"Agero," Gwendolynn said, with her palm facing the thin vine that grew up the side of the tree. A leaf twitched, and that could be attributed to wind or magick, and at this point she never knew how to tell the difference. She felt her palm flush a little, but that could've also just been because she was using her other hand to steady her hand by the wrist, as if she was aiming a weapon. "Meqirith, I can't tell if this is actually working or not." Gwendolynn concluded, lowering her hand and turning to face him. Emily had been repeating the word over and over again, shoving her hand at another small plant, probably as hopeful for a reaction as she was.
"It's actually a bit strange," Meqirith commented before approaching her and the vine, "You speak with such an accent, even for a natural born elf," he raised his palm toward the same vine. When he spoke, he accentuated the 'Ah' sound much more, and rolled the 'R' gently as he moved his hand upward. A faint green glow of smoke came from his palm, and the vine crept up the tree following his hand, with a few thin parts curling toward him, with leaves and pale yellow flowers sprouting along the parts where it had started.
"That's bullshit!!' Emily yelled, apparently also watching Meqirith cast again. Meqirith chuckled.
"That's the power of elves. Didn't I tell you not to expect success?" he asked, turning towards her. "You can't just imagine something and expect it to happen. You have to will it, and become a conduit for the manipulation of the world around you. You must change with the world, for you simply cannot just expect the world to change around you. Elvish is just the language that best connects you with the world, allowing the transformation to happen."
"You keep talking of elves a lot," Gwendolynn noted out loud, "Where do you fit in that anyways? Aren't you an elf too?"
"Hmm?" he responded by tilting his head slightly, "Half, technically, which honestly makes me a bit rarer than even an elf…." He trailed off.
"Half elf?" Gwendolynn repeated. "How does that even happen?" Meqirith again chuckled.
"When a mommy elf and a daddy not-elf really like each-other…." he started, and seeing Gwendolynn roll her eyes was enough to get him to stop before continuing.
"Must've been nice to know your folks…." Gwendolynn quipped, raising her hand once again to the vine that would soon ascend above the tree if they kept working on it this much.
"Well, had I known both of them, yes, I imagine it would've been nice." he replied, and Gwendolynn froze in place. Did he know what it was like to live 2 lives? She was raised by humans, but born among elves, never knowing that second part until perhaps a couple of months ago, and everything that had happened since then still seemed unreal.
"Your folks didn't stick around either, I guess?" she focused her attention on the vine.
"There was a lot more controversy around my birth than that, but more or less I was the one to not 'stick around' as you put it." Meqirith explained. "I've asked you a decent bit of questions, so I suppose I could answer some of yours. I was born to an Elvish noble in the church. My mother was naturally rather gifted with magic, and when the community learned that she had fallen in love with a human…..well it wasn't exactly welcome news. When I was born, I was sentenced to die for being an abomination. Instead, my father kidnapped me away from the Elves with the help of my Mother. Many years ago, I made it my first quest to assist my father in finding my mother so I could at least have known what her face looked like before she passed away." Meqirith paused for a second, and allowed himself to lean against the tree that Gwendolynn was currently still practicing magick upon.
"From the sounds of it, the mission ended in failure." Gwendolynn commented in the pause.
"Good guess," Meqirith said, letting out a sigh. "Instead, my father was caught, easily recognized by the Elvish community. They didn't send him to his death like we both had anticipated, but instead they exiled him, demanding that he never return."
"And what did Meqirith do?" Gwendolynn asked.
"Well, I had so much appreciation and respect for the Elves that I had apparently once been a part of, that I stuck behind and studied magick. It was around the time that I would be in secondary schooling that the Apocalypse happened; that is, the event that would become the exodus of elves. I imagine, that's when you were separated from your Elvish parents and entrusted to the much kinder-hearted humans." he guessed, and she couldn't object to something she couldn't remember. That was almost 20 years ago, which meant that this man had to be at least 40 years old. He'd been around for long enough to know why the Elves were hunted, right?
"Apocalypse?" Gwendolynn chose her words carefully, "Why did it happen?"
"Well," Meqirith explained, "If I knew I probably would've done something about it before it happened. All I know is that it was very slow at first, with some elves simply being tricked into following someone into the woods before never being seen again. Tales started to develop about the creatures in the woods that would come and slaughter elves at night, like vicious creatures that would prey on us with such efficiency that they wouldn't even leave behind any trace of our disappearing. Then, cities were struck at a time. Before any of the elvish clans could collaborate on how to deal with this threat, the threat dealt with them."
