“Hahaha, he doesn’t even acknowledge mine and mother’s existence!” exclaimed Liza with a mirthless laugh. Her eyes began to well up again and her entire body was shaking. The feelings going through her heart right now were too many to describe. Anger, sadness and defeat were but a few of them. Everything she did till this day to find him felt completely pointless. Sure, she could still beat him to a pulp, but that would only serve to vent a tiny portion of her emotions.

-

“Hey, are you still there? You asked me such a weird question and then went completely silent all of the sudden,” asked Alluin.

“I broke my quill pen by accident. Give me a couple minutes till I prepare a new one,” said Boro with a harsh and annoyed tone. After watching Liza break down again, he was the one feeling like giving this elf a good trashing. He gave the restrained Alluin one last prejudiced glare and flew back inside the sound barrier with the others.

-

Eliot was quick to hug Liza once more, both to comfort her and restrain her if needed. Fang Chu, Ben and Boro also crouched near the half-elf, each trying to cheer her up in their own way.

“I guess it’s like you told me before, Fanu,” said Liza amidst sobs. “Hating someone when they are unaware or simply don’t care about it is pointless. You weight yourself down, wasting time and energy carrying this burden while the target of your hatred just goes about their life without a care in the world. I feel so dumb. What was I expecting would happen? That he would feel bad for leaving? Would apologize? Would cry and mourn mother’s death?”

“Just say the word, Liza. I’ll kill him right away for you!” exclaimed Boro.

“Easy there, Boro. His reaction to the question was a bit strange, so perhaps there are more to this than he’s letting on. Maybe we should try again, asking different questions this time,” said Ben.

“I agree with Ben regarding his reaction. However, if he really turns out to be a bastard, I say we just leave. Give him a couple of good punches if you feel like and then let’s go. There are some people that are just not worth our time and emotional investment. Let’s go to a tavern, drink till we’re drunk and then go do some fun stuff to cheer you up,” said Fang Chu.

“You heard him yourself, he’s single and has no kids. What’s more to ask?” sobbed Liza.

“Just sit here and stick one of your ears out of the barrier. Let me and Boro handle this. And Boro, try to not sound too angry please,” said Ben.

“Do as you please. As soon as I find my strength back, I’ll beat him into unconsciousness and then we leave,” she said.

-

*scratch* *scratch*

“Got your new quill pen ready? That took a while. By the way, you still haven’t answered me yet, why did you ask such strange question?” asked Alluin. In his voice was an imperceptible trace of anxiousness.

“Oh, it’s just that I met a woman and child that claimed to be your wife and daughter on my travels years ago. They were little Liza and Mrs. Branwen, if I recall correctly.”

When he heard this, Alluin’s heartbeat increased like crazy and he suddenly felt very nervous.

“But I guess it’s for the best that they were lying about being related to you, or perhaps they were talking about a different elf called Alluin.”

“Why do you say that?” asked the elf with a falsetto.

“Because they’re both dead now.”

“LIES!” Alluin screamed as he jerked about violently. The thorns dug deep on his skin, drawing blood from all over. “Who are you? How do you know my wife and daughter? What did you do to them?”

Liza, who was listening from inside the sound barrier, shuddered and began crying once again. Alluin’s current reaction couldn’t be faked. He was screaming at Boro and Ben at the top of his lungs and was doing his best to get free from the vines that were binding him, completely ignoring the pain as they lacerated his flesh.

*scratch* *scratch*

“What are you angry about? It was you that abandoned them in the first place!”

Alluin once again winced violently. “Shut up! shut up! What do you know about me and my circumstances! They aren’t dead! You’re lying!”

*scratch* *scratch*

“I wish I was. It was I that gave them a proper burial, as they had no one to look after them after you left.”

Alluin gave a fiendish shout and hung his head low as copious tears began to flow freely from his closed eyelids. He muttered words in elvish under his breath nonstop, like a raving lunatic. Words that Liza understood and Ben’s ring translated for him.

“I’m sorry honey, your husband has failed you.”

“My little treasure, father is to blame for everything. Don’t you worry though. As soon as I find out what happened and take care of things, papa is coming to see you.”

“I’m so sorry, please forgive me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

There were no more exchanges for a good while. Both father and daughter were crying their hearts out, only a few meters apart each other, yet emotionally they were worlds apart. After what felt like hours, Alluin finally recomposed himself enough to speak again.

“Tell me, how do you know my wife and daughter?” he asked with a broken voice.

“They gave me food and shelter when I stopped by their village. I learned from them that they were looking for you who’d gone missing a few days prior and I agreed to keep an eye out during my travels.”

“How did they… how did they die?” he asked with some difficulty.

*scratch* *scratch*

“Two weeks after I left them, I heard their village was assaulted by bandits. I rushed back as fast as I could, but when I got there everything was razed to the ground. Their bodies were amidst the wreckage.”

“Bandits? A short time after I left? That’s impossible! I asked them to clear them out for me… I… of course they didn’t! Hahahaha,” Alluin began to laugh hysterically in a self-deprecating way. “Why would they clear a group of bandits out? Just because they promised me? Pfft, they’re all just humans in the end, right? Let them sort themselves out! I bet that’s what they thought!” he exclaimed as his laughter got higher and higher, angrier and angrier.

