Post by Faljere D'ael Elderbaden on May 4, 2014 18:47:38 GMT -6
Night was a time to slip into an entirely new world. For some, a world of peace and tranquility. Others, a time of simple rest.
For the elven monk, it was a time of torture and regret.
As he awoke, he realised he was not yet awake at all, but simply in the 'dream world' that his incantation had taken him to. He knew it was no normal plane of reality, or even part of his own cleansed mind. It had to be the Insubstantial Plane.
Yet again, he was faced with the black rocks along the ground against a backdrop of colours, some unidentifiable to mortals such as himself. Above him, in the sky, a bright diamond moon shone against a darker ebon one. Off in the distance, a small patch of trees was left standing, surrounded by much debris and many ruins. To observe them would probably hold no benefit for peace. His body radiating blue energy, the elf began slowly walking towards the blackened woods, not removing his spirit-like hands from his large blade.
I am now one with this world... he pondered to himself as he looked over his glowing blue body.
“No need to whisper,” said a voice from afar.
The elf drew his blade and raised it above his head, grimacing to strike fear into whomever it was that supposed sneaking up on him was a clever idea. However, his features softened in alarm and his arms trembled under the weight of the sword he held.
The figure who approached him at a surprisingly rapid speed from the dark, dusky woods did so with simple, friendly steps and a slight grin on his face; not a menacing one that one would use to conceal their darker thoughts, nor a condescending one that would make the target feel their own self-worth depleting. It was a welcoming grin that spoke to the soul through the eyes.
“You!” howled the Clanless, regaining his conscious and raising his blade once more in opposition to the figure. “I knew you were behind this trickery!”
“Don’t be such a fool,” replied the figure. “Sirmothalnir intended for this spell to work out like this. It was the spell to bring upon dreams. Dreams of angels past. You were willing to risk your own sanity for the sorcerer’s spell to take effect. Here you are, then. Your angel past.”
“Faljere…” muttered the Celtic Elf in return, not lowering his weapon.
“Why do you say your name like that?”
“It is not my name!” cried out the Clanless; at the same moment, his weapon swung outwards, narrowly missing Faljere’s face.
“Calm yourself, Faljere!” the monk-like elf retorted.
“THAT IS NOT MY NAME!”
Another swing at the spirit, this time more clumsy and desperate. Still, it did not hit its mark, and Faljere simply stepped out of harm’s way.
Clanless, exhausted from his assault, let his blade drop to his side and his legs collapse under him. He hit the rocky ground with a loud thud, one that echoed like a quake throughout the spirit world. In the sky, the ebon moon and the diamond moon looked down upon him, their thoughts unknown.
“Angels past…you are no angel!”
Faljere chuckled heartily, a remnant of his past. “Angel, my friend. A spirit meant to bring along healing. That is what I am…a past face of yours.”
Clanless began to bring himself to his feet, never breaking eye contact with his opponent in this verbal debate. “My face has seen war. This is a new face.”
That may have been enough to shake Faljere, as his face went dull and his brow furrowed. “It is a worn face. You are not the only one of your kind. Would you like to see the others?”
Clanless growled, almost as a dog would if they felt threatened, and charged with his fists towards the other elf. Still, Faljere showed no fear and reached his left hand out to the Clanless’ chest. Once he was stopped, the gentler elf placed his right hand over the Celt’s brow, thumb resting on the nose’s bridge. Both sets of eyes closed, and a wave of purple energy washed over them like a great wind. A howling sound drowned out his own thoughts, and even with his eyes closed, the light flickered on and off between hues of colour.
Clanless screamed at first, fearful of what was happening to him, but his voice caught in his throat when he listened, hearing that he had been joined by more screams.
His screams.
He opened his eyes to the energy, seeing masks much like his own face, albeit in different phases of life, flying past, looks of utter despair plastered on them. Flabbergasted, the elf backed out of Faljere’s grip, falling over onto his back.
Around him, the winds were finally dying down, and the rainbow of shades faded back into the sky. The world around him—the Insubstantial Plane Sirmothalnir had created to house the souls of those who used his spells—had returned to normal.
