When Tranquility Flees

When Tranquility Flees

PROLOGUE

The elf girl ran frantically through the village while screams swallowed the peace of the night, her simple toga gown billowing in the smoky wind that choked her lungs and stung her eyes. Her long wavy green hair was pulled back in a sloppy braid and flew behind her now in her haste as fires consumed the humble houses of her people and devoured the contents inside like starving entities. Tranquility had abandoned both the slumber and modest existence of her people with a vengeance, leaving chaos to swiftly take the throne of reality. And now, anarchy was spreading like a virulent infection all over the blackened, charred land.

The invading Drow forces were everywhere, slaughtering anyone they could, heartlessly and almost mechanically as if it caused them no turmoil. Maybe it didn't. The reds and golds of their eyes were vacant and callous as the blood of kindred bodies splattered warmly on their charcoal faces. From out of the folds of the night they had emerged, their forms silent and weapons ruthless in ripping through the stagnant curtain of stillness before dawn.

The massacre currently happening before the elf's amber eyes didn't make sense, no matter how many ways she attempted to come up with a valid explanation for why they were being attacked. Hysteria had broken loose everywhere, but nothing inside its whirlwind of destruction screamed that this was deserved. It was true the Drow were a fierce and proud race of people to be feared and respected in all aspects of life, and a race of people not to taunt or provoke on any means. But the Elementals had caused them no distress and had not instigated any confrontation which would arouse such an abrupt and horrific retaliation like the one at hand. The present havoc was completely spontaneous and illogical; the Elementals had done nothing wrong.

Her heart pounded as she noted recognized loved ones and villagers dead in the streets. She'd seen her mother and father slain already, but so far not him, not yet. Her eyes watered from the lingering ash and dust in the air as well as the agony and death being suffered by all who were victimized. The pain swelled against her like a sweltering wave and made it hard to breathe as she gasped in, only to inhale more desolation with the stench of burning corpses and wood. But most of all, her head throbbed from confusion and anger as an answer to the unspeakable crimes ensuing around her lingered out of her reach. Why were the Elementals being assaulted? What did the Drow have against them that warranted such severe depths of retribution? And why in the name of the gods weren't her kind retaliating? Fire could control fire, wind could turn it against their creators, water could snuff it, and earth could bury it! After all, they were the instruments for the fundamental building blocks of nature, the life forces that had created the very land now being desecrated and defiled.

But instead of answers there was death. Ghastly and maniacal genocide.

Dodging aimless arrows and other lethal projectiles flying by, intended for any targets clumsy or unlucky enough to stumble into their paths, she ran on. The forest green tribal markings branding her as an earth elemental had begun to glow from the overwhelming sensations negatively battering her body, and silver tears slid down her face, tracing the lines decorating her cheeks symmetrically as they fell. Her body was starting to lose its strength and yet she stubbornly ran faster than it could go, lurching her forward in consequence as balance attempted to trip her from her defiance of speed. But she couldn't falter now. She had to keep going and find her little sister Tawna, who had spent the entire day entertaining the half-breed child of the dignified and well-loved wind elemental, Padraic Vartha Arra Lementha, while he and his wife Maeryn, one of the few Wood elves also living in the village, had helped with village chores. The boy was known as Little Aleksey and had begged that Tawna spend the night, to which she had happily obliged with permission. He was only three hundred years old, the equivalent of a seven year old human. He hadn't even come into his element yet.

The earth elemental's face contorted into unbridled misery at the thought of that little brown haired boy dead and slaughtered on the ground so ruthlessly like all the others around her. She had a bond with him that she considered to be very special, just like her sister did. While Tawna was his playmate and babysitter, he knew her as Tesha, sa Telshoa Lassa, or the Story Lady. She loved reading tales of elven folklores and myth to him, for his attention was unusually sharp and attentive for someone his age. His potential was incredible.

A drow solder jumped in front of her suddenly, growling savagely and causing her to shriek out in horror as her mind snapped back to attention. It was like she had been slapped in the face by a low hanging branch adorned with thorny protrusions. As he withdrew the tomahawk from his belt to strike her, the markings down her arms instinctively began to glow with neon brilliance, and her fingers proceeded to morph into dexterous vines. She used her left hand to whip the drow across the face while the vines on her right hand slunk around his legs and pulled his feet out from under him. Before he knew what had hit him she was gone. He hissed in fury, fingers reaching up to feel blood from where the vines had struck his cheeks. Instantly he on his feet to pursue his lost prey and seek brutal revenge.

Tesha ducked behind a tree momentarily as the glowing on her arms died back to their normal forest green hue. Then she peeked out cautiously to survey the surroundings and when no tainted weapons flew at her head with malicious intent, she scurried back into view, determinedly headed for the hut of Padraic.

But an arrow broke through her frantic and purposeful running when it hit her in the shoulder blade. She cried out in pain and stumbled, nearly careening into a fully engulfed hut to her right. Veering sharply around the structure, she became hidden by the inferno she'd nearly collided with %u2013 but found herself face to face with another sight that sent a shrill cry of grief ripping through the pestilent night which derived from the very core of her being.

There lay Tawna in a pool of her own blood. Her large brown eyes were wide, lifeless, and perpetually bemused. Every feeling she'd emanated was encased in those open orbs and frozen now as a diary of the traumas of her murder. The fear, the shock, the questions of why...all of it churned within those unblinking irises never to be vanquished or answered. The thick green hair on her head which had once been luscious and beautiful was now stained and drenched by the crimson life force leaking from her fractured cranium and soon her body would disperse into soil and become one with sa Nalagra Socar, or the Earth Goddess and Mother, once more.

