My Name Is (What?)

Everything was not fine.

This has to be the worst hangover I’ve ever had. I scrunch my face, willing away the behemoth of a headache that pounds against the back of my skull. When I try to lift a hand to rub my shut eyes out of habit, I realize I’m gripping something tightly. Flexing my fingers open feels like snapping dry twigs, and when I finally bring my hand to my face, I cringe at the smell – old leather and metal, like I’ve been playing with coins in my palm. Was I seriously that drunk?

This makes my eyes spring open. There’s no bright light overhead, or even a lamp to accost me. Something flickers in the corner of the room beyond my sight – is that fire? – but the place is otherwise dark and somber.

I don’t remember making it home last night, but surely I didn’t pass out in that izakaya, right? The interior looked nothing like this, anyway. But then, if my throbbing head is anything to go by, I could be misremembering the whole experience. When I try to swallow, my throat constricts, dry and scratchy. If my limbs weren’t already stiff as a board, I’m sure they would have gone rigid come my next train of thought.

No way somebody abducted me here… right?

Now I’m panicking, the confines of this thing I’m laying in suffocating me. I force my tired arm up to brace myself, where it bangs on something invisible above me. Glass. A rounded glass pane surrounds me, like I’m in some display at a museum. I press both palms to the sheer roof, pushing with as much force as I can manage.

To my surprise, it gives way rather easily, opening like a clam shell to the dungeon-like room. Shadows from the light source – torches, I realize – are cast against gray stone walls, revealing crawls of moss, dappled with white-and-yellow flowers. I sit up, ignoring the loud protests from my back and abdomen, to take the rest in.

It was like some historic grave. The sort only kings and queens of fairy tales might have. I’d heard of Camelot and Excalibur, all that nonsense, which was as close to fantasy as I’d ever get. I have no time, interest or energy for made up kiddie stories. But if King Arthur had been entombed anywhere, it’d probably be here.

That’s when I notice the weight on my lap, and that it shifted from my movement. What I thought was just another symptom of lethargy was actually a sword, fallen into the crook of the coffin next to me. A flawless shiny one, with rubies stuck in the handle part, the thing that had been in my sleeping, vice-like grip.

Before I can even try to piece any of this together, a gasp echoes beside me. When I whirl toward it, ready to leap up and fight – though I had absolutely no clue how to use an actual sword, I wouldn’t hesitate to chop my captor up with it – I’m accosted by a pair of wide golden eyes, staring up at me from the floor like I’d just risen from the dead. Which, by all accounts, it seems like I did.

“Lady Eluin,” the young woman says, jaw-dropped, “you’re… alive!”

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I’m so speechless that I can’t even manage a confused noise as I stare at this girl in complete silence. She has a heart-shaped face, olive skin warmed by the fires and her green hair, the same color as the moss growing around us. It’s bundled into a high ponytail, still long enough to disappear behind her back, and fanning across her face in thick bangs. Her eyebrows are the same shade, which strikes me – but not as much as her ears do, poking out of the hair dangling in front of them.

I don’t know much about fantasy crap, but there’s one thing so completely commonplace that I bet there isn’t a single person who couldn’t identify it. And it’s that people with long, pointy ears are elves.

“There’s no way,” I say, accidentally voicing and dismissing my own thoughts. I wave a hand and chuckle. “Nope, nuh-uh.”

Well, that settles it. I’m dreaming. I was really worried there for a second that I had been stolen away by some creep, but I must be tucked away, safe in my own bed, having one of the weirdest sleeps of my entire life.

“Er, my lady?” the girl says, timid and unsure. Then, emboldened by something, she sits forward, clasping her hands on the edge of my coffin-bed-thing. “I can’t believe this is really happening. Is this really happening? Gerrin is going to die from shock. No, wait, I can’t say things like that. What if… oh my, what if he really did die from shock? He’s getting old, you know… though I suppose by human standards he’s not even really that old… oh! Excuse me! Lady Eluin, I’m rambling in your presence. Please a-allow me the honor of escorting you out of here!”

She stands sharply, offering me a hand. I reach up to take it instinctively, because I really do want to get the hell out of here, but snatch it back just before I can brush her gloved fingers. “Wait a minute. Who are you, exactly? And where am I? Where are you going to take me?”

The elf-girl blanches, babbles for a moment, then immediately falls to her knees and bows her head. “My lady, forgive me! I’ve been demonstrably rude. My name is Ruelle. I’ve come by way of Highcreek. I stopped here at your shrine to pray to you, to beg for your guidance. I had no thought that you might awaken… no one in the world thought it possible, but… but, gracious me, you did!”

“Awaken?” I repeat, frowning. And what’s she talking about, a shrine? But when I really take another look around, I get an inkling; huge swaths of flowers lay around, fresh and old. Strange coins, bundles of cloth, incense, miscellaneous baskets and pouches filled with other offerings are scattered among them. Then, when I finally turn around, a giant stone statue leaves my jaw on the floor.

It’s… me! Unlike the walls, the statue is clean and polished to a near shine. Carved like a marble angel, a very pious version of me with her eyes closed leans over, palms up, like I’m protecting myself in the afterlife. We’re identical. She has my shoulder length hair, straight bangs, big cheeks, and round nose. Even my downturned lips.

I can’t help the disbelieving noise I make, something between a cough and a whine. Ruelle seems to think this means I’m dying and flies to her feet, fiddling with her belt.

“Do you need water, Lady Eluin?” she offers a waterskin to me, cradling it in her palms like she’s holding a guinea pig or something.

“Do I look like that?” I ask, ignoring her question and pointing to the statue.

“Um – yes. That was made in your honor.”

If that’s me, and I’m still her (me), then… “Why do you keep calling me that?”

She’s stunned by this. She shuffles meekly for a moment, bringing the waterskin to her chest. “Because… well, you’re…”

“Oh, please. Spit it out!”

“Because you’re Lady Eluin, of course! The heroine of Tor Reuna.”