Rorri?

　　My name is not Rorri Tip髇.

　　I`m a child of the Obsidian, the child of a soldier. We move from base to base, wherever my father is needed, never stopping for long enough to make friends. I`m so young when he makes me scout for food and supplies, and I teach my little sister to do the same. Our numbers are low. The Surfacers just finished with us, and my mother didn`t survive.

　　My father wears one of the highest insignias. He`s been through three rounds of the War, though he rarely speaks of it. I`m expected to be like him: stoic, fearless, a fighter, a leader - but I`m none of those things. I only want to paint on the walls and draw pictures in the dirt. There`s no room in the army for artists. We need more soldiers. We always need more soldiers. My father and I fight constantly. I`m a terrible disappointment, and he makes sure I know it. He signs me up for combat training as soon as I`m big enough and sends me away the second the wagon arrives. I suffer all the way through it. I don`t fit in, I never have. People don`t like me. I`m weak, and I show no love for what we do. I barely graduate, but I don`t think I should have - my scores were terrible, and I hate hitting people - but they put me through all the same. We need all the soldiers we can get. But I`m not a soldier. I`m a coward.

　　I`m stationed in Eriztre when the skirmishes begin. They know I`m no good at fighting, so they task me with retrieving the bodies, but the bodies are so damn hard to find. I see one being dragged away, going the wrong direction. The stench of death is unbearable. It fills the tunnels for miles. And everywhere I go, I feel the enemy`s shadow upon me. Even if I can`t see them, I know they`re there.

　　They say the spoli flee when the Surfacers approach...

　　I`m on my way back from a body run. A stream of spoli zips past my head, away from the base. They never move that fast. I have a body with me - I know it`s wrong, and I`ll never forgive myself - but I`m a coward. I drop the body and run. I send the spoli inside my head away so the glow in my eyes won`t reveal me, and I chase their dust to a narrow crack of surface light. I squeeze through - I`ve always been small, and it`s tight even for me - and I emerge into the forest, Belethlian. I`m overjoyed. I made it&

　　But I`ve only traded one horror for another.

　　*******

　　The Forest isn`t kind to the stranger or the straggler. Every twig could be a nerve. Every leaf could be a wound. If you step where it hurts, it lashes out. Its trees are its teeth, its branches its claws, and it kills without pause or remorse. And yet, its flowers and fruits intoxicate, for better or worse. The Forest`s bed lures you in like a lover, only to make sure you never leave it again.

　　This is my first real taste of fresh air. I`ve heard stories of blue skies and sunshine, black skies and stars, rain and wind and snow and grass& but I have never heard of this. The canopy covers the sky completely, as if the sky itself were made clusters of leaves and spindly branches. The light seems to live in the air, bathing the whole place in an ethereal green glow, but it`s so much brighter and more encompassing than the spoli. The trees reach farther up than I can comprehend, shuddering and raining leaves. The Forest goes on forever. There`s no break in the trees to suggest anything other than more forest lies beyond the horizon.

　　When I turn around, the crack in the rock is gone, vanished. I must have blacked out and gotten lost, somehow, though it feels like only a few seconds have passed, and I swear I haven`t moved. My joy quickly turns to dread. I should have stayed with my people. The Obsidian may be hell, but at least it`s a familiar hell. I don`t know where to go or what to do. So I wander.

　　Animals echo all around me, chittering and chirping and rustling, but I don`t see a single one. A sense of urgency constantly nibbles at my neck. I feel like I`m being watched. I am being watched. Eyes shine in the shadows and disappear as soon as I look. I shakily draw my weapon, a sort of throwing knife on a cord, standard military issue for fighting in the Obsidian`s tunnels. I haven`t actually used it since combat training. I`m a terrible throw and too timid to entangle people. Still, I brandish it as if I knew what to do with it, like a kitten puffing its fur and standing on its toes.

　　I brush past a thin tree, no different than any other, but it grabs me and pulls me in, stuffing my mouth full of leaves. I yelp, thrash, and slash about uselessly, but its branches disarm me with ease, knocking the knife to the ground and severing the cord. The trees around it loom over me. The knots in their trunks pop open, revealing eyes hidden behind the bark. I hear a voice behind me speaking a language I don`t understand, though it sounds close to my own, as if I were eavesdropping on another Du閚 through a thick cavern wall, unable to pick out the words.

　　A woman circles around to my front, an elf with umber-brown skin and golden irises. The trees edge away from her, giving her space to stand and regard me, her expression inscrutable. I start to beg, but the leaves choke my voice. She takes a step closer and pushes her thumb into the space between my eyes. She gazes deeply into me, as if she means to crawl into my head. I hear that voiceless thought - S H O W M E W H O Y O U A R E - and my vision goes to black. I feel a strange thumping in my head, like someone knocking on my skull from the inside, and my eyes fly open to see her stumbling back, caught by two other elves who weren`t there before. Suddenly, I feel like I know her - but I don`t really know her - but it`s like she`s been with me my whole life, hovering just behind and out of sight. She utters some foreign words, and the trees release me from their grasp. I stay in place.

　　"Pak`aror," she says. "You won`t survive here." She speaks Obsidian Elvish, though I don`t understand how she knows it. I`m speechless, gaping. The other two watch me warily, but the woman has lost the hardness in her eyes. She says something in her language. The elves at her side glance at each other. One of them mutters something, sounding annoyed, and the other sighs and crosses their arms.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

　　"You may come," she says with an amused smirk. "I can`t speak this way for long. Learn our language. Don`t go far. Don`t eat anything unless we give it to you. Be like us, and maybe you will live."

