Forest Ranger

Who would have thought that attempting to track down an entire village's worth of elves would be so difficult? With that many people, one would think that they could only move so fast. Unless that number was divided and separated into multiple smaller groups, it was not easy to traverse such a thick forest as this one at that speed. After all, the group could only move at the same pace as their slowest member so as to not leave them behind. However, according to Nyana, the whole village was moving together, and not separately as Kies thought.

As for how a group as big as theirs could move so fast, Kies was clueless. Once again, he could only take Nyana's word for it.

Over the next two days, they gained ground at a surreal speed, and from Nyana's assessment, they were very close to catching up with the elves of the village. "We should spot them anytime now," she told him, keeping her eyes ahead. As they continued through what appeared to be an endless forest, the terrain gradually changed from rolling hills to sudden cliffs with drops tens of meters tall and slopes so steep that they might as well be considered walls.

Even the trees here grew to an unreal height. The towering giants that were homes to the elves of the village were but saplings in comparison to the size of the trees here. They were wider than the vast majority of the houses in Otane. Kies started to wonder if they had shrunk somehow.

The change in terrain was felt by Nyana pretty severely as she had to take an increased number of breaks to recover her energy, and the number only increased as they ventured deeper into the forests. With each passing tree, the trees ahead were even bigger. A single falling leaf almost squashed them. When Kies turned back to take a look at it, he measured it to be almost the size of the guest room back in the village. The veins were practically bludging out, packed with water, enough to fill a bathtub or two.

"It's crazy, isn't it?" Nyana commented, unfazed by the sight of the colossal leaf. She strolled up to it, took out her knife, and plunged it into the thickest vein running through the center. Water erupted from the leaf like a geyser, shooting the water sky high for a brief second. The elf kneeled down and filled her water pouch with the water from the leaf while getting somewhat of a light shower in the process as well.

"These trees are ancient. Records go as far as our first ancestors. We believe that they were here since the start of time itself," she recounted the legends proudly. She stood back up after she finished filling the pouch before looking back down at herself, only realizing then how soaked she. Water was sliding down her hair and dripping off the ends and her clothes were stuck onto her like they were part of her skin as.

"You don't suppose it is too much work to dry me off, is it?" she asked, wiping the droplets from her face.

"Close your eyes." The elf did as she was told and Kies dried the both of them off in a jiffy. It was one of the few ways that he could use wind magic that wasn't for combat. it seemed like it was just yesterday that it was the other way around. Oh, how far he had come.

After the refreshing shower, the pair continued traveling. It wasn't even a half hour in that finally caught up to the elves from the village, though they would've missed them if not for them calling out to them. Kies and Nyana jumped right over them, not noticing the figures on the ground as they were hopping from branch to branch on the treetops. The elves below recognized one of their kind and quickly stopped them.

Funnily, the sound of the wind blowing past their ears as they were soaring atop the trees made it hard to hear anything and the elves had to resort to shooting magic their way to get their attention.

Nyana dropped down to the ground followed by Kies who landed a good distance behind her, standing away from the elves since he was a stranger to them. In the mass, Kies saw faces, both young and old. Around half of them had bandages or some sort of minor injury. Luckily, it didn't look like they were too hurt.

"I am Nyana of the Sylvs," she introduced herself to the other elves, giving them a soldier's gesture that Kies had seen before.

"A Sylv..." Voices whispered among each other as the villagers turned to one another. A soft thudding sound, like someone hitting the grass silenced the elves. They all moved to the side and bowed their heads as an elf, identical to the one that they saw at the villager appeared from within the group.

He was a perfect reflection of the elven elder whom one of the demons disguised themself as to deceive them. Well, minus the nasty gash on the back side of his arm. Bandages dangled from his arm, and the elf didn't look like he cared enough to bother fixing it. One of the younger elves pointed it out to the elder, running over with a concerned expression but was waved away from the elder.

