I had quickly run Eirlathion’s behaviors through my head. Assuming he isn’t trying to bait me out, his assumption that we have previous-life memories similar to those of a fairy with possibly a bit more maturity involved will make things considerably easier. In that case, I should go with an angle of impressing him with my information-handling abilities I just boasted about.
He seems like someone who is trustworthy, so I can assume his motives likely involve trying to keep us alive every bit as much as we want to stay alive. That being the case, showing competence here will get him to be more open with us about his plans. I would like for him to also openly consult with, at the very least, me if not the rest of the crew here as well. It would be rather inconvenient if he just went making unilateral decisions that may clash with my intentions.
So, I essentially give him the same list of deductions and their basis that I gave to Tia earlier. About how I became aware we were grey elves and the nature of our relationship with our fully absent mother. About how I was aware of the intentions of the other elves, both from hints and then later because I had recently confronted Nymph about the subject. I couldn’t tell him about the history of genocide back on Earth that lead me to my actions in regards to the other elves, but I did play out a few of my concerns and likely scenarios as things continue which my actions were designed to at least partially dissuade.
Eirlathion had been nodding along for most of my explanation, and his body language became continuously more relaxed and confident. It seemed I was right, he really was quite concerned about us and it seemed like my show of competence had eased his mind considerably. As I got to the last part about how my small actions as well as my argument with Nymph were for the sake of accomplishing a goal though, his body language became stiff and he began watching me with a very serious look.
[I see.] He said and then gave me a complicated expression. [You were being very serious about having the ability to handle information.] He said, and then went off into a long period of thought. [The way you just talked about everything. You gave all the important details, and you made predictions based very well in what really could happen based on what you know. It felt like talking to one of the “lugam a lutel”]
Well, that’s great. The language barrier just got in the way at the end, but I feel those unfamiliar words might be something important for me to know. [I’m sorry, I do not think I recognize those words you said at the end. “lugam a lutel.” What does that mean?] It hurt to harm the credibility I was trying to build up here, but it simply would not do to be denied what could be important information based on a language barrier and not asking the right questions.
[Ahh… you have not heard the word “lugam” before, Asa?] Eirlathion asked. [It is the word we call the “enis” of the forest. She is the “enis” for everything that the trees cover. She sends some of her specially trained “lutel” into human lands to gather information on them from time to time. She is interested in what the human “lugar” are doing.]
Ok, it really doesn’t help that now he’s dropping a lot more new vocabulary on me, but I think I sorta get it from the context. Lugam = queen, Lugar = king, Enis = Ruler… I still am not completely sure what “Lutel” means, but I have it’s definition narrowed down to either “agent” or “spy.” I guess I will have to hear it in some other context to be sure, but it’s not important right now. I will keep it in mind for later.
[So women are the rulers in this forest, and men rule in the human lands?] I ask, trying out the information I understood from his explanation.
[Well…] Eirlathion paused. [Most elven countries are ruled by a queen (lugam,) but in this forest the queen is just the queen because she is the most powerful. We are not an elven “enisid” (kingdom?), this is a forest ruled by all of the most powerful fae, we elves are simply citizens here.]
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Elven translation note: "enisid."
Enis = Ruler, Kisib = hand. Therefore, because Asa knew the word "kisib" before and just learned the word "enis," she was able to reasonably come to the conclusion that "enisid," a word she has heard for the first time, probably means Kingdom. "What is in the ruler's hand."
(a "b" transforming into a "d" is a very natural thing in language evolution, it was likely "enisib," or even "enissib" or "enis-kisib" originally and, along with other changes, the "b" was softened into a "d" because it was easier to say.)
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[So, the queen is not an elf. Is she a fairy?] I asked. Great, I am sounding closer and closer to my physical age. But, having information is never bad, and knowing the political situation here could even be important.
[Well… a fairy.] Eirlathion stops to think. [I guess that is correct, she is the most powerful class of fairy. A fae “galmustar.”]
