The Witch
“You shouldn’t be here, lass.”
“What?”
In the distance, almost like an echo that was there and not at the same time, she could hear the band’s performance in a corner of the tavern. The bard sang along to the instruments and his voice went up a few keys in such a way that she wondered briefly if, perhaps, the poor man was about to hurt his vocal chords.
It was either that he was about to ruin his career or the sound had become distorted to her after the few drinks that she had.
More than a few.
“You kickin’ me out, man?” She slurred out at the tavern keeper, each word dragged out through lips that had long lost the ability to fully enunciate. She leaned over the bar, her head falling forward for a moment before she straightened up, “That’s, like, so not cool”.
The man shook his head with a sigh, settling down the clean glass that he had been drying with a piece of white cloth, “Listen, lass—”
“Valerie”.
Valerie —word born from the language of the first creatures to ever live in Xadia, both human and elven, the best of both worlds. It was no longer used, of course, but she found out once about it and never let it go. Valerie was a tough word, with lots of meaning.
Valerie, as in brave.
Valerie, as in strong.
Valerie, as in health.
Valerie, as in—
“Valerie. Got it. Nice name” The man replied, repeating her name in such a way that it sounded like a father speaking to his child—slow and careful, “Do you not have somewhere else to be, Valerie? It’s pretty late”.
“Yeah—no” She reached for her glass and drank what was left of the contents, “Nowhere else to be now, dude”.
“And your home? What about your house?”
She snorted, a bit too loud, the sound muffled into the glass, “What house?”
The tavern keeper stared at her in disbelief, his eyes wide with a mixture of obvious fear, surprise and uncertainty. His gaze shifted all over her face, almost as if he was searching for something, an injury, a wound, anything that could indicate she was in danger.
Shit.
“Hey—” She called out to him, putting the empty glass down, “Th—That was a joke”.
Within seconds, the man’s tense demeanor relaxed. However, there was still a hint of concern in his expression.
“My ma said I’m not funny when I do that” Valerie muttered as her cheeks heated up with embarrassment, also a bit of guilt for alarming the poor man, “Must be that”.
The man looked at her with sympathy, hesitant for a moment before his hand settled on her shoulder, “Listen, la—Valerie” He said, quickly correcting himself, “Do you need any help? Believe me, I’ve several people here that would be more than happy to take you home”.
Valerie moved on her seat, stretching her neck the tiniest bit so she could see who the man was referring to.
She had to bite her tongue so as to not scoff.
Several people, right.
An old man sat down on a chair behind the tavern keeper, an emptied cup on the floor next to him. His eyelids were moving so slowly—closing, then opening again—that she asked herself if the man was about to fall asleep or die.
Not too far from him, there was a girl, perhaps a few years older than her. She seemed to be busy as she put away all the clean glasses and cups that had been cleaned, a tired look on her face that hinted towards ire.
“Nah” She replied with a nonchalant smile, leaning the upper half of her body back onto the bar, “I mean, thanks, but I feel fine on my own. I can make it back” Then, she glanced around and towards the window, realizing how dark it was outside, “Can’t I stay here, though?”
She didn’t really want to leave. Back at the inn, there was no one or anything waiting for her to return.
What was the point?
The man shook his head with a look filled with remorse, “This place ain’t nice, kid. Trust me, you don't want to be here for the after hours”.
The girl behind him, who had been listening to their conversation, leaned closer to the man and added, “It gets real bad this late, lass” She told Valerie before returning to where she had been before, “Too many drunks. Stinks”.
“Reah…” The tavern keeper seemed to warn her.
In response, the girl raised her hands up in surrender, not really caring for his words, “Dad, I’m sure she knows. Calm down”.
The man shook his head again, both irritated and calm.
“Go home, kid” He said to Valerie, “If you wanna come back, you’re welcome to do so, but some other time. Not so late at night. Never so late. Got it?”
With a sigh of defeat, Valerie stood up from her chair. She reached down to her thigh, where her pouch was strapped. She opened it, searching among all the feathers for the few gold pieces that she had left. She had paid for a round earlier and she doubted she had enough to afford the new drinks she ordered after that.
“How much was it?”
The man waved his hand and smiled “Keep it, kid. It’s on the house”
“Sweet” She muttered, smiling to herself in a small, drunken induced haze. Despite the slight tremors of her body, she stretched her wings, the feathers ruffling as if they had a life of their own before she turned around towards the entrance of the tavern, “Goodbye, sir! Your drinks are literally the best in the world!”
Leaving the tavern was one of the hardest things she ever had to do.
