“We’ve returned to see you once more, L’Lan’e’frea.”

 

Oh wow, yay~…

The Elders came back~.

 

It’s not like anything changed overnight; I still really didn’t care for these rude guys. Actually, if anything I was a bit more pissed off with them, since now I know the other elves seem to have been discriminating against Til all this time.

 

It took me a while, but I actually managed to tease out Til’s backstory from him some more last night. Apparently the wood elves and fire elves used to fight all the time because of the feud between the Spirits. At one point the wood elves sent an envoy, Chireelia’s son, to the fire elves to try and negotiate peace, and (surprise!) the envoy got taken prisoner because the fire elves never agreed to any such thing. In an interesting Romeo and Juliet kinda twist of fate, though, the envoy man from the wood elves fell in love with the fire elves’ chieftain’s daughter. Totally a surprise, since the fire elf women look vastly different to the wood elf women, as do the men.

 

Anyways yeah, the two had a baby together.

 

The fire elf tribe of course didn’t like such crossbreeding, so they kicked all three of them out, but not before really shredding up Til’s dad. Til’s mom tried to heal him while they made the journey across the lands back to Til’s hometown, but in the end he died pretty soon after they finally made it back. Chireelia took Til’s mom in and tried to look after the two of them, but nobody else in the wood elf village was as willing to be kind to the ‘different’ elves, and so Til’s mom was super alienated. In the end she ran away one day, leaving just Chireelia to look after Til, and a short while later, the fire elves sent a messenger to them, declaring a cease fire. Til’s mother must have done something to convince them, because in the letter it cited Til as the reason why they no longer wished to fight.

 

Do you get what I’m saying here?

Did you understand what I just said?

Til’s the whole reason that they’re no longer at war with the fire elves!

He grew up here almost his entire life!

He was only born in the first place because they played stupid games and won stupid prizes!

And yet they still treat him like an outsider!

 

Maybe Chireelia did her best to try to raise him and give him love, but she’s what, one person out of an entire elven town? There’s no way he wouldn’t feel left out and weird like that! No wonder Til had such a complex about it!

 

So yeah, I don’t particularly have any new warm fuzzy feelings for these ‘Elders of the wood elves’ who should have convinced their people to behave differently. Still, Til is here next to me watching everything, and that is his grandmother over there, so I guess I should just treat this like my in-laws are visiting or something and just practice being patient.

 

Yes yes, come in I guess.

Siiit, siiit. Take a load off~.

I’d bring you guys a drink, but I don’t have any cups! Haha.

Mhmm, I won’t threaten to kill you guys this time, I promise~.

I’ll be a good little plant this time, you’ll see~.

 

Eh, I have a feeling Til’ll forgive me in the end so long as I don’t do anything to hurt his grandma, so maybe I have more wiggle-room than I think I do here? I’ll hear them out like everyone wants, sure, but that doesn’t mean I have to be particularly nice about it, right? Well, how about I take a chance to test the waters, then?

 

=So what is it this time? Here to talk more about how weird I am?=

 

The Elders except for Chireelia looked amongst themselves like they weren’t sure what to say. Eventually they all just focused their gazes on Chireelia, I guess designating her as the least hated of the bunch. She didn’t look particularly happy about being the one singled out to talk, but she still didn’t lose her characteristic patient smile, so I guess it wasn’t a very unexpected move on their part. Chireelia cleared her throat and took a step forward, re-strengthening her smile even while her eyes showed how exasperated she was with what she was about to say.

 

“Well you see, L’Lan’e’frea, we spoke amongst ourselves and came up with a few clarifying questions that we would like to ask.”

 

Of course they did. What a surprise~.

 

=And what would those be?=

 

“Hrmm… Well, how do I ask this politely...? L’Lan’e’frea, do you happen to have any ears? It’s alright if they aren’t actually real, just anything that happens to look like ears would count.”

 

Um? Can’t she just look at me and tell? Unlike me, their eyes are 100% real and functioning like eyes, right? And the fronds that make up my ‘hair’ aren’t so thick that they shouldn’t be able to ask such a thing without knowing. I glanced towards Til who’d been stationed next to me this whole time, but he just raised his eyebrows and slightly nodded their way, so I guess I just have to go ahead and answer this weird question of theirs, huh?

 

=Ummmm no? No, I don’t think my seed gave me any ears.=

 

The Elders’ faces moved in tiny almost imperceptible ways when I mentioned my seed, but the moment I started getting suspicious as to why, Chireelia quickly began talking once again.

