Druid - Ch 1: Warmth

Ch 1: Warmth

We were raised to know we where human. Human changelings among the elves. That didn’t make us better or worse, just different. We were trained. We were trained to be strong and fast and quiet and smart, to keep up with elves, who had higher standards than humans, we were told.

We where disgruntled. Elves our age where considered adults.

“Elves and humans age differently.” We were reminded. We were raised in a Grove, what the human world would have been called a monastery, or a convent, but there where worshipers of both kinds. This was not a religious place, though. We were taught the way of the woods. The elfin orphans where taught how to use Albumancy, and so where we, though humans are usually incapable of it. We had been fed Albumancy since we were changed, and so our systems accepted it, and we lived as long as elves.

The Trees (That’s what the worshipers where called) liked me. They said I had strong Albumancy, and an affinity for the forest, and martial arts, and touched me with Albumancy in a way that would tell if I was an elf. If I had any non-human blood, it was so long ago it didn’t show.

The queen visited one day, to check on the orphans. She took a liking to me, and told me that if I wanted, once I was fifteen I could come to her court and be one of her maids until a lord fell in love with me and whisked me off to his manner house. I bowed, and thanked her, and giggled, not thinking I would ever actually be any more than a Ranger, which was what they trained those of us strong and fast and clever enough to be.

They say he was my brother, my real brother, and I believed them. His hair was lighter than mine, like rose gold, and he had warm brown eyes. He was three years younger than I was. He too qualified to be a ranger, but I begged him not to be. It was dangerous work, and if he was truly good, he would want to be trained as a Druid, and few survived that training. He was set to it, though.

I became a ranger officially the year I was fourteen, but they kept me at the temple, as I was so young.

Let me explain what rangers are.

Rangers fight with two blades. Each one carries a shortsword, and something like a rapier or a longsword. They are masters off the wood, the trees themselves.

And then there are Druids. The most incredible Rangers can be trained as Druids. It’s hard training, and most die, but those who live become part of a special, super-elite group.

There was a young lord, two years older than myself. It would be a lie to say we where ever only friends. People said we were, and how cute, but we were always just a little bit more. When I was four I told him that someday I would become a Druid, and then he would be able to marry me. Druids have rank, you see. He just laughed, but I knew it wasn’t at me.

He always visited my brother and me as we grew up. He was an elf, of course, considered an adult long before I was, but he said it didn’t matter.

I took up the queen’s offer as soon as I could; I had been offered Druid training, but I wanted to try out something else. I was the queen’s servant; I was her favorite, though, and soon that was not all I was. I was invited to balls and introduced to lords, and my red curls where my lady’s pride.

I was a Ranger, too, though. It was a nice coincidence, I thought. I was assigned, with my brother, who was in training to be a Druid, to get the young lord I loved safely from the court to his family’s estate.

There was war, even in those times, though it was in a calmer phase. It was twilight, and the Vena elves came out of nowhere. Before I knew it, my brother and my love where dead before me. I rode as hard as I could, and told the queen.

I left the queen’s employ, and returned to the Grove.

That was the day I gave up all forms of love.