The world was spinning around. The bard and his band had started with another tune, a popular one this time, it seemed, given that most of the people in the tavern were singing along with him, creating a disastrous, hellish chorus that made her head pound with a headache.
And now, she also had to think of what to do.
After weeks of traveling—both on foot and with her wings—she had seen and visited everything she wanted to in this part of the realm.
She had seen the moonshadow ruins near the east of the town, abandoned centuries before. She had seen the runes carved into the grounds of the forest, left by earthblood elves as a tradition whenever they passed by. She had even arrived in time to see the tidebound elves performers that happened to be there at the same week that she was.
This part of her adventures could be crossed off her long list of places to visit and things to see. At least, until something new happened here, intriguing enough to bring her back in a few years.
She doubted it, though.
It was a human village—she had seen the occasional elf walking around, but they were not residents, rather, travelers or merchants—so small that everyone knew each other since birth. The adults knew since childhood and their children played together in the same clearing.
Also, very similar names. All of them.
A quiet village, nothing more.
Being honest, she did not see herself going back.
Plus, it was not like she could afford it, either.
It had been a miracle—or luck sent down from the cosmos—that the man had not asked her to pay for the drinks she had hours before. In truth, she failed to see what possessed her to even agree to go out for a drink when she didn’t have the gold for it.
Well, that would be a problem for future Valerie.
Present Valerie—drunk in all her grace—had to find a way to get back inside the inn she had been staying at for the past week, spend the night there, and run out the next morning without the owner noticing that she had both returned and left.
She didn't have enough to pay for one more night.
Seriously, since when were human villages so expensive?
The plan wasn't complicated. Valerie would fly up to the window and enter the room through it. And, if a few feathers fell off or her wings became bald, well, future Valerie would deal with that.
Future Valerie had a lot to deal with.
“I—I don't know, man” A voice near to where she was said, making her look to her right. There, a guy—an earthblood elf—sat with a drink in hand. Next to him, another earthblood, older than him, frowned with exasperation, and a woman that smiled with sadness and pity, “I heard it's underground, somehow. Can you imagine that?”
“There's nothing underground, Aurum” The man replied, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder, “You’re not finding anything. They lied to you”.
“But—”
“Do you really think those prissy—” The woman gave the man a light punch on the shoulder, making him hiss in pain before muttering, “—that startouch elves would create anything underground? Isn't their point, like, the stars? It’s a lie, doesn’t make sense”.
The boy looked down at the table, seemingly disappointed. “Yeah, maybe…” He admitted, “But if you wanna come with—”
“I’ll pass”.
Weird people. Weird people everywhere, she thought to herself.
Stars. Stars up in the sky.
Stars underground.
“Weird”.
She kept walking.
A few minutes later, she had found her way back to the inn.
Everything after that, what she did or did not do, became a mush of memories she knew would never come back. In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted them back. She didn’t want to have the memory of humiliating herself.
To herself, really, no one was looking at her.
She climbed up. Her hands scraped as she held on the small indents between each brick or rock that made up the horrible wall of the inn—Droplets of sweat dripped down the side of her face. It felt gross and horrible.
She didn’t even know how long it took, only that one moment the world was spinning around her and she could see the stars, and the next she was lying face down on a mattress.
Last time in her entire life that she climbed up. Someone in history had created stairs to be used, and she was not going to just go against that purpose—
“Shit” She mumbled with realization, the words muffled into the pillows, “I have wings”.
And it all turned black.
The next morning, she woke up.
Her eyes opened with difficulty, too heavy and too uncoordinated to even attempt. Her body ached, all of it, even her nails, and especially her wings. And, to top it all up, she had that horrible, yet familiar, feeling in the pit of her stomach that was similar to when she ate too much.
Hangover.
With a small whine, she shifted her body until it was facing up towards the white ceiling of the room as she tried to remember what had happened the night before.
After the performance of the tidebound elves ended, a group of people in the audience had walked over to her—they all looked fun, super friendly, and so, when one of the girls in the group invited her out for drinks with them, she couldn’t just say no.
It didn’t take many hours until most of the group—the girl included—had returned to their homes. The few that remained there were scattered on different tables and too drunk to even realize what was going on around them.
She had been left alone with the tavern keeper.
A small snort of laughter escaped her lips at the memories of the man’s frightened face.
Poor dude.
It made her a bit too sad to know that she would be leaving the town later. It was not that she would miss it or anything, but her body felt so battered that the mere thought of moving back down the road was far from promi—
“I heard it's underground, somehow. Can you imagine that?”
Underground. Stars underground.
She could recall it then, the hidden place she had heard about. A place that could be easily near her reach, enough that she could go and—
No. She couldn't.
