“Maaaaluuuumaaaa!” I chanted whilst raising my arms. The fruit juice markings and wooden candles added to the atmosphere. Everything was perfect to revive the hero from legends. Right here. Right now.

“You know what? I’m not even gonna ask you what you’re doing and just do this,” Willow said.

As promised, she ignored me chanting demonic ritual-esque incantations while standing next to an actual demon and stepped up to the hero. She touched Chad on his leg, and let out a sigh before closing her eyes and focusing.

I grabbed Kelly’s hand and continued performing my completely necessary chant while the bewildered demon next to me squeaked in surprise, but then tried to ignore my antics and focused on the spectacle in front of us.

The hero’s stone skin rippled, flashing blue, green, and then orange. The legendary man moved as the color of his skin settled to natural levels all while the color of his hair… turned red. No, not red. Bright crimson.

I felt a grin form on my face.

Heck. Yes.

I knew the legends and prophecies were bullshit!

As I continued to grin and giggle like a gremlin who’d just pulled off the perfect prank, Willow stepped away from the figure while keeping an eye on him. The hero’s eyes opened and he briefly glanced at each of us in turn, then closed his eyes again and let out a sigh as his shoulders slumped. He murmured something under his breath, but I couldn’t hear it.

Everyone stood still in silence, waiting for Chad to open his eyes and say something again.

When his eyes finally opened, he simply said, “I thank you, young ones.”

…

In Elvish, I realized.

Really odd-sounding Elvish at that. Probably a version of Elvish a couple of centuries older than I was used to.

Willow and Kelly looked at me.

“He, uh, thanked us,” I translated.

The hero nodded and locked eyes with me. “Feinerena, I apologize in my brethren’s stead for treating you the way they did.”

“Eh, it’s fine. I mean, it’s not like--” I waved my hand before I realized what he’d just said and my eyes shot open.

“Wait! How do you know about that?! You… remember?!”

Another nod.

“I do indeed.”

“Oh… okay.” Reacting to the stares of my two companions, I whispered in English, “He remembers being stoned! Uh, being a stone!”

Before I noticed, he was right in front of me, reaching out with his hand. There was no way I was going to dodge an attack from a legendary hero, so I simply stood there and accepted my fate.

His hand then landed on my head and patted it.

“U-umm…?” I asked with profound calmness in my voice. Definitely no embarrassment or anything.

“Back in my time, I would have called you a foolish and impulsive youngin. But that exact trait of yours saved me from the eternity of my stone prison.” He smiled.

“You’re… welcome?”

Part of me felt like I should have been offended. But the larger, more mature part of me was glad that my bestie was still my bestie.

His hand finally pulled away. Ignoring the disappointment, I shook myself and asked, “Sooo… How exactly did this happen?” while gesturing at him.

He let out a sorrowful sigh. “It is a long tale, my child.”

Jeez, I wished he stopped talking like some wise old grandpa, though.

“It all started long ago when I was still a child…”

And thus, the pinnacle moment of my translator career began. If only Chad would skip all the unnecessary details…

Anyway…

He and another elf of his age had been born with the rare red hair and had bonded over being different from others. The other guy’s given name was Aredrhhel, but had always preferred being called just Dean for some reason.

“Wait… Dean?” I heard our resident demon whisper.

Dean had always been interested in everything related to magic, and would often murmur nonsensical gibberish words to himself while studying. He would also tell Chad about his dreams of another world with stone buildings reaching the skies, metallic constructs able to move on their own, tiny magical boxes allowing you to talk to people on the other side of the world…

“Wait,” I said, looking back at my two ex-classmates, who seemed to have realized the same thing.

I looked back at Chad.

“Dean. As in, Dean Karry?”

The elf’s eyes widened. “You… Know him?”

“Well… Did he ever happen to say…” I mentally swapped from Elvish to English. “Dammit! Why don’t you work?!” I repeated the usual line he’d used to say when frustrated by something.

“You do know him,” Chad confirmed to himself. He then nodded and continued, “That would explain the strange tongue you use to speak with your companions. You kids come from the same place as he did, don’t you?”

“Yeah, probably.” I shrugged.

Another nod. “Don’t worry. I will not judge you based on the actions of another one of your kind.”

“Umm, okay?”

Our kind? What a rude way to put it.

“So… What exactly did he do?”

I didn’t know that guy very well, other than his signature whining line whenever he inevitably failed at something. Still, my mind shuffled through several different possibilities. Maybe he had just been very rude to the wrong people? Or maybe he’d tried reinventing Earth food and found mayonnaise was poisonous to elves? Or maybe…

“His obsession with magic went into forbidden territory. Raising the dead, extending lifespan, summoning demons.” Chad glanced at Kelly. “In one of his experiments, his spell misfired and nearly killed me. Luckily, it only ended up turning my hair golden.”

Huh… Not what I expected.

Also, what the heck? So the legend wasn’t complete bullshit, saying that Chad had golden hair. Still…

“That was the last straw for the village elders and we tried to banish him, but he fought back.” He closed his eyes and his voice turned sorrowful. “As a friend, I tried talking to him. Tried to stop him.” He shook his head. “It didn’t work. We resorted to a battle.”

His eyes opened again.

“Neither one of us won. I ended up using a teleportation spell to send him far away from the village when I found I couldn’t win.” A frown appeared on his face. “For some reason though, the village elders celebrated it as my victory.”

“Oh shit…” I murmured, remembering the legend.

“But it wasn’t my victory. I merely sent the problem away. And my pride wouldn’t allow me to leave it be, so I decided to leave the village a few days later to search for him.”

“That’s bullshit!” I shouted. “The legends said that although you won, he put a curse on you or something, and then you died a few days later because of that!”

“I didn’t perish…” He shook his head. “But a curse, he did put on me.”

Huh?

“A week of searching and I found him again. He was furious and didn’t want to talk at all.” The hero let out a sigh through his nose. “He was holding back in the village. When we were alone, he unleashed the vilest of curses he had and petrified me while still leaving me conscious. And to add salt to the wound, he teleported my petrified form back into the elven city as a way to taunt us all for my loss.”

“Wait… but…”

Something was definitely not adding up. How in the world had he ended up being mistaken for a statue?!

“My fellow elves questioned my petrified presence, and concluded the sculptor must have made me.”

What the fuuuuck?!

“The sculptor, upon seeing me, seemed like he wanted to deny it. But with everyone praising him for his fine workmanship, he ended up not doing so.”

Fucking peer pressure?!

…

And people said elves were wiser than humans. These idiots were no better than humans!

BottledChaos

Hello there passing reader! I am the ghost of Christmas future (or something) and would like you to know that you can read 3 chapters ahead if you pledge on my patreon. Have a good day!