Fantasy 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝐈𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐭 (InTheSea x Owl Knight)

[InTheSea]

Grienbhry'ock. An elvish village of minuscule proportions that nestled itself by the edge of a river, inhabited by elves of similar stature. It was a grove of trees that were in fact homes of the elvish people, large enough to house a thousand of them but still smaller than the smallest village of other peoples. The Wiyldl'ygt, as they so adoringly called themselves, were a people who lived by the land and for the land. A people who felt so deeply and keenly, they harnessed the power of Nature itself. They who could encourage plants to grow, promote rapid regeneration of injuries, stave off illness, and most importantly, do no harm. They feel the connection between themselves and every living thing; from the smallest ant to the largest tree, they show their care and love.

Aisling was no different. Like the rest of her people, she was small and had a distinct wildness about her. Perhaps even more wild. She had pale, yet slightly tanned skin, two long ears that framed a rounded hawkish face an two distinctively different colored eyes; her right was a sky blue, the left a leaf green. Her hair was the color of a deer's warm pelt, long enough to go passed the middle of her back, left mostly loose with a couple of thick plaits that kept her face free of blowing strands.

Like the rest of the Wiyldl'ygt, Aisling clothed herself in linen cloth or phyurse'ed garments depending on the season, woven bits of leaves, bark, stones, berries and the occasional feather. Plants that were used as garments were imbued with everlasting magic so they would continue to live on while worn. She chose to wear green, yellow and orange colors, as well as brown feathers that she had found over the course of her life. She wore a yellow band across her forehead made of cloth, to wick away sweat as she worked that matched a similar band on her left wrist. Her right arm was protected by a bark bracer held together by an olive-colored vine. She wore a short cloak of brown feathers held together by a string of river rocks on another vine. Her chest was covered by yellow orange cloth strips, her lower body covered by a bright orange loincloth and undergarments. Her feet were bare, though leaves and feathers were wrapped around her lower legs.

The similarities to her people ended there.

Where her people were conservative, holding tightly onto their ancient traditions, Aisling wanted something more. Though she respected and adored the ways of her people, she was curious about the world beyond. What kind of people lived outside of the forest, beyond the borders of their home? Were their other Wiyldl'ygt? Nature did not just create this forest, there was more, and even the most unskilled Wiyldl'ygt could feel the expanse. Birds appeared and disappeared, flying far overhead and through the canopy of the distant trees. When it began to become cold, bears and other animals vanished completely, only to return when the last of the snow melted and the river was dangerously swollen.

"Aisling, our home is in Grienbhry'ock. We have no need for anything more. Such is our way." Her parents had told her with narrowed eyes and gritted teeth.

The khiyeiphtaein did not bother to look at her, the members of the konklaevii merely whispered. The shhaemahn looked at her with disdain and pure dislike. Aisling looked out instead of within, and she was ousted for her yearning. For her differences.

That didn't mean she didn't do her job. And do her job well she did.

The shhaemahn had foretold, exactly 15 days after her birth, that she would be a phlurae, those who were responsable for shaping the trees for homes and the growing of food. When Aisling turned 5, she started her training. As expected, Aisling took to this job immediately, and she was decent at it. But when she turned 10 years old, her eyes wandered to those of the dryuiydsh. The dryuiydsh were the healers, the curers of disease and illness, those who were thought to be the closest to Nature even more-so than the shhaemahn.

She learned, and she learned fast. But the switching of roles was unheard of. It not only made her look odd, but the shhaemahn was also looked at strangely ever since.

By the time she was 16, Aisling was a skilled dryuiyd, despite how different she was from the rest of her people. She was needed and necessary, and she cared not for the scowls she often received. She ignored them and did her thing, though her gaze often looked out into the beyond, through the mist and the trees, catching sight of the animals that gave their village a wide berth, often locking eyes with them. Sensing the wilds beyond, her heart pining to join them. To move on, to see something new.

But as she grew, slowly the life around them started to wilt. Plants grew slower, even with the encouragement from the phlurae. She and the rest of the dryuiydsh struggled to heal the sick, and their burial grounds were frequented more often, and not just with the bodies of the old and sick. The birthrate dropped considerably, those who were with child suffered through childbirth and despaired when their young did not breathe.