She had to find a way to earn some gold pieces. Without them, it would be impossible to even eat for the next few days. And she had to get back on the road as soon as possible if she wanted to reach the next town before nightfall.
She was living on a tight, complicated schedule.
Well, no.
Fuck it.
The point of being alone, of existing only for herself, with no one else to stop her, was that she could do whatever she wanted, and if what she wanted was to behave like an irresponsible twenty-one-year-old who—most likely—wouldn’t eat for another three days, then so be it.
She would see those hidden caves, even if it was the last thing she ever did.
After drinking a glass of water to ease the nausea, of course.
Three hours later, she found the strength to get out of bed.
It was still morning, so, when she went downstairs to the first floor of the inn—and in another demonstration of her infinite luck—she found the owner of the place, completely asleep on the desk by the entrance.
She had even managed to get her things out in time. If her pouch counted as belongings.
“Yes…” She whispered to herself with a smile.
Now, with her motivations and spirits lifted and awake once again, she made her way down the small town in a rush, back to the tavern from the night before.
The tavern keeper—poor, poor man—had mentioned to her, if her alcohol induced memories were intact, that some people would remain there until very late at night. She hoped, then, that one of those people were the men she overheard.
With a smile, Valerie walked into the tavern, her gaze finding the tavern keeper, who acknowledged her with a curt nod.
“Kid” He greeted.
“Valerie” She corrected him, pulling out the chair so she could sit on it, “Hi, again”.
“I know I said you could come back whenever you wanted, lass, but I didn’t take you for the type to drink so early in the morning. Aren’t you too young for that?”
“I am” Valerie stated with a laugh, nodding, “And I’m not here for a drink” She leaned over the bar, moving her hand towards herself to motion the man to come closer, “I’m here to find some guys”.
The man tilted his head to the side, confused, “Some guys” He repeated, the words spoken slowly, as if he was struggling to understand, “And who are these guys?”
“Uh…” Valerie stared up at the ceiling for a moment, thinking before she shook her head and shrugged at him, “No idea”.
Well, she did have some vague memories of who she had seen, also from the conversation that she had definitely not eavesdropped.
She looked back towards the man, “I heard them talking about something interesting last night, like hidden treasures, and such” She told him with an excited smile, her eyes wide as she asked, “Want me to tell you?”
“No”.
“Oh” She slumped back onto the chair, “Well, I—Do you know some A—Aunum, maybe? Naurum?”
“Aurum?”
Valerie gasped in surprise, nodding quickly, “Yeah! That one!”
The man frowned for a minute, eyeing her with a hint of suspicion before tilting his head forward, to a place behind her. Valerie turned around so she could see what—or who—he was referring to.
“See blondie over there?” The man asked, to which she nodded, “That’s your guy”.
Was he?
Damn.
Last night, she remembered him a little less half dead.
“He’s been drinking all night with his brother. His sister left them both hours ago” The man continued, “But they haven’t moved from that table all night. Might as well wake them up”.
Valerie stood up from the chair, almost bouncing with anticipation, “Okay, okay, okay! Thanks for the info, man! You’re the best!”
She approached the table where the guy from last night sat. The closer she got to them, the better she could see the state of the boy. His blond hair fell all over the table he was—in every sense of the word—slumped on, surrounded by empty glasses of alcohol that had been accumulating over the hours.
Next to him, the other man—his brother, as far as she knew—was leaning his back against the chair, a bit half asleep, a bit half awake.
Valerie arrived at their table with a wide grin and sat down in the vacant chair, clearing her throat to get their attention.
“Hey”.
Both men straightened up, surprised and a little alarmed at her sudden appearance. The brother frowned, “Who the fuck…?”
“Valerie. Hi!” She exclaimed, extending her hand towards him in greeting, “But people call me Val most of the—Well, no, not really, my friends, yeah, obviously, and my ma did too, but since I don’t have any friends or ma—”
“Shut up—” The brother groaned, covering his eyes with a weak hand.
“Okay!”
Valerie waited in silence for a few seconds, wanting them to talk on their own. Aurum looked at her for a moment before closing his eyes with a pained moan and his brother rubbed his forehead in what seemed to be an irritated attempt to wake up.
“Listen, I—” She pushed some empty glasses to the side so she could rest her arms on the table, her smile unwavering, “—I don’t want to bother you guys, really, but last night I was here, too, right? And I kinda heard some things that caught my attention—”
“What kind of things, lass?” The brother cut off her sentence, glaring up at her.