“DRANNOR! ELMER! LAZUL! MALON! SYLLIA!” he shouted each name with abhorrent hatred. “As soon as I get out of here, I’ll have your heads!”

Seeing her father like that, Liza felt like saying something, yet she did not know what to say. Her head was a mess and her chest felt like it was going to burst, leaving her with difficulty to breathe. She kept on sobbing silently on Eliot’s arms. The young man held onto her, but his eyes were fixated on the grieving elf, his mind wandering to distant corners as he watched his furious outburst.

*scratch* *scratch*

“I can see you cared deeply about them, so why did you leave?”

“What does it matter now? They’re gone. Gone forever...”

At this point, Liza managed to calm down a little once again, more due to exhaustion than anything else. She discovered her father did indeed care for her and her mother deeply, but that didn’t make her any less angry about her abandonment.

“It matters to me,” said Liza as she crawled outside the barrier.

“Who is this? What’s going on? There’s no way my father would’ve let more people come here! You’re all liars! What you said about my wife and daughter are lies too!” exclaimed Alluin with renewed hope.

“What he said was mostly true. However, you’re right, the elder didn’t let us in here, so how do you think we got inside, father?”

“It can’t be… my little treasure, is that you?” asked Alluin while choking up. To hear his wife and daughter were dead, only to find out minutes later that his daughter was standing in front of him made for a rollercoaster of emotions.

“Don’t call me that! You’ve no right!”

“It is you!” exclaimed Alluin, without caring at all about how mad Liza was. “So that was all a lie, right? Your mother is fine too, isn’t she?”

“Fine? Fine? Mother is dead! Shortly after that courier you sent over delivered your lousy words, a group of bandits raided the village. The village elder gave them all our money, but they cared little for it and began their rampant killing. Mother gagged me with a cloth and made me promise to not make a peep, hiding me inside the oven and stacking a bunch of firewood on top to keep me out of sight. The bandits entered our house and pinned her down–”

“Stop! Stop! I don’t want to hear it!” exclaimed Alluin as he began to sob again.

“You don’t want to hear it? I had to watch it! I had to watch as those monsters raped her, too afraid to make a sound, too afraid to be the next one to be pinned down! I hated myself for that cowardice every single day afterwards, but I hated you more for leaving us alone to fend for ourselves! I’m sorry, that’s all the words you left us! What a joke!”

Alluin shook and bawled, his veins dangerously protruding on his skin like they were about to pop at any moment. Liza, having revisited that cursed moment, once again felt her rage boil and feebly walked till her restrained father. She raised her arms and swung them weakly at him, not because she didn’t want to cause harm, but because she couldn’t find her strength. This time, Eliot didn’t stop her. She threw blow after blow, not caring if they landed on the thorny vines that covered his body.

The half-elf only stopped when she couldn’t physically raise her arms anymore due to her fatigue, and collapsed on her butt next to her father. The two of them sobbing on the ground with their tears, boggers and blood made for a sad sight. Liza was soon supported by her friends, who began to treat her cut fists, leaving the bound elf as the solely pitiful one.

“You’re right to blame me, it’s indeed my fault in the end,” said Alluin, half choking. “Let me tell you what happened on that day…”

“Back then I’d heard hearsay of a group of bandits moving near our region, so I told your mother I would go out to deal with a small trouble in a nearby village, as not to worry her. My plan was to eradicate the group before they caused harm, but I was found by my father’s men while I was on the road. I thought about escaping, but not only did they greatly outnumbered me, Drannor was also part of the group and it was only a matter of time till he tracked me again with the use of his animal companions.”

“My options were extremely limited and I knew I probably wouldn’t be able see you or your mother ever again. However, the most important part was making sure they didn’t find out about the two of you. Especially you, Liza. A half-elf is the greatest shame to the Valenfele, an aberration born from an elf and a disgusting human, as they put it. They would’ve hunted both of you down to the ends of Flanac and killed you. The whole thing was as bad as it gets and it only made it worse since I was the elder’s son. As you’re probably aware already, the elder here has a special significance, since only his bloodline can command the heart of the forest.”

“I tried asking for some time so I could deal with the bandits. Perhaps ridding you from this hidden danger was the last thing I could do as a husband and a father, but they were having none of it. I had already breached the law and was to return immediately. I drew my weapon and threatened to fight them if they wouldn’t budge, so we ended up with a compromise. A few of them would stay to deal with the bandits, while the others would escort me home. On the way back, I managed to convince the ones escorting me to give me five minutes on a nearby city to ‘retrieve my belongings’. I wanted to send a message for you and your mom, so as to not make you two languish in wait for me. There was so much to say and so little time, so an ‘I’m sorry’ and a few elvish words were all I could leave behind. Elvish words that the courier didn’t convey, I’m guessing. Figures, he probably couldn’t understand or pronounce them.”

“As you can see, it was indeed my fault. To think my tribesmen would poke their noses at human business just because they promised me was the height of folly, and you and your mother payed the price for it…”