“Gather around, gather around. The food is ready,” said Vell.

Wood crackled in the fire. Sparks trailed into the darkness like fireflies. The moon hung above the clouds, just a phase older than full. A red star blinked right next to it.

“Before we begin the festivities,” said Starry, as the elves crowded around the open fire. “I would like to introduce to you all, our guest, young Caspian of the Holm tribe.”

I coughed. I guess making my last name my tribe’s name wasn’t too bad, but didn’t I tell him to call me Cas?

“Yes, yes,” said Starry, noticing my cough, “he would like to be called Cas, although I have no idea what that means.”

Whispers all around. Was having a nickname that weird?

“Moving on. This ceremony is to mark a double blessing, although we are using only my granddaughter’s blessing to cook the meat tonight. This is only fitting, as she is the older of the two.”

He doesn’t know if she’s older than me! I screamed inside my head. I told him our tribes measure time differently! Seeing my expression, Noel snickered. I mean, they were right, I was way younger as a college going human than a hundred year old elf, but elves also aged more slowly so weren’t we basically the same age? I don’t know. This whole age thing was needlessly complicated. Almost like somebody was deliberately messing with me.

“And for the sake of our guest, I will recount a single tale passed down by the ancestors. Young Caspian will be with us for a while, so he can learn the other stories later, but it seems his tribe does not know about the story of the red star,” he said.

Starry had overheard me asking Noel about the red star as it appeared in the evening, and insisted Noel not answer. Apparently, I had to be humiliated for my ignorance in front of everyone. Yay.

“Before the Plains of Serenity were carved up by the corpse of a forgotten goddess, before The Terrible arrived from a higher realm to provide us with the blessing, before the world as we know it came into being, there was the Age of the Gods,” began Starry.

“A bloody, violent, difficult time. A time when elves were like ants and entire tribes were crushed under the feet of powerful divine beings. When the sun blazed without rest and there was no night. No darkness, only light. When there was no good or evil, only chaos. At that time, two gods fought in the sky.”

“The God of Evil and the God of Madness fought above the clouds, for what reason, no one knows. But it is said the God of Evil had insulted the God of Madness’ lover. It is also said that the God of Madness was not always mad, but that it was his love for his beloved that drowned him in insanity. Now, what kind of creature is worthy of a god’s love? And what kind of love can drive a god into madness? Who knows.”

“The story goes…”

Starry gestured to the fire. I looked at Noel and Noel looked at me. If nothing happened, this was when we had to make a break for it. We stared at the fire. Starry jerked his hand over it.

The fire rose! Orange tentacles reached for the sky, grasping into the darkness. Embers whooshed out, before disappearing into the night.

I looked at Noel. Was this good enough? I didn’t know what the magic was supposed to look like, but this looked pretty magical to me. Noel nodded and I was relieved. We didn’t need to run after all.

“The story goes,” continued Starry, as he manipulated the fire with a force that I could not understand, “that the God of Evil ripped out the God of Madness’ silver heart. And the God of Madness completely destroyed the God of Evil, but missed a single drop of blood.”

The fire split in two. One blade of fire rounded off into what could have been a heart. The other became a droplet. A chill went up my spine. There was something eerie about this magic. Or maybe I just wasn’t used to the magic of this world. Everyone else seemed fine. Actually, they were all staring at the droplet, mesmerized. Why weren’t they looking at the heart, I asked myself.

“The heart settled into the sky, becoming the moon. The drop of blood became the red star. When the gods ascended to their realm, only the moon and the red star remained. They cross in the middle of the night, continuing their timeless battle.” The two fiery tendrils crossed like blades. Somehow, they didn’t melt into each other, remaining distinct and distinguishable. The fire split again.

“But the God of Madness is still searching for his lover.” The heart in the fire waxed and waned. “The moon’s gaze shifts from night to night, as the god focuses on different parts of the world, searching desperately for his love.”

The heart disappeared and only the droplet remained. “But the red star does not change because evil does not bend, evil does not move, evil does not…” Starry came closer to the fire and whispered, “blink.” The droplet became a star and somehow, it became brighter. I rubbed my eyes but it was true. It was true. The star in the fire was shining brighter than the fire.