“Some kinda place…” She muttered, her head tilting to the side as she dragged out the words, “Underground…”
Suddenly, Aurum let out a groan and slumped back onto the table, startling her.
“Is he—Is he okay?”
“Listen…” The brother hissed out, pointing at Aurum, “My little brother here is an idiot. An idiot who believed the tale of an old lady from another town”.
“Oh…” She nodded, humming a little, “So, it’s all, like, a lie?”
“A lie. No more”.
“If it’s a lie…” She began, placing her palms flat on the table so she could lean closer to the brother, “You wouldn’t mind giving me directions or—”
“We ain’t giving you sh—”
“Here” Aurum, in a turn of events, handed her—or rather, threw—an old, worn-out piece of paper in her direction, “All yours. Take it. Do whatever you want with it”.
Valerie caught it up in the air, jumping out of her chair with an excited scream, “Really!?”
“You’re not finding what you want” He added, ignoring the way his brother was glaring and tugging at his shoulder. Instead, he focused on the paper in her hands, eyeing it with resentment, “But that’s your problem now”.
It wasn’t hard to find the place.
Valerie had two things to her favor. For starters, she had a pair of wings—sore as they were— that allowed her to fly over the entire expanse of the forest, seeing what others without them could not find. And then, she also had knowledge, enough memory from the past few weeks visiting these parts of the town to know where she was.
Sorta.
The spot marked on the map was located a couple of miles further than what she had explored during her stay in town, nearing a part of the forest that looked—in all honesty—terrifying.
Was she certain that she could manage in this part of the forest? No. Not at all. But she was there already, there was no going back now, not when her curiosity would forever nag at her for not taking this chance of an adventure.
Plus, she had flown over it.
Ten minutes ago.
That was more than enough.
The problem now—Present Valerie’s problem—was that, as much as she had convinced herself that the cave she had heard was a real deal, there were no signs of an entrance to it.
Aurum and his brother had said—again, in that conversation that she did not eavesdrop—that it was created by startouch elves a long, long time ago, hidden from the rest of Xadia.
And so, she had searched around as such.
The next few hours were spent there, walking around the woods and watching as the sun started to dip down into the horizon. At some point, she even tripped over the scattered pieces of wood that had been left there by either hunters or travelers.
“Stars Above” Valerie muttered under her breath, a frown on her face and her hands moving to dust off her pants after the fall, “I always pick them up when I leave”.
She searched the forest for all sorts of indicators—Rocks that did not look real, trees that seemed different from the rest, patches of grass that were too dried out.
Nothing.
Fine. Maybe, just maybe, Aurum’s brother had been right all along. Maybe, it was the insane tale that an old lady had created to keep children entertained and the poor dude happened to be the few adults that believed it.
Maybe, it was time to go back to the road and leave—
She was falling.
Valerie was falling.
Plummeting down.
Plummeting down to her death.
She couldn’t see anything other than darkness beneath her, the light of the sunset further with each second until it disappeared in the distance.
She was falling.
Fall. Fall. Fall.
During her travels, an old man once mentioned that people saw their lives, all moments of happiness and sadness, flash before them before the inevitable end.
Lies. All of them.
She could not see her life.
No, she could not see it at all—All she saw was herself falling, then crashing onto the ground in one morbid and bloody mess. Red, all over the place.
Like pancake batter.
Pancake Valerie.
Unable to get up from the ground once her body fused with it due to the force of the fall. Alone and sad and regretting not being able to have one last drink in that tavern with the nice owner that acted like a dad.
She fell.
And fell.
And continued to fall some more.
Then—
The wings!
Valerie had wings. She had a pair of wings—she was born with them!
And she forever forgot about them.
In a rush, she spread her wings in the darkness, a grimace on her face as the force of the air around her crashed into the feathers, propelling her upwards before the fall started to slow down.
She was still falling, but not to her death.
Right?
But no more to her death.
Right?
Uh-Huh.
At some point, Valerie felt her feet touch the solid floor and let out a small sigh of relief before she attempted to look around herself for some sort of way out of the darkness.
She couldn’t see, she realized with fear. And if she couldn’t see, she couldn’t fly.
Blind, she reached down to her pouch, allowing herself to feel amazed by the fact that it had not fallen apart completely in those seconds that she propelled down before starting to search for something, anything , that could help guide her in the dark..
The crystal.
It hadn’t been her smartest purchase. She had visited a small village months ago, right by the time that the residents were celebrating the start of winter with a festival. She saw it on a stand and, while it was not big enough to serve as home decoration—like she even had a home to put it in—it was a shiny little thing.
She liked shiny things.
