by M E Wolf
Alexandra looked around and seeing SilverFox still on the cutting table with many cuts all over him she half crawled half ran to him.
“SilverFox, SilverFox. Oh, SilverFox you still in there?” She tried to nudge him awake but he did not wake. The two elf women came over to her and checked him.
He was alive, but barely. Katlin could not figure out why he was still alive, it was unusual for a human to have this much resilience and willpower to stay alive. What was it that kept him alive? She left with the two elf women after some ogre magi took SilverFox into their care. Alexandra had not seen their like before.
The light blue skinned one was roughly four feet and a half considering that Alexandra was taller than she and stood at six feet and eight inches tall. Ebony skinned one was about a foot shorter than Alexandra. She was not sure of their races, but assumed that they were some sort of elf. Their posture told her that they had the arrogance of being well aged while they only appeared to be in their early twenties.
Alexandra wondered if they were as old as she was or younger. They took her to a tent that had a hot bath set up for her. She had not had even a cold bath or even a sponge bath all of the time that she had spent in the dungeons of the city of bone, which is what she gathered was the name for this city of the emperor. Alexandra for the first time in the last few days realized that she would finally be rid of the long dry blood from her lips and face.
There were also numerous festering sores on her torso and face that she hoped did not go too long without appropriate medical care and festered into gangrene. Her mind was cloudy and she had the deepest desire to be away from everyone and needed to think about what this animal was that came out when she was distressed now. Alexandra’s abilities might be corrupted from this disastrous event that was her incarceration.
During her training with her biological father he had told her in order for her abilities to remain and be intact is for herself to remain pure. Not necessarily the pureness of body for that which was out of her control, but pureness of the spirit and soul. She knew that through her incarceration her spirit and soul were darkened.
It was that one dark demented spot that makes it hard or very difficult to see your own true identity or your spiritual reflection of that self that is you. Finding herself again would be difficult, a difficulty that she would have to live with for a long time to come. First she would have to clean her body of a year old filth that would remain with her for a long time no matter how much she scrubbed the filth from her body.
Hoping that the water in the tub was beyond hot she climbed into the tub and ducked under the surface of the water absorbing its radiance. After a minute she resurfaced as the light blue skinned elf handed her a bar of soap that had a strong aroma of lavender and various other spices that she did not recognize. It was not long before the water turned from a clear blue to a hue of colours from a rusty blood to a black colour.
Her bruises could be seen clearly now and she allowed the ebony skinned elf to treat her wounds flinching every once in a while as disinfectant was applied to the various open sores on her body. Once Alexandra was bandaged she was given a fresh smelling white cotton robe to wear. Alexandra was shown to a table that had three pewter mugs, a teapot and various types of biscuits that she did not recognize.
She sat down as the ebony skinned elf began to pour the tea. Wafting the tea’s aroma to her nose with her hand, Alexandra caught the sent of jasmine and rose petals with a hint of honey just beyond the reach of her senses. Sipping the tea sparked her taste buds with its sweetness.
A few moments passed of sipping and savouring their first cup of tea. Talking over tea was what many women in Sortenla did to pass the time as they awaited each military campaign whether they engaged the enemy or would be part of the medical team that would doctor the wounds of those who had fallen during the course of a war.
Women in the course of their careers in the military would tend to lead in some cases and the meetings they had would not be without their tea. This meeting over cups of tea was like no other before, it was a meeting to help Alexandra come to terms with what had happened to her and learn to live with her life.
To Katlin this meeting was very important considering one of the sacred races was defiled. Katlin and Tasheia knew of their ancestral roots, the fact that most of the people of Sortenla were of a short-lived race that knew nothing of the ancestral line of the long-lived races such as the Ice Deep Elves, Burnt Deep Elves, Ghast Ogres and even the hated Gorgos Orcs. Their common ancestor was the Dochani. There was no doubt that this girl called Alexandra was of that ancient race and more so was pure Dochani.
In the annals of the long-lived history where historical events long ended more than a few thousand years ago, longer than the life span of even the long-lived races, were written down the beginnings of the four long-lived races that currently resided on Sortenla. This was when the race of dwarves, giants and half-man races were abundant and populated most areas of Sortenla.
Within these races were sub-races of which were two half giant races from giant and dwarf parentage, the ogre and Orc, and human and Sarian got from half-man and giant. Thus the Ghast ogre was got from the Dochani and ogre, the Gorgos Orc was got from the Dochani and Orc, the Ice Deep Elf, Burnt Deep Elf and Ice Elf was got from Dochani and Sarian. The magic was natural to the world of Sortenla, but those with Dochani blood were more attuned to it than those with more native roots to the land.
Katlin, starting on her second cup of tea with a delicate sip, began the conversation that the three women would have on this evening,
“I wish circumstances were different and I am sure that you wished that we all met under a different occasion.
