Farewell In Flames III

"Can I ask for your name?" Nina asked the elf as she got up. She wiggled her foot a few times and saw that it was fully healed. There was no pain or discomfort. In fact, it felt even better than before.

"Notice how I'm not asking for your name. Now is not the time for idle chatter. We need to move. After we find a safe location, we can talk a little," the elf told her.

"Oh, that makes sense."

"Come on." Nina and the elf boy followed the other elf. They sneaked around the angry mob and while they passed them, Nina heard them hurling insults at the people inside. But of course, there weren't any people left inside and it was just a waste of their breath.

"Ignore them," the elf told her.

"Why aren't you with them? Weren't you also enslaved?" Nina asked the elf. She saw that he was also wearing slave clothes and had a collar around his neck.

"Don't lump me in with that bunch. We elves know how to control our temper and see the bigger picture. For example, the fact that this child cares so much about you means that you're not like the other humans. Had he not vouched for you, I would have left you there to die."

"Oh..." So that was what they were talking to each other about in elvish.

"By the way, what is his name?" she asked the elf to ask him for her.

"You don't know his name?"

"No." She hadn't been with him for all that long and although she asked the boy for his name many times already, she still didn't know what it was.

"Hey, what's your name?" the elf asked the boy in elvish.

"Mytill."

"There's your answer," he told Nina.

"Mytill?"

"Yes. What about you?"

"Oh, my name is Nina."

"Nina... Strange name. But then again, all human names are strange to us elves."

"What is your name?" Nina asked the elf. They were still in Silverfield but there wasn't anything around them anymore. This was a safe time to speak in her opinion.

"My name?" The elf took a moment to think about the question, which was a little weird. A personal question like this shouldn't even require thinking to answer. It was like he had forgotten his own name or something. Or maybe he did... The elf might have been a slave for so long that he has forgotten his own name.

"Did you forget it?" Nina asked him.

"No, how could I forget my own name? My name is very long and it will probably be difficult for you to pronounce it let alone memorize it. I'm trying to find a way to shorten it for you."

"Oh. Is it really that hard to pronounce?" Nina was a little curious now. What exactly was his name?

The elf said something in elvish which sounded like gibberish to Nina. "What?"

"That's my name."

"Wow..." It really was hard to pronounce.

"Just call me Autumn, I guess," the elf told Nina. "It's a simplified version of my name in your language."

"Autumn..."

"Anyway, we're almost out." The elf pointed at the wall in front of them.

"Are we going over it?"

"No, we're going through it."

"We're breaking it?"

"You can say that." The three of them stopped right in front of the wall. Nina and Mytill watched as Autumn planted his hand against the wall and muttered something. Vines grew from beneath his hands and stretched throughout the wall until they covered a good portion of it. The part of the wall that was covered by the vines then turned green and melted away to create a hole that led to the other side.

"What was that?"

"Nature magic," Autumn answered her again.

"No, I mean what were you saying before the vines appeared?"

"That was a chant."

"A chant?"

"Yes, it's one of the basics of magic. Do you not know that?"

"No."

Nina never knew that chants were needed for magic. In the first place, if a person can cast magic without chanting then wouldn't it be a lot faster? However, she did notice before that when he summoned the pixie, he didn't chant anything. So did that mean that certain spells required them?

"I can see you're confused. But I can't tell you much about it since we will be parting ways here."

"We are?"

"Yes. I repaid the favor for this child. You saved him, I saved you. We're even now, aren't we?"

"Oh... Yes, we are."

"Well then, I bid you farewell."

"Goodbye." Nina watches as Autumn takes Mytill's arm and begins to drag him away. She turns and begins to go back into the city to search for her parents, but she hears Mytill's voice and stops. She turns around and sees the two elves arguing with each other again.

"What!?" Autumn tells Mytill something in Elvish, probably along the lines of, "We can't take her with us." The two argued for a bit before they all heard the dragon's roar again and Autumn gave in. Nina could see that he wanted to get out of here as quickly as they could, and didn't want to waste any more time arguing with Mytill.

"For the love of the forest! You, come with us!" Autumn grabbed Nina by the arm and began to drag her away without her consent.

"What! Wait! I need to find my parents! Let go of me!"

"Sorry, but I cannot do that. Your family is likely already out. Furthermore, this child will not leave without you. I don't want to do this either, but I have no choice"

Unable to break free of the elf's grasp, Nina gets dragged away by him all the while struggling to get the elf to let go. But she is unable to do so and before long, they make decently far out of the city. Autumn let go of Nina for a moment, and before she had a chance to figure out what was going on, a wave of vines engulfed them and they were taken away from Silverfield and to the place beyond the green.

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