With clumsy movements, she took it out of the pouch. A soft, blueish light illuminated the tiniest bit of the spot she stood on, not too much, but enough to see her hands again.
And that is when she saw it.
There was an entrance.
Not many steps further from her, there was an entrance carved into stone.
A little voice in her head—her reason, of course—reacted in that instant and pleaded her not to walk any closer to that, to just fly back up with the crystal and leave the town.
It would be a reckless choice, dangerous and stupid without the real necessity to be made. It was the equivalent of following a stranger into the woods of Xadia—everyone knew they would drink your blood.
Duh.
But, in truth, when had she ever been reasonable?
Valerie walked towards the entrance and faced the long hallway ahead of her.
Everything around her, the little she could see with the light of the crystal, was carved from the stone of the cave, the walls rough and uneven, both from years, maybe centuries of not being visited, and from the far from modern way it had been made.
The further she went down the path, she came to realize, the narrower it became.
Soon enough, she groaned under her breath when her wings scraped against the walls.
She drew them closer until both were pressed to her back, as much as it was possible in an attempt to not allow any damage to them. Yet, there was not much she could do, as the more she walked, the harder it became to move.
There was no way back.
Either she remained standing there, stuck and hoped that death by strangled wings was painless or she continued the path until there was enough space to turn around.
Valerie couldn’t tell how far into the hall she was, it was impossible when all of her thoughts were a mangled mess of panic and concern.
"Why are you panicking?" She asked to herself, wincing when she heard—and felt—her wings dragging against the rough edges of the rocks, “You’re tough. You’re tough and you kick ass”.
But Valerie had to be honest with herself.
The place seemed haunted.
From the fall in which she’d seen her death—a horrible death that now would make her puke whenever she saw a pancake—to the death trap this path had turned into, this felt strangely familiar to those cautionary tales she was told when she was a little girl.
If you don’t listen to your ma and your pa and go wander into the woods all on your own, be careful, for you shall find the witch’s lair and she will take you with her.
Now, she didn’t know if there was a witch. All she knew was that she was trapped somewhere underground, near a place she didn’t even know about and with no one to help her.
Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She was the cautionary tale.
"Shut up, shut up!" She muttered in a hushed voice, wishing she could slap herself for a second, "That’s not—That’s not real. All fake. Fiction to igno—”
"And allow… voice... hear... prayers..."
There was a voice, almost like a chant.
“For… fortune… stars…”
A voice.
The witch will take you and use your magic to her own gain, deep, deep into the woods. She will take you and your soul, then your heart, and you will never see the light of day.
And then, a small thought.
If she screamed down here, no one would hear her.
“I'm gonna die”.
She started to run.
Perhaps, if she run she could escape, she could find some exit or—
“Fuck—”
Before she could stop it, the side of her face slammed into a hard surface, making her stumble backwards and fall down onto the ground with a small thud.
Her back received the first of the impact, so did her wings, and she remained there with her eyes closed, whining and groaning due to the pain that extended all over her body.
If she survived the witch, she would wake up tomorrow with the mother of bruises.
Her hand moved up to her face.
Wait, my hand?
Valerie sat up, startled. She could move. Her arms and her wings were free to move around as she pleased. She was not trapped anymore.
With a delighted laugh, she spread her wings out, watching as some of her feathers fell to the ground in quick succession. She was so relieved by the newfound sense of freedom that she could even sob at the sight.
“Oh, thank the stars!” She exclaimed with a smile, “You guys are fine—”
“Whoever you are...” Suddenly, a voice cut through the silence, interrupting Valerie’s silent celebration and making her pale with fear, “Would you mind lowering your voice?”
There was a person down here, like her. A real, living person in this horrible, creepy place.
Wait.
As if waking up from a dream, Valerie finally caught sight of what was around her.
“Wow”.
Behind her, the entrance to the hall—the wing deathtrap—was now forgotten.
This place… it was…
It was beautiful.
Tall and pristine walls surrounded her, so clear in their violet and pink hues that she could see her own reflection on them. Various crystals, much like the one she had clutched in her hand, illuminated the place, some embedded in the ground and some floating around.
In front of her, four pillars—two on each side—each perfect and even, stood in all their glory.
And, down the end of the room she was in—
What was it? Was it a shrine, a place of prayer? She couldn’t really tell.
It was taller than the ground, some sort of platform carved into the stone of what had been a normal cave eons before she even found it. The structure, however, unlike the pristine walls, was most similar to the hall that had taken her there—uneven and ragged.
Not that it took from how beautiful it was, nor from the power that seemed to emanate from it. And neither did it—
There was someone in the middle.
