War exacts a terrible cost on the people. So many lives lost. So many of the young have their bright futures cut short as they are thrown into battle. So much blood has been shed… The elves know this, so why do they continue to perpetuate the war?! Do the lives of their young mean nothing to them? Is this disregard due to their long lifespans? If they are so willing to throw their youth into war, then is it any wonder they treat us humans so callously?
-Excerpt from “Man and Elves: History of the Perpetual Conflict”
Aria would have been fuming inside were she not so voiding exhausted. She tried to tell herself to keep pushing, that she had almost made it.
She told her optimism to shove off.
Arawn hadn’t been joking with the punishment he’d dolled out on the elf slaves. Aria and her kin were forced to work in her former sanctuary for three days straight, mining out the Ether rich ores that had been discovered.
If any of them stopped for anything or were caught going slower than the humes liked, they were immediately whipped until they got back to work or quickened their pace. Some of the elves had been too weak with exhaustion to get back up. And that was before the slavers came in to mercilessly administer punishment.
Many of them had died in the past three days. Each death stabbed at Aria’s heart and stoked the flames of rage within her.
Yet even she was already past her limit. The only reason she was able to keep moving at all was because of the Ether she had been carefully using to energize and strengthen her frail body. She had to be careful, however, for if she took too much in or burned too much at once, then she risked being discovered as an Etherean.
The punishment for slaves using Ether without permission was one of the most brutal punishments that could be given.
The last one that had been caught had been an elf woman only ten years Aria’s senior.
It happened about four years ago.
That woman had been dragged into a tent, where the slavers had forced themselves on her, doing who knows what to indulge their wicked perversions. Her screams that night still haunted Aria, because of course the humes had made sure they’d all be able to hear her screams.
The woman had been tortured through the night, and in the following morning, she’d been strung up on a pole where she’d been forced to watch the slavers round up and brutally kill her closest friends in front of her. And after all that, they had finally put her out of her misery.
By burning her alive on that very pole.
Aria still had nightmares of that day…
The punishment for using Ether was excessively brutal for a reason. It was because regardless of how weak and battered they got, if they were able to gather enough of the power then it didn’t matter how malnourished or frail they were. Even as physically weak as they were, with enough Ether, they could overpower even the strongest of men. It was the reason why the collars they wore were so technologically advanced and had so many features built into them.
That, of course, raised the question of why the slaves were able to use Ether at all. That was because most of them didn’t know how to use the power. If using it without permission was bad, then teaching it was even worse. The select few slaves that were allowed to learn how to use the power were heavily restricted, and were often put in special labor areas where power usage was needed.
Her mother was one such example. She was given special permission to use Ether, though the humes thought her only capable of using healing. The slavers often used her, and other permitted healers, to heal some of their fellow slaves to keep up the workflow. Because of course the ashborn were too good to use their own Ether to heal the slaves when they pushed them too far.
Allowing healers at all wasn’t done out of kindness. It was simply ruthless efficiency.
This all came to her mind whenever her mother trained her. Of course Aria was terrified of the prospect of getting caught, but that was just how much faith and trust she had in Anila.
Their most recent training grounds had been the best one yet, as all the Ether rich ore in the Sanctuary had masked their usage and burning of Ether, allowing them to train without fear of being caught. She had truly come to love that cavern, and it had been one of the only places she’d felt any sort of peace and safety in.
And now here she was, in her former Sanctuary, mining away at the plethora of glowing orange ores and crystals.
Even with the small amount of Ether she was burning, her muscles ached and cramped, she was terribly exhausted, dehydrated, and her built up drowsiness threatened to overwhelm her.
Winds… she was SO tired… If she used more of the power. Then perhaps she’d be able to-
Stop it! Aria commanded herself, do that and you’ll get caught! Then what? It won’t just be you, but Mom will die too… And that just might make my people finally lose hope…
She risked a peek around, and managed to catch a glimpse of her mother.
She saw Anila mining on the other side of the cavern, looking haggard. Though Aria could tell it was less so than the rest of them. Her mother was far more skilled at discreetly using Ether. That was only natural, given she’d had centuries of practice.
CRACK!
Aria flinched and cried out as one of the slavers whipped her across the back, tearing her already hole riddled, over-sized tunic.
She fell to her knees, and could feel blood running down the spot where she’d been struck.
“I caught you slacking you damn knife-ears! Back to work!” a female slaver yelled as she struck Aria again with the whip.
