New Beginnings

Aaron is surprised by an intruder in his room.

11.

New Beginnings

 

It was dark by the time they reached the teleportation spot.    King Eleazar had left a guard and a handful of wizards at the location, so they could quickly return home.    However, ‘quickly’ meant several hours for the convoy of knights and their handful of prisoners.   

Not wanting to go back to the emptiness of the keep he had inherited from his parents back in Westmark - at least while it was dark- Aaron volunteered to stay behind until the last of the knights were teleported back.    He found the cool night air cleared his head as much as was possible after what he had experienced.

Allea squeezed his hand as she left with her parents and he gave her a reassuring smile in return.    Queen Aurei tried to persuade him to teleport back with her and the King, but he told her he needed time alone and finally she relented.

 

It warmed his heart to see Wulf-wuf and Mew.   They were clothed and she sat before him on a horse with his arms around her protectively.   They stayed close to each other and still retained the shyness from before, though they were quite attractive in appearance.

They had frequently inquired about his state, since the three of them had joined with the King’s company.    Each time he told them that he was alright, although in truth he ached inside, not only for Lysa, but for the other three Talminor that never had a chance at a normal life.

Still, the two of them were healthy and whole and, from what Aaron could see, in love.    So he smiled at their happiness, thankful that at least some good came from their mission.

 

It was early dawn by the time the last of the King’s cavaliers were ready to teleport back to Westmark.    As Aaron sat on his horse, staring at the yellow light in the east, while the horsemen gathered in close enough for the wizard to cast the spell upon them, he pondered the magic that had made the Talminor.

Helios had somehow gathered pieces of different beings and fused them together by magic.    Had the pieces that he had used come from beings that had been living, moments before, or had they come from corpses?    Wulf-wuf did not know the source, but he and Mew had retained their memories from their lives as Tri-racial constructs.  

Aaron had many unanswered questions about the Faerie Pool - or Pool of Purity as Sefet-Manyue had called it.   How did the water dissolve a living creature so quickly and then reform them in another body, but with the memories of the previous form?    How could it take apart the ‘pieces’ of the racial ancestry of a person, even when these pieces did not show in the appearance of that person?   

How had it taken the bit of Ogre ancestry of Lysa and injected it into Sefet-Manyue, making him reappear as an Ogre?    Had not the proud prince been pure of his racial ancestry?   Or perhaps he too had a skeleton in his ancestral closet, many, many generations ago.

 

Foremost on his mind was what had happened to poor Lysa.   She had been alive when they had thrown her into the pool, but that had been after Sefet-Manyue had ordered that the corpse of his wife be thrown into the water.   

Had her dead body tainted the water so much that Lysa had simply faded away?   There had been a flash of blue light after her form had dissolved - what had that been?     These thoughts plagued the young Duke as the wizard chanted the teleportation spell.

 

Soon they were in the parade field of the old Ducal Keep.    The city of Westmark was just coming to life on a fair spring day.     Aaron declined invitations from the cavaliers to join them for breakfast in the barracks.   

He dreaded going back to the meager keep that had been his family residence while living in Westmark (which had been most of the time).    Oh, it had been quite pleasant and happy when his parents and sister had lived in the tower with him.  With the exception of a handful of servants, it had grown cold and lonely in the four months since his family had died.

Now he had more ghosts to add to those who haunted him already in the bleakness of the keep.

So with a heavy heart, Aaron rode the short distance from the parade grounds to the building.

His servants had been given a week off, for he had expected that their trip to Helios valley would take that long.    He groomed Griz alone, thankful that the Hutcaiah had taken all of their horses and mules with them when they had captured them in the Elven watchtower.

“Griz, what am I going to do?”   He asked his horse as he brushed him, “I feel too melancholy to carry on, but somehow I must.    I cannot handle any more death.    I’m not strong enough.”

With a deep, weary sigh, Aaron left his faithful steed and trudged up the grey stone stairs toward his quarters.  

 

***

 

He had been given some light armor from the packs of the King’s Cavaliers and Aaron was worried that he hadn’t thought to get the names of the men who had so generously loaned it to him.  I’ll have to speak to His Majesty and see if I can locate them, he thought to himself as he opened the door to his private chambers.  

He was thinking about using the practical magic bathing facilities on the ground floor of the tower as soon as he retrieved a change of clothing, and was halfway across the room when he heard slight movement in what should have been an empty room.   

