Once again, Arjana finds herself in the dark void of her mind.

She attempts to move, but once again, traversing the darkness is impossible.

“Why can’t I move?” She thinks out loud into the void. 

Thinking that no one will hear her, she sighs as she stares off into pitch black. Shortly after she resigned to just stay quiet, a voice answered her.

“You can’t move because you are not willing to navigate the dark.”

It’s the same feminine voice from the last time, but this time, she sounds closer. Arjana quickly looks around in the dark, trying to find the source,before she catches sight of the two piercing eyes again. Terrified, she feels an eerie sensation in her gut, but it soon washes away when a face materializes in front of her. Before she could make out the facial features of the voice, she began to plummet.

Falling… 

Falling…

Falling….

____

Arjana wakes with a start,her heart pounding in her chest as she pants heavily. 

“Who was that….?” ,she asks herself before noticing a bandage around her neck and upper chest. “What's this? Birger! Mister Birger!”, she calls out to him before getting up and out of bed. 

Immediately, she crumbled to the floor in pain, landing on her side. Birger barges into the room with more purple flowers in his arm ,when he sees Arjana lying on the floor.

“Youngin, please don't move!” ,he says in a panic before dropping the flowers and helping her back into bed. As she lays in bed, she feels a searing sensation in her neck and thigh. Birger quickly sets up the flowers around the bed before he grabs another vial of medicine on the counter. Pulling the cork off with his teeth, he quickly forces her to down the pain medicine.

“Sorry for the urgency,youngin’, but your wounds have gotten worse.”, he says in one breath.

Arjana couldn't understand, she was feeling fine yesterday, and now here she is bed-ridden again. Tears prick the corners of her eyes as the realization that she’ll be confined to the house again. 

When she’s done ingesting the bitter liquid, Birger gets up and starts frantically mixing more medicine at the workbench. Arjana turns her head and notices that the room has changed since she was passed out. There are strange markings carved into the walls on the wood, and there are incenses being burned. It was obvious that Birger did this, but his demeanor was starting to scare her. 

“Mandrake root, purified waters, owl feathers…Where the hell is that fire salamander oil!?” Birger grumbles as she goes through the vials on the table. “Damnit, that boy was supposed to bring it!”, he gives a disgruntled sigh before storming over to the door and exiting. The moment he leaves, Arjana hears a crash and a thud, making her jump slightly.

“Ow, dammit boy! What took you so long!?”, he spat as he could be heard getting up to his feet.

“You know it's not easy getting these things, you old bastard!”, a young boy’s voice can be heard shouting back at him.

Arjana didn’t know who this other voice belonged to, and she was tempted to get up to investigate. Unfortunately, the pain would slowly creep back if she made any attempts to move. Birger walks back into the room holding a vial with a reddish glowing liquid.

“Okay, fire salamander oil.”, he sighs before carefully, adding a few drops to the water basin. Behind him, a young boy covered in a brown sheet follows behind him slowly with a walking cane. Arjana leaned forward a bit to try and get a good look at his face, but couldnt see anything, he was covered head to toe. The young boy slowly tilted his head, before he tapped his walking stick on the ground.

“Birger you dumbass! The oil shouldn't go in the basin!”, he yells.

“Dumbass?! I’ve been making medicine since you were still in your father’s loins! Don’t lecture me about what I’m doing!”, Birger argues

He lights the water basin, when suddenly,Boom! The water basin erupts and all of the water evaporates out of it. The smell of smoke fills the air, and all three of them are sent into coughing fits. 

“You see!? Fire Salamander oil, turns into a flammable liquid when mixed with water!”, the boy says between coughs. 

“I’ve used oil before,boy! It just reacts differently to the mandrake root….”, Birger then remembers something. “Did you get the book?”, he asks.

The boy would pull a large heavy book from under his sheet. “You owe me for this, you know I don’t like going back there.” he mumbles before giving the book to Birger. Taking the book, Birger begins flipping through the pages.

“It’s on page 274.” the boy says.

Birger flips through the book, “ 275, you were one off.” ,he answers casually before looking over the page again. “Oh, I get it now.” he says to himself before moving back to the workbench and starting the medicine again. As he works, Arjana takes a moment to examine the boy, or…what she could examine. He’s covered from head to toe in a brownish, dirty sheet, as if it wasn't washed in days. His gloves have the fingertips cut out, and she notices that his skin…is auburn.. Closely looking at his hand, she sees that he has small sharp claws.

