
“Right … um…” David grabbed hastily at one different topic. “Where are your parents? Don’t they mind that you’re risking your life?”
“Look.”
Silvia’s eyes started to look dangerous.
“I don’t like talking about my parents. It’s because of them I left my kingdom. Unfortunately, I got poisoned after I left, but…
“I left some other people to look after my duties for me. My cousin, Knox. She’s sweet,” Silvia hadn’t spent all the time at court for nothing. She had learned how to change subjects away from dangerous waters.
“Right,” David said awkwardly.
“I need to burn that body. I can’t have evidence trailing behind me,” Silvia muttered.
“Don’t you feel bad about,” David paused, “killing?”
“Now, I feel a little bad, but I figure that what I’m doing is for a noble cause, and I let the thought go.”
“I just can’t get over this,” David persisted.
“I know. After vomitting in Eurchess’s tower, I wouldn’t get over it either,” Starlight interjected.
“I shouldn’t have told you about what happened, Starlight.”
“Oh well.”
“Look. It’s perfectly normal for you to keep thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it, but that’s not going to change anything,” Silvia reasoned. “You killed a man.”
“It would be nice if you could-”
“-what? Surgarcoat it for you, David? Life is not sugarcoated. Just grieve over it, and move on.”
“How can you now kill so casually, like Erilic? How many-”
“Hey! Don’t try and turn the guilt tables on me, human!” Who did he think he was, speaking to an elven princess in that manner? Her ear jewel turned a fiery red, and her dark ice blue eyes went alight.
Silvia wasn’t so strong as she appeared, thought David.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to be like this.”
“Like what? You dig into information about my personal past and life, try and make me feel guilty about killing so you won’t be the only one feeling blue- you just- you know what? Forget it.” Silvia turned away. “Let’s just talk about something we won’t get mad over.
“You got mad over it, Silvia. Not David,” Starlight pointed out.
“Could you just give me a moment?! I need to calm down,” Silvia snapped.
“Sorry.”
“Get some rest. I need to get rid of Erilic so that Cyrus head- wait. What did he sound like? A male. Right? Did he call me the elven brat?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?” David asked.
“I just want to know who that head is. You might have gotten a link to this one. One of the Cyrus heads is unknown to us.”
“Wait- who’s us? Who knows about this Cyrus group’s plans?”
“Really…Eurchess, the elves- all those in the Ellenar Clans, and…that’s it, really.” Silvia felt ashamed that she did not have many other allies, but it was impossible for human kings to trust elves after her mother’s tutor lied about elves kidnapping human children and other atrocious acts of the Cyrus.
“Wait- you’re not going to bury Erilic? You’re just going to burn him!” David realized.
“Yes. I need to eliminate the evidence so that the Chemist doesn’t find out.”
“The Chemist?”
“The known Cyrus head.”
“But that is no excuse! How can you have no honor for the dead?!” His mother might well have been burned instead of buried properly. How could Silvia do this?
“You may be the boy of the prophecy, human, but you are so ignorant and stupid!” her elbow started to stiffen. She had to calm down soon, otherwise, the damage done couldn’t be reversed.
“Call me stupid, but how could you even dishonor anything without a proper burial?”
Silence.
“I’m sorry about your inn,” Silvia suddenly said, looking shocked as she started into the depths of David’s eyes. “And Starlight, I’m sorry about your officer. It was really noble of you to give up your mission. But David. I- I didn’t know about your mother. I didn’t know she had that illness- her lungs. I didn’t know she burned in the fire.”
He didn’t say anything. Neither of them did for a while. He finally said, “How did you know? I never told-”
“I know that you didn’t tell me. I saw the whole thing happen in your eyes. You see, well-” She dropped the subject. It would seem slightly ackward on explaining how some elves, especially seers and their descendants, could see human’s thoughts reflected in their eyes. It would be even stranger telling him how, if he looked hard enough, he would be able to see through her as well. She knew he could predict the future. And that meant he shared that same gift as her mother. Since he was a seer, that meant he really could penetrate any strong mental wall to see the other’s feelings…and stories. That was also called “witchy eyes” to humans. She shuddered. What if he someday penetrated her own mental wall?
Although Staright tried his best, he couldn’t get the two didn’t speak to one another for the rest of the night.
Silvia flexed her left arm. She then felt guilt worm its way down her stomach. She should have been more understanding and less easy to upset. Then, she tried to distract herself by realizing that she had forgotten an important memory that might help her remember what happened to her arm. She searched through her thoughts, and her recollections. She searched through her past that she buried too deep into her mind that she even couldn’t remember them. She remembered the several stranded whip come down on her hand and then her back. Although it stopped her from thinking of David, it didn’t stop everything. She shivered. Tears welled up in her eyes.
