Volume 1 Chapter 2 Solitude

Chapter 2 Solitude

I

Weathers were capricious. The sky was nearly clear just twenty minutes ago but now it was filled with murky grey clouds and there were even sounds of rumbling thunder coming from the distance.

Those murky grey clouds covered the moon and blocked the moonlight, making the whole world even darker.

Some small raindrops commenced to fall from the sky and the air around became humid.

“A storm rain is coming. This kind of weather can be dangerous in the forest,” drawled the elf girl who was trying to help the siblings find the way back home.

“’How far are we from the northern outskirt?” queried Floria.

“Pretty far. My village is nearby, you two can sleep in my house tonight and set out tomorrow morning,” answered the elf.

After about half an hour, the three arrived at the gate of the elven village of Dream Forest.

Elven architectures were completely exotic for humans. Both Yanni and Floria had never seen architectures like those built by elves. Even the most detailed books of architectures said nothing about elven architectures, because elves were a mysterious race to humans.

The whole village was built by white marbles. Elves were good at carving the pillars too, and there were miscellaneous styles of pillars built to bear the rooves. Statues were also used to decorate the buildings.

The sky was covered by those black clouds now so that there were no moonlight shining down, thus the siblings couldn’t see the architectures clearly.

“This is a big village,” exclaimed Yanni.

“Where are the other elves? Are they sleeping?” questioned Floria.

Although it was a big village. It seemed extremely silent as if it had become some kind of ruins instead of a village where people can live.

“They’re gone. They passed away one by one gradually. My mother said that I will be the last elf in this world. Now she has passed away, which means I’ve really become the last elf,” sighed the elf girl sadly.

“So there are no other elves living in this world?” asked Yanni.

“Yes, the era of elves will end soon, and the era of humans will rise,” breathed the elf girl.

“I’m sorry to hear that. You must be lonely living here alone,” Yanni reassured her.

“I am lonely for sure. Elves can live for hundreds of years and I am only 12 right now. It’s only the beginning of my life of solitude,” the elf looked up to the empty night sky, thinking about her uncertain future.

As soon as she had said this, the raindrops started to be poured down from the sky. They commenced to beat upon the marble structures built by elves, giving off strange sounds.

The wind which would later became a storm began to blow heavily against everything and trees started to scream in it. There were also white lightnings in the distance, which whiten the dark night in a ghastly way.

The soil under the feet of the three was soon moisture by the heavy rain an became muddy.

The dead silence in this ruined village of elves was quickly broken by the attacking storm rain.

Quickly, the elf girl led the siblings to her house. It was big house with two floors and a balcony. The elf took the siblings to the second floor and showed them an empty room with two beds.

“This room once belonged to my parents, but since they were gone, this room has become empty. You two can sleep here and we’ll set out tomorrow morning,” advised the elf.

“We’ll sleep here, thank you,” concurred the siblings.

There was a sad look in the eyes of the elf girl. Obviously, she was thinking about the memories with parents. Now her parents were gone. All the other elves were gone too. The whole village was gone and had nearly become ruins.

She had to live in this silent empty village days after days. This kind of emptiness was hard to imagine. Elves could live for hundreds of years. This was just the beginning of the life of solitude.

Outside the delicately decorated window, the storm was still sweeping the whole forest, trees screaming, flowers bending, inky clouds gathering, the moon hiding.. Raindrops started to beat against the elven glass and blurred the whole window, as well as the outside world.

Lightnings descended from the high heavens and fell on the ground, blasting the world with their mighty energies. They roared ragefully, and at the distance, there were trees on fire, which was, however, soon put off by the heavy rains. Only some smoke survived, lingering and wailing in the lifeless air.

The moon escaped from the clouds but was soon caged by them once again. Some rays of moonlight survived but they couldn’t dispel the darkness at all and darkness would rule finally. Suddenly, all the lightning disappeared and the world became silent once again, except the raindrops, which were still singing their triste laments.

“If my parents were alive and knew that I took two humans back home, they would be angry,” muttered the elf. There were some barely detectable tears appearing inside her eyes.

“I’m sorry, humans have done awful things to the forest,” apologized Yanni.

“I used to hate humans in the past but now, I find that hatred means nothing and changes nothing. We’re all controlled by a greater power and we cannot change it. Anyway, good night, humans,” whispered the elf.

“Good night,” returned Yanni.

II

Midnight.

Aislina was wandering in her dream.

In her dream there was a black forest where everything was withering and rotting.

