“I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
Tiza pecked his cheek. “It’s okay. If I were in your shoes, and I saw you getting along with my brother, I’d be hopeful too.”
Nolien’s horn glowed, his eyes turned a solid red, and he said, “Excuse me.”
He turned away from Tiza and changed into his true form. About two weeks ago, he mana-mutated and spent three days as a mindless monster. Tiza’s bravery and the bond between them restored his sapience, but the other changes were permanent. He was no longer human but a unicorn who could take human form.
In this true form, there was sleek blue fur over most of his body with scales across the underbelly and left-right flank. Pockets of vegetation grew here and there. A single wing grew out of his left side and dragged along the ground. Three of his legs were thick and hooved. The fourth and fifth were somewhat thinner and terminated in bird-like talons. His eyes glowed red. The only part of his body that remained the same in both forms was a horn on his forehead that shined like silver.
He galloped away from the festival and towards the edge of the village. He jumped over or blasted any obstruction in his path. Any elf that did not get out of his way was trampled. When he reached the Isolation Courtyard, he jumped over the trees. He arrived just in time to see Kallen remove her magic spear from Eric’s gut.
With one blast, he zapped Kallen to the other end of the clearing. His horn recharged and aimed at Eric. This spell bolt entered his wound and worked its magic. Then he made a neigh of frustration and hacked up a staff. With the tip pointing out of his mouth, he fired a second spell at the injured grendel. This accelerated the boy’s healing. The bleeding stopped, infection was prevented, muscles were mended, veins reconnected, and new skin grew. Once Eric was out of danger, the unicorn changed shape.
His limbs and midsection shrank. His tail retreated into his rear. His head reconfigured into another species. Both fur and scales vanished underneath naked skin. Clothes sprang forth to conceal it. The only traits to remain were the silver horn and solid red eyes. Wielding his staff in his both hands, he demanded, “Kallen Selios, I hope for your sake that you have an acceptable reason for impaling my teammate. Otherwise, I will have to make sure it does not happen again with savage violence.”
“Nolien. Relax.” Eric leaned up and fingered the area where the hole in his gut used to be. “It’s all part of the plan.”
“It was supposed to be a secret plan,” Kallen said. “We came here so no one would interrupt us. How did you find us?”
Nolien’s eyes lost their opaque redness and returned fully to human configuration.
“I had a strong feeling that Eric was in need of a healer. As I am his healer, that means he was in need of my assistance. My horn guided me to his location.”
“Fascinating!” Kallen exclaimed. “It must be an extension of pack mentality. You developed a psychic sense!”
Nolien shrugged. “Why did you attack him?”
“We can’t tell you yet,” Eric said. “It might not work if many people know about it.”
“Speaking of which,” Kallen began, “does it still work?”
Eric’s body shimmered. It was a small and subtle glow but still with the light of chaos. His waist and shoulders narrowed. His chest size increased. His hair turned from red to blonde. When “he” opened his mouth, a feminine voice came out.
“Oh, Tenderfoot!” She clapped her hands together. “Thank you so much for healing me!” Without warning, she punched his shoulder. “Sorry! I have to do that so no one thinks I’m in love with you, which I’m definitely not, you stupid healer!” She covered her cheeks with her hands and looked away. “Oh no! I’m blushing! Now everyone will know my secret!”
Nolien sent him a stern and sour look. “That’s enough. Our relationship is complicated. I would appreciate you not making a mockery of it.”
“Sure.”
With only a little effort, Eric shifted from Tiza’s body to his former elven one. The golden-brown hair and pointed ears returned, but there was no Seed of Chaos. All he had left was residue that Kallen couldn’t remove. Now I truly am a fake elf.
“Time to sell our act.”
In House Enaz, the trio found Emily reading a book in a chair and nursing several scratches and bite marks. Her clothes were torn. Next to her chair, Annala lay hogtied and gagged.
“Emily,” Kallen asked, “were you having kinky fun without me?”
“Stop doing that!” Emily shouted from behind her book. “Wherever we go, you give the impression that I’m your submissive.”
