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The axehead tumbled towards me in slow motion, its chipped edge strangely clear in my vision.
I raised a hand, feebly trying to defend myself. The scream had already left my mouth, my sister reaching towards me, the horror spreading across her face. She wouldn't reach me in time.
I closed my eyes. Was this it? I'd read that your life was supposed flashed before your eyes right before you died, but I hadn't had much of a life yet. Seven years of living was too short. It wasn't fair.
It wasn't fair.
Cauma! I cried, my outstretched hand forming into a claw. A translucent, glowing bubble formed around me, lifting me up into the air. The axe head bounced off of the bubble, and off into the bushes.
Lia had fallen onto the ground. She stared at me in shock, her jaw hanging wide open. I hovered in place, the faint yellow field of energy still shimmering around me.
"Um," I said, still stunned. "Sorry."
"That's..." my sister started to say, still stunned. "That's magic. My little brother's magic."
She frowned, a complicated expression beginning to form on her face. It wouldn't be the last time I'd see it.
"Um," I said again, suspended by the mysterious force. "I don't know how to get down."
She stared off into the distance, her eyes blank. "Right. I'll...I'll go call Mom." She got up.
"Are you ok?" I asked. She was starting to worry me .
"Yeah, sure," she said dismissively, as she started to walk back home. "Stay here."
"Right," I said. In the bubble, I started to slowly spin backwards. I thrashed around, trying to right myself, but to no use. In a few minutes, I'd be upside down.
A few minutes after that, my parents would arrive. Lia wouldn't be with them.
Now.
"See something you want?" Lia suddenly asked from behind me. The cart was empty now, but she'd kept the black staff. I saw it peeking out from behind her back.
I frowned. "Of course not," I said distastefully.
"Right," Lia said. "Of course." She shifted uncomfortably.
I pointed at the staff. "Are you keeping that?" I asked.
Lia's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Yeah. Thought I'd, uh, keep it at the store."
"Sure," I said, not entirely convinced.
"Yep. You hungry?" she asked. "We've got some time before the big guy wakes up, and his stuff sold for way more than I was expecting. Food's on me."
Then.
"I'm hungry," I whined, I balanced with one foot on the wooden pole that was itself balancing on a tree stump.
My master, a silver-haired elf by the name of Auren Fornwind, massaged his forehead in exasperation.
"Hunger is a compulsion, not a need," he explained again. "The human form can last for three days without food, and it's only been four hours since you've had your breakfast." His green eyes narrowed accusingly. "And your form, Kuu-Datto, is hardly human. It is a crude and awkward thing, to be certain, but it just barely qualifies you as one of our kind."
At this, my foot slipped, and I crashed down painfully onto the rugged wood that had once been Lia's archery target.
"I am not an elf!", I growled, rubbing my shoulder. "And I'm hungry!" I added.
Auren's eyes flashed with anger, and his shoulders tensed, as if preparing to strike, but he paused, and breathed out, slowly relaxing into his usual, graceful, stance. He inspected me from head to toe, like he had when he'd signed on as my master.
My powers awakening meant that the town finally had a reason to join the lucrative industry built around heroes and adventurers, bringing in new trade and people. When I grew up, I could be a famous scholar, a powerful wizard, or best of all, a hero myself.
But before I could make my hometown great, I needed training. Sweetroot dug deep into its finances to find a teacher for me, spreading the word out far and wide, but it wasn't until a week later that Auren knocked at our door.
Lia, who'd been grounded for a month, had gone to open it. Upon seeing the tall, slender, silver haired elf dressed in robes of fine, green silk, she'd frozen, and called for Mom.
I hid behind Mom's dress, until I was eventually coaxed out, and presented. Auren looked at my limbs-slender and long, for a child. My eyebrows were thick and well-defined, my eyes, large with gray pupils. My straight, black, hair, which Mom made sure I kept long, was pulled into a ponytail.
In short, I was strikingly beautiful, for a human, but next to Auren Fornwind, I looked like a bridge troll. Finally, his gaze flicked to the accusing mark, my ears. They were pointed, and slightly longer than average- not quite as majestically extended as his own, but they were enough for anyone to spot.
The look on his face as he evaluated me was the kind one usually reserved for something found stuck to the bottom of a boot, or clogging a gutter. It was the first of many lessons I would receive in recognizing the different ways someone could look disgusted.
Yet, for some reason, he'd decided to be my teacher, no matter how badly I would take to it. Even now, years since that day, his expression still hadn't changed.
"Half-elf, then," he murmured, the words carried away by the breeze. Auren lifted a hand, as if to send me away, but instead, he conjured up two wooden swords, and tossed one at me. It bounced off my forehead. Wincing, I snatched it off the ground, and stood up. Auren settled into a ready position. "A quick spar, then, and you're free to go," he said, smiling faintly.
I gulped, and raised the sword in defense of the beating that was about to come.
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