41. Alenrius Luciriel

A long time ago, long before the Rider of Death had His way with the elves, they lived a peaceful life more similar to that of forest spirits, but you already knew that.

As the elves lived free and unshackled by the laws of nature or society. There was little need for them to be governed. As such, they went by the most basic rule of letting their elders decide important matters. After all, few are the cases where millennia of experience can be paired with a young, healthy mind.

So the most basic council of elders was formed. Their numbers or ages have long been forgotten to history, but the ones nominated were the elves known to have been around the longest.

Between them there was one special case. We could call him the eldest of the elves, for he had been around for as long as everyone could remember.

His name was Alenrius Luciriel. A familiar name, isn't it?

The other elders would often tell stories about how his arrogance brought the anger of many kings of old upon the forest, yet that stopped once his age had reached four digits. I guess his kindness came with age, as Luciriel slowly became the kindest elf around.

He knew everything about everyone. Whenever a fellow elf was in need of help, Luciriel would pop out from behind a tree before the troubled ones got to say anything.

On the rare occasion a new elf would be born, Luciriel was the one to take care of everything. From the first signs of pregnancy until many years after birth, he would stick around and help the merry family.

Every elf fondly remembers the day when they stood under a tree listening to the eldest. With a kind expression, he would tell them stories from ages long gone. He would teach them lessons that normally could only be learned through years of trial and error, and he would listen to their worries, coming back with a solution within days.

Needless to say, Luciriel loved his people, and the people loved him back, hence why this forest shares his name. He was not any kind of royal blood, as elves cared little about bloodline back then. His spot was earned with kindness and love.

The elders were also the ones to take care of international affairs. Word had it that they even took part in talks between continents—something rarely heard of even today.

One of the most important talks between the elves and foreign forces was held between Luciriel and Famine. It was the first and only recorded time a rider spoke with a being walking the Earth.

"Once again, I must thank you for keeping our people free from hunger, Famine," said Luciriel, bowing his head to the beautiful lady who came to see him on her black horse.

"I like you elves," she answered, startling the one in front of her.

I must mention that riders rarely need to speak with anyone but each other, so their social skills are lacking. Blunt actions and speech should be considered normal when interacting with those beings.

Nevertheless, Luciriel kept his composure.

"I am honored to hear such compliments. However, I hope your fondness doesn't spell anything nefarious for us... Hahaha..." Luciriel continued.

"No."

"All right then..."

Their conversation was slow, as the elder tried his best to keep up appearances, but when he finally understood that it was useless, he quickly jumped onto the main topic.

"So, Rider of Famine, I've seen you walking our forests lately. Can I ask why that is?"

"Because I like you elves," she said, her striking yet morbid beauty being complemented by a kind smile that showed affection.

"I see... I also hear that you have approached the elves, warning them about another one of the esteemed riders."

"Yes. Death."

"Exactly, what is this about death?"

"Death is bored. He wants to mess with you."

"That would be most troubling. We elves don't take kindly to losing our lives. We tend to take them for granted, and we don't ever think about everything coming to an end one day."

"Death doesn't care about what you think. He's bored."

"Do you know what He intends to do?"

"No," Famine answered, burning any thread the elder could have held on to.

"Well, as long as it is related to such a scary concept, and you are going through the trouble of warning us, I guess there is reason to act. I must ask you, can you do something to calm Him down?"

"I can try."

But it only took two days to see the results of Famine's attempt.

The elves were all gathered together, looking at the rider above the white and golden forest as He held the beautiful lady with one arm and dropped her on the hard ground.

"Lady Famine!"

"I'm sorry," she said as she pointed at the sky.

There, on His ashen horse, stood the one in knight armor, lifting a cursed sword above His head.

With a single swing, He made ash rain on the elves and left.

Everyone was confused at what had just happened. After wiping themselves, they all looked around.

For a couple of minutes, nothing changed, making the elves think that Death's idea of playing around could be just the rider trying to scare the otherwise calm elves and run away—like a kid knocking on a door and dashing.

Only, Famine wouldn't stop apologizing.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." she kept on repeating as Luciriel got her to stand up.

"Please, don't worry about it, Lady Famine! As you can see, nothing happened—hk!"

Out of seemingly nowhere, Luciriel's skin started turning to ash.

When the elves took one more look around, they saw something that shouldn't have existed in this world. Other members of their kin around them started showing signs of aging. Some only got slightly wrinkled skin, while the elders suffered immense pain as their backs hunched over, and their hair started to fall.

Everyone aged at a different pace. The more years one had lived, the faster the process was.

When a panicked elf finally decided to ask for help, he quickly looked Luciriel's way, but what he saw confirmed their worst fear.

Where two had stood before, there was only Famine surrounded by ash now.

As the oldest, Luciriel was the first to completely vanish.

*****

The disaster that followed is something I can't describe. The spirits are already getting restless, so I will skip the details.

What followed was the second disaster, and as you may have already guessed, it was one led by the newly crowned Lord of Vampires.

Since elves rarely lost their lives, vampires were rare in this world, but that all changed once Death toyed with them.

At first, Lucien hunted the elves one by one. For the elves busy getting used to their new lives, a disappearance here and there went mostly ignored.

That's until the first attack came upon them. Vampires emerged from all sides of the forest, and it wasn't long before their numbers doubled, then tripled, and so on. Every attack brought more vampires, yet the elves were getting fewer and fewer.

For all this killing, there was but one goal. Lucien wanted to kill Death. I know how crazy this sounds, but he didn't care.

For this goal, he would kill every single elf, building an army of powerful vampires.

I do not know if he has a plan besides that, but I don't think he is even looking that far. Ever since he came back, Lucien has not been the same. Anger twisted his mind in ways we can't even fathom, and what came out is maybe the exact opposite of the elf our forest was named after.

The vengeful souls of your cursed gathered much in the same fashion. First they came to me, but I was soon to lose my life due to unrelated circumstances.

I loved the elves, and I had been living with them for a long time already, so it was only a matter of fact that I would join them even in the afterlife.

Ever since then, we've been training elves for our revenge. We've given Lucien too many strong pawns already, hence why we now only share our power with our current cursed avenger. We've made many mistakes, but if it all leads to victory, we have no regrets.

And thus concludes the story of the elves, the vampires, and this stupid circle of revenge that can only be completed when there is nobody left to keep it going.