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krwordgazer wrote: A joke, prank or trick A decision A change in someone's life Explosion A treewee Loafing around “The New Tribe” _______________________ Only the whispering of the cold, winter wind seemed to break the silence that the two tribes shared with one another. Shadow’s soft, green eyes drifted to Skyshade, who was normally playful; but now stood rigid at his side. Already, Recognition had changed something in Skyshade. The undeniable urge to be together with those she had Recognized had dominated and controlled her own personality, as if the playfulness within her had never existed. He wanted to comfort her; she had always been such a vital part of the tribe; to make the others laugh when everything seemed so dark and bleak. There was no time for that now. Foxhair and Treerunner were both doing what they could to keep the mortally wounded Stream alive in the cave that they had found. Shadow looked at the five new elves that stood before him. They were taller, more slender, less muscular, than both he and Skyshade. They also had no mounts or bond beasts to speak of. “You must forgive our initial behavior,” Shadow said. “We believed you to be humans. We had no time for subtly – one of our own is gravely wounded and we saw that you had healing medicines. We sought to simply take it to you and return to our tribesman who is wounded.” “Did you not think to simply approach us and ask us?” Daymist asked, her white hair a reflection of the purity of the snow around them; her white eyes matching her hair. “We would have agreed to help you.” “We have had trouble with humans in the past,” Shadow explained. “We didn’t have time. Even now, the moments that pass bring our healer one step closer to her spirit returning to the Palace of the High Ones.” At the mention of the High Ones, the five new strangers seemed to exchange glances amongst one another, Shadow noticed. “We shall help you,” Warsong finally said, stepping forward. “Take us to your healer.” Shadow, for a brief moment, considered declining their assistance. Something within him suddenly stirred – he looked to Skyshade to see if she had sensed it as well – but her eyes remained lowered, focused on some invisible object at her feet. She almost looked ashamed of who she was. Shadow couldn’t understand this drastic change; so many had been Recognized before her, and never had he seen such a change in someone because of it. His eternal, green eyes slowly moved towards Warsong and Wardance; the twins whom she had Recognized, to see if they had anything to do with this; but he couldn’t see anything that they were doing that would make her act as she did. It wasn’t good when a wolf bowed its head in submission to another. Shadow mounted Mooneyes as Skyshade slide onto Gemchaser. “We shall keep a slow pace,” Shadow said, noting how the others eyed the wolves with questioning looks. Moving through the snow as quickly as they could, slowing down from time to time so that the other five could catch up – they reached the small cave that they had left Stream in the care of Foxhair and Treerunner. Foxhair immediately leapt to her feet and wrapped her arms around Shadow. “I was so worried about you!” She said as she sobbed into his shoulder. She caught their scent and suddenly looked up, seeing five shadowed figures at the entrance of the cave that she did not know. “Who are they?” “They’re here to help,” Shadow explained, providing little else for details. Joybringer, with her sunshine colored hair and sky blue eyes kneeled down next to Stream who was indeed bleeding excessively despite the efforts of both Foxhair and Treerunner. She turned her head slightly, glancing up at Shadow, then back over to Daymist. “Come Daymist – let your hands save this young one.” Shadow stepped to one side as Daymist walked by, scowling at the dark haired chief. She kneeled down onto the cold, grey stone and placed her hands on Stream. Her eyes looked to the side where she saw the now dead carcass of the massive white bear that had undoubtedly brought these wounds upon them all and gravely wounding the one they called Stream. “Her wounds are deep,” Daymist whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind that had picked up just outside the entrance. Callbreaker came to sit next to Stream, sad, deep, pleading eyes looked up at Daymist. “The wolf,” Daymist awed. “It begs me to heal her… I can hear it… in my thoughts… how?” Warsong and Wardance exchanged glances with one another. They knew how. But they had not said a word; there had been no time. Their eyes slowly looked up to Skyshade, who quickly turned her head away and walked towards the cave entrance. An exchange that had not gone unnoticed by Shadow. Daymist laid her soft hands, void of any signs of hard labor, gently on Stream’s chest. Closing her white