Except for the decorated pedestal upon which he knelt. It wasn’t quite high off the ground, and was divided into three tiers, the first two acting as steps to the top. It was a wide circle with runic words on five different smaller circles all connected by lines, creating a pentagon within the large, circular totem.
Upon each of the five circles stood a new wood elf, bearing the faces of those who were screaming inside the tempest that Faljere had created. The one closest to the Clanless on his left was young and bright, his features softened by his age and his eyes full of life. Beside him was a familiar warrior, although his face was just as soft as the first. The one thing that made him different from the other was his lack of elven facial tattoos.
Beside him was a man much like Faljere, albeit with a sinister air to him. His eyes were slanted like knives as if he were squinting, and his mouth was stretched into a mean smile that reached from one cheek to the other. Faljere stood to his left, looking the same as he had before.
Then there was the Clanless.
There was a moment of silence before the first of the elves spoke, looking around at his companions. “What—what is this?” he wondered aloud, his voice youthful.
“The spell of Sirmothalnir,” replied Faljere, stepping off of his circle. “It brought the faces of angels past together.”
“But whose past?” wondered the first elf again.
Faljere raised his thin hand and pointed to Clanless, whose brow was creased with unease. “His. You are the angels of his past.”
“And therefore…you are all my future?”
“Of course we are, my child,” sneered the third elf, his voice like a pit of serpents. He stepped off of his circle and approached Faljere, trailing his snake-like fingers across the elf’s shoulders as his nose rubbed lightly against his face. “Isn’t that what you were going to say, Monk?”
“Begone, wretched slime, or I shall slay you.” The words came not from Faljere nor the child, but from the second elf who resembled Clanless in garb and voice.
“Now, now, warrior. Ease your blade before you hurt yourself.” With that, the sleazy monk placed his skeletal fingers upon the Celt’s blade, lightly lowering it. “You’ve hurt more than just a few by attempting heroism.”
“And who are you to speak of me that way?” cried out the second Clanless.
The monk tittered with derision as he merely walked away from the warrior.
“What is this before me?” asked Clanless. “How are they me?”
“How are you me?” replied the first elf, the youngest of the five. “How did I become like this?”
Clanless snarled. “You didn’t. You died with the false monk!” He pointed to Faljere, who seemed slightly hurt by the comment.
“I’m not the false monk. I am the monk. The false monk is the one who hid from the enemy, behind a veil of dishonest peace. He tricked everyone into believing he cared,” Faljere countered.
“Now that is hurtful,” replied the Faljere duplicate as he slunk into the shadows.
The young Faljere looked on, slightly concerned for the dodgy elf. “I think you really hurt him.”
Faljere trailed his fingers through his golden tail that reached down his back. “W-Well…he…I’d know what he was,” he stuttered. “It’s why I changed. It’s why I became better. A real monk.”
“Why would I hide behind such a cowardly veil?” wondered the younger Clanless.
“Can someone just tell me what you are all doing here, and what you have to do with me?” grumbled Clanless.
“Well, it should be clear,” explained Faljere. Stepping into the center of the pentagon, he began pointing at each of the elves while naming them off. “You are the youngest of us. You are us when we were little. Naïve. But also full of hope. You are the Young Faljere.
“You,” to the Clanless-like warrior, “are what happened when the Elven Nation struck. Discontent with the decision of your Clan leader to join the Nation, you led a rebellion of other elves in different clans with the same opinions. You united together members of a nation to create your own while sacrificing what you fought for. Those tattoos you should wear with pride are hidden, but only to hide from corruption and invasion what you fight for. The First Clanless.
“And you,” to his duplicate, “are what happened when you had to hide from the very man who chased you and kept you imprisoned. You lived among monks if only to protect your identity. No one knew you didn’t stand for what the monks believed in, you only sought shelter. You are the False Monk. That’s why I am what I am: the Faljere that made it out of all that and became the final result.”
Clanless let out a derisive snort. “Clearly not, if I stand here.”