Hssssss…

While she observes him, she hears a distinct hissing sound. Looking back up at where his head would be, she notices the sound emanating from there. This intimidates her into looking down at her palms.

“Izzimar, be nice.”, Birger says looking back. 

“Izzimar?” ,Arjana thinks as she looks back up at him. So this was the boy who saved her, the runaway who gave her the letter with the flower. “This is..him..? A boy covered from head to toe in a sheet?”

“Sorry ... .I just don't like being stared at…”, he mumbles.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Arjana apologizes, “I’ve…I’ve just never seen anyone wear a sheet before.”

Birger gets finished with the potion, and brings it over. He looks at Izzimar before looking back at Arjana, unsure of how to explain. Steeling his nerves, he takes a deep breath and confesses.

“Arjana, Izzimar is wearing a sheet because he’s a rare elf.”

The news shockes Arjana, she didn't know that Izzimar was an elf. She thought he was human with the way Birger spoke about him. 

“Why didn’t you tell me that he was an elf?!”, she asks him in disbelief. Birger looks away with great reluctance, not sure of how to answer her, but he tries to give the best answer he could.

“Youngin’…it’s not a good look when a young girl is found injured in the forest with an elf nearby. And I  noticed by your clothes at the time, that you had status. Upper class children are educated about elves, so they wouldn't like them very much compared to an uneducated child.”

He pauses in his explanation to look back and forth between her and Izzimar before he continues. 

“When you said that you were a princess, I hid this from you but I was mortified… If what you said was true, then the king…”, he hesitates before continuing, “I was…afraid your father would wage an all out war on the elves if he found you in our company. So I had Izzimar move out temporarily. His skin is auburn, so it's a bit…harder to hide his appearance without the sheet.”

“Move out..? Is this his room?”

“Yes, it’s my room”, Izzimar interrupts before being swatted at the back of his head. “Ow! Bastard!” he hisses back.

“Boy, don’t interrupt!” he spat. “Yes….this is his room… And there's something that..I..I too must confess..…”

Birger hesitates, and steps away for a moment. Izzimar steps to him and yells.

“Stop being a chickenshit and come out with it! She’s going to know sooner or later!”

Arjana is surprised by the level of profanity Izzimar threw towards Birger, with the latter being an adult. But, she couldn't let that distract her from what Izzimar said. “What is Birger hiding from me?”, she thinks as she notices the anxious expression on his face. Birger does a lot of contemplation before sighing and he relents.

“Fine… Fine… Youngin’....”

Birger walks over to Arjana and kneels at her bedside. He begins wiping his face, around his eyes and chin, removing the paint and revealing these blue markings etched into his skin. Arjana didn’t recognize the markings, so she thought nothing of it. But that changed when Birger removed his hood to reveal two large moose antlers. This shocks Arjana, “How could he hide such antlers underneath the hood?”, she thinks to herself before she notices his ears. They were pointed at an upward angle and very long, he must’ve hidden the upper half in his hair the whole time. In fact, now that she remembers the other elf in the woods yesterday, he also had his ears buried in his hair. 

“I… I’m an elf, specifically a Lumen elf. I’m out here because I live in exile. Not because I’m a traveling doctor.” Birger explains

“When Izzimar found you, I was afraid… Not just because of your injuries, but because of what would happen if any human saw us with you. Even if we tried to reason with them, we feared that they would not listen. Elves are capable of great magic, so if you were to come to our defense, the humans would assume you're under a spell.”, he adds, looking at her with great regret.

“Youngin’ I’m so sorry to have kept this from you, but….I just had to be sure… that we would be safe…”, 

This new information starts to explain a lot of questions she had about Birger. The reason why she had to cook for them both was because he was an elf and elves are cursed to rely on humans for food. It also explained his knowledge of medicine that puts even seasoned physicians to shame. He also smelled like an old oak tree and knew about the story of Tir Na Nog. This whole time, he was an elf….

However, now Arjana has a new worry, “Have they… kidnapped me to make food for them? Is that why he made no effort to help me get home?”, she thinks to herself as she starts to panic. Then, a memory resurfaced from a few days back when Birger went to his room ,and she had passed out.

That night, when there had been a chill coming from his room, he went to quell it. When she followed him,he had stepped out of his room without his hood. She had seen his horns and ears, but oddly, she passed out and couldn't recall seeing them the next day. “Had he, casted a spell on me?” 

