Subj:	 [ffml] [HD] (side plot?) To be an elf
Date:	01-02-10 17:27:47 EST
From:	larathia@mcs.net (Larathia)
Reply-to:	ffml@yahoogroups.com
To:	hilliondynasty@egroups.com, ffml@yahoogroups.com

She hadn't bothered going to Tzen. By the time she'd gotten control of 
herself, Nighthawk was very close to the outskirts of Elfland, a woodland 
kingdom about equidistant from the Phoenix Star Mountains and the human 
city of Tzen. She'd decided to visit, disguised by a simple altering spell 
to seem a simple groundbound elf - no wings. Her long blue-black hair swung 
unimpeded to her waist in a cascade of night.

Aelis-Re's words stung her profoundly. She had always been proud of her 
elven heritage, the gifts it gave her. She hadn't meant to become a 
world-walker but when she had she'd thrown her whole being into learning 
everything about everywhere. Her archives had to be kept on CD because if 
they were in print they'd fill libraries. And where science didn't work, 
she recorded her archives in crystals until she reached a world where it did.

Walking through the tree-lined avenues of Elfland, Larathia hugged herself 
and tried not to lose it. She didn't know what it was like to die? Maybe 
not personally, but she'd felt the deaths of those hundreds of avariel that 
had died on the last day of the moogle war, every last one clear and 
distinct. And if she valued an avariel life more highly than any other, why 
that was only natural, wasn't it?

It had been the moogle war that had prompted her goddess to take notice of 
her. Aerdrie Faenya, the Blue Lady, or just the Lady, had chosen *her* to 
be her personal servant. It had felt like vindication at last, the lowly 
houseless nighthawk finally rewarded for her ages of service. When she had 
found and bargained with the guardian spirits of this world on behalf of 
her nation, that calm assurance of her goddess' approval had given her 
courage to face the beings of distilled magic without fear. And what she 
wanted now seemed simple enough. Just find a lone Macaw girl and protect 
her. Why was that too much for Aelis-Re to contemplate? What had prompted 
him to turn so venomously against her?

Had she really forgotten what it was to be an elf? She *was* an elf. Didn't 
that mean it would be impossible for her to actually forget?

She thought back to those days of founding the nation here. When she'd 
learned about the guardian forces, the espers, she'd learned that to enter 
into communion with them caused humans to forget things - which was why 
only Summoners usually dealt with them. She'd prepared a potion of 
Remembrance then, just in case - for who else but she could be the first of 
her kind to commune with the guardians?

As it turned out, that hadn't been necessary; elven minds were different 
enough not to be affected in that manner, it seemed. It actually tended to 
leave the elf or avariel in question in a state of high euphoria, and the 
danger then became one of making sure the communer didn't try to do 
something impossible over the next few hours.

She still had the potion of Remembrance. She rummaged in her bottomless 
bag, and pulled it out, still sealed with beeswax.

She hadn't invented the formula for the potion; she was actually not very 
good at such chemistry. It was a formula well-known among the longer lived 
races, who occasionally would forget important details as the decades wore 
on. The mountain-dwelling grey elves were famous for their longevity, and 
she had in fact come across the original recipe while talking to Aelis-Re's 
mother. But it was wildly unpredictable; you could focus on a period you 
wanted to remember in clearer detail, and your mind would re-live that 
experience as if it were the first time. How long that came to in real time 
always varied; you could be out for hours, minutes, days, or years, until 
your mind fully came to grips with the period in question. It was therefore 
usually not used unless necessity dictated.

She leaned her wingless back up against a handy tree-trunk, contemplating 
the vial before her. She was deathly afraid of what might happen, if she 
*had* forgotten something important; her life had never been one of peace 
and tranquility. No matter what period of her life she chose to recall, it 
would hurt. It was almost as if she were contemplating suicide; the potion 
could indeed kill if one entered a memory painful enough. Just because you 
survived once, didn't mean you automatically survived twice.

But Aelis-Re had said she had forgotten, Aelis-Re who had been an elf, a 
human, a clone, and an almost limitless assortment of beasts. Aelis-Re 
sometimes lacked any form of tact, but he had never lied, even under 
torture. It would be unfaithful the ideals he *did* accept to lie. If he 
said she had forgotten what the essence of being an elf was, it was more 
than likely the truth.

Damn, it was frightening, though. Better to face a horde of dragons, than 
the demons of one's own mind, especially when you had a good idea which 
demons were going to come calling. She blinked away tears as she pulled the 
stopper, and nerved herself as best she could.

"All the way back," she said to herself. "The first five hundred years - 
the first lifetime."

Gripping the vial tightly, she knocked back the clear Potion in one gulp.

Every bird within five hundred meters took flight as she screamed.

When the people of Elfland finally got up the courage to approach the 
source of the sound, they found only a lone elf girl collapsed on the 
ground, green eyes staring at nothing, her breath coming in ragged gasps, 
her right hand profusely bleeding as it clenched around shards of broken 
crystal.


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Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 16:24:30 -0600
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Subject: [ffml] [HD] (side plot?) To be an elf
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