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Archives: Trials of the Half-Elven

Prologue: Leaving the Mirror Forest

    On the outskirts of Mirror Forest, Trent Delumbra has just buried his mother and sold his home after spending three months in the wilderness on his own. He fled there after confessing his love for a woman, obviously she didn’t return his feeling. Love can be fatal that way. Trent didn’t have the good sense to return on his own, rather he came back only from the news that his mother was dying from sickness. She lasted just long enough to see her only son bare witness to her final moments.

    That same woman who rejected him arrived at the home that would no longer be his in the morning. She was a beautiful elf woman named Sky and Trent’s best friend throughout childhood and their first meeting was among the earliest of his memories.

    The young woman entered his house without invitation and saw Trent packing for another journey, but this time he didn’t plan to return to the forest where she knew he was nearby. He was packing money and other things not needed in the wilderness. Without speaking Sky walked close to Trent and swung her arm to give Trent a solid whack to the back of his head. Something she didn’t think was too appropriate in the wake of his mother’s death, but it was long overdue.

    “Three months Trent!” Was the first thing she had said to him in months as the young man rubbed his head, she was stronger than she looked. “You had me worried sick over you. At first I thought you just needed your space then two weeks went by. I finally track you down and what do you do? You jump off a damn cliff!”

    “There was a river below,” Trent said meekly in his defense, only for Sky to whack him again.

    “Your steps are heavy and you breathe too hard, I could have found you whenever I wanted but I was afraid you’d get yourself killed avoiding me.”

    Trent didn’t respond, he just turned around and continued packing until Sky gently grabbed his chin and turned his gaze to her.

    “Talk to me,” she said after calming herself down “After all these years you owe me that much.”

    Trent didn’t speak right away, he wasn’t sure how to make her understand since he didn’t fully grasp his own reasons himself. “Maybe you know who you are, and even if you don’t you have centuries to figure it out. I don’t have that luxury. That’s why I have to do it the hard way.”

    With that the young man left his house with a bag thrown over his shoulder, leaving Sky to stand there confused and on the verge of tears. “Fine,” she muttered, mostly to herself “Go on your silly quest and come back.”

    The young elf quickly dashed to the door way and yelled out to Trent. “Do you hear me Trent?! Come back someday or I’ll shoot you and drag you back like a squirrel!”

    As Trent headed for the main road he heard Sky shout to him to come back someday, he planned on it though he was unsure she truly wanted him to. Even if he would be gone for years she and the other elves wouldn’t have aged a day, though he would be different. As a human he was constantly growing and evolving, he was born to adapt to any situation from scorching desert to frozen tundra. When he returned he would not be the same person, weather he came back to them in a month or fifty years.

    “You have a lot of nerve,” said a male voice from behind him “Leaving again without saying goodbye.”

    Trent turned around to see another friend of his named Elilmar, one of the elves who tracked him down and brought news of his mother’s sickness.

    “You’re not talking me out of this,” said Trent “I’ve made up my mind and it was difficult enough without your protests.”

    “Wouldn’t dream of it my friend, I simply thought you wouldn’t mind some company until the edge of our land.” Elilmar somehow managed to say ‘our land’ in a way that it implied it belonged to himself and Trent, a gesture that was silently appreciated.

    “Now then,” said Elilmar as he walked alongside Trent. “Care to tell me why you’re leaving our humble abode?”

    “I don’t want to talk about it,” said Trent somberly.

    “Doesn’t matter, I can guess. Rejection of our fair Sky would cut deep into anyone. Though most would not go so far to escape a wounded heart.”

    “It’s not like that.... Well it is, in a way.... Bloody hell! I don’t know where I’m going or why, I just know that I can’t stay here.”

    Trent spoke no more until daybreak when they reached the eastern border of Mirror Forest, the furthest Trent had been from his home.

    “It’s.... It’s huge...” muttered Trent as he saw endless golden fields and mountains in the distance. Something told him they would be even more exciting with a closer view.

    Trent then felt Elilmar’s hand at the back of his neck as he said his farewell. “Stay alive and return my friend, for you are loved more than you know, and you will be missed. Seleih, hasuu, em wrehna sin, shanuu.” With that Trent set off into the unknown as Elilmar’s blessing rang through his mind, Peace, health, and prosperity to you, brother.

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Chapter List | Trials of the Half-Elven Storyline