Some of the people thought Aisling herself was to blame. Itt was a sign, perhaps, because of her different eyes. Or the fact she changed roles. Or that she was unsatisfied within Grienbhry'ock and wanted to see the world. The words slung at her cut her deeply. She had dealt with their scruitiny for most of her life, but she had never done anything untoward. She had helped many who ailed, assisted those who needed assisting.

And for once, the shhaemahn defended her. Aisling, even with that which made her unique, did not harbor the touch of death and the shhaemahn was not one to be trifled with. Both loved their tribe, and the shhaemahn stated that Aisling was enshrouded with Nature's love and could not be the harbinger they wanted to make her out to be.

It seemed to satisfy the tribe, though she could feel the eyes of her people watching her more carefully, as if they were looking for her to mess up, to slip up, to prove she was the one behind the blight. It hurt more than ever to know she was not trusted.

And then he came.

The sounds of his stags hooves ran through the forest, scattering birds above that took flight with their terrified calls acting as a warning. The tribe paused, their ears pricked as the calls put them all on high alert. Something was coming. Something horrible, surely. And while the tribe scrambled in fear, Aisling climbed the trees and looked out with curiosity. Curiosity and fear.

For all intents and purposes, he was a Wiyldl'ygt. He was small like the rest of them and wild as one could be, but he was a savage. An abomination of the like they had never seen before. He who wore furs and skins and rode upon the back of a wild stag; such cruelty was unheard of and not one they wanted to deal with. Surely he was a bringer of death that not even the Chieftain would brave him. The man on the stag might be a bringer of death. But as her people fled into their homes, the phlurae worked swiftly to encourage burs and brambles to protect their doors and dissuade the barbarian from entering. No one called her down to join them, it seemed as if it was everyone for themselves and their only line of defense was prickers and thorns. But to her...this was her chance. This might be the only way she could see what others were like, and had to set aside her misgivings.

Her fear.

While the tribe looked on through the slits between the trees of their homes, she left the borders of the village to meet with the terrifying man. Her fingers gripped her gnarled wood staff as if her life depending on it. She trembled like the leaves above, sweat beading on skin despite the cool breeze that blew through the forest around her. She did not know how to defend herself if the man attacked her, so she could only hope that the man would spare her and not see her as a threat. Would spare her people...

"B-by the breath o-of life, I-I welcome you.." She said, her voice shaking as she uttered a traditional Wiyldl'ygt greeting that was typically used to welcome a newborn to the world. She hardly felt like the young adult she ought to be, and certainly did not feel the confidence she usually felt. She was scared, but there was a shred of hope that the man atop the stag was not a threat, and there was more to him than his appearance.

Please...let it be so.

Owl Knight

 

[Owl Knight]

The trail was fresher than it had been the day before, a strange sallow trail through the underbrush that might have appeared to be little more than a gully or the depression left by a winter thaw, but the lone hunter's eyes were keener than that. He saw the repetition in the pattern of the movements, he saw the flake of shimmering scale where the rough bark of an ancient oak had pulled it free, and he could smell it, the faint but unmistakable odor of death that he had followed for seven passages of the sun. From the stony heights of Giant's Seat all the way down the grassy steppes and under the forbidding archway of the trees.

Torc stomped nervously, turning his great shaggy head this way and that. The lordly stags of the high plains rarely ventured into the dark wood. They were beings of stone and air, wild and unrestrained as the wind in the tall brown grass. The wood was the domain of wolves, bears, and now, perhaps whatever had left the broad winding track through the underbrush.

The lone hunter crouched unmoving at his steed's side, his dark eyes following the trail as it wound in and out of the mossy trees, moving down the slope of the hill towards a little burbling stream. Much like the stout stag, the dark eyed elf was a wild thing, a wolf like mane of black hair framing a face sharp and hard as a ground blade. His body was sinuous and tight as a coiled spring, wrapped in spare garments of leather and fur, dyed in shades of earthy brown and rust red. He leaned lightly upon the stout ash haft of a long, leaf-bladed spear.

He rose, touching the stag on the shaggy side of his broad neck. He reached out with his mind, probing almost unconsciously for the stag's flighty consciousness.