Kallen walked directly to her, pulled her book down, and grabbed her chin. Looking her in the eyes with a commanding expression, she demanded, “What happened?”
“Um…I…” She swallowed. “It was the only way to keep her here, Boss. She kept trying to run out and search for Eric. Even after I hogtied her, she pulled loose and undid the knots or dislocated something. When I finally pinned her down, she whined pathetically, and when I gagged her, she bit me.” She held up her bandaged hands. “I almost lost three fingers.”
Kallen smiled and Emily’s heart fluttered. “That must have been hard. Thank you.”
Emily tore her head away. “It wasn’t a problem. She’s just a weak human right now.”
Eric knelt next to Annala and pulled the gag down. Then he pulled out the sock. Even then, she didn’t speak but look away bashfully.
“Annala, what happened?”
“I missed you, Master Eric,” she said softly. “I felt like I was going mad without you.”
“I couldn’t have been gone more than thirty minutes.”
“But you were with that flying bimbo! I feared she was going to steal you!”
“Little sister, I’m going to assume that was the slave collar talking.”
“Is it because of something I did?” Annala asked as if she hadn’t heard Kallen. “If that’s the case, I’m terribly sorry. I’ll do whatever I can to make it up to you!” Her eyes filled with tears. “Please, Master Eric, forgive me!”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
He reached out to wipe away the tears before they fell, and she moved her head into his palm. Reluctantly, he petted her as if she were a dog. Only then did she relax.
The Subjugation Collar was more insidious than he realized. It made her so emotionally dependent on him that she couldn’t stand being out of his sight. The real leash is in her mind.
“Annala, the play is going to start soon. We need to change in separate rooms.”
“I don’t mind if Master Eric sees me naked. I belong to you.”
“I mind.”
“You think I’m ugly!?”
“No.”
“You’re ashamed of me!?”
It’s almost time. “No. That’s how this play is run. Those are the rules.”
“Oh…Okay.”
If there was one thing that a slave understood, it was a rule. Order was the first and greatest advocate for the rule of law and everyone enslaved with his power obeyed every law without question or complaint. This was the same no matter if it were a king’s official decree or instructions for a board game.
Behind the stage’s curtain, Eric went over his lines. Why is there so much flowery language... It was hard to remember it all. There had only been a handful of rehearsals...
Beyond the curtain, the audience was gathering. Festivalgoers took their seats one by one on foldout chairs and tree stumps. Remho’s muses passed out programs as if everyone hadn’t memorized it already, and enterprising elves passed out theater snacks. Emerging from this crowd was a dirty blonde girl dragging a boy with bird poop in his hair by the hand.
“Come on, Tenderfoot! I want a good seat for Dimwit and Big Mouth’s show.”
Hailey giggled as she pushed her own way through. “She’s right, Brother. If you don’t hurry, we’ll be stuck in the back.”
“The whole village has turned out,” Nunnal said, video camera in hand, “thanks to my Typ
e 40 Spatial Anomalous Chaotically Ambient and Order Impregnable Repulsor Shield.”
“Honey, that name is too long,” Ponix said, munching a giant pretzel. “My counterpart in Lokengrade ran out of breath saying it.”
“I wonder if I can find gum under the seats...” Forge muttered.
Remho descended to the stage in a grand manner with smoke drifting through the air for dramatic effect. The Patron of Poets then spoke at great length and with much elevated language about the argument of the play and the renown of the elven race. Finally, he concluded, “These wonders of ages are rooted in the journey of a very special woman and the gift of my brother Tasio, The Trickster, the Finger of Chaos, the Patron of Inventors, the Overturner of Fortune, the Incarnation of Hope, the Embodiment of Despair, Aio Ricse, the Belcher of Alphabets, the Bender of Rules, the Mischievous Encourager...”
Remho recited titles and names for another two minutes. Tasio shrugged as if to say it wasn’t his fault he had so many.