eyes, allowing the darkness she was so familiar with, over take her; she let her mind slip into Stream’s – her body’s energy reaching out into the mortally wounded elf. Shadow looked to Treerunner and Foxhair, nodding to them both to keep an eye on the newly welcomed strangers. Each of them acknowledged their chief silently; the way they had always done when they hunted. Shadow slowly turned around and began walking back towards the cave’s entrance where Skyshade stood staring at the falling, white snow. “Did you want to talk,” he whispered as he leaned on the other side of the cave’s entrance. He looked back at the strangers they had found; the twins were watching him with side long glances with a flare of interest in their eyes. He looked at them then back to Skyshade. “I am your chief,” he began, speaking softly seeing that tears raced from the corners of her eyes, diving freely from the bottom of her chin, to freeze at her feet, where the cold wind waited to transform them. “I’ll be fine,” she whispered. “I just have some decisions to make.” “You’re not alone,” Shadow replied, extending his hand and placing it on her shoulder. She looked at his hand and took a step away, a look in her eyes that Shadow had not seen before. “I understand,” he whispered and walked back into the cave. That’s when he heard the crunch of snow – he turned and watched her run into the snow. The purity of the snow fell all around her; clinging to her flesh, her hair, melting on her lips. She tilted her head back and howled. Gemchaser, her bond beast ran out there with her, and joined in the howl. Shadow lifted his head and howled. Soon, the others joined, all but the strangers and Stream who was still unconscious. It was a song of mourning; a song of passing. But the howl was not for Stream. Something in Skyshade had died. Shadow did not know what it was yet; but he said she was not alone; and she wasn’t. Her tribe, those around her, had all joined her in the song; a sign that she may have lost something; but she had not lost them. The snow, so white and pure, continued to fall around her as she collapsed to her knees and sobbed wildly into her hands. Gemchaser whined, nudging his nose under her arm, seeking to comfort her through the sadness she felt grasping her heart and her soul. “You’re savages,” Joybringer said, coming to stand next to Shadow. “Howling like your wolves.” “Perhaps we are savages,” Shadow replied, without looking at Joybringer. “But does it matter? She knows now that she is surrounded by us – and that she will never be alone. For savages,” he turned and walked past her, “we have tremendous hearts for our tribes mates.” Joybringer watched as he had walked past her into the arms of Foxhair. Her eyes went up slightly and saw that Foxhair had intently locked gazes with her – anger flashing in her green eyes. Joybringer placed a fake façade of a smile on her lips and kneeled down to be next to Daymist once more. “How is she?” “She will live,” Daymist nodded. “Her healing,” she turned to Joybringer, “is far greater than my own.” She turned her cloudy, white gaze towards Shadow. “She will not be able to travel for several days.” Joybringer stood up again and faced Shadow. “You had said that there were others from your tribe in a cave? Obviously not this one. Are they near by?” “So many questions,” Shadow said, stepping away from Foxhair. “Allow us some, if you would?” Joybringer seemed ready to say one thing; but changed her mind, her tone becoming softer. “Yes?” “First, allow us to thank you for healing Stream,” Shadow explained. “We have lost many within our tribe in such a short time – losing Stream would have been a devastating loss. But I must ask, this can’t be your whole tribe? Where are the rest of them? Why no interest in going back to them?” “Allow me, young one,” Riverfall interjected, speaking up for the first time since arriving at the cave. “We are the Children of the High Ones…” “Impossible!” Treerunner cut Riverfall’s tale short. “The High Ones were murdered by the humans – the few that escaped did so to the cost of their life in some fashion.” “Not so,” Riverfall continued. “Some of the High Ones did manage to escape. The Palace from which they came was enormous – many rooms were never touched by the humans who attacked the High Ones of the Palace; whether it was because of some feeling, some superstition – some of the High Ones did indeed survive by hiding within the Palace. They even tried to make the Palace fly again several nights later – but with so few of them – they could barely keep it in the air before it came crashing down into the mountains.” (1) “The world,” Riverfall continued, “was different than any world that the High Ones had ever been on before. Something about it had made their magic so much weaker. They realized that the mountains were the safest place for them – though there was much snow, there seemed to be no threat of humans.” “What of the High Ones who might have survived the humans attack,” Treerunner spoke the words to no one, as they simply tumbled from his lips, spoken more as a verbal thought, than to anyone else. “When they returned to the place where the Palace had originally landed… it would be gone… trapping them here… forever.” “We are all trapped here,” Riverfall explained. “As I was saying,” he said, with his green eyes showing the signs irritation that his explanation had been interrupted. “The High Ones who had remained within the Palace and survived felt safe in the mountains, for there were no signs of humans.” “And for years, they had successfully lived within the Palace,” he went on to say. “Then they came. There was an explosion in one of the outer Palace walls.” Riverfall paused for a long moment, the coldness of the endless snowfall just outside the cave, more obvious to him now, as if Death itself had strutted into the cave to listen to the rest of the tale. “Who or what was it?” Shadow inquired, pulling back his midnight black mane of hair, adjusting, then typing the knot. “Trolls,” Riverfall said, looking to face Shadow, as if he should be horrified by the very word, and was disappointed when Shadow seemed unaffected. “Trolls?” Shadow repeated the word, raising an eye brow. “What harm could the trolls have done?” “Are you mad?” Riverfall asked, his eyes wide, lingering memories tainted with insanity gripped his soul. “You must have no experience with trolls,” Riverfall said matter-of-factly, dismissing Shadow’s ease. “Actually our chief,” Foxhair came to stand next to her lovemate, “has had plenty of dealings with the trolls. Our tribe even struck deals and made trades with them – we would give them leathers, meats, fruits, and sometimes fetch various plants for them – and they’d give us steel and weapons made by their hands.” “You made deals with the trolls?” Riverfall, who had remained quiet was now shouting, his voice echoing through the small, grey cavern. He shook his head and took a moment to compose himself, his hands pressing over his fine clothes, as if the ruffles had gotten larger, to match his mood, and now he was desperately trying to regain control of it all. “These trolls were led by one who called himself Scalphunter. He was ruthless… vile… and murderous.” (2) “Murder? The trolls?” Shadow shook his head. “These do not sound like the trolls we dealt with. The ones we dealt with could probably only hurt themselves, if they tried to hurt anything else – with the exception of a small handful of them.” “Well,” Joybringer said, stepping between Riverfall and Shadow; her hand lightly placed on the chest of her fellow tribesman. “As we have seen,” she looked over at Shadow, then back to Riverfall, “Time has made changes in many of us. It is without doubt, that perhaps the trolls that Shadow and his tribe have dealt with are a much kinder breed of trolls, than those that Scalphunter leads.” “Well then you were fortunate enough to be spared the dealings of Scalphunter,” Riverfall said. “We once numbered over thirty, until Scalphunter’s arrival.” Riverfall closed his eyes – the visual of the memory returned. “Scalphunter’s troll legion were not merciful,” Riverfall began to explain, his voice calm, soothed, sedated – almost as if detaching himself from the memory would be the only way to tell the horror that he witnessed. “Scalphunter laid siege to the Palace – and his trolls ran rampant through the Palace… those without magic were brought before Scalphunter… made to beg for their lives… but he spared none… none who were without magic. He showed everyone how he earned his name… while they were still alive – he took a dagger and removed their scalp… tearing it off before it had been all the way cut… they were all sewn into the shoulder pieces he wears…” Riverfall shuddered. “Joybringer’s love mate, Mindtouched, made a valiant… but failed attempt to stand up against Scalphunter… he took Mindtouched, cut off his hand… bandaged it… cut off his other hand… bandaged it… then cut off each of his feet… bandaged it… then told him if he could crawl out of the Palace before he had grown bored… he would let us all go… Mindtouched knew it was a lie… a game… but he tried anyway… because, what other decision did he truly have? As he crawled… Scalphunter severed his legs… then his arms… and just before he got out of the Palace, he severed his head… then he laughed… High Ones… the sound of his laughter… I will never sleep peacefully again.” “What did Scalphunter want with those of you who could do magic?” Foxhair asked, her arms defensively folded in front of her chest. It had been a tragic story thus far – but there were a number of questions in her head that still needed to be answered. “Those who could use magic, he dragged back into