She’d already been pushing past her limits. This had just sent her over the edge. She collapsed, gasping and reeling from the pain and exhaustion. It took every bit of mental control she had to stop herself from using Ether.
Since she collapsed, the slaver proceeded to whip her mercilessly. She grit her teeth, and refused to let out any cries. That seemed to only infuriate her abuser, as she increased the intensity of the torment.
Aria had been about to black out when a loud, high pitched whistle resounded throughout the cavern. The female slaver stopped her beatings, and looked down at Aria laying on the floor in agony.
“Looks like you made it past the three days, sap drinker,” the hume then spat on Aria in disgust before leaving.
Underneath the pain was unrelenting fury, and that rage was the only thing keeping her conscious.
I’ll kill that hume one day. All of them! By the winds, I swear I will!
She heard the sound of bare feet running towards her. She knew it was her mother, who picked her up and whispered in her ear, “Aria! Aria!!! I’m so sorry… I should have been here! I should have been closer to you!”
“Don’t… blame yourself… It’s my fault. I lost focus…” Aria whispered in between hisses of pain.
Another elf slave, one of her mother’s friends, helped Anila pick her up. The three then made their way back, tired and exhausted, to their sorry excuse for sleeping quarters.
***
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Anila stared at the unconscious form of her daughter with a tempest of emotions raging inside.
Aria had passed out shortly after her whipping. Simply recalling the event made Anila tremble with rage.
She’d been close, so very CLOSE to slaughtering the hume that dared hurt her. The dark flames of wrath she’d long fought to keep suppressed had nearly burst out in that moment. Thankfully, one of her fellow elves, a friend named Fylson, had stopped her, reminding her of the consequences should she go through with it.
Even that had barely been enough to stop her.
She knew the flames, once allowed to burst free, would not be so easily sealed again.
She sighed. She was so tired. Five hundred years of enslavement. So many of her people suffered and died over the course of that time. It was a marvel she hadn’t broken or lost her sanity. She’d been close. So many times she’d been close.
But then she’d had Aria.
After giving birth to her, she’d had her will to live rekindled, stronger than ever. It was amazing what one could endure for the sake of their child. She never imagined being a mother, but now she wouldn’t trade it for anything.
She watched Aria sleep, a bit more peacefully after Anila had used her Arts to heal some of the damage from the whipping.
A figure approached. One of her people, and an important one at that.
Elder Feno, the oldest living elf slave, stopped at her side, gaze directed at Aria as well.
They both were silent for a moment before Feno spoke, “I heard what happened. I’m glad Fylson managed to stop you.”
Anila nodded, “Now that my head is a bit clearer, I’m glad too. But that’s only because Aria is okay. If she wasn’t…”
“I know, Anila. I know,” Feno sighed, “come, walk with me.”
“But-”
“Your daughter will be fine. I assure you. Now come, a walk will do you good. None of the humes are around, so we should be fine.”
She reluctantly obeyed, and followed the elder out of the quarters.
They walked silently at first. Both were part of the First Generation of elf slaves, the ones that had been stranded in this Realm and captured by the Dominion, then called the Empire, when the Great Fragmentation split apart Avani all those centuries ago.
They’d known each other then as well.
They’d known each other before even that, during the Human-Elf war.
Anila still found it hard to believe so many centuries had passed, yet the proof was in her old friend’s visible age. He LOOKED like an old man, which meant he was VERY old by elf standards. At least two hundred years older than her. After a certain point among their people, age was just a number until you hit around your mid seventh century of life.
Suddenly, Feno spoke, “I still find your claim hard to believe.”
“Which one?”
Feno gestured towards the direction where they’d left Aria, “What you said about your daughter’s potential. It is common for parents to want their children to exceed them, but that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes children are born with less gifts and talents than their parents.”
“That isn’t the case with her,” Anila stated matter of factly, “I didn’t make the claim that she’d one day surpass me blinded by familial pride.”
Feno chuckled, “Of course not. Knowing you, you’d be harder on her than you would others. Maker knows that was the case with your brother Caelus’s children back in Vindanna.”
Anila closed her eyes, reminiscing on more peaceful times long ago. So, very long ago…
It made her heart ache to think about the past.
Another moment of silence passed before Feno spoke again, “You were the best of us, you know? When it came to battle, you were the most talented warrior we’d ever seen. The greatest Hunter in the history of the order. A prodigy among prodigies in the art of combat and Ether. The strides you made as an Etherean and a warrior in a few mere decades dwarfed that of even those with centuries of experience in the combative arts. Even during the war, you were one of our most powerful. So if your daughter’s potential even so much as matches your-”
“She terrifies me…” Anila interrupted.