“Therefore, it is with great pleasure that I, Remho the Trickster, am proud to announce the reenactment of Elven Origin!”
Smoke flooded the stage completely and obscured Remho from view. From his shadow, eight more appeared. Slowly, the mist cleared and revealed nine girls in togas. These were not actors but priestesses of Remho’s own temple, the muses.
“Long ago, before the Alliance of Avatars, before the birth of the Silver Dragon, before the original extinction of ordercrafters...There was a human healer named Arin.”
Annala strolled from stage right. She held up her skirt with one hand and carried a basket of herbs with the other. At fixed points along the stage, she picked berries from bushes and, at each one, the stage changed. It shifted from a mundane forest into a mountain path until it led into a gorge housing a chaotic zone.
Here were marvels both subtle and gross. Arin’s actor walked by transcendental mushrooms and raccoon trees and hid from monsters that resembled the HPLC from Hariana Inquires. She saw dimensional overlap and breathed in many varieties of Fog. These and other experiences slowly altered the composition of her mind, body and soul. This was the Gorge of Primordial Cycle, a class “B” chaotic zone.
The muses sang of its history while Annala made a show of exploring. It was the site where the Chaos Avatar Gaius Luscious Luxous Polario Primordial the younger exploded after accomplishing his final task. The intense energy of the explosion radically altered the area on all levels of existence. There was a handful of these across the globe; elves treated them like holy ground while every other race held them as accursed.
“Such is the nature of chaos.”
After the muses finished their exposition, Annala stumbled upon a tree. It bore a remarkable resemblance to Dnnac, the Sage Tree that formed the core of the village. Annala picked a fruit from its branches, bit into it, and swallowed. This cued the SFX team to create a flash of aura for their star. Following her own cue, Annala waited five seconds for dramatic effect and then finished eating the fruit, seeds and all. While she filled her basket with more of this fruit, the SFX team created an image of golden-brown dots hovering in her stomach.
Then she sat under the tree, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes.
Again, the muses sang of the wonders Arin saw that day; the revelations made known to her! She lived within the gorge for fifty days, subsisting on the fruit of the Sage Tree. During those days, she both fought and hid from the monsters co-inhabiting the gorge with her. On the fifty-first, her fortune was overturned when a monster grievously injured her.
At this cue, Nilo raced on stage garbed in purple and white. If Eric had to guess, he would say her costume was a rhino, but it also could have been a beetle. Around him, elves nodded in approval of Remho’s choice of casting. Apparently, everyone knew about the relationship drama between the two girls and Ralm. They fought each other in their costumes and, ultimately, Nilo shot a horn into her side while Annala cast an identical one made of energy through her (costume’s) head. Then she gripped her own wound and sank to her knees.
Such a wound was fatal, the muses said, and as such, it was beyond the range of human ability to heal. By then, however, Arin was beyond human. The Sage Tree’s fruit had empowered her body and the Fog of the Gorge had empowered her spirit. Her own experience and contemplation had empowered her mind. She had become a proto-elf; lacking in golden-brown hair, pointed ears, and shapeshifting ability but still immortal by way of chaotic regeneration.
Annala carefully pulled the horn out of her side and dressed it with a poultice. Then, with labored steps, she walked to the edge of the stage. With one last look, she departed the gorge setting.
From there, Arin traveled from place to place to fulfil her new purpose. She healed others as she had healed herself and spread her knowledge to those willing to listen. Many of them begged her to stay, but she refused and continued traveling. She walked the earth to experience new things, meet new people, and serve as an example of benevolent chaotic change. One day, she healed a traveling swordsman, and once was she done and moving on, he moved on with her.
In on-stage terms, this meant Annala coming across an “injured” Eric and setting up a makeshift clinic. She made poultices for his wounds and bandaged them, and fed him potions and recited prayers over him.
“I thank thee, angel of mercy,” Eric said. “I am forever in thy debt.”
“I am no debtor nor art thou in the debt of anyone,” Annala said. “Thy life is thine own, now go the way thou choose to go.”