Aaron grabbed for his sword, but he did not have it strapped to his side.   His armor and equipment had been taken by the Hutcaiah guards, and he did not yet know if it would be found in the equipment that the King’s men had recovered.  

Without any other choice, he ran cautiously over to the source of the sound, surprised to find it coming from his bed.

Someone was asleep under the covers.

What was more surprising was that he thought he recognized the sleeper.

Even covered up, he could tell the form was female, though only her head and a bit of her hand showed.    She had lovely green skin and beautiful shiny black hair went down just past her shoulders.  

Thunderstruck, Aaron just stood there staring in disbelief - it was Lysa, but something was changed about her.    She looked mostly the same, but there were subtle differences.  

Though she had always had very delicate Orc features, they had still been noticeable.    Yet now the dainty Orc tusks that had protruded from her bottom lip seemed to be gone, and her nose looked small and Elven.    Her skin color was the same, as was her hair color, but her hair was longer and her features - as best that he could tell from her sleeping form- seemed to have been softened slightly.   

He had no idea why she was here, how she got here or what had happened.   For a long moment he just stared at her, confused at what to do.  

He was preparing to speak when something brought her out of her sleep.    Her yellow eyes - which seemed even lovelier than before- popped open and she blinked away sleep with a confused and somewhat frightened expression on her face. 

Then she saw him and she let out a slight shriek, rising up on her elbows in alarm.    The blanket slipped down, exposing her nudity for an instant before she scooped it up to her chin in embarrassment.

She looked up at him with wide-eyed innocence.

“My Lord… where am I?   What happened?”   She asked nervously.

“Lysa, what do you last remember?”   He asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed.    She tightly clutched the blanket to her, horrified by her nakedness.

“I…I don’t know exactly… it all seems like a terrible nightmare.   We were filling in Hiz’s grave… a net or something was thrown over us.   Then… oh…yes, now I remember…”    She shivered as the memory returned.   Despite her unclothed condition under the blanket, he went over to her and hugged her as she recalled the torture and beatings at the hands of the Hutcaiah soldiers.  

She trembled and rested her head against his shoulder as she fought to regain her composure.  

“It’s alright, Lysa, you are safe now.” He said to her softly.    Her body was soft and she smelled of flowers.

“I’m sorry, my Lord.”  She said in shame, “I didn’t remember at first.”

“Never be sorry for what you went through, Lysa.”   He replied as he breathed in the floral scent of her hair, “You were nearly killed.”

“What happened?   Where am I?”

“You are in my bedroom.”   He told her and again she shrieked.

“Oh no!   My Lord, I didn’t…I don’t know h-how-“  She stammered, blushing.

“I think I may know what happened and how you got here, Lysa.”   He said to her as she pulled away from him, still tightly covering herself with the blanket.

He told her about the events that had happened the previous day.

“When they threw you into the Faerie Pool, it was almost immediately after they had thrown in the body of the Princess.    The water turned green as before, but there was a blue flash of light and then you were gone and the water returned immediately to a normal color.”

“I just remember a feeling of drowning, Lord.   Only a few moments of it and then… nothing until I awoke… except for an odd dream.”   Her eyes looked dazed for a moment as she recalled the dream.

“Well, before you tell me about the dream, I’ll tell you first what I think happened.  I put my Autocaster Ring on you when I first saw you after we were captured.   Do you remember that?”

“I remember talking to you… I thought it was a dream or something, but I don’t remember the ring, Lord.”

“Well, I put it on you because I had no way to heal you and I was afraid that the Hutcaiah would kill you.    I think that when you were thrown into the Faerie Pool and it began to dissolve you - or whatever it does to a person- the Autocaster Ring activated and brought you here.   It was set up to take me back to my room here and that is where I found you.”

Lysa began feeling around underneath the covers, “Lord, I don’t seem to be wearing your Autocaster Ring now, though!”

Aaron nodded, “I didn’t expect you to have it.   It was dissolved in the Faerie Pool.”

“But I wasn’t dissolved; I’m still here.”   Lysa replied.

“Ah, but I think you were, Lysa - at least in part.”

“You think I was dissolved in the pool?!  Why?”

“Because there have been some changes in your appearance.   It is as if the pool partially began to work on you and then you were taken magically away before it finished.    The Prince had intended to show me how a dead body thrown into the pool followed by a living person would result in some of the dead person’s essence being transferred onto the living.   I think he intended to try to reform you into one of his race, but the Autocaster Ring stopped it.”