"You saw what happened?" Gwendolynn pressed, especially now that answers would come this easily.
"No." Meqirith replied flatly. Maybe they wouldn't come so easily after all. "I was well into my seclusion before I could be targeted, and as a Half-Human I probably wasn't even accounted for amongst the living or the dead. I wasn't important enough to be considered a citizen in Elvish cities, and at the same time while humans accepted me, I never really fit in as one of them either."
"Wandering, lost between two worlds," Gwendolynn said to herself. "I know what that feels like now." she admitted, a bit louder. Meqirith smiled at the sentiment.
"I believe I had an easier time, since I was well into my 20s when it happened. You must have been born right at the start, and I can't imagine what it must have been like to learn the truth of who you are." Meqirith tried to console her. "But, do you know what you have done since then?" Meqirith asked. She tilted her head in confusion, and he raised his hand to her as he did to the vine just moments ago. "You have grown." he stated, "Just as you wished this plant would. Seeing things this way, do you think that you could channel that frustration, or pain, or whatever it is that you're feeling into a spell? Do you think that you could speak your experiences into the world, so that the world may become a better place by gaining from your loss? Are you that selfless?" he asked, and as he spoke she felt her resolve returning to her as she faced the vine again. She closed her eyes, and tried to remember the day that she found that small elf village, battered and destroyed. She closed her eyes to remember the sudden nausea that overcame her upon finding that gore filled house. She remembered the awe at the beauty of elvish structures, and how sad she was to see it all reduced to memories that she hadn't ever had a chance to capture. Her life had been taken and given to her without her choice, and from that she…..
"Pain," she stated, resisting the urge to wipe the tear forming at the edges of her eyes. "Is how we grow." she said, emphasizing the last word as much as possible.
"I suppose it can't be helped," Meqirith concluded, "You'll have to learn entire sentences in Elvish before you continue much farther."
As he turned away, she opened her eyes and could feel the distress somehow being pulled toward her hand. Her fingers tingled as she wanted, desperately to have this vine never face a life of doubt that she had. She erased every other thought from her mind, except for the pure desire that this vine prosper.
The leaves again shook, but this time the top of the vine would form another spiral, that branched into another spiral, and the total height of the vine grew perhaps 3 or 4 inches before she realized that she was holding her breath. Allowing herself to exhale, she realized that she had become light-headed, and her exhausted arm flopped uselessly back to her side. Once she stopped focusing on what she was doing, her arm felt like it had just gotten done swinging a large hammer about 3 or 5 dozen times, as her veins pulsed in defiance of her straining anymore. Her muscles twitched at their own leisure, and she felt like at any moment one of them would start cramping up, so she cradled her right arm in her left, and started rubbing at the muscles that were most erratic. When she could focus again a thought occurred to her; "What has this man gone through to be able to so casually cast and channel mana at will?" She made a mental note to ask him more about how mana worked, but at this point she was just happy to have had any spell work at all. She beamed, even though her head was hung staring at her sore arm. She had done it.
"Or…." she heard Meqirith behind her, "You somehow can cast without needing words….." he concluded.
"What?!" Emily yelled, before moving around Meqirith to see the vine. "OH MY GOD, THOSE FLOWERS ARE SO PRETTY!!!" she exclaimed, "THAT'S INCREDIBLE!!" She hugged Gwendolynn tightly.
"Those…." Gwendolynn managed to get out, "Were there when I started." she completed as soon as she felt Emily relieve pressure.
"Oh…." she grew slightly less enthusiastic, looking at the vine. "What did you do, then?"
"She didn't move her hand with the vine as it grew," Meqirith commented, "Making her waste a lot more mana than the results she could've had." Gwendolynn was almost upset by his analysis, but she knew that to improve she had to see and understand her mistakes.
"Aren't you coaching her or something?! Why didn't you tell her that while she was….doing the thing?" Emily stammered out, letting go of Gwendolynn.
"There are things that I simply cannot teach. Like I stated when we first met, since I am only half-elf, her skills will far surpass my own in what will seem like no time at all. Being as young as she is in her starting to practice magic, she has a significant advantage on me in that way as well. I can't imagine you all will be needing me for much longer." he stated before turning to walk away.
"Then why go through everything?" Emily asked, causing him to stop before he had gotten out of ear shot. "If you won't be useful for long or whatever, why did you go through so much trouble to find Gwendolynn?" Meqirith sighed before turning his head to look at the two over his shoulder.
"Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm important." was all that Meqirith had said before pulling his hood up, and walking into the forest.