Storm and Stone Ch. 01

"People are gonna get tired of me fast if I keep surprising them like this, Amevina. What is this, elder tongue, anyway?"

"Well..." she answered, "that might actually be more shocking than your physical abilities, my dear. The elder tongue is estimated to be at least a half-million years old. All we know is that we've deciphered it, and that the surviving writings are a guide to a type of magic that no one here on our world can access no matter how closely we follow the texts. You, however, seem to have an inborn ability to see our magic through their eyes, so to speak."

"That's... almost crazy. What else do you know about them? Do you know what they looked like?"

"Unfortunately, we do not. No surviving depictions or descriptions of them have been discovered. The only other thing that the writings indicate is that all life currently on our world seems to have originated with them instead of only the races with speech as we had previously believed" she explained.

"And now it makes sense: I show up freakishly strong and fast from the moment I actually try to fight, then I start seeing the language of your creators whenever someone uses magic. Yeah, that would weird me out if I were in your shoes."

Arawn needed to get out of the armor, the sweat from the fight had left the leather sticky inside and he had begun to itch as well. He enlisted Amevina's help and soon found himself out of the cuirass. She gasped and covered her mouth with her fingers to hide her giggle as her eyes were finally treated to the sight of her chosen's bare chest. It was well-proportioned to her preferences, slim but wrapped in well defined muscles that spoke volumes about the power they contained without appearing corded or chiseled. Amevina expressed her surprise at his lack of bulk, given his apparent strength and conditioning. He was not a product of free-weights that overflowed with bulging, unwieldy muscles, Arawn explained... which then led to a brief description of free-weights. Instead, he told her, he preferred advanced calisthenics, bicycling, and parkour... which gave him a leaner, more compact physique and more applicable strength.

Arawn picked up his things and took her hand. "Let's go back to my tent, I can show you a few parkour videos that I saved on my phone, and there's some pictures of a bicycle, too."

On the way back, Arawn finally had the opportunity to ask about her claim to him.

"We are quite free-spirited, as a people" she said. "Our emotions run deep, and we are unique on this world in that when we see the person we are meant to spend our life with, they call to us and our heart sings back in return. When they first put you in the cage with us, I tried to ignore you but something kept drawing my eyes back to you. Then you fought for us. It was then that I knew what had happened, my heart sang out in answer to your call. I am yours, Arawn Stonebrook, you need only claim me." Arawn smiled and gave her hand a gentle squeeze, but otherwise let her continue.

She told him of their way of life, and shared the tragic history of the Dragon Elf race. Amevina described the Elders and explained how there had originally been only one race of elves, all with skin like hers. Until the corruption came. The Elders had taught love, but something changed within them and caused a schism. The Elders split into two factions; one espoused goodness and honor, the other espoused cruelty and coveted malice and hatred like a precious gem. Great and terrible magics were unleashed as they warred that scarred and withered the land wherever it went. All of the great races, save the humans and elves, saw it coming and had withdrawn from their creators. Humans and elves, unfortunately, were favored of their masters and they were easily swayed by the pleas from both sides and both human and elf saw their races split down the middle.

In the brutal war that followed, the uncorrupted elves were driven from their ancestral home and found refuge in the Northern Oaks where they still reside to this day. The Elders were slain by the tremendous explosion caused by the magical energies that sealed away the Dark One and opened the The Chasm... the great rend in the earth which swallowed up the central kingdom of the Elders completely. When the dust settled, those who had been corrupted by the Dark Ones held the homelands of both humans and elves. The humans called themselves the Vaszul, and the traitor elves became horrid caricatures of their former selves. Their hair had fallen out, their skin bleached white, and their fingernails had thickened into wicked talons. They were no longer elves, they were The Pale. The remaining populations were forced out or enslaved, and the humans set up smaller kingdoms all over the western third of the continent, while the remaining elves fled to the Northern Oaks. Now only a few ruined structures remain scattered across the continent and fewer still remained undisturbed by looters in search of treasure, knowledge or power. Those who actually possessed artifacts from those ruins protected them carefully from those who covet the knowledge of the Elders.

