I reappeared at the entrance of the dungeon and heard the laugh of the blacksmith.

"You made it out, good. Let's head down to see the village chief."

I got up, but Mezu was still clinging to me excitedly.

"Come on Mezu you gotta walk."

Mezu grumbled and climbed onto my back and then shoulders. The weight shocked me a bit but I laughed softly.

"Fine, you can stay like that."

The blacksmith laughed again, starting to walk.

"It's probably better if I don't ask, right?"

"Yeah, I don't even think I'd be able to explain it well."

I put a hand on Mezu's leg to hold him there and followed.

"I didn't introduce myself earlier, you can call me Lykor."

"I'm Quartz, this is Mezu. Nice to meet you."

"So what did the Chief offer you? People don't clear dungeons for free even if they get rewards from it."

"A ride to Manthia. Originally he said you could take me but I had refused since I wanted to hide my ears. So he said I could borrow one and leave it with someone there."

He sighed heavily annoyed.

"Sounds like our chief, a little too nice for his own safety, but are you sure that's all you want?"

He looked over his shoulder at me.

"I mean I wasn't too sure about heading into the dungeon myself but getting the guild's help would have been too late."

"I don't really have much equipment, so I was thinking of asking you for a sword, but I don't want to be too greedy you giving me a ride and all."

Modesty gets you results.

Lykor laughed heavily, grabbing his chest.

"You're a brazen one aren't you, I'll let you know what I decide once we get back to Manthia."

Okay, so maybe I’m not the best at feigning modesty then.

We made it to the buildings and the Chief was outside talking to another villager.

"Oh, you're back already? Thank you so much, hunter."

He seemed overly happy, and I get what Lykor meant by him being too nice as he seemed to run over his arms open. Lykor stopped him in his tracks grinning.

"No need to discuss his reward, he already told me. I was planning on heading out tomorrow if we were going to scout out the dungeon, but I'll leave today instead alright chief?"

I was relieved to hear we were leaving soon; I really didn't want to stay here much longer.

"Are you sure it's already so late? You can always stay for dinner."

"I really need to be getting back home. The ride is more than enough. Thanks for the offer though."

Lykor turned the chief around and pushed him back to the other elves.

"You heard the man, we'll be heading off now."

Lykor quickly turned to me, led me off, and leaned in to whisper,

"Let's get out of here quickly."

After rushing to help him pack up his things, I was glad to be far enough from the village to take off my hood.

Living in the Azmar, I never had to hide my status as a half-elf. Elves were rare as it was there. Most elven adventurers who even wanted to challenge the tower tended to be highly ranked within guilds and lived in the tower. And the ones who weren't either lived in their country or had left. Since they left, they didn’t care about someone being a half-elf, it was less stressful.

Still, it was a habit to mess my hair up and have it cut weirdly in an attempt to hide my ears. I didn’t know how well it worked since I never looked in the mirror, but since it was only my hood that gave me away earlier, I wondered how good of a job my hair actually did.

I watched Mezu sit on the horse pulling the carriage ahead of us.

He was a weird little thing. It confused me a bit though; all the terms Alcoroth would casually use or the times he'd accidentally speak about Mezu formally.

What was a bit more confusing, than me being used as food for a frighteningly powerful small being, was the fact that I was a half-high-elf of all things. I always just assumed I was a plain half-elf, no reason to assume I was anything special.

But then again there was a gap in the panel that showed it, it could have just been a system error. Even if I was a half-high-elf and abandoned by my parents I would have ended up in the orphanage in the capital wouldn't I have?

I looked over at Lykor. We would be together awhile, might as well ask him a few questions.

"So do you mind telling me why they hate halfers?"

Lykor chuckled.

"With everything that happened I forgot you were completely oblivious. Where did you grow up anyway?"

I wasn't sure how open I should be to this complete stranger but even if I told him the truth, he'd probably think I was lying.

"I grew up in an orphanage in Naredur."

Lykor's laugh was heartier than I was expecting.

"A halfer raised by dwarves, you really are a strange one."

"Well, they only ever teased me about never going to see my home country."

"You lucked out, you probably would have gotten killed if you were in an orphanage here."

Lykor's face hardened.

"Why would they do that?"

Lykor looked at me as if he couldn't decide what to say.

"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to."

"I'll tell you enough so you know how serious it is."

I watched him think a bit more.  Mezu jumped back onto me playing with the straps of my pack.

"A while ago when I used to live in the capital, a friend of mine was running the orphanage there. Now with elves having such long lives, there weren't many living in the orphanage so she was able to treat the kids well. But one day when I was on my way over to them, I used to teach the kids archery, the royal guards were standing outside holding my friend back as they burned the building down. The next day they announced a ban on all half-elves in the capital and country. If they didn't leave on that day they'd be killed."

I looked down trying to control the shock on my face.

"I left after that, with the other half-elves."

"What happened to your friend?"

"She lived with me for a while but she lost herself after that happened."

"Why would they go so far to kill kids but leave everyone else alive?" I thought, panicking.

There must have been a kid they were looking for. And a kid that young that they'd still be at an orphanage.

"Sorry about your friend."

"That's all you have to say?"

Alcoroth's voice made me jump. He had been so quiet I almost forgot he was there.

Lykor just kept looking forward. A couple of times he opened his mouth as if to speak before closing it. It seemed to be that he was trying to decide what to say.

I leaned back in my seat and played with Mezu's hair after repositioning him to lean his back into me.

Whenever I looked at him, I half expected there to be fluffy ears buried under the fluff of his hair. Sometimes I wished there was; they would probably be even softer and nice to touch than his hair already was.

A loud sigh from Alcorth made my face twitch a bit in anger.

"You sure know how to kill the mood. Aren't you even slightly curious about your half-elf past?"

I glanced up at him, urging for him to shut up.

I couldn't just outright ask about that. But it was strange. I’ve always tried to change my hair color, and hide my eyes and my ears when I was younger. I didn’t really question him but I guess it was a bit strange. Why had my uncle encouraged that?

"Why would high elves only care about kids that young, and care about half-elves in the first place. It's not like a half-high-elf would exist, right? I mean that would be the only thing that would insult them so much they'd murder children, right?"

I said that mostly as a joke really hoping I couldn't at all be related to this.

"I didn't stay around long enough to ask but halfers weren't popular for a while in the capital. A lot of High-elves saw any mix as an insult but they didn't do anything about it ‘til then."

Lykor looked over at me. I did my best to have a blank face, but I didn't have much control over my expressions in the first place, so I really didn’t know what emotion he read, if any.

"For a halfer raised by dwarves, you know only basics about elves. Even though dwarves and elves have always competed it's not like we aren't unknowledgeable about each other."

"I didn't ask much about it when I was younger."

Actually, Uncle looked so sad whenever I asked about my parents that I stopped asking after a while. My uncle was an ex-adventurer that taught me about swords to keep me from mining. He used to say my weak elf hands wouldn't last a day in the mine. Not that he taught me anything about smithing either.

Even though he looked after me, I stayed at the orphanage and couldn't tell anyone where I went every day, not that people asked me. He told me once I was old enough I should leave and never come back.

I shook my head as if to force myself not to think of him.

"Why not?"

"The only answer I got was, 'well they hate halfers so why do you care?' So after a while, I just stopped asking."

Lykor seemed to find that comment funny despite it being a lie since he looked less tense.

"Why'd you leave then? It sounds like you were accepted there."

"Well, mostly . . . let's just say we're both not sharing completely, and the reason I left is part of that."

Lykor laughed.