She wouldn’t remember what had happened that cheerful sunny day that had somehow turned into a nightmare. She wouldn’t remember how her parents suffered. She wouldn’t remember how they- she stopped herself from thinking to prevent the current of tears that threatened to break through.
Then, all the sudden, she remembered that night she had ran away from her forest. Yes, she had broken it there, but how? Her trivial musings were interrupted by David’s voice, calling out to someone to not hurt someone.
“Don’t hurt her! Don’t even lay your filthy hands on her. No! Silviaaa!” Silvia remembered how David had told her his recollection about his dream. Somehow, he was able to prophesize what would come, what would happen. She remembered how ignorant David could be of protecting himself. She thought back to the time that David had thrown the tigers’ eye chair at some of the enemy. She smiled. “It was completely foolish. Well, not entirely useless; that was a good idea.” She said aloud to herself. She knew next time the enemy attacked, there wouldn’t always be a chair around. Although David had a good head on his shoulders, he still didn’t know how to use a weapon! How ridiculous. “Ugh!” she exclaimed.
She realized that she was going to have to teach David how to use a sword. “Provided that he doesn’t drop the blade….” she thought.
“Morning!” Starlight exclaimed happily, trotting up to her. His eyes were unusually cheerful and full of surpressed glee.
“What’s happening? Well,” Silvia grinned, “Don’t just keep me in the dark!”
“Well,” Silvia knew something hilarious had happened, and pressed the boisterous stallion for information. “I saw David picking a rose in a valley nearby…. Does that mean anything to you?” Starlight smiled broadly. Silvia ignored him and picked up her two weapons and two branches she found nearby her bed. “What’s that for?” Starlight asked, gesturing towards the two sticks.
“For me to beat him to death if he even thinks of giving that rose to me.
Want to watch?” she asked. Starlight, seeing the cold demeanor, wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.
“No thanks. I think I’ll pass.”
“Are you sure? It’ll be the opportunity of a-“
“NO!”
“Alright, I was simply asking…. Don’t need to get so huffy about it….”
As she walked towards the valley Starlight had given directions for, she ran into David. In his hand, he twirled a dark red rose, the same color as Silvia’s tunic. When he saw her, he dropped it. She didn’t see it and roughly said,
“Well, David, let’s face it: You need to learn how to fight otherwise you’re as good as dead right now.” And Silvia thought, no rose. You were wrong, Starlight.
David felt a shiver climb down his spine. He felt uncomfortable with anything sharp. But why did Silvia look so sad? He saw that it was simply her strong expression removed. Why?
“Are you alright, Silvia?” he asked gently. Silvia almost wanted to lean on his shoulder. But she saw he pitied her. She didn’t want anyone’s pity. She turned hard and unyielding, her mouth set in a grim barrier. Dung! Why couldn’t she hide her emotions? Why?! She went back on topic. She wouldn’t look sad. She would look happy and act.
“Okay, David, here.” Silvia handed David the longer stick. They walked away to a nearby clearing. The rose forgotton.
From there on in, David learned how to fence. The daily lesson (that would last all day) would begin as Silvia started to duel with him, her stick weaved so quickly in and out, like a dashing wolf, that David clumsily tried to block each graceful, strong blow. The first blow sent him sprawling.
He had no idea of an elf’s strength. She had started the lesson by saying
“Try and hit me.”
“Try and hit me.”
David wanted to refuse, but after their fight the other night, he thought it would be imprudent to refuse her request. He reluctantly edged forward, and feebly swung his stick at her lugs.
Whack, WHACK! In the space of a few seconds, the elf had parried, and had swung her own stick on his unprotected back and the place where he had planned to hit her. But it was on his thigh this time. Unfortunately with this pattern repeating, at the end of the duel, his thighs, back, and chest were covered with bruises. Silvia then told him what he did wrong, and they would try again. She showed him complicated spins and ways to disarm his opponent, like striking the sword so hard that the sword would go flying since the opponent wouldn’t be able to stand the force.
She had begun at midday and taught him how to swing his sword and at what angle and where the blow would be most effective. With many “No, here. Not there!”s, David’s sword blow was unbelievably strong, that when he got the hang of it, he knocked her stick out of her hand! She could tell that he had an extraordinary grip. It was rather … inhuman.