Lysa looked down at her hands in disbelief, “I look the same, Lord!”

“Your little tusks are gone, Lysa, and your nose is no longer the same.”

She felt her face, startled to find the teeth gone and her nose smaller and human-like in shape.

To Aaron’s surprise, she began crying, “I’m a freak!”

“Lysa, you are certainly not a freak!”   He assured her, again pulling her against his shoulder.

“My brother will be horrified.”   She said, sniffling, “I don’t even know what I am anymore.”

“You are you, Lysa.    When the Prince emerged from the pool, he had the form of an Ogre.   Perhaps he got part of your Ogre ancestry and you now just possess human and Orc traits.”

“I don’t know, sir.   I feel… lighter, as if my bones were less dense.    But I have to tell you about the dream, Lord.   I’m afraid, Lord!”

“Why, Lysa?   What did you dream?”

She looked down at her hands, “I dreamt about a large burning tree, Lord.”

“The Burning Tree Dream?!”   Aaron exclaimed, “Tell me about it, Lysa!”

She recounted the same dream that all Elves and Half-Elves had been given by Yesh almost half a year ago that told them about the changes in Elven biology.    Aaron remembered the dream quite clearly, which was something all the Elves and Half-Elves also shared.

“What does it mean for me, Lord?”   She asked, looking at him nervously.

“I would say it means that in Yesh’s eyes, you are now an Elf, Lysa.”

“An Elf!    Lord, that is crazy!    I’m an Orc!   There were no Elves in my ancestry!   Why would this happen?”

“I don’t know, Lysa.   Perhaps long ago, one of your distant ancestors that you know nothing about was an Elf.   But I imagine that you absorbed some of that Hutcaiah Princess’ nature.”

“Oh no!”   She cried, “What will become of me?   Whoever heard of a green-skinned Elf?   I just can’t be an Elf, Lord!    Surely something can be done!”

 

Aaron shrugged, “I don’t know if another dip in that pool would reverse things or just make them more complicated.”

Lysa’s eyes widened, “No!   I will NOT get in that pool again!”

 

“Lysa, you should be fine as you are right now.    Race is not that important - it doesn’t change who you are.”

“Yes, but people judge people on their race, Lord.   Well, I should say some people judge others on their race; not everyone.   But those who do, sir, sometimes do it unconsciously.   I used to watch the reaction of people to Wulf-wuf, Mew, Grunt, Bear and Hiz when they encountered them for the first time.    There was disgust at first, and then they would veil their reactions behind a polite smile or simply look away.”

“Lysa, people are often prejudiced toward anyone that they don’t perceive as their own group.     I’ve heard Queen Aurei tell tales about the reactions that she received as a young girl working in the Muddy Boot when someone would encounter a Drow in the middle of the northlands.    She said that she chose to make light of it and to act friendly toward the people.    Sometimes it didn’t work, but more often than not, once they got to know her, their attitudes changed.”

“That doesn’t always work through, Lord.   Trust me, I know.   Many hate the presence of Orcs here, even after years of us serving the King and Queen and living as good citizens.”

“But slowly the perception of everyone will change.   It will take many years, sadly, and there will always be some who are prejudiced, but I firmly believe that how the people of Marksylvania look at Orcs is changing right now.”

“My Lord, do you have a mirror?   I would like to see how bad the change is.”   

Aaron went across the room and carried over a floor length mirror to the bedside.    Lysa leaned over to gaze into the mirror, turning her head from side to side and up and down.

“I look so different.”   She told Aaron while she pulled back her hair and felt her ears, “Even my ears feel different.”

“They look the same.”

“They don’t stick out as much; they are more Elven, less Orcish.   What will my brother Bruce think?    I am not totally Orc, or even Half-Elven.”

“You are still Bruce’s sister, Lysa, he will still love you.”

“I feel so strange, Lord.    How long have I been here?”

“Since yesterday afternoon.    Are you hungry?”

“Yes… I think so.    But I need some clothes…”   She blushed.

“You should have your leather armor in the armory; I’ll go get it.”

“Thank you, sir.   I’m so embarrassed.    This is so shameful to be caught in a compromising situation.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Lysa, and no one knows but me.”

“A squire should not be found naked in her Lord’s bed.”

Aaron laughed, “Yes, but this is an exceptional situation.   Don’t worry, no one will know.”

“Lady Allea would be very upset if she heard about this.”

“Not as upset as you might think.”   He replied as he left the room to find her something to wear.