Salvatore the Elf

Brother Skefan led Rhiassa and Nevyn from the Great Hall to a secret corridor. They walked through the long corridor until they reached another room. The Greeting Room, that was.

Now for a description of the Greeting Room: It was a confined room, but quite dingy. The walls were obscured entirely by floor to ceiling bookshelves, broken up by tattered, sky blue curtains on the windows. The furniture was quite old and stuffy, as if they had been used longer than intended.

Rhiassa frowned as she walked into that forbidding room. Nevyn and the headmaster were right behind her. Sitting at the ancient desk that faced the only window in the room (which a poorly made curtain covered) was Salvatore the elf.

A brief description of the elf: He was a personable man with droopy eyes the color of the sun. He had silky, straight, black hair. He was very tall and had an angular build. His skin was black. He had an elegant nose. His wardrobe is strange and tight, with a lot of green, and blue.

Salvatore said, “Well, Skefan, so these are the students who have decided to show up here?”

“Yes,” said Skefan. “They are Rhiassa Twilight and Nevyn Meler.”

“Very well,” said Salvatore. “Leave them with me.”

Skefan said to Nevyn and Rhiassa, “You must listen to him and do whatever he tells you to do without argument.” He then left the room, and the children turned to stare at the man who would be their guardian for the next week.

Salvatore said, “I hear that you two have been enrolled here at Greywyn Academy and you will be studying with our students.”

“But we didn’t ask to come here!” cried Nevyn.

“But you are here nonetheless,” said Salvatore, “and here in this school you will stay. For we do not allow human children to leave this school or our world and the minds of the children are purged of their human memories, so they cannot escape and return to their homes on Earth.”

“But why?” cried Rhiassa.

“Eons ago,” said Salvatore, “the human world and our world once lived in harmony. Then the humans grew arrogant and they banished us, telling their children lies that we were only myths and fairy tales. I assure you that we are not lies. As the human world grew to what it was 2,750 years ago, we were forgotten, mistreated, and generally, no one cared for us anymore. It was during that time that we had begun taking children away from their human homes and families.”

“But why would you take children away from their families?” cried Rhiassa.

“We sought to punish the human race for its arrogance and stupidity,” said Salvatore. “At first, we had taken every human child who chanced to see us. Indeed, we took many human children. However, the human adults grew vigilant and they forbade their children to leave, lest we took them as well. Despite that, more and more children disappeared. Most of them were poor, orphans, children who wouldn’t be missed.”

“And whatever happened to those children?” cried Rhiassa.

“We sought to re-educate them in the old ways,” said Salvatore. “Our races here had been dying and yet we kept taking more and more human children away. But suppose there WAS a way we can stop them from ending up like the corrupt and wicked adults who rule and shape their world.”

“What do you have against adults?” cried Nevyn.

“Many many things,” said Salvatore. “They abuse children, murder children, and destroy the world that was given to them. Adults have been responsible for every war that was ever fought, and even the war that ultimately destroyed the Earth. You two knew hate and anger all too well. That is why you were removed from your homes.”

Rhiassa frowned, wondering why she was chosen. She, out of all people. All her life, many people had regarded Elva Sheppherd as useless and they said horrible things about her mother, TaLuna Sheppherd. Elva’s father was nowhere to be found, and the people of her town frowned upon TaLuna’s unmarried status and her decision to raise Elva.

Life was bearable until Elva was seven years old. TaLuna was found dead one winter’s eve, leaving behind a small child and a town who cared nothing for their plight. Elva was forced to continue living in poverty until she was taken away at age 14.

Nevyn too frowned as he too recalled his past life: as a boy who lived in a crumbling and dying city, Troy recalled the glory days of his city and his desire to return to those glory days. Then the riots happened, killing his parents and leaving him to raise his disabled brother, Trevor, alone. Within a year and a half, Troy was taken away when he was 17 years old.

Salvatore said, “I now know of your past human lives and now I must tell you what they mean. Rhiassa has been demonized and rejected by all but one. Her mother was brutally murdered and the people there hoped that she too would die. But she didn’t die; she instead learned to withstand the world in which she grew up in. She was taken away in the hopes that she would be able to experience a better way of life.”

“And what about me,” said Nevyn.

“Your past too was to be taken in consideration,” said Salvatore. “Your family seemed to be among those who mistreated innocent, poor, helpless children and for that, they paid with their lives. You were brought here in order that you may learn to be compassionate towards those who are less fortunate than you are.”

He stood up and guided the children to a small room. Inside the room were two small cots decorated by a thin blue blanket. Nevyn frowned, thinking why the cots were small and the blankets were thin when he looked up and realized that there were no windows or any way that light could come in that room.

Salvatore said to them, “This is where you will stay for the week. You will come when called, eat what is placed before you, wear what is placed before you, and you will not speak unless you have been spoken to first.” He shoved the children into the room and shut the door.

Rhiassa frowned and sat on a cot. She never thought in a million years she would end up in a strange new world filled with rules that she did not understand. But she was in a school, something that she had been denied her whole life. She vowed to make the best of it, no matter what the outcome would be.

Nevyn, however, couldn’t say the same thing. His whole life had been surrounded by living with a wonderful loving family in an apparently safe city. That had been before his parents were killed in that riot. He and his brother stayed in the same house, but the riot had shut down his school and many people in the town were reduced to thievery and murder just to get some food to eat. Now Nevyn was in Greywyn and Trevor was gone, presumed dead. He knew that it was the chance to make a better life for himself.

Salvatore said to Skefan, “These two might take longer to assimilate, as they come from different worlds.”

“Of course,” said Skefan. “They are, after all, going to be the new guardians.”

“But first, I must get past the barriers they have set up in their minds,” said Salvatore. “They know not of their powers and I have already seen what the girl is capable of.”

“She’s quite unusual, that girl,” said Skefan. “But what about the boy?”

“I am unsure of him,” said Salvatore, “for he has lived a comfortable life while the girl had to deal with hardships. But no matter; tomorrow we erase their human memories and we shall read them.”

“Of course,” said Skefan.

The next day, Rhiassa and Nevyn found themselves waking up; they knew it was time for them to begin their new lives at Greywyn Academy.