They were kneeling down on the platform, their back to her. Long dark hair cascaded down their tense back, each strand unmoved and untouched despite it all.
“Hi…?”
Valerie stood up from the floor at the same time the stranger did.
Valerie froze when the stranger turned around to face her.
Valerie was—
Damn.
Once upon a time, back when she was little, Valerie had heard that there were creatures in the woods of Xadia that lured people into the darkness with their beauty and no one ever saw them again after that. Sure, it was another of the tons of cautionary tales that adults told to keep their troublesome children far from danger.
And so, as much as she had never been told this tale at home, the children in her school did tell the tale of the monsters and their spells of the heart, daring each other often to walk alone into the woods around their village and see if they could survive.
She never believed it, not really. Her ma had sworn to her that it was nonsense, because all creatures in Xadia were friends to both elves and humans.
Yet—
Valerie had walked alone into the forest.
And here she was, the creature from the tale.
She was breathtaking, so much that it almost hurt to look at her. Never in her life—never mind that it was no more than twenty-one years—had she seen someone so perfect.
From her place on the shrine, a startouch elf—or so she appeared to be—was looking down at her with distrust and the tiniest hint of irritation.
Her features were sharp, but somehow soft and gentle at the same time. She seemed as if she had seen it all and nothing at once, a vast creation or the end of this world, and it reflected in her gaze in such a way that it made Valerie feel small, so, so small.
Her long dark hair remained behind her, a few strands framing her face and accentuating all that Valerie had noticed of her. It gave a certain magic to her appearance, a sense of mystery and grace, almost like a spell she had cast on her.
And her eyes—She had never seen such eyes.
From somewhere over their heads, light fell over the startouch elf’s frame, illuminating her.
She felt as if she faced some sort of forgotten, dangerous and precious deity—a star.
This woman—
She was not beautiful, no.
She was ethereal.
Ethereal and mad.
Her features, collected and distant, twisted into a frown filled with distaste as she looked down at Valerie, her eyes moving all over her body, scrutinizing her, almost piercing through her soul. For a moment, she thought to herself that, if she had done anything to ever anger this woman, she would gladly receive the punishment.
Stars Above.
“Oh, my stars—” She whispers, taking a few steps towards the platform, “You're not a witch”.
The stranger seemed to be taken aback by her words and the frown on her face deepened with slight annoyance, “Excuse me?” She asked, then shook her head. Her features went back to her silent ire, “How did you find this place, you—”
“Valerie”.
“I don’t care” The woman replied, crossing her arms over her chest, “How did you get in here?”
“I heard some drunk du—”
“This is a sacred place” Valerie was interrupted by the words of the stranger, who was visibly upset, “Please. I am now asking you to leave—”
Before she could even finish her sentence, Valerie let out a small cry of excitement, “You’re lying! Is that the emblem of the court people?”
Under her feet, shining on the ground, a star had been carved down in different colors, similar, but different from the symbol used to refer to the star arcanum—It belonged to the Cosmic Something, she recalled. She had heard about them in stories, also in the ancient book that she had found in that citadel she visited around six months before.
The startouch elf sucked in a sharp breath and snapped, her tone almost offended, “The Cosmic Order—!”
“And those are runes!?”
Behind the woman, the wall stood with several runes—old runes in ancient draconic—carved into it. Each had been made with precision and care, all the curves delicate, perfect and without one mistake to be seen.
“Could you please leave the—”
“I’m so relieved you’re not a dead person! Or a witch!” Valerie blurted out, running up to the stairs of the platform where the startouch stood. The heel of her boots touched the stone and she frowned when she noticed how unstable they seemed, “This is, like, super slippery. Has anyone ever broken their neck here?”
The woman gave her a look filled with disbelief, “...no” She muttered her answer, still caught off guard by the sudden—and rather weird—question, “Listen, if—if you could just stop moving—”
Valerie continued to climb up the stairs, her hands reaching out to grab onto the uneven spaces of the rocks whenever she felt like she could slip down or fall.
Once she reached the platform, her head snapped up and her gaze found the most beautiful and entrancing dome she had ever seen in her life. The expanse of the sky shone down upon her, making her chuckle with happiness.
“A dome?” She asked, a bit too loud as her mouth fell open with shock, “How did you guys even come up with something like this…? Oh! And the stars! Look! You can see all constella—”
“Stop it!” The woman screamed, making Valerie flinch and turn to look at her. The startouch approached her, her eyes wide with barely contained fury. With her finger, she pointed down to the ground beneath the platform, “Down!”
“Wha—”
“Down. Now ”.
Her face was very close.
Were those freckles on her cheeks?
