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He lowered his head to kiss the base of her neck, never stopping the tender touch tracing little circles between her thighs. The man was quite able to tease and listen at the same time.
Her smile flashed her teeth, but she found herself happily resigned to his touch. Taking a deep breath, she began her tale.
“Although we were not the first race to venture to Arolius, the elves are the most long-lived of all the races upon this world. In the forests of our homelands, when the magic of our people was at its most potent, we were practically immortal. It is said that the elves were created thousands of years ago, when an ancient servant of The Creator wished to impress her master. She saw the creatures that he had brought from another world, and wished to help them grow and flourish. Those creatures were humans, and she took a small group of them away into her forest and gave them her power. Those were the fathers and mothers of our people, born within the servant’s forest realm. We were the servant’s idea of perfect beings: graceful and magical beyond anything humanity could hope to offer. The servant brought us before her master, and The Creator did smile upon us. Yet he did not value us above humanity, or indeed above any of his own creations.”
Valise cleared her throat a little at that point, pausing for a moment to enjoy the feel of Gregory’s lips tracing their way up to her earlobe. She then took a breath and continued the story.
“As you can imagine, this didn’t go over too well with the servant. She pleaded with her master to raise the elves to their proper status as the highest creatures upon Arolius, but The Creator didn’t seem to see things her way. In the end she submitted to his will, as all things eventually did. My people were sent back to their homeland, but we had been remade with the purpose to rule and guide the world. So The Creator’s rejection of their duties came as a rather sudden shock to their pride.”
“I imagine it would, after all that trouble,” Gregory noted; his voice soft near her ear.
“Indeed. It hurt us; perhaps more than The Creator could have known. We fell into arguments, and small wars broke out over who should lead our race. It was then that Anuvin, one of our greatest heroes, decided to go and speak with The Creator himself. The story goes that Anuvin was a lesser druid of the servant, who packed up his things for a suicidal journey into the Northern Mountains where it was said that The Creator dwelt. Unfortunately for Anuvin, The Creator liked his privacy, and the forests at the base of the mountains were enchanted to keep trespassers occupied in an unending labyrinth of trees. Anuvin stepped into this trap willingly, but The Creator didn’t heed him, just as he didn’t heed any of the other lost souls who had foolishly trapped themselves within his barrier.”
“Ok, is this Creator guy supposed to be a bit of a dick? He kind of sounds like he needs to show a little more awareness of his creations.” Gregory’s head had lifted and he leaned forward so that she could turn to look upon him.
She seemed quite shocked by this suggestion.
“He was the one who made this world for us. We shouldn’t question him,” Valise noted.
“Alright, if you say so. Still, it seems like he should maybe have put in a bit more effort. I mean, a giant forest that you can never escape right on his doorstep? Why not just a huge wall or something less harmful? Dick move right there.”
“If you’re going to spend so much thought into picking apart our mythology we could be here for a long time indeed.” Valise had indeed turned to him and narrowed her eyes.
“Fine! I just want to state that for the record I’m with Anuvin at this point.”This is the property of Nô-velDrama.Org.
“As you should be.” Her gaze softened and she laughed when he planted a little kiss on the tip of her nose before getting back to her tale. “Anuvin wandered the forest as many before him, and soon fell to madness and isolation. Whilst in this state, he began a habit of talking to the trees for want of hearing a noise that wasn’t birdsong or the rustling of the leaves in the wind. He told them stories of his people, stories of the sea, and stories of the world to the south. In the end, he came to know them as old friends and would tend to them as he continued his unending journey. He would clip stray branches, and help the seeding of new trees in fertile ground. The trees listened, and they provided him with fruits and berries to keep him alive as he wandered. Then, one day, he came upon a sapling and began tending to its roots whilst telling it a riddle. He was perhaps less surprised than he should have been when the sapling answered him.”
“Hold on a sec, there’s talking trees now?” Gregory asked. “I haven’t come across any trees out in the forest that were all that talkative.”
“Perhaps they don’t like the look of you,” Valise’s tone was sympathetic. Then her grin returned and she laughed at the dumbfounded expression she’d brought to his face. “I’m sorry, that was mean wasn’t it? No, trees aren’t really prone to talking in this part of the world, but they are living creatures and magic can shift the nature of things quite a bit. There was a lot of magic in the world back then, particularly in The Creator’s own enchanted forest.”
“Oh, right. So The Creator gave these trees consciousness?”
“In a way, yes. They were his sentinels, and it was they who kept wanderers from The Creator’s home. Yet none who had come before had thought to see them as anything more than obstacles, and Anuvin’s kindness had brought them to like him quite a great deal. I don’t think that the sapling was supposed to speak to him so openly, but the young are more open than the old and when it did speak none tried to silence it. Of course by that point Anuvin had known he’d gone mad for quite some time, and the sound of a tree speaking in his mind wasn’t as much of a shock to the system as it otherwise would have been.
He spoke with the sapling, who asked him to tell the story he had never spoken of: The story of why he’d ventured into the forest. He simply told the sapling that he wished to speak with The Creator on behalf of the elves, and wouldn’t speak more on the matter. Given his good nature, the forest brought word to The Creator that they wished Anuvin to have an audience with him. Now, The Creator tended to prefer watching the story of his creation unfold of its own accord. He rarely dealt with anyone directly anymore, but even he couldn’t resist speaking with the one who had managed to befriend his forest.
The Creator appeared to Anuvin in the guise of an old human wanderer. Anuvin saw through the disguise, and addressed The Creator directly. They shared a small fire and the elf spoke of his people and their plight. The elves were made to rule all, but now had no place in the world to call their own. The elf did not ask The Creator to change his mind on the matter, for he knew that would have been terribly rude. Instead, he asked that the elves might find another purpose and place in the world. Upon this request, The Creator smiled and told Anuvin that it was not his place to tell others what they should and should not dedicate their lives to. Instead, it was for them to find their own path. Then, he reached out his hand and placed his fingertips upon Anuvin’s brow to clear the madness from the elf’s mind. Finally, The Creator disappeared.”
“Wait,” Gregory frowned. “So he did all that for nothing?”
“Of course not. You see, it isn’t always what lies at the end of the road that matters. It’s how we get there. Anuvin felt himself restored and ready to return to his people, for now he no longer felt the burden that The Servant had placed upon him and his race in that calling to be greater than all other creatures. Instead, he saw all things as his equal and returned to the elves to teach what he had learned. Soon enough, all our kin came flocking to the sound of Anuvin’s name. He told us how to speak to the trees, and of the deepest secrets of the forest. We prized kindness over power, and became protectors and guides to the world The Creator had built. New enchanted forests were grown around our homes, and our lands were made evergreen even in the darkest of winters.
This is the story of how we became the guardians of the natural world, and you must understand it if you are to know why my sin was so great.”
“You didn’t work for BP, did you?”
Valise gave him a somewhat sharp look at that, chiding him for his tone rather than comprehending what his words meant.
“Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood a little.”
“What is a BP?”
“A great enemy of the natural world.” Gregory nodded sagely.
“Then perhaps I am. Do you know of The Withering?”
“I don’t think it’s come up, no.”
“It began centuries ago, when one day the ground shook across the world and the peak of The Creator’s home exploded with fire and smoke.”
“You mean a volcano?”