Ok, I’ve about had enough with new vocabulary. I think I had better stop here. I will find out what “galmustar” means sometime later. It’s enough for now to know it’s some kind of incredibly powerful fairy.
More importantly, now I know that there are definitely things out there in this forest that are much more powerful than the elves around here. Nymph can probably protect us from elves, but with the way Eirlathion talks I am getting the impression that fairies and some of the other fae who live in this forest are much more powerful. If we antagonize the villagers too much, they can easily seek help from something nasty that Nymph might not be able to handle.
[Alright, so, you are saying that I sound like the “lutel” of the queen when I told you what I know?] I bring things back on topic now that I’ve heard what I need to know.
[Yes, you were very exact and only told what you know, and when you had to make predictions they seemed very reasonable.] He said. [It sounds weird to think that some humans might have trained someone as well as the “lutel” of the queen, but I guess I have the evidence in front of me here.]
So, elves… or rather fae in general are born from reincarnated humans, huh? Or at least that’s the common sense of this world.
[Well, I couldn’t tell you anything about where I got my training.] I told him.
Eirlathion just sat there and stared me down for a while. [Well, I guess it does not matter.] He said. [This means you should be able to help me to keep something bad from happening to you two. It is better if you know some things like that. You even surprised me a lot. I thought you were being naïve earlier with those two young men out there, but to think you were thinking so far ahead…]
[I still do not know if it will work.] I said. [If anything, it will only lessen the damage done by the act of destroying all of your careful attempts to hide the real abilities Tia and me have. I am sorry for that, by the way.]
[Well, I would likely be dead if you two had not moved.] He said. [I appreciate it. So, how bad do you think things are, with your information skills?]
[I was hoping to hear more from you about that, actually.] I told him. [I do not know enough about dark elves, grey elves, or what regular elves think about us in order to make a clear prediction. I only know what I was able to get out of Nymph right before you came up here.]
Eirlathion sighs and lowers his eyes. [Well, I should probably tell you about that then.] He makes a difficult face like he’s trying to work up the nerve to say something really painful. [Dark elves… they are the demon equivalent to elves. Every race has a demon that is a corrupted version of their race. A demon will always seek to destroy members of the race from which they were born.] He explained and then looked up at me.
[The half-breed of a demon and the race the demon is based from, they always have power that can be used to fight the demons if they are raised correctly. There are several half-orc heroes among the humans who fight the demons assaulting their lands.] Wait, half-orcs? So, that would mean orcs are the demonized humans? Also, why is the word for “orc” the same as the one I know?
[It is only because the orcs are stupid that they allow those half-orc children to be born and grow up.] Eirlathion continues. [Dark elves are far more intelligent than orcs. Any dark elf man who takes an elven woman must kill her after he finishes. I have heard failing to do this is a death sentence crime among the dark elves. If a woman does happen to survive such an ordeal as the mother of you girls had and she gives birth, the dark elves will send a strike team to destroy the entire village a grey elf child is found in.]
[Ahh, I see.] I interjected. [They wish to frighten the villagers into killing us for them, so we do not have the chance to grow up and become a threat.] I pause and watch Eirlathion nod his head in confirmation. [I understand enough now.] I continued. [Eirlathion, how far is it between here and the royal capital?]
Eirlathion’s eyes bulge at the sudden question, and then he goes pale. He likely understands the implications. [On foot, about a month. If a messenger manages to recruit a great fairy from the capital though, they can make it back to this village in a matter of only a day or two.]
[Then, if anyone leaves the village for any reason, we should assume we have less than a month to get away. Do you have a good idea of a place we can escape to in the human lands, Eirlathion? From what you’ve told me, we should be less likely to draw the interest of dark elves if we are among the humans who they have no interest in.]
[What!?] An angry voice suddenly cuts into our conversation and Nymph’s projection appears right in front of my face, blocking my view of Eirlathion. [Asa! How can you talk about going away!? Are you leaving me?]
