Johnny was in a daze while he had conversed with the goddess. Now recovered to some degree, he could sense that he wasn't on the ground anymore. Someone was carrying him, and his right arm was pinned against the body of his carrier. With his unfettered hand, Johnny attempted to rub away the bleariness from his eyes.
The forest floor was far below him, at a distance that made his skin crawl with anxiety. It was as though he was hanging from the edge of a ten-story high rise.
The rush of wind blew through his hair, against his face, and forced its way inside his nostrils. He could barely see through his squinted eyes, but he could tell that he was moving at an alarming pace. Moreover, he wasn't the one that was doing the moving, which was more concerning to him than the speed of travel, or the dizzying altitude he was carried at.
He began to open his mouth to protest the luggage treatment he was currently receiving from his porter, but a sudden drop in elevation caused his stomach to lurch in surprise. The group of robed figures around him had begun to descend to the ground in unison.
"Zykef, fir noualt!"
The foreign words came from his porter's husky voice, and it resonated deep inside Johnny's body. It was as if both of their bodies were vibrating from the sheer frequency of its tone.
They came to a halt at the forest floor. Johnny was unceremoniously dumped into the dirt, where he gasped for air. The impact against the ground almost knocked all the air out of his lungs.
After taking several moments to collect his rattled senses, he lifted his head to observe the troupe of robed figures conversing quietly with one another.
"Who the hell are these people?" He wondered.
He glanced around at his surroundings. Nothing but a dense wall of trees stared back. It seemed he was carried deeper into the forest, as the canopy above had grown thicker, and even less light managed to penetrate through the semi-darkness below.
A better question popped into his train of thought. Why did they bring him here?
In response to his monologue's questions, a section of the dense forest receded. Rather than recede, it would be better to describe the event as a degeneration of the forest around him. Bark split, branches twisted, and entire trees shifted around and deformed into short stumps that laid flush against the ground. Johnny gaped at the scene, at the surreal magic that unfolded before him.
As the trees disappeared, so did the veil that had fooled Johnny's eyes; what was once a wall of trees that obscured his vision suddenly transformed into a view of a massive city. High in the trees were dwellings, suspended between beams of lumber, and juxtaposed between the towering trunks of trees and between the forks of the largest of these. Catwalks and platforms of timber and cordage linked the precariously yet ingeniously designed structures overhead, and lifts of the same offered egress and ingress to the platforms high above the forest floor.
Johnny's attention, however, was focused on the inhabitants of the fascinating city among the trees. Their ears... were pointed.
Long, and pointed. Pale skin, with glimmering emerald and sapphires for eyes, and long, silver and gold hair. They were everything he had seen and heard of from all the RPG's he had played in his previous life.
"ELVES!!!"
Johnny's excitement erupted into raucous cheering. The sudden shouting caught the attention of the elves in the village. Children, women, and older folks craned their heads to look over the railings of the platforms above.
But something was missing, and it made Johnny pause as he fell into deep contemplation... he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, but he could sense that it was something integral to his vision of what elves looked like.
"THEY'RE ALL SHORT!!!"
The sudden realization put a damper on his excitement.
"Aren't elves supposed to be tall? YOU'RE RUINING MY WORLDVIEW!!!"
The robed figures that had left Johnny to talk among themselves stared at him, confused. They had no idea what his ramblings were on about. Some of them pulled away slightly, shaken by his odd behavior.
Johnny paid no attention, however, as he was mortified by the destruction of his mental image of elves. In all the games he played, elves were tall, beautiful, and pale-skinned. Sometimes, the occasional dark elf came about, but regardless of hue, elves are supposed to be tall! Why is it then, that these "things" are all half his height!
One of the robed figures raised the hood of its robe to reveal the pale face of an elf, on the chin and cheeks of which were the short, wispy hairs of a beard. He approached Johnny, and beheld the crestfallen man's tear-stained face. His expression was that of bewilderment.
"Moyet, Vithakanir y'dou?"
Johnny stared blankly at the elf. The thin, white hairs of his beard swayed back and forth with his every breath.
Johnny inhaled.
"ELVES AREN'T SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEARDS!!! MY LIFE IS A LIE!!!"
-
Somewhere, in the less dense portion of the forest, another worldview was on the brink of collapse...
Igrud arrived just in time to witness the veil of trees seal over the view of the elf village. She had followed as closely as she could using her sense of smell. She looked on, dismayed as her quarry and the elves disappeared behind the veil of trees.
The tigerkin rushed to the barrier and threw her weight into hacking the trees down with her sword.
However, the trees were no ordinary trees.
They were as hard as iron, and her attempts to break her way through were in vain. The sword clattered against the hard bark of the enchanted timbers that blocked her path.
Igrud collapsed to the ground, exhausted. Her body was at its limit. A lack of sleep, nearly two hours of pursuit, and her attack on the barrier combined were too much for her to ignore any longer.
"Why..."
"Why can't I kill a single human?"
The words escaped from between heavy pants. They were laced with bitterness. Had she not grown since then? Did she not escape from the Hinders castle, after slaying humans? Then what was this, that she couldn't bring down a single human?
It's been nine years since that day. Ever since the pirates killed and enslaved her race, her hatred for the humans had only grown. Even now, in the semi-dark of the forest floor, the fear of darkness that they instilled in her clamped down on her heart with great pressure. She could feel the palpitations straining against its chains. She despised the ones that put those chains on her, but more importantly, she hated all of humanity.
Both of her hands reached for the collar around her neck. It was the symbol of hers and all the races of beastmen. Across the continent and the entire world, there were many like her. Enslaved orphans now, but they were all once children with loving families that were immolated, and violated.
Igrud frantically tore at the collar she gripped in her bare hands. If only it were gone, she could right the wrongs of the past. She could do what no one had thought of before, or if someone had, then she could do it in their stead: The extinction of the Human race.
Or so she thought. As things stood, she would never see her vengeance fulfilled in her lifetime. The collar was the seal on her hatred. So long as it remained, she would continue to drown in her hatred, and never to release it upon the enemy. She would be, in a word, useless.
She gave up on her futile attempt the remove the collar, after tearing several large tufts of fur out in the process. Her body was too tired to do anymore.
The canopy overhead looked back at the blank stare it received from Igrud as she laid on her back. Now that her quarry was gone, she had nothing left. The human would assuredly return to the count, and inform him of her whereabouts. Then the guards would come. They would come to return her back to the slave pens.
While the forest was dark, it was not bleak with the suffering of slavery. The abyss within the slave pens far outweighed the meager shadows the forest had to offer.
She didn't want to go back. Death would be better.
Back there, all she was was an exotic beastman that fetched ten Azalian gold coins in the slave market.
Here, she was free. To kill, to hunt, to live. Her parents once told her that was how their ancestors lived, north of the archipelagos. It fascinated her how primal they were, and her dreams back then were filled with the grandeur of exciting hunts, fierce battle, and the glory associated with both.
But now her kind only lived to serve, to work, and to die at the bidding of Count Hinders and many masters like him.
Igrud's eyelids felt heavy, and her limbs were sore from her exertions. She closed her eyes.
Tomorrow would be yet another day. If it were to bring her to an early demise, so be it. Her life would be forfeit the moment she returned to captivity anyway.