That night, she glanced thoughtfully at him by their campfire. Then she saw that he was not particularly muscular. Her eyes strayed towards his sword hand. His pinkie! It was the same length as the finger next to it! Could it be? She remembered the sword her ancestors had found. The same sword had been passed down for several generations to her parents, who had kept it locked in a chest. Silvia’s mother had warned her that in the right hands, it could be used to save hundreds of lives…but in the wrong hands, it would be used to slaughter thousands….
Her father had told her that when she inherited the sword, it would be her duty to try and find, as they had, the person who could grasp the sword. Her ancestors had had a hunch that the person who was able to wield the sword would play a key part in the finder’s life. Its handle was thicker at the top than closer to the metal, meaning the person had to have had an extraordinary, or mutated hand in order to be even to hold the beautiful blade.
If that person had even a mutated hand able to hold the sword, he would have to be able to lift it would ease. It was a heavy weapon. When Silvia was a young elfling, she tried to lift it. The area where her pinkie sat was too wide to even hold. She had dropped the sword with a loud clatter, which the entire castle heard. Oops.
She focused on the present. Could David be the right one to wield the sword?
Throughout the next few days, she taught him how to lash the sword with his wrist, a technique he had never seen before. The swift attack would distract his opponent, and David would swing his leg under his opponent, tripping the unsuspecting enemy. Then, Silvia taught her pupil spells, incantations, archery, battle strategies, and elven courtesy.
“Most of the elves resent having a human boy as their savior, so you have to get as many elves supporting you as possible.” Were Silvia’s words when David protested learning elven courtesy.
The trio eventually moved to a valley (via a door of destination somewhere closer to Silvia’s forest kingdom) where game, herbs, mushrooms, grass, and water were plentiful. Silvia would always wake up early in the morning to linger around the tall oak trees, to weave through the numerous vines, to stroke the roses and once she remembered how stupid that event had been a few days ago. Starlight had said that David had a rose for her. As if!
Starlight would simply snack all day, and David would go through harsh lessons with his elven teacher.
One day, David stretched out on his little bed and picked up his stick, ready to begin the day. He stretched and walked outside. He realized Silvia wasn’t up yet when he went to the clearing where Silvia taught him. He walked around the valley and thought to check inside his teacher’s makeshift tent. (His teacher had recently killed some “prey” and used their windproof hides to make a tent for each of them) He lifted the flap.
There was Silvia, arrayed in a white sleeping gown, with a heart shaped dark amber pendant, but the colors would swirl around occasionally, and the stone would constantly glow, but her pale face was screwed up in pain. David rushed to her side and realized she was dreaming. Her dark red lips gasped for breaths, her body soaked in sweat. David saw her ear’s jewel swirl with the colors of red, orange, silver, and black. He shook her by the shoulder, trying to wake her up.
“Wake up! No! You vermin! You animals! You will regret-” Silvia screamed out in pain. She was still asleep. Floating in a complete nightmare. “No! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Don’t die! Don’t- No.... Don’t … leave me.” David sighed. He looked down on Silvia’s sleeping form. He looked at her pale face, her ebony hair, her dark red wine colored lips, and looked at her closed slender eyes. What was happening inside the elf’s mind? He stared at her face.
Her eyes flickered opened. She stood up. David jumped back. Her starry eyes burned with a blue fire, her ear’s jewel turned bright red, yet it turned to an unusual hue that David had never seen before. The color was a kind of bright color, full of energy. It was brighter than yellow and more electrical than lightning. It was energizing, hotter than lightning. It was tinted with the faint color of rose.
David was sure that if he had concentrated hard enough, he could probably see smoke rise from her body and a type of glow. He realized that she was embarrased at being seen in at this kind of state. That’s what that bright color meant.
“Get out. Now.” David paused at Silvia’s request. He paused because tears were streaming down Silvia’s face. “Didn’t you hear me, human? GET OUT!” Silvia half sobbed, half yelled. She started shaking with tears. But David didn’t listen or heed Silvia’s request. He didn’t listen to Silvia, even though it was an order. He just stood there in the opening of the tent, struck dumb. What had happened in Silvia’s dream? “GET OUT! NOW!” David still didn’t move. Silvia put on her sheath for both her twin blades and a long, slender sword. That was not good.
She lifted the blades behind her back and lunged. David stumbled out of the tent, falling in the dust. She twirled the short swords, their white silvery blades whirling the dance of pain.
