Chapter 4 – Learning of the Forest and World Part 1

I stood up as a haggard old woman pointed out for me to follow her to the Elves that lived in the forest. “You know where the Elves are?” I asked quickly, a little worried behind who this person was. The old woman simply nodded her head up and down as she laughed at me. Feeling insecure over her sudden appearance from out of nowhere, I stayed where I stood. Looking angered at my refusal to follow her, the old woman began to come closer to me, with her long ratty black hair floating upwards behind her head. With her eyes beginning to glow in multiple different colors, my body began to respond without my own will and walk towards her. “What’s going on?! My legs….they’re moving on their own!” The old woman began smiling at me now, and I could see her rotten teeth grinding together in anticipation over me. As I got closer and closer to her, a blast of blinding white light erupted in the forest, causing me to drop to my knees on the ground. As the light began to die down, I looked up to see Sakura standing over me with her fingers pointed at the old woman.

“Be gone wicked spirit of the night!”

The old woman snarled at Sakura, angry to have been interrupted from snatching me. But instead of wishing to fight Sakura, she back stepped into the dark trees of the forest and vanished in the air. Alone with each other once again, Sakura bent down and held out a hand to me. Grabbing it firmly, I heard her speak to me as I got up. “Lucky I hadn’t gotten away too far, any farther and that old bat would have done you in. It’s a shame the ward has no effect of the evil things that dwell in the forest.” Now standing up next to her, I looked at Sakura with a bit of a frown over what she said. “What does that ward even do, and what the hell was that woman?” Sakura put a hand on my shoulder and guided me back to the spot where I had sat previous to the event. Only once I was seated did she respond to my questions. “That old bat was a murderous spirit that wanders her days in this forest, and she has a thing for young people. She like to, well, eat them and all.” As I cringed at the thought of being eaten by an old woman, Sakura quickly went to answer my next question. “The ward on the forest was created in part by the Elves of the forest and their spirit tree, and that ward, and that ward stops anything connected with the Priestess from entering the forest. And as such, the General would have been slightly hurt if he attempted to enter.” I looked over at Sakura’s eyes and saw them slightly light up with anger over mentioning the priestess. “How come she doesn’t bother to lift a finger at this forest then? Certainly she could do something to effect this place if she had magic like that general said. “Well,” Sakura started as she reached into her coat and took out some berries. Dropping them into my hands, she sat down and continued. “The ward has only been in effect for two years ago when the uprising in the capitol began, the very uprising that brought the High Priestess to power over us all. The Elves of the forest used to d trade with the residents of the capital, but they grew worried when the people began to grow darker ever since the Priestess came to power. The council of the High Elves here got together and made a new decree that stated no Elf would ever leave the confines of the forest or bother with the politics and rule of the Priestess. They sent the decree and terms to the High Priestess by messenger, who in turn agreed to the terms.”

Leaning forward in interest as I ate the berries, I was highly intrigued by the history of the forest and stayed silent. Sensing my interest, Sakura continued the tale. “The terms of the decree and deal with it was very simple. The Elves would never leave their forest and bother to stop anything that happened outside, and in turn for that, the High Priestess would never attempt to force the forest to her knees. Once she agreed to the terms, she sent the messenger back….and had the general kill and cut the body up, informing them that if they went against their terms or did anything she didn’t like, she would use force against them.” Ending the tale, she ate a few of the berries and contemplated over the past. To me, it pretty much sounded like the Elves where held prisoner in their own forest, a prison the insured their own survival as a people. Speaking up, I spoke to Sakura in a low voice. “That general said that we had endangered the Elves within this forest….does that mean he will come back with…force?” Sakura thumbed her chin, thinking my worried question over in her mind. “….I don’t know, all we can do is hope they don’t do anything over us. But knowing that damn Priestess, she will do anything to raise havoc…” Sakura clenched her hand into a fist and shook it, letting her anger show. Putting my hand over her clenched fist, I tried to calm her down. “Sakura….”

Not wanting me to see her upset, she let her anger slide away and opened her hand to meet mine and spoke more. “I’m sorry Hana, I don’t mean to let you see me like this. I just kind of hate that woman for all the pain she has caused.” She slide up next to me in the dark forest, with only the light she had created with magic to help us see. Wrapping her arm around my waist, I laid my head on her shoulder. The feeling of being so close to her was intoxicating for me. But to make that feeling go to the back of my head, I looked up at her face and asked her more about the land I was in. “Does that woman really rule this world from the capital?” Lightly laughing to herself, Sakura ran a few fingers through my hair. “She only rules so much of Hygar, and what she has isn’t enough to sait her hunger for more. There are a few other very small factions in the land. These smaller city states are here and there, but they wholly oppose the High Priestess with a vengeance. Some of these factions include the vampires in the old capital to the south and the humans to the far west, not to mention the other clans of Elves around.” It was interesting to hear about the other different factions, no matter how they small they may be. It all sounded interesting, but I wanted to know more about the human side. “There are other human rulers here in the land?”

