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I turn 16 today. Many things have changed since I arrived at the haven. My mark has shown, though I have to hide it, which means my change will be soon. I have a new sword, sent to me by Justin, to work better with my new height and strength; this one's a curved sword made of mithril with the rune of fire carved into the hilt. We haven’t left since I arrived, but I have started to receive letters from Justin, I miss him very much. He says not much has changed in the elvish kingdom (that he knows of), and that there isn't any news from my mother. No one has seen or heard from Jade still, I can only hope she's safe.
Our training has intensified and I now receive specialized training considering my skill level, the monks have created a magical obstacle course for me. It's different every time and the 'enemies' actually move on their own for better practice. We are working with staves now, as well as bows and swords. My magic lessons seem fairly basic compared to what the other elves would be learning back home, so Justin has been sending me spell lists to practice as well as books on the various creatures of the realm, mostly the ones humans are ignorant of as the library here has much on human known crafts and such. All the others have received their guardians and gems recently, which must mean we will be going out soon. Guardians work a little differently with humans; they're only given after receiving special training, and that's only given to those who will be warriors or protectors like us.
My garden is growing many herbs and useful flowers and such. I also help with the monks' kitchen garden in some of my free time. It’s peaceful here, but there is a sense of trepidation among the monks, something must be happening in the realm that they won’t tell us yet.
I have also managed to improve on Kraine’s longevity potion, but haven’t been able to replicate it due to the lack of incoming items that aren’t books. I have tested the potion on some of my blood plants. They no longer wither but are more susceptible to disease, I must fix that. I have also tested it on some normal plants in my garden, it causes them to age quicker until they reach maturity and they produce fruit sooner and longer, but leaves it rather small.
Jana hasn’t gone into her true form for years and she’s growing restless with the “little running room” there is here. She longs for the privacy and space to turn back to her true form and just run, if only for a small while. We both miss home and not having to hide our true identities from others. Perhaps we will have a chance to visit in the near future.
This morning it was my turn to help prepare breakfast. I made baked apples and cinnamon toast while the monks working in the kitchen prepared oatmeal and many other such things. The meals here are always fairly large, like small feasts, especially breakfast and dinner. I think the only reason breakfast is so large is because Seth eats more than any of us, even Jana who has two stomachs. Seth’s been going through a serious growth spurt lately; last year he was at least a full head shorter than me, and now he’s half a foot taller (I'm about 5' 7”). He’s gone from fairly cute in a young cat sort of way to absolutely handsome so quickly, I’m finding it hard to remember my dear betrothed half the realm away, which is silly because I’m sure Seth doesn’t feel the same way about me at all.
Today’s lesson was high level battle spells. Only Mella (Melody), Jana, and I are in the magic class, the boys don’t have quite as much of an affinity for spells as we do so they only ever learned the basics. I was having trouble concentrating today as Justin had sent me a letter via owl last night saying he would be sending me a gift today in celebration of my birthday. We have been sending our messages by bird for a long time as the monks don’t want us having too much contact with the outside world, and they like to look over the letters the temple does get. We don’t want them finding out about elves or any other humins. The only mail he sends not by bird are the books, which he sneaks into the new book deliveries sent to the temple every once and a while, though I’m not sure how. I just have to retrieve them from the cart before the monks get to examining them more closely. I have my own library section for all my books, which are kept under lock and key.
During lunch I sneak back to my room, I say that I am going to check one of my herbs, but I’m really checking for the message from Justin. Sure enough, there is a falcon perched atop my garden fence with a small parcel tied to his ankle. Justin always liked to send me the bird of my spirit form for special letters. I open the parcel and inside is a beautiful mithril ring with tiny gems imbedded into it. “To my beloved bride-to-be,” read the attached letter. I think he’s gotten even more romantic with each passing year. I put on the ring under my glove and rush out to the training field for sword lessons. If I’m late I’ll have to run laps, and as un-daunting as that sounds, I’d rather be practising my sword work.
Joran put me to work on my obstacle course, right now set up for sword work. “Whoever knocks down the most enemies wins, bonus points if you can destroy them, but you must also work together,” he tells me and Seth. The ‘enemies’ are made of clay today, and even though I could destroy them all easily I hold back, as usual, to avoid the river of questions the others would be sure to ask. Even still, I beat Seth with no competition; he’s unused to the course and doesn’t know the best way to hit a clay target. Joran then starts putting the others into the same course in pairs just like Seth and I. After everyone has gone through the course (with more than a little trouble, even with Jana) we move on to new techniques for fighting multiple enemies with and without help.
Gilder comes in later to reset the course for archery and sets me to it again while the others are doing target practice with throwing knives. The course is a little harder than I’m used to and is a welcome challenge, but after fifteen minutes of dodging and shooting I fall to one of the stronger ‘enemies’ for the first time in three months. Gilder comes to check on me, apologizing for making the course to hard for me to handle. I try to brush him off but I suddenly felt a shock of pain run through my arm when I lift it. “I’m actually glad for the challenge, though I’ll have to mend my shirt now. This will help me learn some new strategies for my archery.” Gilder just stares at me, wondering how I could possibly be glad about it when I’d barely made it to the halfway point.