“Pick up your sword, human.” But David didn’t have a sword. Silvia threw that beautiful blade at David’s feet. It was made of white mithril, a clear jewel in its hilt. He picked it up, whirling it in the air, checking its balance, entranced by its beauty. It was a perfect hold. Most swords (and sticks) wouldn’t be able to let his pinkie grip it properly.
It was a tad heavy, but it was perfect. He had never seen its equal! But Silvia didn’t wait for him to be ready, her rage taking a hold of her. She must have been so humiliated at being seen like that, in that state. She started to swing the metal, side to side, forward and back, high and low. The blades moved so fast that David couldn’t keep track of where the blows would fall.
He deflected the blades as best he could, and tried to attack (to impress his teacher, even in her wrath), but there came a point where he started to pity Silvia. The dream must have been real. The dream must have happened to someone she had loved, and still loved. He didn’t attack at all. Then, suddenly, with her inhuman strength and speed, Silvia disarmed him. Her blades crossed in an “X” close to David’s throat.
“Never pity the enemy. The enemy will never spare you. It is a lesson I learned the hard way, many, many seasons ago. Why did you come into my tent?” David couldn’t speak. His mouth was so dry that his lips simply wouldn’t pronounce the wanted syllables. Why was she so upset? What had happened in her dream? Did it involve the war that might take place? “Never go in again. That is your lesson today.”
David was awestruck. That was all of his lesson?
“We need to leave this valley. Its river is going to flood once the snow in the east melts. Not to mention we need to protect Sun Zi Bing Fa from the enemy. They’ll be coming for the book soon. They’ve been kept away from our forest by the ice and snow. No creature, except elves, could ever live there in the winter. That’s why we go now, as do the enemy. You are now skilled with the blade, arrow, magic, and manners. What time to go is better than now? Unless you don’t want to go?”
“I’m coming if that’s how I can help,” David said. But that wasn’t the entire reason. He liked Silvia. Deep inside, it was like they were friends. But it was deep inside.
That was that, and the trio set off after collecting many berries and plants (and meat in Silvia’s case). The food looked like it would last them about four months. But the ride on Starlight’s back would take four days to reach the forest. Silvia said nothing as her arm began to stiffen again. Her shoulder started to ache, tell-tale signs of the poison moving.
Silvia was lost in thought about her dream. She also reminiscenced about the times when she was still carefree and young. She thought about how she and David would get into the forest without getting injured by the jinxes and charms put outside the forest. “First, through the trolls, then the bridge, then the key, then the hike…” Silvia thought. She rode on Starlight’s back all day with David to gain more time over the enemy. On the third day, they came upon the trolls.
They were “three fat porkers” (according to Starlight) with only loinclothes as clothes. They were hairy, filthy, and plain UGLY. They were about nine feet tall and they liked to live under the elves’ bridge, even when they weren’t supposed to. However, when the Wolf Clan sent a runner to tell the trolls to please relocate (or in simpler terms, “to go away”) each one would get eaten; torn apart by the three trolls. The trolls weren’t bright and each liked his meal (most of the time the unlucky elven runner) a different way. One wanted a broiled elf, another wanted fried, and another wanted raw. The trolls would try and grab the elf first and cook it its way first. Unfortunatly, they tore the elf apart- not a nice, comfortable process.
Silvia surveyed the scene with the interest of a wolf eyeing her prey. David saw her eyes shine and her ear’s jewel turn gold (excitement).
“Starlight?”
“Yes, your highness?” Starlight joked. Silvia smiled and replied,
“I need you to take this,” Silvia held out a small diamond. It was cut very precisely, concentrating all the light in a single light beam. “and hold it up in the sky to make sure the rays are all concentrated nearby the trolls. The light will scare them and make them hide in the moat under the bridge. While that’s happening, David and I will run across the bridge and then you can join us on the other side.”
“Why can’t we all ride on Starlight’s back across the bridge in the sky?” David asked. He didn’t see the point of risking their lives and risking danger when you could simply ride on Starlight’s back across the bridge. If one carried out Silvia’s plan, it was pointless to risk being the troll’s next lunch when one could make sure one would even have their own lunch the next day, right? (Apparently not, by Silvia’s next answer.)
“No, we can’t. Since Starlight is strong, it’s lucky that he can even carry both of us. However, he can’t fly that high in the air with us two on his back without being spotted and caught. It would be both safer and wiser to carry out my plan unless you can come up with another.”
“Why can’t we just kill them?” David asked. They were merciless creatures They ripped elves apart. Why did they deserve mercy when they were mindless savages?
