I stayed behind, my breathing inconspicuous and heart rate suppressed. The leaves fell gently, some rodents sniffed around my feet and a bird landed on my shoulder.
Yet none of them saw through my deception. Each animal perceived me as part of the network, an inconsequential fraction of the whole that was the forest.
It wasn't long for everyone to hurry away. The disturbance I was forced to watch had struck yet again. "Choom, wanna catch the respiratory syncytial virus? Bronchitis?
In case you don't know, these sap your strength, making you cough all day and lie around half dead."
Some shrieks were the answer. "Or would you rather pick up some foot, hand or mouth disease? Let me wash you properly, goddamnit all!"
From my limited knowledge concerning newborns, I gathered that such were claims not grounded in reality.
The more childhood illnesses one took up, the greater the resistance in the later years. It was common knowledge among us, which made me look down on the misbegotten tamp.
For he lacked this very knowledge yet laid claws on a newborn. For us who held each offspring in high regard, almost obsessively caring for them, this behaviour was equal to heresy.
Or more than that, it felt like a resounding slap to the values we held dear in everyday life. I let go of the distracting feelings.
Let go of the emotions disturbing my calm. Considerations were not part of my mission. "Stop scratching your eyelids and biting your nails.
Conjunctivitis is horrible! Gastroenteritis is dastardly!! Sinusitis a pain in the ass!!!!" Even more forest dwellers sought distance.
If not for the mission, I'd have joined them too... "Fucking stop eating trash!!!" "Waaaaaaaa~!" The lizardbrute thundered around some more until he too started yapping and gasping for air.
Just another weird characteristic. One of many I'd noted thus far. Besides providing strange liquid to drink that made my hair rise and throat gulp down some incomprehensible desire.
Mine added to the lizardbrute's desctructive desires and... Not good, my heart rate was rising again. I simply couldn't allow myself to think further.
I had to suppress any form of activity, thoughts being part of them. Now was not the right time to strike.
The tortured offspring soon got back on her knees, finding it in her to play around in the water as if nothing had happened at all.
For as long as the lizardbrute allowed her too, that was. "Mud!" He exclaimed. "Slick, slime and grime."
Power flowed through him. Power strong enough to make my heart palpitate all the way over here. "Begone!!!"
With that holler alone, a shockwave rocked the surroundings, reducing her recently acquired playthings to dust.
This time it was compassion I felt building up in my chest and ready to gush forth. I wasn't far from leaving my safe harbour and smacking him over his blockhead. Repeatedly.
Yet there was my mission in the way. I simply couldn't. Wasn't allowed to. Then a change happened I couldn't understand at all.
The offspring grasped her hands together and, as far as I could see since the distance was too great to hear properly, may or may not have muttered something.
Fact was, the dust particles swirling around the place gathered, forming another ball of mud she victoriously presented to the lizardbrute's despairing eyes.
"Nooo!" He shrieked, his hysterical pitch unbearable. "Must I cast some greater magic to sanitise this world?!
But I'm not of that School of Magic..." I couldn't believe that someone this young had this much talent rotting away under the fool's ill guidance.
If only she had fallen into elven hands... Yet there were no ifs. There was just my mission. And nothing more.
She then communicated in a mix of brabbles and shrieks that nobody but the lizardbrute could make sense of.
As to why, I believed I'd found the right explanation. Their language, if one could really call it such, was no better compared to the noise.
The lizardbrute had just plenty of experience. This led me to wonder why he didn't communicate in his native language. Yet I couldn't, had to squash such inappropriate thoughts once more.
"Before you're fully patched up, you shouldn't think about magic. The incomplete experience now leads to only ambiguous understanding, costing your head once you have reached a sufficiently advanced level."
Indeed, in his bloody hands, the offspring's talent was really wasted. Any high elf, no matter how old, knew that those chosen by an element had to be better left alone.
Only such geniuses themselves knew best how to develop, while others simply had no right to interfere. "Anyway, you should pick up something grander.
Mud has no future... You'll end up just like these foolish know-it-alls introducing themselves as the butt of the joke. High elves..."
Just that moment I nearly blew my disguise, the boorish lizardbrute secured her somewhere safe she could struggle in vain for some time to regain freedom.
Wrapped in chocolate vines, he left her furiously shrieking and kicking all she wanted while speedily leaving the place.
While I didn't know what had happened to find him this desperate, I was aware this was the work of my colleagues.
Waiting for some long minutes, I eventually relaxed as fighting sounds pierced the thicket. Even in case he really turned out to be a daemon, the lizardbrute would be dealt with soon.
Now all that remained was my mission. Whatever evil plans the evil mage had, they would be thwarted. Must be thwarted.
Approaching the talented offspring, I was stunned when she stopped in her struggles, glancing up and down at me instead. Logically thinking, she simply shouldn't perceive me at all.
But this somehow failed to hold true. Then I suddenly understood it all. This was no offspring, this was a creature of dark magic, an abnormality brought to life by forbidden practice.
Therefore, I lunged forward without any regret, executing my mission. My shiv met cloth, and tore... and tore... and remaining stuck as if glued?
The last thing I noticed was the abnormality's teary face, before unknown patterns lit up on these clothes, forming a hellish maw. "Brubru. Gutguttn!!" My ears fell off. Then... I felt nothing any longer.