“Okay” Whispered Valerie, her voice filled with awe.
She spread out her wings, causing the woman to let out a small gasp of surprise and take a few steps back away from her. And, just as fast as she had gotten up the platform, Valerie returned to the ground.
“Y—You have wings”.
Valerie chuckled at her words, purposely shaking her wings when she noticed the woman’s reaction to them, “Do I have them?”
The startouch froze in place for a few seconds, staring down at her in silence.
She let out a sigh.
A long, tired sigh.
“You should not be here” The woman said once again and, for a moment, Valerie had to bite down on her tongue to avoid making some lame joke about her repeating those words to her over and over, “I will ask again and this is the last time I am as kind. How did you find this place?”
“It’s a long—”
“ How ?”
And there was such firmness to her words, such insistence in her eyes, that Valerie found herself speaking up before she could even think of what to tell her—or if she wanted to.
She started to retell what happened to the day before this one, not holding back on details.
She told her about the performance of the tidebound elves and how amazing they had been—also that one of them almost fell during the stunts, but no one had mentioned it or reacted as to not embarrass them.
She told her about the tavern, because the owner was super kind—kinda like her pa—, the prices were better than in other human towns, and the band was, like, so good.
With every word that left her lips, the woman’s frown deepened on her face, the corners of her lips turned down in a scowl. She looked like she was about to combust.
Finally, she reached the part of the drunks in the tavern and the map they gave her.
“So, I’m looking everywhere, right? And I want to find… like… I don’t know, something that’s a bit different than the rest, but I fall, and I fall and die!” Valerie exclaimed, her hands moving wildly all around her as to act out the long fall she was referring to, “I’m falling and I’m thinking ‘Valerie, this can’t be the end, you have to do something’, and so I—”
The woman held up a hand, silencing her.
“I did not need to know all that”.
“What? Of course you do!” Valerie replied with disbelief—how could she ever say that? It was more than necessary for the story! “How else would you get the context?”
The startouch sighed again.
She sighs too much , Valerie thought, Is that even healthy?
“…Alright, then” The woman muttered, clasping her hands together so tightly that Valerie could feel the tension in her own knuckles like she was the one doing that, “Now I know. Thank you for such an interesting and informative story. You may leave now ”.
Valerie’s eyes widened with bewilderment and she walked closer to the platform as she had done before, “What? But—But I just got to this place! Like, minutes ago!”
“A place that, as I have said many times, is sacred—”
“Okay, no, wait—Let me—” In a second, Valerie took flight, rising up until she was the same height as the woman, eye to eye with her. She extended her hand to her, “My name is Valerie. I know I kinda said it before, but I think you sorta didn’t hear me, so…” She trailed off, smiling at her before asking, “What’s your name?”
The startouch glanced down at her extended hand with distrust, “Why do you want my name?”
Valerie took back her arm, hugging to her chest with a sigh, “For nothing! N—Nothing at all! I mean, it’s only fair to know when—when you know mine”.
“And how do I know that is your real name?”
“Ah… well…” She found herself at a loss for words, “You don’t…”
“Exactly to my point” Retorted the woman, her eyes moving back down to the floor, “Now, if you could go back down, I would appreciate it a lot”.
“Kay’...”
Valerie lowered herself back to the ground, a disappointed look on her face.
Well, that did not go as she had expected.
Naturally, she hadn’t expected to find anyone when she went into the cave, not even another explorer—after all, she had found it by accident after hours of searching. Also, she doubted anyone without wings would have survived the fall.
She had not expected this, but she had not expected to be kicked out, either.
She had never been kicked out of a place before.
“Zena”.
Valerie looked up at the startouch, startled.
“What?”
“My name is Zena” She repeated, her words slow and hesitant, “Now you know. Will you leave?”
“Zena sounds so pretty!” Valerie exclaimed with a beaming smile, her excitement too much to even register what the elf—Zena—had said to her, “Can I call you Zen?”
“No”.
“Right. You’re right. I don’t like it, either. Can I call you Nana—” She stopped mid-sentence, frowning at her own choice for a nickname, “Wait, no. Nana sounds like—like real nanas. No offense to them, I think they’re the coolest, but you don’t really look like a grandma” She rambled on, then shut her mouth once again, her eyes widening in panic as she shook her head, “U—Unless star elves age different than us and you’re like five thousand years old, and have five thousand grandchi—”
“Please, stop”.
“Okay”.
Zena—what a beautiful, perfect name—pointed over to the entrance of the room, towards the hall, “Listen, if you are here for some sort of treasure, this is the wrong place for it. There are no relics or riches. You may leave”.