“I wish we could, honestly. They’ve caused my people enough pain for a lifetime. They’ve been keeping them trapped in our forest and mountains for thirty years, ever since that last bloody war, the Lenain War. However, we need them. They might be keeping us in, yes, but they’ve been keeping the enemy out.”
The previous generation had experienced the Lenain war, and had claimed both pairs of David’s grandparents. It had been a bloody affair, and that was the chaos the Cyrus hoped to spawn again.
It sounded like an insane theory or method, but the trolls had been keeping the enemy out, David thought. He didn’t notice as Starlight took off in the air.
Starlight held the diamond high in the air using his mouth. He let the sun shine through the cuts, creating a sharp, precise laser beam, concentrating it nearby a troll’s foot. The troll screamed in fear, a high pitched squeal that sounded like a chicken. Starlight yelled insults at the top of his lungs.
Silvia laughed. She saw a look of surprise on David’s face. She was wondering what was wrong. “David? What’s wrong? Is your face screwed up like that because of the troll?”
“No,” David said. “You. You-”
“I what?”
“You’re laughing.”
“What’s so extraordinary about my laughing? I think it natural to enjoy causing fear in something that held it over your people for so many years. Besides…it sounds so unlike what I’d imagine its laughter to sound like.”
“It’s just that you-you”
“I- what?”
“You never laugh.”
“So?” Silvia pointed out.
“It’s as though it’s a mirror-like the twinkling of your dark blue eyes. It’s like-”
“Now! Silvia, David! Now!” Starlight was shouting from the sky. He had scared the trolls into the mud below the bridge, and- according to Starlight, it was the perfect, opportune moment to now run.
Silvia looked at David’s face. What if she lost him? Then, she considered what David was trying to say to her about her laugh. Did he- was he-? Whatever. Not important. Humans and elves? Please.
“Be careful, alright? I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Me? Hurt? Is that possible with these trolls?” David smiled. His eyes shone with an excitement that almost scared Silvia. She mouthed the same warning again, however, this time with advice.
“David. Really. Be on your guard. David. I’ve watched the way you fight. You are eager to begin and use all your energy and your speed at once. You start to lag in the middle, and you are totally hopeless at the end that I could disarm you with a flick of my wrist. And when you started to confront me about Erilic- about how to dispose of him, it showed me that while you may be intelligent (with other actions, of course), you are not at all wise. You are aggressive at the beginning, using all your energy in one attack. At the end, you are tired out. Please. Run, but keep some energy in reserve for magic- just in case. I know you haven’t tried any yet, and only know the theory for magic, but still. I think you are intelligent enough to work out how to. But you won’t be able to if you’re tired.”
“Don’t worry about me. I may be a human boy, but that doesn’t mean I’m not as capable as you.” David flashed a smile. He put one foot on the bridge.
“I do worry,” Silvia muttered to herself. “On three. One…two…three!” Silvia and David ran across the rickety old bridge. Silvia was surprised that David was only slightly slower than her, and she was an elf! He was a human! The bridge creaked, rocked, and swayed. It seemed safe until they were halfway to the end. Then it happened.
A monstrous hand- if it could even be called a hand- broke through the bridge with a loud splinter of wood. Its hand groped blindly, feeling all over the bridge. It quickly caught hold of David’s leg and twisted it. Silvia heard a sickening crack from David’s leg. He tried running, but he cried out as he tried to pull his leg out of the troll’s grip- it was too painful to do with a broken limb.
David yelled in anguish and Silvia could feel his pain and her heart twisted. She quickly took her long sword from her waist, trying to grasp it properly, the handle slipping from her sweaty palms. Her hands were shaking so she kept fumbling with the sword. She finally was able to hold it.
Its name was Ellwinre. It was her father’s sword and had a mystical power that no one- except her father- could release, it was no use trying to unlock it by waving it around, or murmuring incantations. Nothing worked. She hoped she would be the one to unlock the sword. She hoped it would have the power to penetrate the troll’s hide and to save David’s leg.
Silvia saw that his leg was getting infected at an alarming rate. If she couldn’t save them from the trolls and save David’s leg, it would be too late for last second healing. Healing something like this with her own life force would kill her. It would have to get amputated. If Ellwinre could save David’s leg, his leg wouldn’t have to get chopped off.
She thought a certain incantation was necessary, murmuring elven runes for hate, ones for healing, but the sword refused to unlock its magic. Only her father could make the sword glow. Her father had told her that the answer lived in elves’, humans’, and fairies’ hearts; we simply had to think about it. He told her that this feeling had set aside the good and the bad, corrupt officials and heroes. It wasn’t a riddle, he was simply describing it. She thought.