"Greetings, Sylvian warrior, Nyana," the elf spoke in a tone so deep that it sounded like the ground itself was rumbling in an attempt to form words. it sounded nothing like the voice that the demons spoke to them in. So, they can mimic appearances., but voices were off limits even with their abilities?

"I'm guessing that you're heading to the capital too," the elven elder continued, wrinkling his nose. It could be just Kies but the elder sounded a little worried. Then again, getting attacked by demons and getting chased out of their home was traumatizing. He should know, since the same thing happened to him, just replace the word 'demons' with 'dragon' instead.

"Yes, I am," Nyana said, pausing her sentence and turning around to introduce Kies. "My companion and I are," she corrected herself.

The elves stared at Kies like he was some sort of an exotic beast, giving him looks that he would have normally marked off as insulting. "Pardon my rudeness... But, 'what' are you?" the elven bluntly asked, not bothering to sound polite about it.

"An ally, if you see me as one. An enemy, if you see me as one," Kies responded coldly, taking offense to the discourteous question.

Nyana cleared her throat, a slight frown dawning across her face as she suddenly regretted introducing the two to each other. "He's my companion," Nyana repeated, stressing the companion part, as to tell them that he was friendly.

"Sorry." The apology wasn't even directed at Kies. It was instead to Nyana like she was the one they offended and not Kies. Kies simply rolled his eyes and turned his head away. Was it because he resembled a human too much? It made sense that the elves didn't take too kindly to seeing one of them when they betrayed and enslaved their race. But they should know that he wasn't human from his magic flow. Well, whatever.

Kies left it to Nyana to talk to the villagers and extract what information she could from them. The Sylv knew what she was doing, asking only questions that were important and cutting off the elder when he was straying into something unimportant. In five minutes, she pieced together the whole story.

The demons had been harassing the village for a long time, attacking them during both the day and the night, not giving them a moment to sleep or rest. But despite all the attacks, the demons at worst harmed them but never once did they kill a villager. The reason for it was unknown, even now. Unable to take it anymore, the elves made the unanimous decision to abandon the village and make a break for the capital, where it was safe. The demons didn't chase them and they managed to get this far with few problems.

There was only one thing that troubled the elder and it was, "While the demons didn't give chase, it feels like something else is." As the elder said that, he turned his head slightly to either side, his eyes skeptically checking their surroundings.

"Is that so..." Nyana narrowed her eyes, surprised by this information. She doubted that it was paranoia due to a long, exhausting journey. Elves aren't the type to feel uneasy about being in a forest, not when they lived here all their lives. Taking the elder's word that something was following them, Nyana looked at Kies.

Reading her eyes, Kies knew exactly what she needed him to do. With a snap of his fingers, the winds scoured the forest and sure enough, they found something.

An enemy. A lone one. But before he could relay the information to Nyana, the presence disappeared, fleeing as fast as it could from them. The person or thing knew that it had been exposed and left. Regardless, Kies told Nyana and the villagers of his findings.

"I felt the presence of someone, but they're gone now." Upon hearing this, the villagers looked around nervously despite having been told by Kies that the person or thing that had been following them was gone now.

"Just one?" Nyana asked.

"Yes," Kies confirmed, also looking around in a tense manner. The presence was gone, but the fact that he didn't notice them until now... Just who or what was it that could stay hidden so expertly?

"We should move," Nyana advised, also spooked by this. Whatever it was, it now knew the whereabouts of the elven capital, not exactly some information that can be given away lightly. It was a guarded secret among the elves. Nyana was only taking Kies there before there was an emergency. If the situation wasn't so dire, Kies would never even be allowed to step foot in the forest.

The villagers didn't say anything but they all collectively shared the same opinion, which was the same as Nyana's. It was too dangerous here. Who knew what else could be watching or following them? The forest that they saw as their home and treated as a paradise was now seen as eerie.

Were the trees always this gloomy-looking? Were the animals always this quiet? Was the wind always howling this loudly? Was the forest always this... scary? Was it always this way?

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