“Yeah, quite a few, small and large. The biggest is the one in the west, which unfortunately is at war with itself…curtesy of you know who. The Priestess had the good king of that land assassinated and had the two young princes of the country turn on each other, each thinking the other had taken in part of the murder. While they bicker, the priestess supplies each with fresh batches of warriors as a friendly “ally”, yet the two brothers are so blinded by hate, they are unable to see themselves being played. That woman does have mighty magical powers, even more so than anyone I have seen in my lifetime. She’s pretty much the one who rules from the shadows, with her underlings doing the dirty work. “

“So she essentially rules without ever being seen publicly?” Sakura nodded her head, signaling that I right in my assumption. “Yeah. You only see her rules enforced by the General or some of the other higher ups. She never leaves the old royal palace in the center of town, and all the locals say that weird shit goes down inside, but they’re too afraid to find out what it is.” Moving away from Sakura and resting my head on the ground, I looked up at the trees above as I talked to Sakura. “Are the other towns all the same too?

“No, only to a much lesser extent are they weird. In fact, the towns are the best on the western shores, even with that brotherly rivalry going on. I can’t guarantee that it will last for long, but at least it’s slightly better than the capital.”

“Will we have to go to one of those western towns?” I asked, wanting to know what we would have to do. I was prepared to go anywhere just as long as I had Sakura by my side. “That’s up to the Princess God and what she thinks is right for your future. Any place is better than the capital Hana.” I nodded my head as I slightly yawned from being tired and she looked at me. “Tomorrow you and I will find out what’s really going on with you, okay? Until then, just get some rest.” Muttering an okay, I tried to fall asleep but found it a little hard. I wanted to badly meet the Princess God, but the wait was killing me to no ends. I had learned a lot for my first day in Hygar, but I was still needing to know more about this strange land I now lived in. Everything came down to the meeting I was to have with the Elves, and that meeting would no doubt prove to be the thing that would drive me forward, for better or for worse. The world I lived in now was a very dangerous place, and that meant I would have to start protecting myself to stay alive. Thinking about that, I spoke up to Sakura, who as sitting up and keeping the watch. “Sakura?”

“Yeah Hana?”

“I’m guessing from this point on I will need to protect myself from the dangers of your world.”

“That’s true, but what about it?”

Lightly smiling to myself, I told her what I was trying to say. “Well, could you teach me how to use magic, assuming that I have it. Would you?” Looking at me with a gentle face, Sakura nodded. “Sure, I can do that if you really wish it. But until then, sleep.” Happy with her answer I said one last thing as I finally fell back into the world asleep. “Thank you…and Sakura….I love you always….”

I heard her mumble to me under her breath as I began to sleep. “You know I love you too.”

xXx

Sakura waked me up an hour before the break of dawn and tried to force feed me more of the berries from last night. After that small event, we picked up our route on the dusty trail and adventured along our way in the forest. The forest seemed so much bigger than it did during the night, and the size of it really made me wonder how the Elves survived alone out here without trade to the capital. By what Sakura said was high noon, we took a break and sat under the shade of a tree, tired from the walking we had to do. “Awwwwww what a pain! If that stupid horse hadn’t bolts when the General showed up, we would have been there by now!” Laughing it off with a slight chuckle, I patted her on the shoulder playfully. “Well at least we haven’t had any more weird interruptions like last night. That’s a relief to say the least.”

“It would be a relief having some of that Godly Elvish brandy those tree hugging Elves brew. Now that would make me walk ten times faster!” As I watched her lick her lips over the thought of booze, I turned my head to the sound of horse hooves falling into the distant scrub of the forest floor. Springing up, Sakura grabbed me by the arm and drug me out to the main path at a high speed. “What is it? Is it that general”? I asked, still la bit traumatized by him and his steed from the previous night. Sakura came to a dead halt and pointed out as she answered me. “No, in fact it’s the opposite of evil. Look!” I squinted my eyes as two figures on horseback came towards up in blinding speed. My eyes grew wide when I saw the familiar pointed ears of a creature I had only ever seen on book covers and in film.

“Are those…..Elves?!"

End Chapter 4