-Callen-

  It was clear that just dumping the girl off on Grandpa to babysit with his other trainees wouldn’t be a good idea now that her importance shot up significantly. Instead, it might be a better idea to let Callia take care of her. I quickly filled out some various instructions to share the message among the town folk regarding our new visitor and sent the mayoral aides out to take care of the process. In the meantime I led the little elven girl over to Callia’s training grounds.

  Reaching Callia’s training grounds, I saw Nixie at work setting up a complex array of triggers for various traps. Callia, however, wasn’t present, and with our bond I reached out and got a sense of her near the town’s waterfall. The elf saw one of our training bows and got excited as she realized just what kind of training area this was. It seems she likes bows, which is a relief since that meant Callia would have plenty to bond with her over.

  “Nixie, would you mind watching over this girl while I get Callia? Maybe give her a couple targets to start practicing with?” Nixie smiles and waves over to us while pulling a thread, making a humanoid target pop up a short distance away. She gets back to work, but I can also tell she’s taking care of my request to watch the girl in the meantime. I’m a bit worried since she didn’t come over to talk, but she might just be busy with what she’s working on. Nixie has been getting more obsessed with trap making lately. Ever since my fight with Lexia, it seems everyone is working harder than ever to improve.

  To be completely honest, I haven’t had time to restock my arsenal, so if I fought her again now, I suspect I would get beaten to a pulp. I thought since she told the gate guards she would be out for a month, I would have at least another two weeks to arm myself. As I reach the cliffside river, I find Callia and Lexia sitting side by side, looking out over the waters. I try to turn back to avoid disturbing whatever it is they are up to, but the cracking of twigs is more than enough to scream my presence to the others. Callia looks a bit annoyed, and Lexia has a strange kind of off-put look as she avoids looking directly at me.

  “Ah, Lexia, sorry if I interrupted. I was just getting Callia because I thought she would be the best to handle the guest you brought.” Callia looked over at Lexia in interest from what I felt was surprise. Lexia looked pleased, and she turned to Callia.

  “I brought the girl because I saw her growing immensely in the forest. She is going to be my aide in the future, so don’t you dare hold back.” Lexia, while appearing pleased, snapped a look back at me with a scowl, like I had offended her somehow. Which felt entirely unfair, but she dashed away into the forest, disappearing in the shadows. Callia looked over to me as her new ‘friend’ left.

  “So am I going to be a babysitter?” She starts off complaining but quickly quiets down as I share my memories and experience with the girl. Callia’s quiet for a moment before speaking up softly.

  “Callen, you need to be careful with how you handle this. I’ll help her, but you should think long and hard about the consequences. A lot of people have lost family to roving elf hunters, and if this girl is as special as you say, then a lot of people will be at risk if she grows.” Callia’s words might’ve been callous, but they were also fair. If, for whatever reason, the girl got a bad impression of humans and became an enemy, it would be a disaster. Even more so if she is as talented as Lexia says. I was mainly looking at the scenario from what we could gain, but Callia’s warning grounded me.

  Thinking back to the normally energetic and sly Nixie, who didn’t come over to greet the girl, my gut sank. A lot of people had lost family to roving bands of elven hunters that occasionally came far enough south to wipe out patrols or convoys of goods. They didn’t even steal the goods; they only butchered and strung up the remains like some indecipherable warning. It might be best to take into account the town's lingering resentment.

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  Callia went back to meet her new potential apprentice while I went back to town hall to arrange an isolated cabin on the far side of the training grounds. Immediately complaints from various sources began trickling in as my first announcement regarding the presence of the elven girl in our town spread. Soon I bogged down trying to calm concerned residents, answering concerns, and trying to calm the surge of resistance I hadn’t expected.

  Eventually I decided to make it a public forum for questions and concerns. Instead of letting resentment fester in the dark, it might be best to address the issue in public to avoid any extreme actions. I had my aides go out to spread news of the event to everyone concerned and arrange it in the meantime.