“Oh! No, no, no—” Valerie was quick to reassure her, her hand waving in front of her as a sign of denial, “This has nothing to do with that, no” She insisted with a nervous laugh, “I’m an explorer”.
“An explorer”.
“Yes! I move from place to place, visit some old places, like ruins or libraries or festivals, and I meet lots of people. Like, one time a few months ago, I found this castle in the middle of—”
“I understand”.
“Okay”.
Valerie beamed up at Zena, letting out a little sigh to get rid of any lingering fear she could have in her before reassuring her, “I’m not here to steal anything, I—” She hesitated, unsure of how to explain her intentions without sounding a little insane… or suicidal, “I was curious. I’m supposed to leave this town soon and I heard the stories from the guy at the tavern, so I thought, why not?”
“What if this had been some kind of trap?” Zena asked her, arching a brow.
It would have been worth the adventure , Valerie thought, but did not dare utter it out loud.
“I thought it was, yeah” She admitted, however.
Zena’s eyes widened and she scoffed down at her, “And why did you not leave?” She asked, apparently confused by her nonchalance, “Like—Like any other logical person would”.
“I couldn't”.
“Excuse—”
“Cramped space” Valerie shrugged, then moved her wings, “Wings”.
“Oh”
“Uh-huh!”
“Well” Zena muttered after a brief silence, “Either way, you have to leave—”
Then, one of the crystals to her right glowed.
Different from her own little crystal, this one was huge, embedded into the ground that surrounded the pillars of the cave, almost creating a protective barrier around them. And, as easy as that, her attention shifted from Zena to the rocks.
Valerie ran over to them.
“This place is so—” Her hand reached up to touch one of the shining crystals that floated around the pillar she had moved to, poking it with a little giggle, once, then twice—three times for luck, “How do these even stay there?”
“Those pillars are ancient! Be careful!”
“And—And look at all these runes!” She almost screamed, not hearing the previous warning from the startouch, “Did someone really carved them all on their own?”
“Listen, I wish I could tell you” Zena replied to her question with a small hiss, the words coming out between clenched teeth, “Unfortunately, these were done long before I was born. Now, Valerie, I believe you should go”.
At the use of her name—for the first time from her—, Valerie turned her eyes back at Zena, her brow furrowed with a bit of fear and remorse.
“Is this about Nana—”
“No”.
“Okay” She replied in a small voice, her hand lowering down to her side. She took a few steps back from the pillars and glanced at the ground, “I’m glad”.
Amidst the silence, she heard the sound of footsteps approaching her from the distance, delicate and careful as their noise echoes around the place.
Out of curiosity, Valerie lifted her head up, stilling with surprise when she found Zena standing to her level, no longer on the platform.
She’s so tall.
Wow.
However, the startouch didn’t move closer, her back almost pressed to the wall.
“Listen” She said, the stern expression from before softened and turned into one of neutral calmness, “I understand you have good intentions—”
Valerie let out an audible sigh of relief, her hands moving up to her chest, “Sweet, cause’—”
It all happened too fast.
Her wings—in her moment of happiness—moved.
There was a crash, then a horrible, high pitched noise.
Almost in slow motion, one of the crystals that had been hovering around the pillar next to her propelled to the ground, shattering in millions of the tiny pieces of delicate mineral that was—most definitely—older than her entire bloodline.
And, like some sick joke, all the other crystals around the pillar followed its path.
The place fell silent.
Slowly, Valerie turned her face to Zena, her shoulders almost raised up to her ears with clear tension, perhaps fear and uncertainty, too.
She felt like a child who had been caught doing something she was not meant to do.
Zena glanced down at the broken crystals, her gaze dull and devoid of emotion as she inspected the damage that Valerie had caused.
Then, it turned dark. And she was not looking at the pieces anymore, no, she was looking at her.
That look of hate was for her.
“Wait—”
A chant filled the silence and Valerie’s eyes widened with horror as it reached her ears, like a prayer.
The witch. The witch. The witch.
Zena raised an arm, her fingers moving around the air with precision.
Valerie realized—perhaps too late—that it was a rune.
The rune illuminated the darkness of the cave, shining against Zena’s face as she started to mutter something under her breath, words that she could not comprehend or hear.
And then—
She opened her eyes with a gasp.
She was back in the forest.
How was she back in the forest?
With frantic eyes, Valerie looked around herself. All she could see were trees, countless of trees that hid her from the rest of the world and that allowed her a minute of silence and solitude to remember what had happened.
The stars above her seemed to watch her, silently mocking her misfortune.
She was out of the cave.
Zena had thrown her out of the cave.
Her luck ran out.