Arawn had been given a large tent next to the captain's, and they arrived as she finished her tale. Her nervous eyes met his.

"Will you claim me, Arawn Stonebrook of Earth, as I have claimed you?"

He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose.

"I already have."

Arawn led her into the tent so he could get into his spare clothes from his hiking pack. On his way in, he checked the water in the washbasin. It was cold, but Arawn guessed that Amevina could remedy that if he asked nicely, and save him the trouble of fetching a fresh bucket of hot water. He sat down on his bedroll for the second time that day and finally noticed the quality. Arawn had no idea what they stuffed it with, but when he pressed his hand into the material it was soft on the surface but surprisingly firm underneath. He made a mental note to ask about that when he saw Captain Grokan again, and laid out a change of clothes. He had a pair of bike shorts and a black tank top, a spare pair of hiking shoes and socks, and a grey paisley headwrap to keep the hair from his eyes.

Amevina took stock of everything he pulled from his pack in order to get to his clothes, in addition to what he had left out from earlier, and could not resist her inquisitive nature, "What is all that, Arawn?"

"Well," he told her as he started to point to the items he had piled up, "Those silver packs there are emergency rations. Each little bar in the pack has enough nutrition to equal a full meal. Every three bars is a day's food. In a pinch, you can survive on two bars a day, but you won't like it. They're not very filling as it is." Then he picked up a strange, translucent white box with rounded corners. When he opened it, she could see all manner of small items that she did not recognize, tucked into open-topped compartments built into the interior of the box.

"This is a first-aid kit. It has emergency sterile bandages and some suture kits and other stuff that I added myself, scalpels and hemostats mostly, I did throw in some ointments and emergency medicines in there too, though. The box can be bought anywhere on Earth, and the custom supplies are easy enough to find if you know what to look for."

Amevina was curious, so Arawn expanded on what he had told her earlier with the group, and explained sterile procedure and why cleanliness was so important with wound care. The elf knew cleanliness was important and was even quite taken aback by his earlier words at the campfire about the unseen world beneath their very eyes, but Amevina was shocked by the reality of Germ Theory. She resolved to make certain that this knowledge was shared among the gentle races. She was fascinated as he walked her through the MRE's and trail rations, and his climbing and spelunking gear left her entranced as he explained what everything did. His people had accomplished amazing things with their ingenuity. Amevina found that she agreed with her mate-to-be, it was a grievous shame that they were so corrupted by their own greed, conceit, and hate that they were unable to truly celebrate what they had achieved.

The object of her newfound affections finished his instruction and returned to his original task... changing his clothes. Arawn finally got out of the rest of the armor and took a deep breath and sighed happily as he felt the fresh night air caress his bare skin. He walked over to the washbasin and cleaned up his hands, then used the cloth to wipe himself down at the bathtub. Amevina was as struck by the rest of him as she had been his chest. The elf blushed, though one would never notice thanks to her ebon skin, to have his body bared to her like this was almost more than she could take, especially when her eyes drifted to other parts. The human grossly understated his own conditioning. It suddenly struck her as strange that he should be so sour on his own people, he almost seemed happy to be here. She supposed that could be the reason he seemed so accepting of her claim to him. She had to know for sure.

"Arawn, we may not have spoken until today, but I have been with you since your unconscious body was plucked from the road. I witnessed your reaction to waking up in our cage, the anger, the surprise at seeing all of us. You were a prisoner without cause for four days, Arawn, and today... according to you, you were blooded in combat. No one handles their first kill as well as you have, and you slew at least five men today. We must also not forget your abilities and my sudden claim to you as well... even the tools we use are relics of your history. All of this on a man as foreign to this world as your phone, as you call it, is to ours. Why do you seem so unaffected?"

Arawn took a moment to consider her question as he slipped into his clothes. He pointed to the armor, "I need some undergarments for that or I'll stink to high heaven." The man lay back onto the bedroll and sighed as though he finally felt the stress of the day's events.