the depths of the caves that go throughout the land below our feet and even through these very mountains,” Riverfall explained. “He used people like Firemane, who had the ability to manipulate fire, at the forges; Twostone was used to shape the stone caverns; Fairskin was taken as…” Riverfall shuddered. “I’d rather not think of what happened to Fairskin. She was without powers, but… Scalphunter took an… unusual interest in her. I shudder to think what she must be enduring. There were many others… with similar fates…” “How did they even find you?” Shadow asked before Foxhair could ask her next question. “From what Daymist ‘saw’,” Riverfall began to explain. “They have one of us… who is able to sense magic…” “Like Echo,” Treerunner said, looking at Shadow, concerned. “They sense the magic we use,” Riverfall said. “And so like a hound, they use it to hunt us down.” “It?” Shadow asked. “The way Daymist describes it… if that … thing was one of us… as she suspects… it lost whatever sense of humanity it had a long, long, long time ago… it’s now nothing more than a mindless tool that Scalphunter uses… its mind so far beyond fractured that there is nothing left to even reach out to.” “Then how did the five of you escape? How long ago did this happen?” Foxhair asked before Shadow could say whatever he had planned to say. “We have one of them to thank,” Joybringer answered. “A female troll by the name of Gemineyes. She was one of… Scalphunter’s… servants… and a favorite, until he had taken interest in Fairskin. She did not like falling out of that position… yet she could not kill her… it would raise Scalphunter’s suspicion… so she had told us that if we get Fairskin out of the Palace, that she would help us all escape. It was much easier to believe that one of Scalphunter’s guards had drank too much, allowing us time to escape, rather than outright murdering Fairskin. So we agreed. Gemineyes used some kind of drink that rendered several of the guards unconscious. Several of us sought to make our escape – but Gemineyes had tricked us – as we were fleeing – she woke Scalphunter to show that his ‘favorite’ was attempting to flee.” Riverfall closed his eyes. “In seconds, some of us who had tried to escape were shot down with these weapons that were able to project thin shafts of wood – like the bow and arrow – but with much more force and much more deadly accuracy.” “Out of the twelve of us who sought to get away, only the five of us made it out of the caverns… and that’s only because of Fairskin. She stopped and said she would not escape, which bought the rest of us time to escape through the tunnels… Twilight, Truesight, and Thorncoat were all shot down and killed… the others… captured and returned to the tunnels, we assume…” “We have never stayed in one spot since,” Joybringer explained. “For fear that Scalphunter may be using the one who senses magic to track us down within these mountains…” “Why haven’t you fled these mountains entirely?” Treerunner asked, looking up. He had kneeled down to check on Stream during the latter part of Riverfall’s retelling of their lives. Shadow looked at the others now gathered in this cave with him. “If these trolls have something that can detect our magic… then the rest of my tribe may be in danger. We can’t leave anyone behind – they’d be able to sense Stream’s healing magic – everyone comes with us. We’re all going together.” Elsewhere… Stillbreeze heaved a deep sigh, the cold air, coming out in the form of a light mist between her soft, full lips. “I am so hungry I could eat a treewee!” “I don’t care for just loafing around here, in this cave, while the others hunt for us,” Vineweaver added, putting his arm around his soulmate. “They’ve been gone too long… we should send some of us to go find them…” Windfetcher shook her head. “And split the tribe more?” Though she was but a young cub, she took her duties as secondary chief (according to what Shadow had said before leaving) very seriously. “We wait here. I will decide when…” Then the howl came. “They’re here!” she shouted… and she could see them in the distance. Closer and closer they drew… then she noticed others with them… Her eyes widened. “They did not just find us meat to feast on… but they found… elves…” Windfetcher stammered, the words collapsing from her stunned lips. ============================ NOTES: 1. I always found it odd that we see the Palace land in basically a forested area, that looks like flat lands around them (when we see it first appear) – and yet later – it’s deep in a mountain range. This is my little explanation as to why that is. 2. Scalphunter’s trolls are the northern trolls that Gutterkraw would eventually take over and lead to siege the Palace and hold it before Cutter’s arrival. (Not in canon of course, was just placing them there to show who Gutterkraw's trolls would be coming from...)