 

“Yes, we thought as much, but it was important to confirm it with you first. L’Lan’e’frea, would you have happened to get a glance at your host before they completely decayed?”

 

Oh? Oh. Oh man. A question about mom! It’s been a little minute since- Actually, besides Til and these Elders, I guess I’ve never really had a reason to bring her up much outside of my own thoughts, huh? It’s surprising that I don’t have a single bad feeling about talking about her.

 

=Yup! I didn’t see a ton, mind you, but I did get a few lucid peeks at my mom every now and then.=

 

I suppose I should leave out how gruesome a sight she made all messed up and dead like that. Or the fact that she was still very much beautiful, even despite it all. I’m not sure that they would understand. It’s possible that that one asshole from yesterday might even scold Til again, although it’s much less likely now after I put a little bit of fear into ‘em.

 

“Hmm, good, we hoped so. And this ‘mom’ of yours… She was a human?”

 

=Good guess! Is it obvious?=

 

I chided my seed soooo many times for making me look like an uncanny-valley freak, but I guess it did a good enough job for at least the elves to realize what it was going for. Good job, seed! I shouldn’t have been so harsh on you.

 

“I suppose it would be more obvious to us than to others… Typically, when an elf or even rarely when one of the wild-folk becomes a L’Lan’e’frea, they keep their characteristic ears. The fact that you have none and yet look so obviously humanoid can only mean that you came from a human… Strange though it is.”

 

Oh okay, I get it. So it’s not that my seed did such a good job in their eyes, but that I’m just missing the right pieces for them to be able to tell. Guess it’s like looking at a calico cat and knowing they must be female. I wonder how many different corpse plants they must have seen over the years to come to that realization? How long must this whole territory war have been going on for them to get so much data about my kind like this?

 

And why the heck are all the Elders looking like they might pee themselves?

 

=...What is it? Is there something else go-=

 

“Aaaah, Chireelia! Just tell her already!”

 

The other female Elder who’d been slightly to the side of Chireelia was the one who spoke up. She gave Chireelia a look like she just couldn’t understand why she hadn’t kept talking, and then took a step forward herself and decided to continue on for the group.

 

“Chireelia said it, right? A human becoming a L’Lan’e’frea is strange!”

 

Strange...? I’m guessing from our meeting yesterday that she was the one in the group who took a particular interest in my kind the most, so if she says it’s ‘strange’ then she’s probably seen enough evidence to back it up.

 

=Okay yeah I get it, it’s strange. Mind telling me what’s so strange about it?=

 

I tapped a couple of my wrapped up tendrils against the others. It was an impatient gesture that totally didn’t go missed by the lady-Elder. Seems she lost all the wind in her sails to continue talking, so Chireelia just rolled her eyes in an unimpressed way and became the group’s speaker, once again.

 

“It requires a very large amount of magic power for a being to form a L’Lan’e’frea in death. Elves inherently have a large amount of mana in their bodies, as do a small sect of the wild-folk. On rare occasions, even some trees and plants in the forest can also be so blessed by the Spirit that they may one day live long enough to store vast amounts of magic inside of them. And of course the invaders sent from the other Spirits are usually quite gifted, and those are typically what become L’Lan’e’freas most often… However the human races, although able to use magic, do not usually become strong enough magically to reach the L’Lan’e’frea threshold. Any that would manage to be are typically too revered to be left alone to rot and decay in the forest as one must to produce your kind.”

 

Yeah, you know what, I guess Chireelia has a really good point there. It’s pretty odd that my mom was powerful enough to have me grow on her, and yet no one ever went looking for her. She was definitely pretty too, so she should have at least had a suitor or two that got curious, right? And besides, if she was so gifted magically, then how did she even manage to die there in the first place?

 

I guess I stopped to tap at my ‘mouth’ in thought for too long, because the same Elder guy who started out questioning me yesterday suddenly spoke up and broke my focus.

 

“We believe… that this unusual case might just be the reason for your strangeness, L’Lan’e’frea.”

 

Yeah, of course they do. In the end, it always comes back to mom, doesn’t it?

 

_____

AN: Alright, we have about 3 more chapters of this ark and then it's back to the regularly scheduled program of wiggling around and eating things!

If you're enjoying my story, please consider supporting me on patreon at patreon.com/user?u=63286737 and getting access to 10 chapters early. Thank you for reading~