A hand clamped on my shoulder, making me jump. I looked up. It was Starry, sporting a ridiculous grin. “How did you like the story?”

I gave him a mirthless grin. I hadn’t even realized the story was over. The moon and star were gone, and the fire blazed lazily, with no hint of the magic that had possessed it before. I said: “It was… interesting. Can we eat now?”

Vell nodded. “Yes, I think we’ve heard enough of this old geezer’s voice. Dig in, everybody!”

The elves began carving out pieces of meat from the roasting pig. A few elves wrapped pieces of meat in large leaves before heading towards the outskirts of the camp. Noel was one of them, but nobody saw her carve anything off of the monster.

Was she still going to poison her uncle? I knew it wasn’t a deadly poison, especially for a great hunter like Sharun, but it wasn’t necessary at this point. We didn’t have to run now that we knew the so-called ‘blessing’ was just ordinary fire.

Ah well, I guess it makes sense to have an escape plan. There could be other magical things that the ‘blessing’ was supposed to do which my fire might not be able to. Although, after seeing the way Starry’s magic had controlled the fire tonight, I was pretty sure his brand of magic had nothing to do with the nature of the fire itself.

Although, having seen magic like that made me curious. How did it work? What were its secrets? Why did it exist and what could I do with it? What questions could it answer and what answers could it question?

I walked over to Starry. He was talking to a group of elves. The other elves did most of the talking, while Starry stood by and smiled, maybe interjecting with a word or two from time to time. Seemed like a down to earth guy, despite being the leader of his tribe.

He saw me coming over and excused himself from the others. He held a leaf in his hand, where once there was a piece of meat. It looked like he had already finished eating.

“Enjoying the feast, young Caspian?” he said.

I nodded. “Yes, but I—”

“Yes, yes, you want me to call you Cas,” he interjected and shook his head. “I am trying, please believe me. But it is difficult for an old elf like me to keep up with the whims and fancies of youth. I do not understand how Caspian becomes Cas, the two words are so distinct from one another, that I cannot connect the two together.”

“I see,” I said. “Then it might be a problem with my translation magic.”

His eyes lit up at the mention of magic. “What do you mean?”

“Well, in my language, all I am doing is shortening my real name to its first distinct sound or syllable. If my whole name is three knocks,” I said as I knocked on a large rock three times, “then my shortened name is one knock.” I knocked once.

“You shortened your name to its first sound? Why?” he asked.

Huh, well the real reason was because Caspian was a dumb sounding name. It even sounded weird when C. S. Lewis used it in his stories, and that guy thought readers would get emotionally investing in a talking rat!

Side note, I loved Reepicheep the talking mouse. Little guy was a real hero, I tell ya!

“I shortened my name because it was easier that way. Why use three sounds for one name when you can use just one?” I said. “Also, back home it conveyed a sense of familiarity. A stranger wouldn’t call me Cas. If I asked you to call me Cas, it meant I thought we were close enough, or I wanted us to be close enough, for you to say my name this way.”

Starry furrowed his brows. “I don’t understand. You’re saying messing up your name, making it smaller and less embellished, is a sign of respect?”

“Well, it didn’t have much to do with respect. It was a sign of love and familiarity.”

“Love and familiarity. I see. So you might ask the people of your own tribe to call you Cas, because you expect them to know you and love you. But other tribes must say all the sounds because they must show you respect?”

“Yeah,” I said, “that sounds about right. You might let your brother insult you in jest, but a stranger doing the same might be disrespectful. It’s the same concept.”

Starry nodded his head slowly. “I see. That does make sense.” He smiled and met my gaze.

He had a youthful face, with no wrinkles or any traditional signs of age. But there was something in his eyes that betrayed his true age. A wizened weight, a heaviness that served as the rings in a tree trunk, spiraling in his pupils.

“Thank you for the explanation, Young Cas.”

I scratched my chin. Now how was I going to get him to stop calling me that?