  I was immediately overwhelmed not just with the unexpected issue of the public outcry but with the process of the transfer of authority. One aspect in particular struck me as excessive. At some point in the near future while the town is ‘stable,’ I am expected to travel all the way to the capital. As a town under royal authority, I was expected to personally swear my allegiance to the crown. It felt like such a foreign idea since I had lived in our corner of nowhere for so long.

  I spent the night working through various paperwork, and former mayor Hew had conveniently disappeared before I could tie him down with me. Eventually the light of a new day woke me, and instead of my comfortable bed, I woke up stiff from sleeping in a chair with my face on my desk. A piece of paper stuck to the side of my face as I got up, with its letters smeared across the paper as ink clung to it and my face. I stretched out the stiffness in my body and shifted the ink to the void, cleaning my face. Never in my life have I wanted coffee as desperately as I do at this moment.

  With a groan I move into the restroom to vaguely try tidying up, but I’m interrupted as a happy and rejuvenated Hew enters the office. Seeing my condition, he pales a bit and tries to run for it. However, I’m not letting him get away this time. A stone blocks his exit, and I grab him by the shoulder.

  “It’s good you came so early, Mr. Hew. I have a great many documents leftover from yesterday’s rush, and I need someone to take care of it while I address an outraged public.” Feeling his slump of defeat, I gleefully guide him back behind the desk and set the remaining documents in front of him. I remove the stone and get back to tidying myself up as best I can on short notice.

  Not long later I arrived at the small raised platform in the town square. Already a considerable number of people are milling about impatiently. I jump up to the stage and begin to explain the process through which people would get to voice their concerns. One by one, stories of loss and hatred for elves are shared with me and everyone present. My main defense was that the elf was a child and already isolated from her community. It would be inappropriate to blame the sins of a community on the child who chose to leave that community.

  The fact the girl was a moderator meant I couldn’t just send her off. If she resented us for rejecting her, it might come back to bite us. Killing the girl was also something I was completely unwilling to do on a moral level regardless of how many people would celebrate the genocide of the elvish community. Our town in particular had a long enmity with the elves that was less present in the capital. We were the frontline regarding many elvish raids and were often among those who suffered the most from a community of knight-level mass murderers in the north. It would be fair to say that our prejudice was the strongest in the whole kingdom. My words did little to calm the crowd, but at the very least people trusted me enough to ignore the issue as long as it was out of sight.

  Callia’s Apprentice

  Callia split ways with Callen after their talk and swiftly made her way over to her training grounds. Upon arriving she saw a giggling Nixie and a small girl spinning around in a bundle of thread. The girl pouted at Nixie, who seemed to be in a good mood. Nixie, noticing Callia’s arrival, gently lowered the bundled elf girl to the ground and ran off from the outraged little girl who was finally escaping her cocoon.

  The girl hopped out, trying to chase Nixie into what was Nixie’s trap wonderland, but Callia caught her by the collar.

  “Hello, little one. I think it's time to greet your new mentor instead of running off to get yourself wrapped up in another trap.”

  The girl paused and looked over Callia. Seeing the similarities to Callen, she was immediately confused.

  “Are you just pretending to be a girl? I’m not interested in magic; I want to learn the bow!” The similarities of pseudo-identical twins was something the girl had never seen before, but it still pissed off Callia something fierce. This was the first time someone had dared to suggest she was just her brother crossdressing. Any hesitation or mercy towards her first disciple faded, and she grabbed the practice bow the girl had been trying to use despite being made for someone adult-sized.

  With a swift motion Callia shot dozens of arrows into every target in the clearing. The girl just froze and looked at the targets in the clearing that now sported fresh holes. The skeptical look in her eyes faded as a childish excitement bubbled to the surface.

  Psalms 12:8 - The wicked prowl all around, and what is worthless is exalted by the human race.