“Nymph!” I respond in an angry tone, switching to English so I could easily be more ‘eloquent’ with my thoughts. “I told you already, this is about me and Tia staying alive! Do you honestly think you have the power to fight off someone powerful enough to serve the queen!? That is what you could be fighting if we simply stay here! You may be confident in your power, but I am not willing to risk mine and Tia’s lives as well as the boys’ futures on you being selfish!”
“Selfish! Asa, I… I just want to protect you!” Nymph said.
“Yes! You want!” I said with a very harsh edge to my voice. “You want to be the one to protect me, you want it to the point that you’ve selfishly stopped thinking about what is the best way to actually keep us alive!” I yelled at her. “Now, if you do not have anything reasonable to contribute, I would appreciate it if you would stop interrupting!”
Nymph went silent. There were tears, or at least a facsimile of them, in her projection’s eyes. There was a deadly silence over the room. Eirlathion sat to the side with a panicked look on his face.
[Ahh… Asa, this “sikitii” is almost ready to become a “lukis,” it might not be…]
[Stop talking Eirlathion!] Nymph yelled at Eirlathion as he seemed to be trying to talk me down from my position in the argument he didn’t even know the details of.
He jumped as though he was just burned when Nymph yelled at him like that. Even Eirlathion, huh? The people here really are afraid of Nymph.
Nymph looked back at me. “I’ll make sure none of them leave!” Nymph said. “Nobody is going to leave this village for any reason! So, you and Tia will not be in danger. I’ll watch them, so… if Asa can just give me the mana for it then I can stop all of them!”
I sighed at her offered solution. “So, you want to lock this village down and become it’s dictator? Rule this village through fear?” I said. “Fine. You just scared Eirlathion enough that I don't think I can get any more productive conversation done. I will go along with your solution until I can think of something better. But I will tell you this. I am going to loose a lot of respect for you, and it will become worse the longer this goes on. I might even grow to hate you.”
There were several sharp pops from the wood that Nymph’s true tree body was made of. Reading Nymph’s mood, I could tell her entire real body was tensing up from the turbulent emotions she must be feeling. “I don’t care.” She said under her breath before her projection disappeared.
Well, that's just great. Could there possibly have been a worse time for Nymph to throw a fit? Well, I did warn her. It's angry Asaren time. Eirlathion, like the other elves outside before, is afraid of Nymph. It's going to be very hard to get good information out of him now. Guess that means hot anger is not an option. Cold anger then. Nymph is going to regret this little outburst.
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Ooh, an actual explanation for dark elves to hunt down grey elves, and for ordinary elves to hate grey elves. That's new.
As for Nymph, I feel like Asa could and should have handled her interactions with them better, she's treating Nymph like an unruly teen, rather than the young child with the power of a demigod that Nymph very obviously acts like.
On a related note, Nymphs tantrums feel far more annoying and irritating this time around.
This explanation actually was in the previous version, it was just treated as a superstition rather than fact. All I did was make the explanation reality, make it stronger, and make it more impactful.
As for Asa, she literally does not have the time to treat her cautiously and with kid gloves. Plus, her life is literally on the line with this one and she is caught between 3 different forces putting pressure on her. Just earlier, this individual that has no need for sleep was trying to sleep off her stress. (And got rudely awakened in response, by Nymph no less.)
Asa may know how to handle children better than anyone else here, but her patience and ability to handle stress is not infinite.
@Jemini that's what I was referring to, though I could have worded my comment better to make that clear.
Asa though, while the stress is understandable, frankly Nymph is a threat, and treating them carelessly just as dangerous as everything else Asa has to worry about, maybe not directly to her and the people close to her, but certainly to the elves of the village, and there are reasons beyond morality why their deaths or persecution at the hands of Nymph would be bad.
It's not as though there isn't evidence of how dangerous Nymph might be, even if Nymph hasn't yet done anything like what pre rewrite Nymph did, if they ever will, but the reactions of Eirlathion and the other elves whenever Nymph is angry are suggestive, and there's no telling how long Asa will continue to have any influence over Nymph, or before another tantrum turns deadly for someone who only Nymph believes deserves it.