He takes me to one of the healing rooms despite my protests that I’ll be fine and he doesn’t need to worry about me. One of the arrows had pierced my right arm and it was bleeding rather profusely. Instead of letting the monk, Harille, heal me, I tend to it myself. My right arm is the one with my mark and I don’t want him to find it, besides the fact that I need to practice self healing anyway. Because of the wound I was excused from the rest of the physical lessons for the day, and so I went to the library to review on unicorns and their healing properties. Finding nothing of interest, I start towards the dining hall to help the monks set the table.
All of a sudden, there’s a huge shaking in the haven and a loud crash, followed by the shrieking of cats. I run outside to find the gate wrenched open and a pack of monster sized wolves running around attacking the monks (they can only be the lupine werewolves, wolves bitten by the monsters that terrorize elven cities once every blood moon). Knowing that they couldn’t be here of their own accord, and that they can’t turn me into one of them, I start shouting at the monks to hurry inside and tend the wounded right away. Wielding my sword in one hand and dipping the other into my rune pouch I attack the wolves alone until the others finally arrive from the back grounds where they were receiving horse lessons (those were always Jana’s favourite as it reminds her of home, and is the closest thing she can get to actually going to her centaur form). I had to fight my usual misgivings towards killing wolves (the spirit form of Justin) but the fact that they were trying to kill us helped a bit. Mella starts forcing them back with barrier spells while Jana herds them towards Ethan, Seth and me. There seem to be more and more constantly coming. All of a sudden, the alpha jumps in front of us. He is unafraid of Mella’s spells and heads for her first, hungry for the power she shows. I run up behind him and jump on his great back, which turns out to be no small feat, even with my agility training. He tries to shake me off but I hold on too strongly for him and thrust the dagger usually hidden in my boot straight into the back of his neck. The great beast falls dead as I jump off; all the other wolves start to run in fear at their leaders death.
As soon as the melee has ended, I start to tend the wounded while the others carry them to the healing wing. I suddenly feel very light headed as the ground starts swaying beneath my feet. Blackness overtakes my mind and I lose consciousness.
I wake up later in the hospital wing to find myself lying in one of the beds with bandages on my legs and arms and around my waist. There’s a strange looking liquid in a glass on the table beside my bed. As I look around I find, to my surprise, not Harille by my bed, but Roan and Ethan. “Well, look who’s finally awake,” said Ethan, “You had us worried for a while there. You got pretty well chewed by those wolves.”
I think back to the battle and vaguely remember receiving several bites and scratches in the fight. “Ya, I guess I was so busy fighting that I forgot to notice the pain,” I laugh jokingly, wincing slightly at the tugging of stitches in my side, “I’ll be fine after a few days, I heal quickly.”
“I don’t think so,” says Roan, “Some of those cuts were fairly deep, they’ve had to stitch you up quite a bit. You should be allowed to return to your normal lesson schedule after a few weeks when you won’t be risking ripping your stitches out.”
“Where’s Harille? I know he’s usually the one to see people after they’ve awoken.” This was something that concerned me a bit, even though I know Ethan is training to be a healer like I am. If Harille's not here, then there must be more wounded than I had anticipated.
“He’s tending to the other monks at the moment, some of them are in worse condition then you right now. Now drink your medicine, you lost a lot of blood and need to replace some of those fluids.” Roan is nice and all but sometimes I think he worries too much about me, even with the stitches I’ll be out of here in a week tops. I drink the medicine to make him happy and he leaves the room.
“How long was I out, Ethan?”
“About long enough to miss supper and breakfast. Lunch just started so someone should be here soon with something for you to eat.” I did notice that I was really hungry, though I’m amazed I’ve been unconscious so long.
Within five minutes, Seth walked in with a tray heavy laden with soup, bread, fruit, and other such things. “The kitchen monks figured you might need to eat more than usual considering you’ve been passed out for the past twenty hours. If you can’t finish it all, I’d be happy to help you out.” He said this with a hungry gleam in his eyes, he probably hasn’t eaten lunch yet.
“Thank you Seth. I will probably need help eating all this. How did you possibly manage to carry all this over here from the kitchen?” I wonder this because even considering how much he eats, he manages to keep a very athletic figure; but the tray looks heavy even for him.
Seth laughed at my question. “I didn’t, I grabbed it from one of the monks and offered to carry it the rest of the way for him. He looked exhausted from carrying all this, and now I know why.” Seth rubbed his arms for effect, making me laugh at his exaggerated soreness.
“Well you won’t have to worry much about that for long, I should be out of here in a few days. Harille can’t seem to understand just how fast I can heal, so he’ll just have to see for himself.”
 Girl of the Dragons · Sun Jul 18, 2010 @ 11:41pm · 0 Comments |
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