The older sister staggered forward, whispering mourning spells and prayers between the fingers that were splayed over her quivering lips. She'd grown numb to the pain that had been shooting through her from the arrow in her shoulder. All that she cared about now was Tawna, her vibrant and loving sister, gone forever into the abyss, ascended to the afterlife realm of Etherian, where all is said to be warm and silvery.

"And you shall join her, Soca Lementha!" A sharp, cutting voice spat at her from behind, sucking her back to reality, ghastly nightmarish reality. Turning around slowly, she saw another drow soldier, different from the one she'd struggled with before. He had long white shoulder length hair thick as fur, and hairy, spiked eyebrows that sat above aloof red irises framed by immense white lashes. He was attractive but heartless, and the crossbow in his hands was aimed at her heart. "You run, but you no escape," he declared softly, his choppy accent as harsh as his anticipated cruelty. "And this arrow shall not miss, like one in shoulder." With that, he released the trigger.

Tesha swerved, but not fast enough and the arrow slammed into her chest, puncturing her right lung and sending her back on top of her sister's corpse with a primal scream. The pain was excruciating, and the blow was lethal. She knew it then, that this night would not let her see the pale morning, a morning to be painted red. And she knew one other thing as well. She would never see his face again, the face of her beloved.

And that's when she glimpsed it, as the stunned feeling spreading in her upper torso forced her eyes into bulging round spheres as she slid off of Tawna's body with a hard thump, grasping her chest around the arrow frantically. A being shrouded in shadows stood on top of a hill behind the village, pulling in brilliantly colored balls of light as they drifted like lost children up into the black sky. They were the souls of the elementals being butchered, she realized, and her amber eyes widened in fury and sudden clarity.

They were being massacred for that creature as sacrifices. The absent gazes of the dark elves had something to do with the control that creature had attained over them. They were possessed and under its influence and therefore prepared to perform its every will. Well, she would not be fed to some demon for whatever sordid purpose it sought. She refused to die for the gluttonous desires of a self indulgent monster.

And so, as the drow neared closer to finish her off, she focused away from the blinding pain within her chest and sucked in the deepest breath her pierced lungs would allow, calling upon the spirit of the earth within her for aid. Her entire body responded by erupting in neon green light, each marking like a passionate flame bursting with intensity. The drow veered back and covered his eyes, blinded by the awesome spectacle of power. When he looked back, the earth had swallowed the girl whole and a crack was resealing itself along the ground.

He stamped his foot in frustration and immediately tried to stop the crack from closing completely, but a tree root slithered out as he frantically dug his foot into the rift and tightened around his ankle, cutting off the circulation in his leg before flicking to the left and causing him to fall. He cried out and hit the ground sharply with a thud, grunting violently from the sprained ankle received, and then reached back angrily to stab the root with an arrow. It released him with a strange hiss before going limp.

Meanwhile Tesha felt the earth, the cool damp earth, pushing her along as it separated on its own to transport her to safety and then closed back up to conceal the secret tunnel, obeying the pleas of her withering body. It was like a comforting womb to her and yet soon it would also be her grave. When she died, like all the other elementals who had perished, her body would crumble into a physical remnant of her element, this being dirt, and would work its way back into nature's cycle as a fertilizer for future life. The bodies of water elementals liquefied and then melted away back down into the soil. Fire elementals broke apart and scattered as ashes, and wind elementals simply dissolved, leaving behind only the garment adorning their tangible shell as proof of their existence.

When the ground's surface opened again, forest air invaded her nostrils and she looked up groggily to find herself in the great forest beyond the village, thickly dimmed trunks peacefully standing erect in their eternal positions, their silence comforting and the darkness soothing. She couldn't see any orange glow from the destructive fires consuming the village so she felt at peace, at peace to rest and at peace to die. Blood was filling her lungs and she coughed up some as it slowly shrunk her air space. Then she crawled piteously to a bed of moss and lay down, coughing up more blood as death began to embrace her.

She thought of him in those last dying moments, her beautiful water elemental lover, Everis Bonrian Vira Lementha, assuredly slain in the streets of the village. The Drow meant to leave no survivors and so she couldn't imagine he'd found a means of escape. She closed her eyes and allowed visions of him to accompany her passing then, happy images, not horrid ones like the thought of his mangled body twisted hideously on burnt, bloodied land to overcome her when she hadn't actually seen it. She dreamed of the way his shoulder length teal hair blew in the wind when he let it down, so thick and beautiful, the way his boyish cheeks lit up underneath his brilliant aquamarine eyes when he laughed, so melodically and entrancing, and of course the way he had stroked her hair and whispered to her so tenderly when he had made love to her that first time.

She prayed then, too weak to move and feeling that the end was nigh, prayed with all her strength left that he hadn't suffered, her beautiful, perfect Everis. She prayed to the gods that it had been swift and merciful for him. Tears poured forth at the thought that his magnanimous, compassionate soul would be absorbed by that beast on the hill, bitter and desolate tears he couldn't wipe from her face now and take into himself like he had promised to do to with all of them once. Nay, as the darkness enveloped her she was alone and cold and without love.

Tranquility had forever fled in the wake of the reign of belligerent chaos. And there, in that muted and secluded forest grove, Tesha Fawnyn Soca Lementha died, her youthful soul swiftly passing passing out of her body, destined for the afterlife realm of Etherian.