Curse

Fanella was finally having an ounce of peace a mile outside of Ingram. Both Damon and Saundra agreed that having Fanella around others may not be in their best interest. With all her talk of elves Saundra thought she may go into the looney bin.

Damon on the other hand figured that with the kind of energy that she was able to find and how much she had been giving away that it may be in everyone's best interest that she fill up as much as possible. Damon on the other hand hid in some shrubbery outside of Ingram.

The last thing they needed was for Damon to be kidnapped because he was a dark elf. They didn't need to delay any further. Fanella was worried and for good reason. If they helped with the light elf problem then Ishnal would have no problem sending away the king of Bilbok.

Even with the greatest army no one could stand against Light Elves. Fanella didn't think so.

"We were great once." She leaned her back against the trunk of a tree while sitting on a branch. Maeron was always so excited to tell her how great the light elves were.

Fanella remembered asking Maeron what he meant. She would tug on his garment and picking her up would jump up in a tree. He would go from tree to tree until finding a bird of some sort for her to pet while he told the story.

'We kept peace and harmony between all the species. Mom used to say that when she was just a girl that dad would go off to meeting with the elders of all species. It was a different time.

If we didn't retreat and create this barrier something terrible would happen. It is to keep us safe.' He had answered. Fanella was always nodding egging him to continue.

Later on she would begin to look for more information on the subject and despite resorting to going to the elders of the Light elves, no one had given her any answers. She was always left in the dark waiting for Maeron to tell her the story again.

Now she only wished she had acted sooner. As the princess she had a duty to keep peace within the kingdom, she had no right to step out. But the kings job became void, just having to sit and wait. That would make anyone antsy. Its probably why Rilien became the teacher to the young, instead of her.

"Was the human realm always so empty?" She speaks again, now waking the fire otter coming down into her lap.

"What does Rilien know that makes him so certain I will fail? I am not that naive to not have noticed."

The fire otter turns in her lap and sits down.

"What are they all so scared of? And if we are so great why can't we do anything? Geez we must have screwed up massively to run and hide like that. Maybe what Damon said was true, we are monsters." She places her head into her hands. The fire otter stands on its back legs and licks her hand.

Looking at where he had licked she smiled shyly before considering something. "Does it have something to do with how human my skin looks? I mean there is that old fable…" Fanella laughed remembering how Maeron would tell it.

'Again? I've told you this story so many times! Ok ok! The king was out settling scwabbles between the species. He had this amazing idea that they could all live together in peace. He understood there would be some problems, but thats why he was there to help grow understandings.' She had worshiped every word he had said.

As if trying to remember the fable herself, Fanella continued to tell the story to the fire otter who seemed so intrigued.

"Once he arrived in a little village that stood near an Ogre hut. He asked the humans what had happened and they informed him that the Ogres kidnapped some of the humans from the town.

Hearing the story he set off to the Ogre hut. He then heard their side of the story. Apparently the humans that they had kidnapped burned down one of their fellow ogres hut territory. After questioning the humans they didn't deny it and didn't think an outsider should settle their problems.

The king sighed and left to think about the situation. Knowing how both humans and ogres thought he came to a conclusion…" Fanella stopped remembering how she used to get really excited at this part and didn't realize how wrong it was.

'Equal! Equal! Equal!' She had cheered as the bird too cawed with excitement and the two would laugh.

She began to cry as the fire otter climbed up around her shoulders as to comfort her.

"They burned down the human village for equal exchange… He never told me if the humans were warned. The humans who were… left went and must have begged dark elves to protect them…" She changed how the story was told to the perspective of how it must have actually gone down.

"For coming to such a conclusion the king was cursed by a dark elf to mirror the image of a human…I don't know if that was a worthy punishment... We were terrible and wrong. Can we change… or should we be undone by our own hands?" She continues to cry as the fire otter begins to chirp.

"What is it… I… have elf skin? Did I… I broke the curse?"