"I'm not completely sure. If I'm being honest with myself, I was very unhappy with my world, Amevina. We produce enough food to feed the entire world several times over, yet our greed keeps millions in starvation while perfectly good food spoils on the shelves. We have the means to cultivate bodily health like no civilization on our world before us, but poor countries watch people die of diseases that half the world thinks have been eradicated. All because of money. At the social level, we have gotten so obsessed with having what we think we deserve that we sacrifice the sense of community for narcissism." Arawn sat up and crossed his legs. "I'm no hermit, but I don't keep a lot of friends because most people don't understand that. It is extremely difficult for me to relate to people who don't understand that. There's only four people on Earth that I genuinely trust with my life. You even got to, sort of, meet one of those people today... Raiden."

"As for historical relics, you have no idea how exciting I find living on a world like this. I'm able to fight with what little skill I have because of that re-enactment community. Sure, people knew how things were done thanks to history books, but those groups keep a living example of some real skills. I'm a blacksmith because of them. To me, this way of living is harsh, yes, but it is pure and honest. Hell, if someone had told me before I came here that I could imagine any world I wanted, and escape my old life forever... it would be something very much like this if not identical."

Arawn told her about the dating practices of Earth, and of how he had dated a healthy assortment, some almost as beautiful as she, but even then it all came down to money or simple incompatibility. Arawn was quite financially secure, but he chose to live by the strength of his own hands instead of by the luxury his money could provide. In the end, he was never enough because they either wanted the luxury that he was unwilling to even give himself, got upset because they could not convert him (This launched him into a brief interjection about the major monotheistic religions of his planet, the followers of which seemed to believe that it was their divine duty to convert by almost any means necessary), or he was just too intense. Arawn stood and started to arrange his armor neatly next to the weapon rack. He was silent for a moment as he paused to regard her in the dim light of the tent's lantern. So beautiful.

"Here, I have nothing but my honor, the equipment you and the captain have gifted me, and what came with me through what I guess was a portal to this world. You want to know why I don't take issue with your claim on me? You, my dear elf... you want me despite it all after actually knowing me less than one day. I have nothing to promise but the strength of my back and of my heart, and that is all you want. Any man who cannot live with your declaration is either an idiot or a fool. Doesn't hurt that you're achingly beautiful, either."

Arawn walked over to her and took her hands in his, "I said I already have, earlier, but I'll say it now outright. I accept your claim, Amevina. More than that, I embrace it, and you with it." Arawn was done speaking for the moment, and chose to repay the kiss she gave him before his duel in kind. She was all smiles by the time he stepped back. He was about to guide her to the bedroll when he realized that he had not put his things away. He hurried his swords to the weapon rack and returned to clear off the bedding.

He had just finished putting everything back in his pack when she asked again about why he was taking his first combat so well. Arawn sighed and sat down hard, thankful that the bedroll was so well made. He reached into a pocket on his pack and pulled out a small tin, from it, Arawn extracted a lighter and a joint. Amevina regarded the tiny, translucent green device with curiosity as he placed the light brown stick between his lips. She wondered what the green material was that peeked from the end of it. Then he did something with the green device and she could not stifle a gasp of surprise when a tiny flame sprang from the top and ignited the end of the stick. When she saw him pull on the end of the stick with his lips as one would a pipe, it came to her... he was smoking something. Whatever it was had been wrapped in the brown material, her best guess was some form of paper. She found it an interesting concept. Amevina was about to ask if he was okay because he had been holding his breath, then the smoke from the joint wafted into her nose and sent her into a sneezing fit. Arawn choked when he started to laugh. When he recovered from coughing enough to speak, he could barely resist a chuckle at the scowl aimed his way.

"By the heavens, that stinks!" she almost shouted.