@Jemini This explanation sounds more believable as a superstition than as fact. Even if dark elves are truly evil, I have a hard time believing that they see such matters in the same way. They'd surely have their own perspectives, their own creation myth and religion and their own reasons.
There's always more than one side to a story when it comes to different groups of people, especially when they live entirely apart from each other. In this case, they not only have virtually no contact with each other, but they hate each other and try to kill each other.
We've seen how Eirlathion and these villagers have incomplete or inaccurate ideas about certain things like meditation techniques, mana replenishment, magic, deities and reincarnation. If I was Asa, I would not put too much faith in his "facts" and world view.
Similarly, I would point out that not even the "good guys" in this story are being entirely good. Nymph has been itching to kill a bunch of villagers. Wanting to kill them for threatening to harm Asa and Tia is, perhaps, understandable. But if Asa hadn't been so firm with Nymph in telling her to knock it off and trying to explain why it would be a bad idea, I'm sure she would have killed several of them by now and things would've gone downhill fast.
Then there's how these villagers are considering the murder of infant children whose only crime is having a certain color of skin or, perhaps, having their bloodline or heritage remain uncertain. That incompetent villager, in particular, was arguing that even if the twins were only grey-looking due to illness, they should still dispose of them.
From a certain point of view, what Nymph and these villagers want to do is not all that different from what the dark elves were trying to do. Nymph doesn't seem to care who or how many she has to kill in order to protect Asa and Tia. Both these villagers and the dark elves seem to want to kill the twins due to their skin color and both want to do so under the belief that it may be the only way to eliminate a threat to their continued existence. And, yet, the dark elves are the real "demons" and the *literal* personification of evil?
Further, I haven't forgotten how these elves *kidnap* infant human children in order to turn them into energy-vampire food for their own children. Granted, it sounds like these elves must do this in order for their children to survive. But couldn't they be a bit nicer towards them? They have these human children become their children's slaves - doing practically everything for them from dressing them to their chores to being their body guards. These humans won't have any choice in how they live their lives. And the dark elves are supposed to be the evil ones?
Also, I have to wonder if what Eirlathion said about half-breeds having the power to defeat the demons and become heroes is common knowledge. If so, then the reaction of these villagers makes even less sense. Instead of being afraid of or hostile towards grey elf children, they should be especially kind.
At worst, they should insist that they be handed over to their queen or someone in their capitol city where they could be raised in secrecy and relative safety. Boom, problem solved: These villagers wouldn't have to worry about being targeted by the dark elves anymore and they could be secure in the knowledge that potential elf heroes are being given the best care and chance to grow up to become powerful protectors of this forest realm.
For that matter, why is there a danger of their queen or someone powerful in this forest - aside from dark elves - coming to kill off the twins? I don't get it. Wouldn't they see them as potential champions and assets against dark elves or even others, like humans and orcs? Is it because they would feel threatened by their potential?
Finally, I have to wonder why the dark elves don't try to kidnap such grey elf children to raise as their own or kidnap and rape elf women to make half-breeds in order to gain their own champions. Eirlathion did mention the caveat, "if raised correctly"... It leaves open the possibility that such half-breeds, being so powerful, could turn into their worst nightmare if raised *incorrectly* or raised by their enemies. Instead, dark elves always try to just kill them?
@Xpacetrue Well, glad to see you are enjoying the story in exactly the way I intended for you to enjoy it.
Yeah, there's a lot of incorrect knowledge and decisions made out of passion rather than logic flying around all over the place here. I will say this though, I have not given all the details about the dark elves yet. (I've kept the part about them being corrupted elves, but changed the part about how they get corrupted. That will be revealed later.)
I will admit though, I have not 100% committed to the idea on whether the dark elves' reasoning for attacking the village is fact or superstition. You make a pretty strong case for the latter here. All I've done is make it so Eirlathion fully believes this is the dark elves' way of thinking.