“This day we know and others before this day I am sure, had begun in a bad way. As situations like this are never good for us no matter what we have done in our past or who we are in the present.
“We are here to talk with you knowing that we cannot ever change what has happened however much we want to change it. You are of a race that is sacred to us.
“Our ancestral race was and still remains the same race that we have come to realize to be in you. That race being the Dochani race, a long-lived race that many thousands of years ago made our race. The race you see before you in our race.
“My race was forged in the plains and later honed over the centuries in the cold of the Alps and tundra and Tasheia’s race was forged in the same plains and later honed over the centuries in the heat of the dessert and volcanic fire.
“We still are the same race, but with different traits. An army of Ice Deep elves, Burnt Deep elves, Ice elves, Ghast ogres and humans fell upon your captors’ city.
“This city called the city of bone. We quickly over ran the gates and took control without killing too many citizens of this city. It was another story for the military personnel of the city, which were all put to the sword.
“The emperor is now our captive and all of the men involved in your incarceration have been decapitated. The women and men of the elves conduct the matters of war along side each other as equals.
“We would like to help you through this situation that you have been dragged into. To get passed this you can be trained or you can live with the burden of nightmares that will soil your bedclothes and linen every night for the rest of your long life.
“Healing is what you need to cleanse your body and soul of the taint of what has been done to you that should never have been done to one of such sacred upbringing. It is entirely up to you of course.
“Tasheia and I will not pressure you into unwanted training or any help that is undesired by yourself and we will completely understand your resolve to accepting any of our help. Just think on it for a while.
“Alexandra, would you like to talk to us about anything? It is always good to talk about things that may bother us from time to time rather than holding everything inside ourselves and burning ourselves out.
“It is good therapy to talk about it. After t
alking about things, we usually find that those things rarely bother us as much as they did once before.
“Remember, whatever we talk about in this tent will not leave this tent and no one but us three will ever know about it. Start when you are ready. There is absolutely no rush, we will have as much time as we can to talk.”
Alexandra was not sure of what she wanted to say, but knew that she would not have some things clear in her mind unless she talked about what it was that bothered her. Many things bothered her or more correctly disturbed her. In her life she was always at the mercy of others. For a while now she was not the one in control of her own life and it bothered her.
Did the innocents always pay for other people’s actions? She only had instinct to work upon, it worked so far but she needed some instructions. Her father taught her some things, but she was sure that he had more things to teach her and a Dochani needed her father to teach her things because her mother had never studied war and as far as she could know from how her instincts played out, none of her ancestral mothers studied war either they were mostly healers and travelers.
It all started when she hatched from her egg in Bannian village. Now the entire planet Sevle was most likely gone, devoured by the beasts that came there. She still had no idea what they were. All the trouble began when she was cast from the ship and into the sea and she was rescued from some creature of the sea only to be cast into the L’art’o tribe. The L’art’o tribe offered her training too, did they not?
Then the L’art’o tribe attempted to violate her. Now, these people were offering training. She wondered what kind of training it would be. If it were not forced upon her, then what type of training would it be? How long would the training take? Seeing how relaxed these two were and having no idea what age they were, although they could very well be younger than her.
It could take any amount of time, since time was irrelevant to these elves. Her incarceration was most likely the worst thing that could have happened to her, short of death, but she did not think much about death because it occurred to her that she would not encounter death for quite some time. Even though it happened over three hundred years ago the violation of her entire body at the hands of the L’art’o tribe was still fresh in her mind.
She thought that it was all over but when forced to have intercourse with SilverFox she relived it all over again even though he tried to be as gentle as he could and she saw the pain on his face and in his eyes. Alexandra was not sure whether it was because they made him do it or that some of his insides were spilling out of his upper body, maybe it was a little bit of both.
Damage was certainly done to her. Just how much damage was sustained she was not quite sure. The seat cushion on her chair where she sat certainly helped to lessen her pain, but it still felt like she sat on a hornet’s nest.
She cleared her throat a couple of times as she finished her fifth cup of tea and spoke while Tasheia topped off her cup with the tea that she was beginning to enjoy,
“I am not sure of where to begin. A lot of terrible things have been done to me that was out of my control. It is not a good feeling I have when everything I do or has happened to me is not what I want or need after a certain point in my life.
“Most of what I have done in the past before things started to happen to me was just after I hatched from an egg. I do enjoy drinking this tea and talking with you two, it has been quite a long time since I actually had a good friend or friends that I knew would be around long enough to have a good enough friendship with.
“I lost count a long time ago when all the bad stuff started to happen and a lot of things are not clear to me and some things happen when I am stressed and in danger. I am not sure of my exact age, but I have been around longer than six hundred and eighty years.