Arawn suppressed another laugh, "Yeah, my apologies. Cannabis is a bit pungent, but it grows on you. Still, I can admit that it tastes better than it smells. I should have stepped outside for this, though. The tent is going to be smelly in a minute." Then he turned somber, "I figured if I was going to go down those particular memory lanes again, I could use the help."

That confused her. "The help?"

"Yeah, cannabis is a plant that has a lot of helpful and medicinal properties which, on my world, cause a lot of political controversy. Money, control, power, all that shit again. For me, it helps me relax. Most of the time I think way too much, way too fast and this stuff slows me down. That's important for what I'm about to tell you."

"That I can understand, but why is it important, Arawn?"

Arawn surprised himself with the size of the next hit he took from the joint and his shoulders started to jerk as he fought to hold in the coughs. He lost the battle, of course, and the coughing fit made Amevina frown in concern. She leaned over his back and rubbed his shoulders while he fought to regain his composure. When it finally subsided, Arawn wiped the tears from his eyes and dashed over to the handbasin to wash his face before she could see him all snotty from the coughs. He hurried back and sat down.

"Ohhh fuck, that hurt!"

He leaned over and grabbed the waterskin he overlooked when he first came into the tent, and took a few quick sips.

"Okay. It's important that I be relaxed when I talk about this because... alright, I don't think I've mentioned this, but it's relevant. Humans on my world mature by age eighteen."

That stunned her to the core, the very thought of a childhood so painfully short was unimaginable.

"I know your lives are short on your world, but heavens! Eighteen of our seasons? You barely have time to learn anything!"

"You make a fair point, Amevina, but we manage. Remember what we have achieved," Arawn reminded her. "My species has a habit of writing things down. We've done it since we lived in caves and threw rocks at each other and it gives us a better species memory than you would expect. It's strange, really, for a species that knows so well where it has been, most sure as hell can't see where we are going." He took another long draw from the joint, then offered it to her. She reached out tentatively, then finally took it and placed it between her lips like she had seen him do.

"This is your first time, take only a couple small sips from it. It can be harsh. Then hold it in like you've seen me doing. When your lungs start to push back, let it go."

Arawn was impressed, she never coughed once. He motioned for her to go again, and she handed it back to him when she was done.

"The way you reacted, I expected it to be worse. That is actually mild when compared to a few of the herbs required for some of the more obscure magical rites."

Arawn tapped the joint out on the heel of his sneakers and put it back into the tin, then he took her hand and sighed.

"I killed my father, Amevina."

The elf released a choked gasp and covered her mouth with her hands in shock. Why and What happened were the only questions she could manage.

"I didn't have a loving family. My father liked to get drunk and beat me and my mother. I tried talking to a teacher at school once when I was about eight years old and after the child services agent left, well... let's just say I never tried that again. I thought it would be the end of it after I turned fourteen and kicked his ass for hitting me one too many times. I was wrong."

Amevina clung to Arawn's side now, fearful of what more she would hear. Arawn wrapped an arm around her and couldn't suppress a bitter chuckle as he remembered his father's hobbies.

"Nobody knew, of course, except for my friend Raiden. My father hid it well, so did my mother. Always used makeup to cover the bruises, and the asshole never hit me anywhere that clothing didn't cover it... which usually meant his leather belt across my back. His hobby was his undoing. He collected antique railroad items. He might have been a drunk, but he had a good job and was paid very well. His favorite pieces were railroad spikes, the ones that had special markings from the glory days of the American Railroad."

"Like I was saying, two weeks after I kicked his ass, he came home on a hardcore bender and sat down in his recliner and started screaming for a drink. Mom didn't get him a beer fast enough, so he thought he would mop the kitchen floor with her face."

Amevina had finally released Arawn and sat up when he paused, but she made sure to keep his hands in hers as he continued. The hollow, dead voice she heard now stood in stark contrast to the vibrant, happy man she had seen earlier today. Her heart wept for the man who sat before her. For an elf... or even an orc for that matter, what he described was unthinkable. Any male who treated his family so poorly would find himself flogged or even executed here. The children were protected at all costs.