Then another sickening crack, paired with another yell, called out to the princess and out of desperation, she whispered the elven rune for love once, and whispered the English way of saying love, and said the fairies’ character for love once more, and the blade began to glow a shade of light blue. The sword started to vibrate and burn, sending sensations down her arm. She was entranced and forgot about the boy until-
“Silvia! What are you waiting for?! They’re quartering me!” He was right. The trolls were wrenching him apart, trying to cook his body different ways. Silvia couldn’t bear to watch. She took the sword, and like instinct, she slashed the air where the trolls were. Although they were ten yards apart, and Silvia’s sword was three feet long, the blow nevertheless cut their skin. It drove them off, and they ran for their lives, but they took the teenager with them.
“David!” Silvia screamed. She ran after the trolls as they fled into their dark hole. She panicked. She didn’t know how she was going to get there in time to save David. If the infection spread, David would die. Trolls, among the dirtiest creatures in existence, had the ability to infect the entire body very quickly, therefore killing the victim faster than seemingly possible. Silvia followed the three trolls toward their dark pit. She leaned over the edge. It simply was a never ending abyss- a dark hole that never ended. She carefully climbed down, holding onto roots and hard little objects that she couldn’t see. She crawled as quickly as she dared. It was so dark! She couldn’t see anything! Where was David? Would she be able to reach him in time? She remembered (from an old textbook) that a troll’s victim, if infected, would have one hour before amputation was necessary. About fifteen minutes had passed. Forty-five minutes seemed such a short amount of time. She climbed faster. She blindly groped in the darkness. Suddenly, as she was adjusting her leg’s position, her hands’ grip moved! It was one of the small things Silvia couldn’t see. She used a handy trick to make her eyes glow, therefore being able to see. She wasn’t sure if it was safe to use, but she had to see, otherwise she would soon fall. Her eyes glowed an electric blue, and she looked at her handgrip. She gasped. It was a huge, white, deformed coach roach! She let go as it savagely bit her hand. She fell. She caught hold of something sticky, but it wasn’t strong enough to hold her weight, and she fell, and fell into the darkness.
Starlight didn’t see what had happened at all. The light from the diamond had distracted him and he started to have some fun concentrating the diamond’s light on the dark hole. He let the beam stray towards his left, having fun, forgetting about Silvia and David. It was as if something had made him forget them. Each time his mind strayed towards the pair, something akin to pain seared through his mind and then, he would find himself engrossed in something trivial.
Suddenly the beam of light, that was concentrated in the dirt below, somehow shattered the ground. Starlight realized that the ground was in fact stone, covered by grass, plants, dirt, and troll manure…. He then continued his destroying of the ground just out of curiosity.
Then, in a large hole Starlight had created, lay David, unconscious and three trolls who were trying to find a way to sanitize the food. Starlight then regained his memory of David. He dove down and took David onto his back, bravely diving into the group of strong trolls. He tried to make it out alive. Then a troll, the one who liked his meat raw, grabbed Starlight’s wing. The Alphian horse would have shattered the wing if he hadn’t stopped. The troll was amazed at the tiny horse that he held.
“Unugreey, pougkuhn numinun?” The troll asked his friend, the one who favored fried meat over raw meat.
“Unagi! Hunmi!” Starlight had no idea what they were saying. David just woke up. Somehow, he could understand the troll’s language. But he seemed to take it in stride. Starlight figured that having a leg almost torn from one’s body was enough for one to stop questioning the strange sudden bilingual ability.
“They want to keep you as a pet.” David said. They don’t have room to eat you after they’re done with me.”
“What?! David! What happened to your leg?!”
“The trolls broke it. Somehow I can’t feel the pain anymore, even though the leg is all swollen.” His leg was a swollen purple lump of flesh, hardly recognizable as a leg. Starlight couldn’t understand how David could keep so calm.
“The infection will spread soon. Silvia has a sort of ability to heal you, but she’s missing! She just disappeared. I-just-just- I’m so sorry! Suddenly my mind’s-”
“Where did she go?” David asked urgently. Where was she? Somehow, his mind seemed to fish into his collection of recollections and picked a memory of her. He remembered her face and how it had been twisted in pain in her dream. He urged Starlight to tell him where he last saw the elven princess.
“Where did she go?” David asked urgently. Where was she? Somehow, his mind seemed to fish into his collection of recollections and picked a memory of her. He remembered her face and how it had been twisted in pain in her dream. He urged Starlight to tell him where he last saw the elven princess.