Definitely something to consider. (I will leave the decision I eventually arrive at a mystery for the sake of continuing the hearty debate among readers. However, in light of the above arguments, I will say that I might have been subconsciously pulling in the superstition direction again in light of what I did with the previous version.)
@Xpacetrue In regards to the issue on how the villagers are reacting to them though, it is actually normal human nature to be risk-averse. So, let me put it to you in the form of a risk-reward dynamic. Say, you are given a coin to flip, 50/50 chance. If it comes up heads, you will get a security guard who can potentially help you fight off someone who is out to kill you. If it comes up tails, you, your family, and everyone you know in your community will all die.
That's the decision they are (or believe themselves to be) facing. What decision would you make under these circumstances? There is, as has been pointed out, a variety of reactions from the villagers. There are enough of them in support of keeping the girls alive to stave off the ones wanting to kill them, and every time the idea of killing them gets brought up it faces some pretty firm opposition.
I would actually suggest reading a book called "The Lost Gate" by Orson Scott Card (same guy who wrote Ender's Game.) It has a very similar dynamic where they have a living individual capable of bringing their clan power, but if they are discovered it will mean a war that could wipe them all out all for the goal of not allowing their clan to have this one individual alive. There is a similar diversity of reactions to this as well. It is also similar in how the ones out for the kill will state their reasoning clearly but the ones out to keep them alive are not saying the selfish reason and appeal to simple morality instead.
@Jemini Ahhh... So a lot of this is meant to seem uncertain or even a bit conflicting at this point in the story. I just hope us readers get more explanations down the road. Of course, I don't expect spoilers.
Just to be clear, I don't have a problem with dark elves being evil. I just don't like Eirlathion's explanation of *why* dark elves are evil - as if they are born evil just because they are different and are enemies. His reasoning seems flawed as well as too convenient and bigoted. This also means I have issues with his story of why each race as their demon counterpart and how half-breeds often become heroes to fight their demons.
As for whether or not the dark elves should or should not be truly evil: I don't think it would bother me, either way. But, I'd say it makes things much easier for an author to give the protagonists enemies who is/are truly evil rather than just misunderstood.
Having a story's conflict arise out of misunderstandings and a lack of communication can work, if done well - if explained, told in a believable way and if planned out. But I think it often comes across as convoluted and confusing. And there is a risk of readers feeling like they had their emotions toyed with.
If the antagonists are truly evil, that makes things simpler. Though, I suppose some readers may be disappointed with that for being too predictable or 'not deep enough' or some such. Not me, though. I'm the type that likes happy endings, good triumphing over true evil and the tried and true - with some variations and twists along the way, though.
@Xpacetrue There is actually a reason I went with the half-breed vigor approach here. Several, in fact. (So many it would take forever for me to innumerate them all and I would still miss over half of them.)
I think the simplest explanation would be that it is related to a part of yin-yang philosophy. Not in a cultivation super power-up sort of way, but as in the actual axiom attached to the philosophy in a thematic way. (As in, some kind of yin-yang balance is not the source of their power. I have a different explanation for why they become heroes, but the reason I chose to cast them in this role is because of yin-yang philosophy.) Yin-yang philosophy in turn is something created from a lifetime of very wise people form ancient times observing the way humans actually work and actually thrive that says balance is the best path toward prosperity.
So, a majority of the other reasons I could attribute to the reasons for the half-breeds being better are more a consequence of them being a rider on the yin-yang philosophy, but that doesn't make them any less valid. And, I also plan to have this story thematically conscious of the implications of taking the real philosophy behind yin and yang into account. So, if you can easily think of an area in real life where the theme of "balance" is a route to a good life, I have probably considered it. Even if I haven't considered it, the mere act of keeping the theme in mind will probably make me subconsciously have the story conform to some of the less intuitive aspects of balance as well. (Asaren's meditation is already predicated on balancing energy coming in with energy going out.)
(I will say though, there is a definite true evil entity in this story. I'm not going to say whether or not the demons are within the scope of true evil. I will at the very least though say that the concept of corruption applies to them pretty well. So, they are definitely not "actually good and just misunderstood.")