　　She gags and coughs, wiping the sweat from her brow.

　　"Can`t speak this way anymore," she says, her last Obsidian Elvish words. She mumbles something else, then motions for me to follow.

　　This is how the Tip髇 family found me.

　　They name me Rorri. Pak`aror is hard for them to say, or maybe they just don`t like it, I`m not sure. They teach me their language, feed and water me, begrudgingly for the most part. I still don`t fit in here, just like I never did in the Obsidian. Of the fifty or sixty we travel with, only the woman who performed the M閟poulis seems to have any fondness for me. Her name is Tohma.

　　(She was the mother I never got to have, and the only person I miss from that place.)

　　Over the decades I spend here, I learn to survive on the fickle, ruthless land. I watch people die, ravaged by beasts that appear out of thin air, skewered by trees with incomprehensible rage, swallowed by the earth when the earth is feeling peckish. We find stragglers all the time. There aren`t many she turns away, but when she does, she comes out of the trance looking sullen and sick. I can only imagine the awful things she has seen.

　　As far as I know, I`m the only Du閚 here. Tohma teaches me to make a paste from the dirt, turning my greenish-black skin to ashen-brown so I can camouflage with the trees. The stain remains for a couple of weeks before it needs to be reapplied. The paste is simple to make. It only takes dirt, water, and a bit of magic.

　　(It`s the only real magic I ever did before meeting you. It still rubs off with alcohol - that`s how Adar found out about me. When he cleaned my wounds after the opera, my skin stained the cloth.)

　　I dye my white hair red to add to my disguise, and I just like the way it looks. I can`t hunt, but I forage well enough, and I bring back all manner of flora. Some things are technically poison, but they make for a fun time in small enough doses. There`s not much else I can describe as fun` in Belethlian. In some ways, it`s much worse than the Obsidian, but at least here we`re not hunted for sport.

　　And then one day, the Du閚 arrive. It`s just one squad of twenty at first, but more trickle in over time. They come through the wide-open mouth of a cave, though the cave never stays for long. I recognize some of them. I`m petrified that they`ll recognize me, but I stay quiet, and nobody says anything. Tohma performs the M閟poulis on their leader, and after, they present the nefizzet egg to discuss diplomatic relations. The Belethlian elves know of the War, but have never had cause to interfere. The Surfacers never come to Belethlian; the Forest hides itself from them. Still, Tohma agrees to host the Du閚 as refugees, despite the protests from her tribe.

　　But Belethlian doesn`t appreciate the surge of foreigners in its bed. The Du閚 don`t take well to its customs, and the Forest retaliates with violence. Despite all of the Tip髇 family`s guidance, it only takes one misstep to anger it, and by the Du閚`s third or fourth sudden death, panic begins to set in. Tohma told them from the start that escape` wasn`t as simple as running off. Belethlian is very protective of its borders, and it obscures them from anyone coming or going without cause. It has only one real weakness, which the forest elves refuse to disclose.

　　(I wish she never told me&)

　　Someone from the Tip髇 family tells one of the soldiers about me. Before I know it, in the night, I`m gagged, bound, and dragged away. This violates protocol in so many different ways, but they`re scared and desperate. They begin the interrogation at the highest point of escalation. They beat me, they threaten me, they scream at me. They`re taking out their anger, but I can`t blame them. I`m a coward, a deserter. I left my people for dead to save myself. I wanted to draw pictures instead of fight in the War. They have every right to hate me.

　　They demand to know Belethlian`s weakness. I`m usually so good at keeping secrets. It`s not the pain that draws this one from me - I`ve been beaten before. It`s not the threats. They can kill me if they`d like. I`ve contemplated ending it hundreds of times before this. It`s not anything they do that draws the secret from me - It`s the guilt I already held, the thought that I owe them at least this. I owe them for abandoning them, for being so weak, so useless, and such a goddamn coward all my life. I owe them something. So I endure as much pain as I want to endure, and then I tell them everything.

　　The elves here cook by magic fire, no different than the Du閚. It poses no threat to the Forest, no matter how dry the forest bed is, or how crowded and dense its trees are. Belethlian can keep it contained. But it is fire that can destroy it - mundane fire, the sort you make by rubbing sticks or striking flint with steel. As soon as I say it, the soldiers drop me and run. I know there isn`t much time.

　　I rush to Tohma`s hut to warn her about what happened, about what is to come. I weep and apologize, though I don`t beg for forgiveness. I know I don`t deserve that. She stays quiet. She turns away. She doesn`t say a word.

　　I zip into my tent, pack what few belongings I have, then I pick a direction and run. It isn`t long before the fire begins. The heat licks my back, and the smoke stings my eyes, and I can barely breathe even before it reaches my lungs. Belethlian`s wrath is diverted, and it does nothing to try to stop me from leaving. I don`t know how long it takes me to reach the Forest`s edge. The whole thing feels like a horrible dream, the kind that never seems to end.

　　We found a human merchant once. He came to the Forest in search of exotic plants to sell, but he didn`t pass Tohma`s test. She said he was from a city in the west called Iridan, an awful, crowded place where the people are rude and selfish, and for some reason all they care about is coin`. It must be what corrupted the merchant, she said. The M閟poulis reveals you for exactly who you are, and the sorts of things that man did for money& she couldn`t bear to repeat it. Still, it`s the only place on the surface I even know exists. So I figure out which way is west, and I walk. It takes me weeks to get there, and I look back to Belethlian every day. The smoke follows me everywhere I go.

　　(I still smell it, sometimes.)