“She tried following after you down that hole!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Silvia kept falling and grabbed on to anything that would hold her fall, but each root she grasped broke into pieces as she tried to snatch anything around her to break her fall. Suddenly she fell in a net of sticky substance, a whole mass of the sticky string she had encountered earlier. It was like- wait! The net was a kind of network leading to several different places. All she had to do was find the right string that would lead her outside. She groped for the nearest string, praying to anyone up there that it was the right path.
Suddenly she saw a blue light. She was entranced by it. It was small and pulsating. She decided to follow it. She started groping her way along the string. A little voice in the back of her head said not to follow the pulsing blue source of energy, yet she felt that if she followed the light, she would find out more about who she was, and find out more magical secrets, good and bad. The light seemed to say silently,
Come to us if you dare. Here you will discover all magical secrets, of the light, and of the dark. Follow us if you dare, if you dare, if you dare….
Silvia was ever so curious to discover more magic. If she did, she might find a way to help her parents, wherever they were right that moment. She wondered if her mother was watching over her, like a guardian angel, watching her daughter from her crystal ball. She followed the pulsing blue light. Silvia crawled along the sticky string until she reached it. She gasped. Silvia tried to crawl away, but it came for her. She tried to scramble away, but the glowing predator would not relent.
The huge glowing worm, with eight spider-like eyes, crawled along its sticky string towards Silvia. Silvia could make out the huge worm crawling along its string by inching itself forward. It was coming closer. Silvia realized that an old clichéd saying was going to come true: “You can run, but you can’t hide.”
Suddenly she fell into a whole net of stickier string. The string must have been a kind of web. It was a web for any prey that was foolish enough to come down into the foul, odious lair. That foolish prey was her. Her back was against the wall. There was no way that she could ever escape or avoid the glow worm. She was going to die.
The worm advanced and Silvia tried to dash for its side, but the always hungry worm was not going to give up its prey so easily. It blocked her with its obese lump of fat for a body. It began to spin its web around her. She tore the web apart with her hands, trying to crawl away, but the web stuck to her hands. The web was so sticky and it wouldn’t release her. The string wasn’t going to break off. Silvia only had one more option. She drew her twin blades and tried to hack the worm to pieces. It dodged with surprising quick reflexes. It lashed at Silvia with its tail. It sent her sprawling and out of breath. As she turned around, the worm was gone.
“You are not going to get of here alive, elf….” a voice whispered from out of the darkness.
“Shut up, you stupid worm and fight!” Silvia yelled ferociously.
“Why should I? It’s fun to watch you flail your two toys around- at nothing!” She heard a cackle that seemed to come out from all directions. “Yes. I love to enjoy a little elf tidbit to eat now and then.”
“Oh, yeah?” Silvia asked as fiercely as she could make her trembling voice sound undaunted. She growled, “I eat glow worms for breakfast!” She uttered a feral snarl. The glow worm reared and struck.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Starlight, in a burst of genius, had started flying in circles over the trolls’ heads and kept settling on each troll’s eye, ear, or nose. Soon, in the midst of the chaos of trolls grabbing each other faces, Starlight quickly swooped up the teenager and that was how he and David escaped the trolls. Then they had dived into the hole. They reasoned that if Starlight could catch up with the falling Silvia, then Silvia would be alright, or they could find her where something might have broken her fall. They didn’t know. David’s eyes couldn’t adjust to the dark environment. At rural areas, or at areas without city lights, the night sky is so dark that the sky looks like a dark pool of ink. However, your eyes adjust eventually. In this darkness, there was no way any human’s eyes could ever adjust to see in this kind of habitat so quickly.
This hole was an experimenting ground by some mad chemist, coincidentally The Chemist, the Cyrus’s mad genius, who had abandoned the experiment, trying to grow huge insects, crossing glow worm and spider genetics, trying to design them to look like glow worms, and surprise their victims with their hunting habits and their speed, and the deranged man also tried to design huge cockroaches and use them to do battle, if they could ever come out in the sunlight. Unfortunately, he forgot that animals grown in dark places would be close to blind.
When the creatures’ smell and hearing didn’t work very well, the experiment was abandoned. It was the perfect place for someone to grow huge insects, and it was the perfect place for a certain elf to get eaten. David heard a scream:
“SILVIA!” David yelled. His heart started to pound so hard and quickly that it hurt to breathe. He had to get to Silvia before something else got to her first. He figured that since the scream was pretty loud and clear, Silvia would be close by. And he jumped off Starlight’s back…into the abyss.
