In the Lorr Foothills
The elemental kept its signature hidden and its power muted as it approached, covering the distance between them rapidly. It had taken a lot for Valla to keep it in her Sight for so long, and it had slowed her healing, forcing her to rely on Doren's watch shifts to safely remove her complete focus from watching it. She was not strong enough now to meet an elemental in a direct confrontation - perhaps she never had been, but of course, she could not remember.
Their stalker shimmered into their mundane vision slowly, eyes forming first, then its outline creating a bright inverse silhouette against the night. As the seconds passed it shone silver, filling in the physical space it did not need to occupy to stand and stare at them from twenty paces away, back to the mountain range. The mild chill turned vicious. Once in its corporeal state, the elemental resembled something from a child's nightmare peering at them through the dark. It was in an ice form now, although it was still early in the season for it even in the mountains. It was humanoid, but over three meters tall, with two pairs of arms and one pair of legs all so thin as to seem fragile, bones forming sharp angles at its collarbones, hips, and joints. The first pair of arms were slightly outstretched as though reaching for them as it crouched on its bent legs and the elbows of its lower arms. Even stooped as it was, it was as tall as Doren, its four furred ears giving it an extra bit of height over him. Its glow was like starlight, soft, radiating from its lightly furred grey skin, brighter than the now feeble mage light Doren had summoned. As it stared at them its eyes, large and feline, shifted colors from brilliant green to bloodred, then gold to silver to blue and white, the changes rolling through its irises like thunderheads, a metallic sheen flashing like lightning. Valla heard Doren breathing steadily beside her, preternaturally calm. His training had kicked in, then.
Valla bowed her head to the being before them, breath frosting in the frigid air. "Hello, friend. I am honored to greet you without pretenses." Elementals could hide in different skins, or float as auras without physical forms. For this one to manifest itself in its natural winter form was unusual. Few even knew that they could appear this way. Valla hoped it might be a sign that it came without malice.
The elemental did not speak but stretched its arms closer, its focus on Valla. She tensed, then relaxed deliberately, lowering her barriers to let her power shine. Doren shifted uneasily next to her as she took a step, then two, closer to it, straining in to See its power. Lowering her own barriers had been an offer of peace; it had appeared in its own skin, and so Valla had shown herself to it, hoping to learn more. But her gesture was not reciprocated. Even as it had revealed itself to them, it kept its lifeforce and magic hidden, shrouded in a grey veil so she could only guess at its magnitude and could not see its essence. It rocked forward suddenly, putting most of its weight on its lower arms and one upper arm now and holding out the other with an open palm. The hand it offered was also furred, with translucent webbing between its six thin and tapered digits, silver claws short but razor sharp. It stayed silent.
Valla walked forward slowly, bemused but now calm. This was not an ambush, at least not by the elemental itself, and they were infamously solitary creatures. It was disconcerting though that the elemental would not speak. They were not gregarious, but in every story that she knew - and likely in many she had forgotten - they were wordsmiths, toying with weaker beings, treating their boredom with conversation. And yet this one had followed them far past what it comfortably could travel, shrouded and silent, and then offered its hand to her in its natural form.
Once she stood in front of it, Valla carefully met its hand with hers, placing her fingertips on its silky palm.
Painfully, slowly, it ground out a single word. "Bound."
She felt its magic scour hers, and let it, both curious and unwilling to provoke it without cause. It was the magical equivalent of holding her head in a tiger's mouth, its power clawing through hers so her flames flared and sparked. The elemental's searching grasp snagged on the mage collar, sending lightning flashing through Valla and whitening her vision, causing her to stumble back, bones aching and her side bleeding. The elemental grabbed her wrist before she could remove her hand, claws leaving thin cuts that beaded scarlet as she gasped for breath. Again, it ground out, "Bound."
Doren had surged forward when Valla had fallen back, sword drawn, magic swirling. "Stop," Valla rasped. He didn't at first, only stopping a few paces behind her. The elemental lowered its head closer to Valla's, and she saw her own grey eyes reflected in its kaleidoscopic stare. Its ears twitched in a gesture that was incongruously adorable. Valla turned her hand back so her palm touched its, and asked, "Bound?" The elemental did not answer but let go, and slowly lowered its hand. Its shroud flickered, but Valla could not see anything clearly, it power roiling and blurred. All she could see was that it was much, much weaker than any elemental should be.
"It is wounded somehow," she told Doren. "Can you see? Your healing is better than mine."
Doren moved up to stand at her shoulder, face drawn into a fierce scowl. "Not now. I can try." He did not say what she knew he meant, which was that to give his attention to Looking when they were faced with a threat was foolish to the point of being criminal. At least, that's what she thought he meant. She nodded, and settled her stance, hoping to reassure him. She sensed him focus on the elemental and saw it turn its attention to him as well, seeming almost reluctant. It held all its hands against the ground now*, not trying to reach out to them or moving at all, except for the persistent turning and flicking of its long ears.
Finally, Doren stopped and spoke. "I cannot be sure. It isn't wounded, exactly, but it is weakened, and I can't See enough to know why. Perhaps it is ill? A soul sickness? Or it was wounded and is recovering."
"It keeps saying 'bound'," Valla murmured. "Perhaps..."
Doren shook his head. "That shouldn't be possible. A mage collar wouldn't work on an elemental*, no matter what legends say. They are exaggerations. When we -" and her he stopped, and looked at her with something akin to panic. He quickly schooled his expression and went on, " - when we restrained beings like them, we never even considered collars. They would not have worked."
Valla held back a shudder borne of stress, exhaustion, and disgust at the idea of the other restraints they would have used, and the beings they might have been used on. Doren was still speaking, gently now. "It is possible it is not speaking about itself."
It was true that she had done nothing to hide her collar from it after opening her power to it and lowering her defenses, leaving her aura open and unshielded before it. Nevertheless. "Something is weakening it. Would other restraints do that?"
"If such restraints were used, it would not be here."
She swallowed.
"We cannot help it, Valla."
Valla held out her hand to it again, but it was fading now. Despite its silence, it would have heard every word they spoke and understood it fully.
"Wait, friend. You can come with us. We can try and help you," Valla said somewhat desperately, ignoring Doren's sharp inhale. But it did nothing to stop it, the elemental's gaze fading last, its eyes gentle as it disappeared. The wind blew and the cold lifted, and then it was gone, leaving them alone for the first time since they had started their journey out of the valley.
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