There was a scarlet-hair girl in this forest. She looked like Aislina so much as if she were her twin sister. However, her skin was as pale as a corpse.

“ᛉᚮᚱᚵᛆᚿᛆ” [Morgana,] greeted Aislina.

“ᛑᚯᛑᛆ᛫ᛑᛂᛌᛌᛆ᛫ᛐᚡᛆᛆ᛫ᛉᛅᚿᚿᛁᛌᚴᚮᚱ,ᛆᛁᛌᛚᛁᚿᛆ.ᛆᛚᛚᛆ᛫ᛉᛆᚿᚿᛁᛌᚴᚮᚱ᛫ᛌᚴᛆ᛫ᚱᛂᚿᛆᛌ.ᛑᛂ᛫ᛅᚱ᛫ᚠᛁᛂᚿᛑᛂᚱ᛫ᛆᚡ᛫ᛌᚴᚮᚵᛂᚿ.” [Kill those two humans, Aislina. All humans shall be cleansed. They’re enemies of the forest,] commanded Morgana.

“…” [But they’re only kids like me!] argued Aislina.

“…” [Well, soon you will find out what they really are and you will regret for not killing them right now,] smirked Morgana.

“…” [Perhaps not every human is evil,] whispered Aislina.

“…” [Let’s wait and see,] sneaked Morgana.

Gradually, she walked into the shadow of this black forest and disappeared.

III

Wee hours.

Yanni woke up from a nightmare, where he was chased by another mutant spider in this creepy dream forest.

The storm had ceased but it was still raining outside. The ethereal sounds of raindrops made it hard to distinguish dream and reality.

“I want to pee, Floria. Do you think that elves have toilets?” asked Yanni.

“They’re elves, not barbarians,” murmured Floria, half awake, half asleep.

“Why don’t we tell that elf girl what are we going to do? If we fail to find the Herb of Recovery, he will die because of his disease,” pursued Yanni.

“She won’t help us. We’re humans, and humans have done terrible things to her forest. We’ll find another way to cure dad, I promise,” sighed Floria.

Quietly, Yanni got up and walked out of the room. He found that the elf girl was sitting on the balcony, watching the scenery of the night alone.

The black clouds in the sky had nearly disappeared and the silver moon was shining high on the sky. The moonlight was slightly washing away the dirtiness and wounds of the forest caused by the thunderstorm and reflexing on the white marble of elven architecture, the moonlight seemed extremely pure and beautiful.

“Hey, what are you doing there?” inquired Yanni in a gentle voice.

Although Yanni was a little afraid of that elf girl since her magic was powerful and she hated human, he thought that she was pretty pitiful. She had lost her parents and there was no one she could talk to in usual times.

“I’m thinking about … things,” whispered the elf.

“Uh … could you tell me your name? You haven’t told us your name yet,” asked Yanni. He walked to the balcony tentatively.

“My name is Aislina, and you?” replied the elf girl, turning her gaze to Yanni.

“I’m Yanni,” Yanni introduced himself and sat down besides Aislina the elf. Moonlight had dyed her hair a blue-grey colour. She looked at Yanni and there was no readable emotion on her face. Her expression was as cold as the ice in the winter. Yanni had no idea what she was actually thinking about.

“You and your sister love each other. I can sense that. No matter what kind of dangerous you face, you can count on each other and you’ll never be lonely,” drawled Aislina.

“You … you saved the lives of Floria and me, Aislina, and we owe your our life. If you want us to do anything, we’ll help you. Maybe we can be friends so that you will be less lonely…” stammered Yanni.

“Friends? There has been no elf making friends with humans in the history,” Aislina smiled slightly.

“But you can be the first,” suggested Yanni.

Aislina said nothing but chuckled softly.

“Is it somehow funny?” Yanni scratched his head.

“I’m just happy. I haven’t chatted with anyone in a long time. I hate to admit it, but today is my happiest day since my mother passed away,” explained Aislina.

“Really? But why?” queried Yanni.

“Well, I slaughtered a demonic mutant spider and saved two lives today, even though whom I save were humans, and humans were technically my enemies,” narrated Aislina.

“If you want to defeat your enemies, you’d better make friends with some of them so that you’ll know them better,” advised Yanni.

“That’s right. I really hope that one day I can defeat you humans and then I … we … will be able to see the star sky once again,” Aislina looked upon the starless sky of the night.