“But before we get into talking about myself, I would like to know about your lives and the cultures that you have grown up in. Take as much time as you want.
“Only share what you want to share, but bare in mind that the more you share with me the more I will share with you. Remember, I do not have any family here or anywhere as far as I know and it would be nice if I could consider you two as my sisters and sisters don’t hold anything back from each other, well at least they should not hold anything back from each other.” Alexandra took a sip from her tea and waited for one of them to start talking.
Katlin was the first to speak. “You are correct in saying that we should give you as much information as you give us, which is a better way to understand each other and gain each others' trust.
“This matter is no different from others but in order for purposes to be served right, we must discuss all of our backgrounds and our histories. I will begin with my background and my history and then Tasheia will continue with hers.
“I was born more than one hundred and fifty years ago high in the Alps. My mother was Ice elf and my father was Ice Deep elf. After one hundred years of intense training, I was allowed to serve in the Elvin military.
“The first fifty years you are trained in the Elvin longbow, then twenty-five years in the Elvin longsword and the last twenty-five years in hand to hand combat.
“That is only the beginning because in order to be in an Elvin army you must be able to take care of yourself in battle.
“To lose an elf in battle is very dire due to our longevity. The human ones tend to rush into things because they have limited time before they are too old for any active duty. On the other hand us elves tend to be around a lot longer and can have active duty for relatively a long, long time.
“I have been on active duty for slightly more than fifty years. Even so I am only a lieutenant if not for my queen status, I would not be discussing these matters with you.
“Being married to the Ghast Ogre king does have its benefits. My marriage is a joint marriage that I happen to share with Tasheia. We are more than sisters and share our husband’s bed together.
“We both trained together from one hundred years old for fifty years because we are also distant cousins and we would wed the same man.
“I can see from the look on your face that this sharing of a man is somewhat of a new concept to you. I assure you that it is a very enjoyable experience.
“We love our husband very much. In fact, both of us are pregnant with his child. Tasheia and I are so excited. Our children were conceived at the same time and we are anticipating and hoping for them to be good companions together.
“We know that you do not have a companion and it is hoped that we both have sons so that they can protect you after a time. Maybe they both will become your lovers and we will have Dochani blood in our grandchildren.
“I know it will be a while for you to accept a man again, but you do have unlimited time to think it over. It is hoped that you would let us train you. By us I mean the elves and our husband’s tribe.
“Someone older than four hundred years old will most likely train you. At this time we are not sure who they will pick to train you, but the trainer will most likely be one of the veteran soldiers that have been in the military for at least three hundred years and have the status of at least major.” Katlin stopped talking to take a sip of her tea and Tasheia interjected into the conversation.
“What Katlin says is correct. We only want to help you and get you into thinking the same way that the elves think instead of the way that the humans think. It would be for your own good to understand life through the eyes of one who has lived for quite some time.
“Oh sorry we are used to those around us being younger, of course you think long lived you are Dochani and did say you were more than six hundred and eighty years old.
“In terms of the long-lived, the three of us are still considered to be children, us two more so than you. There are others whom have lived more than two thousand years in the history of the elves. Why are you crying my dear, Alexandra?”
CHAPTER TEN
Alexandra wiped the tears from her eyes as new tears formed and looked up at the
two startled elves’ faces.
When she finally spoke her voice was that of despair, “It is just that, well, I wish SilverFox was one of us long lived. Him dying would leave an emptiness in my heart. Also, as a Dochani I have seen many of my friends grow to old age and die. It is hard to cope with this.” Alexandra took a sip from her tea and heard Katlin’s voice rather than Tasheia’s as she had expected.
“He is doing well for what has happened to him, but for some reason he is exhibiting signs of increased longevity, which means that he may live another one hundred years.
“Unusual I know for a human, but it seems that this is the case with him. We do not know much about the Dochani and most of what we do know is unclear to us.
“It is known that the Dochani are egg born and the egg can lay dormant for thousands of years. Ancestral knowledge is passed from generation to generation much the same way it is with birds.
“Not to say that you will sprout wings, but some Dochani do show signs of dormancy in the area of wing growth. This is a legend, however, that only those most ancient Dochani acquire wings.
“To you Dochani, just for your understanding, for something to be a legend it would have taken place more than fifty thousand years ago, not much is known from that time.
“It is said to be long after they reach the adolescent years of about five thousand to seven thousands years of age, but that is speculation because our sources for this information is even far too old for an elf to find any accuracy in it.
“Granted, we have never had the occasion to meet a Dochani with wings. As I said before, it is only a legend. It is important that you understand that it is quite difficult to kill a Dochani.
“Dochani can seek out blood relations if they have been taught to do so as long as they are well enough and have had contact with a particular relative within an indefinite period of time.”