Feno snapped his mouth shut. He stared wide-eyed at her, his mouth repeatedly opening and closing, yet no sound coming out, like a fish out of water.
“When I first began teaching her about Arts,” she began, “I went over the basics of how it worked. From taking in the Ether, imagining the desired effect you wished to invoke in your mind, changing the power’s neutral affinity into whatever element you possess the affinity for, using your voice as you chant the invocation to command the Ether to flow in the way you need… I demonstrated it to her using my Wind Blade Art. That one, though it is my own version that I made based off my own master’s same Art, took me two weeks of daily practice to pull off correctly for the first time…”
Anila turned to look Feno square in the eye, “Five days. It took Aria a mere five days to successfully cast her own version of Wind Blade. I was there when it happened, so I could tell it hadn’t been a fluke. Keep in mind that Aria can’t practice anywhere nearly as freely as I had been able to. Add on to that that she has to constantly work against these blasted collars of ours.”
She turned back to the direction her daughter was walking, and whispered to the old elf, “In that moment, Feno… I was afraid of her… I… was afraid.”
Despite what she’d just said, a proud smile came to her lips as she gazed back where Aria had been left to rest. Had she still held eye contact with Feno, however, the old elf would have seen the concern present in her as well.
For Anila was well aware of the darkness growing in her daughter’s heart. She saw it in her whenever she spoke of the humans. She saw it also in herself whenever she saw her reflection.
She could only hope they’d make their escape before that darkness consumed them both.
***
Aria didn’t know how much time passed when she finally woke up. She felt remarkably less pain than she expected. No doubt that was because of her mother’s healing Arts.
She looked around for her mother, and began to panic when she didn’t see her nearby.
No… no! NO! Aria cried out in her mind, her head whipping back and forth, please no! Don’t tell me Mom was caught using Ether to heal me!
She tried to get up to her feet, but a burst of fresh agony had forced her back down. She’d been about to try again when she finally saw her mother walk into the quarters.
Anila’s eyes widened when she saw her awake. She pushed and shoved past the crowded quarters to reach her.
Her mother would have hugged her had she not remembered Aria’s injuries at the last second. Instead, Anila gently pushed her back down and kissed her on her grimy forehead.
“You’re finally awake!” her mother gasped out, tears in her eyes.
“How long was I out?” Aria asked.
“Sixteen hours, twelve minutes, and thirty nine seconds.”
Sixteen… Sixteen hours?!
Her shock must have been evident, as her mother explained, “The slavers were ordered to leave us in our quarters for a day. We’re only to go out when it’s the scheduled time to eat. Speaking of which...”
Aria hadn’t noticed her mother was carrying a bowl of the signature gray slop they usually ate. Her stomach growled loudly in response.
She was sick of that slop. But after over three or four days of no food, it was divine.
“Easy now,” her mother chastised, “eat slower or I’ll take it away. A few days without food, especially when we barely get enough under normal circumstances, requires eating with caution. Eat too fast in your current state, and you’ll vomit.”
Right now, Aria was so hungry that if that did happen, she’d likely just eat the-
She froze, alarmed by how desperate and disgusting that thought had been. She did as her mother instructed and ate slowly.
Anila nodded in approval, looked around carefully, and then proceeded to cast another healing Art on Aria. She sighed in relief as some of the pain on her back faded.
Once she finished eating, Anila asked, “How are you feeling?”
“About what you’d expect,” Aria answered.
Anila nodded solemnly, “Alright. Now, turn around. Let me see your back.”
Aria complied. She knew that her mother right now was looking at the myriad of scars on her back from previous whippings. She flinched as she felt Anila slowly rub one of the older scars.
“Your wounds are healing well enough. If only we didn’t have these collars, I could have done a better job…” her mother whispered.
That meant she’d have new scars on her back.
She sighed. So be it.
Aria turned, and saw the most sad and tired look she had ever seen from her. She reached out and grabbed her hand, “Mom?”
Anila seemed to realize she was visibly showing her emotions, so she quickly forced her face to return to its stoic mask.
“I’m fine,” her mother lied.
Aria gave her a flat look.
Anila shook her head, “Never mind that. We have somewhere we need to go while we have this day to rest. Can you walk, Aria?”
She nodded, “Where are we going?”
“To meet with some of my oldest friends,” Anila answered, “it’s time we formally plan our escape.”