Enemies, and allies, those concepts were not important to those who were in confusion at all. No matter whether being a humans or an elf, the only thing that really matters was dispelling the emptiness inside the soul. Emptiness was the biggest enemy of every creature living on this earth.

When a solitary soul met another solitary soul, emptiness would be gone at least for a moment, but the different paths they chose to walk on might break everything in the end. After all, they might belong to different worlds.

Though the sky was nearly clear now because the storm had ceased and the moon was shining high on the sky, it was still dark in the balcony. Barely detectable tear was slightly streaming down on Aislina’s cheeks but Yanni didn’t see that…

III

Although the cosmos seemed chaotic, there were some rules inside it.

They called it fate. They lived because of it, and they died because of it; they loved because of it, and they hated because of it; fate brought separation, and it also brought reunion.

And the strangest thing about fate was that it could make people from two different worlds meet each other, and their paths of life will cross.

The next morning, Dream Forest.

After that horrible thunderstorm, the whole sky became clear. The sun was shining at east. The murkiness brought by the grey clouds yesterday was gone. The whole forest became vigorous once again, at least for now.

Birds were twitting and flying around trees, with rays of sunlight dancing with them. The air in the forest was moisture due to the rain yesterday, creating a fragrant smell mixed with the scent of flower and grass.

After a journey which lasted for approximately a whole hour, Aislina and the siblings arrived at the outskirt of Dream Forest, where the air became choking because of the necrological smoke emitted by the factory nearby and some trees there were blackened and withering.

On the surface of the rivers there, some black oil-like liquid as well as corpses of fishes with despair looks in their eyes could be found. The grass which used to grow at the river banks was dying too. The power of Life inside them had been fully eaten up by the more powerful contamination inside the water.

Aislina didn’t say anything but ignored those polluted scenes. However, there was still an angry, or to be precise, sad look on his face.

The necrological smoke which rose from the gigantic chimneys of the Grey Factory could be seen clearly now. Those black pillars dyed the air in this whole area grey. If looking more carefully, small black particles could be seen in the air.

Those particles could come into the lungs of animals and humans, and after those particles accumulated inside the body, something bad could happen.

“Those trees are familiar here, I think I know how to go back to the factory from here,” Floria broke the dead silence.

“Since that, we shall bid farewell to each other now. You have promised to me that you’ll never come back to this forest ever again, right?” drawled Aislina, a slight smile lingering on her face.

“Yes, we have promised that, and a promise is a promise. I know we’re not welcome in Dream Forest so we won’t come back ever again. It’s a pity, in fact, Yanni and I like this forest very much. It’s a place we can be close to the world of nature. Anyway, thank you for saving our lives, Aislina. We owe you our lives,” replied Floria.

“Umm … In fact, I have changed my mind. If you like my forest, you can come back here to visit me,” purred Aislina, her face flushing a little.

“That’s great,” exclaimed Yanni.

“But there’s one problem. How could we find you in the forest? You know, this forest is too big and it’s like a labyrinth. Even though I am better with directions than my brother, walking in the deep forest will still be a great challenge to me,” questioned Floria.

“Oh, since that. I gave this to you. This is a magical map of Dream Forest. It will show you where you’re in this forest. You won’t get lost. There are many wonderful places in this forest. If you’re interested, I can guide you to visit those places,” suggested Aislina.

She then gave the siblings a map made of parchment. The whole forest was drawn on that map and there was a small arrow on the map which pointed at their current position. When they were moving, the position of the arrow will change too, because it was a magical map.

With this map, they could always find the right way in this labyrinth-like forest without getting lost. They could also use this map to visit Aislina in the village of elves.

It was like a dream.

Although Floria and Yanni had read a lot of stories about fairies, magic, and mythological creatures, they were always told by adults that those kind of things were imagined by poets and bards.

However, they met Aislina today and there were mystic power inside her, which she used to blast that mutant spider. And this map was made with magic too. Magic really existed, which meant there were still a lot of things which humans hadn’t discovered yet, but was discovery a righteous things?

We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

Anyway, humans had already voyaged far. With the power of necrology, humans had built factories, and they had conquered this world …

“By the way, the walls in elven architecture aren’t soundproof, so I heard what you were talking about last night, and …” Aislina held out her hand and on her palms were some blue glowing herb.

“The herb of Recovery! Dad is saved!” cheered Yanni.

“Thank you, Aislina. After all, given that we humans have done such awful things to the forest but you’re still willing to help us,” expressed Floria.

“Anyway, goodbye, friends. I know that we’ll meet each once again,” Aislina smiled.