Nothing to fear, he projected. The stag's uneasy glances stilled, at least for the moment. The lone hunter could feel the uncertainty through their connection, but it was faint, like the whisper of a feeling.

He whirled and swug himself up into the roughly sewn saddle strapped to the creature's back. The stag bore no bridle, nor did he need one. The stag and the hunter had developed their shared connection over three turns of the seasons.

The hunter urged the stag down the hillside. The stag in his turn docilely found a safe pathway down towards the stream.

The trail was encouraging. The hunter had thought it lost two nights hence, until he had seen the wild pig, a sickly and wretched looking thing, stumbling out of the woods as if under the sway of some horrible poison. It had frothed and loosed such unnatural noises that he been swift in skewering it with his spear, but had chosen to burn the corpse rather than risk eating it's meat.

Two days of acorns and deer jerky later he had thought often ruefully about that waste of good flesh.

He replenished his water skins at the stream, then spent a space of time hunting along both sides of the stream for the trail. He found it at last, winding along the far bank of the stream for a time before beginning to work it's way back up hill on the far side through trees and glacial boulders.

He spurred Torc up the far hill, the stag finding firm foothold amid the rocks and leaves, still damp from rain the morning before. The hill crested in a long stretch of thick woods moving towards the distant line where the river snaked back around, winding between the stony hills it had caught on its ancient path through the forest.

Torc stepped carefully through the under growth. Here and there Mordin could still make sense of the creature's slithering trail, but the density of the wood was making it more difficult. He felt himself growing anxious as the stony ground left less and less evidence of a trail as the hill sloped down towards the river.

By the time he reached the bottom, emerging from the woods at the river bank, it was gone.

"B-by the breath o-of life, I-I welcome you.."

He turned quickly in his saddle, raising the spear in his hand.

The elf lass that had spoken to him was some yards away, her strange garments of bark and leaf nearly obscuring her from view. He glowered at her, his slate grey eyes fierce under his dark brows. He bared his teeth in a grimace. He had understood her words, though her dialect was distinct from that spoken by the tribesmen of the steppes.

"Who are you?" he barked, keeping the spear leveled.

 

[InTheSea]

"Who are you?"​

Aisling suddenly realized that, somehow, she had snuck up on him and his mount. She had not taken particular care as she picked her way towards him, but he had turned to look towards her and brandished a spear that would silence her next breath if she chose her words poorly. She would have cowered and flinched under his dark, fierce gaze if she had not been frozen in fear on the spot, her eyes wide with terror. Her knuckles were stark white from the grasp she gave her staff, the pebble beads on the sacred object softly clattering from her shivering. She swallowed once, twice, three whole times before she found her voice again.

"I-I am Aisling o-of the Wiyldl'ygt, Dryuiydsh of Grienbhry'ock." She did not dare move, nor did she even risk a bow. She stood still as a stone, not even attempt to tear her eyes from him. She was frightened any movement other than her speech might provoke him, so she had to handle this as delicately as possible if she were to make it out alive and unhurt.

"It w-would be rude n-not to come to gr-greet you, S-Sir." It was lost on her, at that moment, how her words were almost an insult to her own people, but she ensured she spoke to him with respect. They who stayed hidden and quiet within the safety of their homes far behind her in their little village as she risked life and limb with the intruder. It mattered not if she earned their respect. All she cared about was making it through this interaction without so much as a hair out of place.

She wondered if maybe he saw her as a threat because she herself carried what could be perceived as a weapon. If she had to disarm herself for his comfort, so be it. If he were to kill her regardless, then it didn't matter. She could only hope that he would lower his weapon when she proved herself not to be a threat.

"I'm gonna p-put it down, y-yes? Not a threat. Bh'ey th'ei shpiyriyt ouph th'ei wy'od." She stuttered, then mumbled indistinctly in the language of her people. She slowly let go of the staff with one hand, raising it over her head while the other lowered the staff to the ground. She visibly winced as she did so, her heart pounding as she fully expected him to skewer her. But the staff was delicately placed on the detritus covering the ground beneath her, before she slowly stood back up with both hands over her head as her fearful, duo-colored gaze found his ash-colored one again.

"D-do no harm. I am no th-threat." She gulped, before adding, "Please?"