Before she could say anything, she lurched forward and gagged. Birger stands up and moves aside as she throws up onto the floor. Arjana starts to have a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, after seeing his ears. Maybe his ears were just unnatural to her, so they turned her stomach, but then she threw up again. Thankfully, Birger had grabbed a wooden bucket for her to throw up in. When Arjana calms down a bit, she gags again, prompting Birger to hide his ears with his hair.

“Are you…okay,youngin’ ?”, he asked her while cleaning up the mess.

She didn't know how to respond, she didn't know what to ask or what to say. There’s no denying that she’s shocked about being raised by a creature she thought was a man but… that isn't what's making her ill. There’s something about his ears that unsettle her…something..familiar. Her thoughts are interrupted when Izzimar approaches her with a slightly crumpled flower.

“Arjana ... .I ... .I got this for you.” he admits “I hope the pollen can help you feel better.”

She inhales the pollen, remembering the scent from the letter he gave her. This calms her down immensely, and brings back memories of the kind words he managed to scribble in common.

“Also, I think your very pretty.”

A warmth spreads to her face, should she ask? “Um…thank you, Izzimar…” she says quietly.

“You're welcome,Arjana..”, Izzimar replied.

“Izzimar, how do you know common, but can’t write it?” 

“I learned how to speak it from this old bastard.” he gestures to Birger who grunts while pouring the bucket out the window. “But my writing isn't good," he admits.

“Oh….is it…true that you ….think I’m pretty?”, she asks sheepishly.

Birger freezes in the background for a moment, noticing Izzimar’s silence. The young elf steps toward Arjana and cups her face with his clawed hand. She jerks back confused, before Birger intervenes.

“Arjana, Izzimar is blind, he’s trying to see you.”, he explains 

“Oh.”

Arjana holds still as Izzimar strokes her cheek before feeling her face. She feels uneasy before noticing him pressing his thumb along her cheekbone.

“You have a plump face too?” he asks before moving up to her eyes and then her hair.

“You have braids? Where are your horns?”, he asks feeling her head for any protrusions

“I don't have horns silly!”, Arjana giggles ,”But I do have locks, they're very tight twists”, she answers before he steps back.

“...Compared to me, you're very pretty…” he admits solemnly.

Arjana senses the disappointment in his voice, and holds his hand. “I want to see what you look like.”, she asks,giving his hand a little squeeze.

“You…want to see me…?”, Izzimar questions.

“Yeah, you got to see me, so of course!”

Izzimar hesitates, “I….I don't know…my family said I was ugly…”

“I don’t think you're ugly.”, Arjana reassures him.

“You haven't even seen me yet, so how could you know?!", he spat. To prevent an arguement,  Birger intervenes by placing a hand on Izzimar’s shoulder. 

“Izzimar, you won't know what she thinks unless you allow her to see you.”, he says with a smile. His kind words catch Izzimar off guard before he sighs. “Fine…I’ll take it off…” 

He sets his walking stick aside before removing the sheet from over him. Arjana freezes in complete shock at his appearance as she looks  him up and down. He had small black horns protruding from his head and messy silver hair, some parts braided, others left undone. His skin was a light auburn mixed in with a tint of violet, and he had a burlap sack to wear as clothes. There are black markings under his eyes almost like the ones Birger has. But what drew her in was his foggy red and black eyes that looked almost like that of a wolf. Not able to hide her excitement anymore, Arjana reaches forward and touches his horns.

“Wow, you have horns too? Do they hurt growing out of your head?”, she beams

“Only when I lay on them. I have to file them down from time to time.”

“What are these markings on your face? Can they come off?”, she asks as she gently touches his face, running her fingers along the marks. This makes Izzimar feel a bit overwhelmed, he quivers before calming himself. “No, they’re birthmarks, they never come off.”, Izzimar says rather blankly.

“Your hair looks very nice too, can I tou-”

“No.”, he quickly interrupts.

“But why-”

Birger interrupts again by grabbing Arjana’s hand when she reaches for Izzimars hair. “Trust me, don't touch his hair, he’s fought me over it. Another thing, it's rude to touch someone without asking.”, he explains before letting her arm go. She nods, understanding the message before she stops touching him.

“Izzimar, you’re…amazing.” she says with a warm smile. “I've  never met anyone like you.” She adds before Izzimar turns away. 

“Izzimar?”

“....I’ll go…grab more red hydrangeas for your medicine. I’ll be back.” Izzimar says before grabbing his walking cane and leaving out the door.

“Is…he okay? Did I say something wrong?” Arjana asks, as Birger chuckles while he opens the potion from earlier and begins to pour it over her bandages.