“My way is whatever way is blessed with thy footsteps.” There’s no way the real Belco said that.
“From that moment on, the warrior Belco never left her side and they roamed the land together; healer and warrior working as one,” the muses sang. “As the seasons passed, their partnership deepened, and as years flowed down the stream of time, it blossomed into love.”
Hailey elbowed Nolien, who blushed.
For the next scene, bright green grass carpeted the stage floor. Trees grew up to twenty feet and the wind whistled as it blew in the branches. Combined with the smells of plant and animal life, Eric could almost forget they were just props. He was leaning against one such tree and in the full shade of its leaves. Annala knelt in a patch of (artificial) sunlight and picked mushrooms. She hummed a little tune as she worked.
“My maiden and preserver of mine life and health,” Eric began after taking a deep breath, “how many baskets doth thou need for thy medicines? In all this wood and brush, where sunlight rarely shines and watery darkness doth obscure the path, our fellowship hath not found near the number of golden spots as there are black on a ladybug. Mayhap your warrior should assist, ere your-I mean thy-patch of sunlight vanishes before thy mushrooms.”
Annala picked another mushroom and threw it at him.
“Your maiden was under the notion that Kasan warriors valued patience above all else and her particular warrior understood the importance of these mushrooms and how delicate they are. Indeed, their pale stems and red tops are not at all dissimilar to her. Great care and wisdom are required, but most of all, patience. Thy hands are suited only for quick and sudden purposes: gripping thy sword, thy shield and thy enemy’s throats.”
Eric knelt on the ground next to her and slipped a finger under her chin.
“Surely these hands are suited for more than spilling blood and ending life.” He leaned in close. “With great and gentle affection, they can begin life and care for it too.”
Annala blushed and Eric was personally pleased to know it wasn’t acting. He leaned in closer, breathing on her lips. She stopped mid-pick and gazed into his eyes.
Hailey was on the edge of her seat; she loved a romance novel. Tiza had enjoyed the play thus far, but the mushy stuff left her bored. Those scenes made Nolien uncomfortable for different reasons. His parents weren’t watching anymore; they were too busy reminiscing about how he was conceived. The rest of the audience had seen variants of the same play every year since their childhood and
for some that was upwards of four and a half thousand years. Eric moved in and kissed a mushroom Annala shoved in his mouth.
“Thine eyes should watch the woods and the vile beasts between and within them,” she scolded. “It is the wish of your-thine-charge and duty that these mushrooms be used for a greater purpose than a fool lacking in all things from discipline and prudence to arms and legs.” Her eyes softened and she pecked his cheek. “It pains me deeply to see my heart broken, and as you hold my heart, I find it in great danger when you seek other parts of my body.”
Eric leaned back and placed a hand on his heart.
“You wound me, Arin, my love and maiden, you wound me. Neither the fangs of the Xethras nor the poison of the Boack nor any blade forged by mortal hands could deal such injury to mine heart as thy barbed tongue.”
He stage sighed and stood up. “However painful it may be, my heart and brain together know thy tongue carries truth. Tis more truth than thy basket carries mushrooms, which remains half-full. And as thou use thy basket for its intended purposes, I shall use the tools of the trade of Kasan swordsmen for the purpose they were forged.” Eric took a breath before continuing. “No purpose could be greater than the continued safety and happiness of the one I hold dearest of all.”
“You have used them well,” Annala said as she resumed her harvest. “You guarded the refugees of Smithi, drove out the tyrant of Nabol, and slew the beast of Priston.”
“Dear Arin, you give too much credit to this unworthy warrior. My efforts amounted to nothing more than delays and annoyance while thine holy magicks vanquished every evil.”
“Perhaps.” Annala stood and turned about. “Come. The village tires of waiting for mushrooms and I tire of your flirting.”
The lights above the couple went out. More smoke appeared and obscured them further. When it cleared and the lights returned, the couple stood in a village. The stage was now filled with tiny homes instead of trees and carpeted with wagon ruts instead of grass. Annala handed her basket to an old resident of this facade.
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