Starlight felt alarm and panic take over. A nervous whinny escaped from his throat. His mind finally recovered from the shock and Starlight dove after David. The air swept past him and he thought,
Why does David seem to care about Silvia’s wellbeing so much? Does he honestly think it is worth his life to save her? All these jumbled thoughts and facts seemed to contradict each other. Elves all looks down on humans. How would Silvia care about David? She’s an elf for gods’ sake. Does anything make any sense at all these days? Of course not. It’s all what happens between teenagers….
Yet Starlight knew that there was more than that to David and Silvia’s innocent care for each other….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Silvia knew this was no ordinary glow worm. Usually they have poisonous mucus dripping down their strings, but the strings would be hanging down from its net, trapping the unfortunate meal. The worm would then pull in the captured prey and eat it. If they couldn’t find food, they would turn to the concept of cannibalism.
However, Silvia didn’t find any poisonous mucus, or the web structure to be like it was supposed to be. The worm didn’t start pulling her closer to its jaws- yet. So what was happening? She figured that something had caused the glow worm to swell in size, and that mutation itself had changed its hunting habits, and its variety of prey. If its mutation had caused it to be stronger, did it have a weak spot? Glow worms usually have soft bodies and hard heads.
If the mutation had changed the glow worm to what it wasn’t- its opposite- then its body would be hard, and the head … would be soft…. It was a risky assumption that most likely was not true, but Silvia was game to the plan.
Silvia tried her twin swords and tried to attack the head. The glow worm had realized Silvia’s intention and the glow worm had no intention of letting Silvia carry out her plan. Instead, the glow worm brought its tail down on Silvia’s head. Silvia was knocked out cold. The glow worm started to pull the elven princess closer to its jaws … closer … closer…. If it let the elf knock at its head it would be fatal. To let her do that would be foolish. It would only be as foolish as what humans would do….
Whack! David, who had escaped with Starlight’s help, had broken a silk string and had swung on it, whamming into the worm’s head. It gave off a high pitched squeal. It spat poisonous mucus in every direction, some of the mucus landing on Silvia’s hair. Its acidic properties started to eat away at her hair, quickly spreading closer and closer to Silvia’s head.
David wouldn’t even dare to think about the horrible consequences if he didn’t react soon. So he brought down his sword on her hair. It was shorter now. It only was halfway down her back. He stared, entranced, at her face, her eyelids. They flickered open.
“David!” Her eyes were wide with horror. David looked behind him and had to duck.
The glow worm had lunged at him, missed, and tried again. The second time was unsuccessful as well. However, the glow worm was cunning. It sensed a kind of attachment between the two that the two “meals” didn’t even know about. It knew exactly what to do and what would push David’s button to make him angry…and stupid. It took Silvia in its jaws and let itself fall into the abyss.
“Silvia!”
“David!”
“I thought you said you ate glow worms for breakfast!” The glow worm gloated as they fell. “Now you’re going to be mine!”
“Really?” Silvia asked. “I do, as a matter a fact, eat glow worms for breakfast. They’re a delicacy. I haven’t had a glow worm liver for ages. Did you know that they make you live longer?” she gazed fearlessly into the glow worm’s eight eyes.
“Liar!” it growled.
“Really? I don’t lie. It’s not going to save my life. I give up.”
“Really?!”
“No! Not really!” Silvia yelled defiantly and drew Ellwinre. There was a flash of the falling blade, and the sound of a loud slice. “Well,” she said to the dead corpse next to her. “I lied. Sorry.”
Now, Silvia was falling. There was nothing she could do to stop gravity. She tried to spread her limbs and slow herself down, but it didn’t help. She fell and fell into the abyss.
“Silvia! Silvia! Answer me! Silviaaaa!” David yelled. He had gotten on Starlight’s back and was swooping down to get Silvia. But he couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Suddenly he heard a voice echoing from below.
“Silvia!” he dove down and caught her. Starlight then lifted Silvia and David out from the cave. David, back on firm land, wobbled on his broken leg. He couldn’t really feel the limb anymore. He had one more moment to be seen by the elven doctor. But they were miles away from one. He staggered and fell.
Silvia rushed to his side and drew Ellwinre.
“David, we need to amputate your leg so the infection won’t spread. You won’t die … you just….” But her sweet voice seemed millions of worlds away.
“Not-not amputation … then … no leg….”
Then he felt as if he were being submersed in icy water. He gasped, the cold burning in him, his lungs contracted, his heart thudded to a stop. He could actually feel his heart stop pumping blood.
Nightshade by Phoenix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