“I thought you weren’t the same people,” said the young Faljere.
“Not at all. We may have shared a body, but I am renewed. Further along than any of you. It was clear that the monk had always been a mask. In the end, only the true warrior could make it out.”
“And what does that say of me, then?” asked the First Clanless. “We wear the same colours, wield the same weapon, and fight the same way.”
“It means that you are just like any other wood elf, fool. No more special than any others in this circle,” Clanless sneered.
Faljere shook his head. “You are not well in the head, Clanless. They are what made you and I.” He paused with a pensive look on his face. “Well, me at least. You were
made by war. It was a small mistake, but an unavoidable one. Either way, it’ll come back to my type after this spell is over.”
The First Clanless stepped forwards, teeth bared and eyes wide. “You stand here, all high and mighty. It seems that you see us inferior to you, ‘True Monk’, is that not true?”
“Not inferior, no. Not by choice, at least. You are merely…undercooked, if that makes sense to you. I was smart to run from the past, because in the end it created a better Faljere. Your sacrifices—”
The First Clanless swung his fist, but yet again it was dodged by Faljere. “What are these sacrifices you keep mentioning? I want to know what it is I lose!”
Faljere shook his head. “I cannot tell you that. Clearly, then, you haven’t lived those events if you don’t know.”
“But why can you not tell me? I would like to know what happens—what become of me!” It was clear now that he was increasing in rage, his face bending more into the shape of the current Clanless’ usually was.
“No, you really wouldn’t,” answered Faljere, his face almost as intense through its general air of joy.
The First Clanless stepped back, breathing in and out to calm himself. Young Faljere stepped beside him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, but looked at Faljere with an insulted look.
“You lied to us,” he barked. “You’re not the ideal Faljere. You’re just a broken man who’s just as scared to face his own past as who you become. You’re a coward who runs from the truth and holds himself above the others, claiming to be a better man!”
“I ran, but not because I was scared! Because running was the only thing that I could do,” Faljere countered. “I returned. I really did. I ran but I never forgot the pain and torment we went through.”
Clanless’ eyes went wide: he’d seen in Idina’s eyes an emotion, a feeling. He couldn’t believe that a young and annoying face of Faljere’s past had put it so well into words. Those words were exactly what Idina had felt the entire time they’d been on their quest, or when she reconciled with him in the tavern for a split moment, or when they investigated the library.
This couldn’t be him. It simply couldn’t.
“If you never forgot, then tell me the names of my partners. The members of the Clanless Guild of Elves,” ordered the First Clanless, raising his dagger as leverage over the monk’s words.
Faljere paused for a moment to consider both the names and the dagger at his throat. An empty threat, no doubt. “I have no idea.”
“And how old are you?”
Faljere placed his hand on the dagger carefully and lowered it. “I don’t know, I’ve lost count. Let’s see...”
“Fifteen hundred years old,” Clanless interrupted.
“That’s it, unless that isn’t it. I’ve lied a few times about my age,” Faljere replied.
The First Clanless sheathed his weapon while chuckling cynically. “Thirteen thousand years…if it were me, I’d have remembered people so important.”
“What would be the point?”
Although said in a relatively moderate tone, the words echoed through the plane, filing every crevice with their syllables. The First Clanless stepped back, aghast by the phrase and unable to follow up.
The silence was broken by the False Monk, who stepped forward with an uncharacteristically stern face. “L’irith Iam-Lur, Surnel D’il-Lar, and Arger Tillier. No last names were used in the guild.” He then turned to Faljere with an angry face. “How could you forget something that important?”
“I moved on.”
“No, you moved away from who you really are. Are you sure it’s really me who’s hiding behind a veil of deceit?”
“You’re no better, False Monk, who would abandon all hope to keep himself safe,” the First Clanless snarled.
“When all hope is lost, you do what you can to survive.”
“But you were the hope for the Wood Elf Clans! Had you shown yourself, you could have inspired the oppressed to—”
“Oh, listen to him ramble. How can you think so recklessly?” the False Monk teased, flapping his hands like a mouth. “Had I shown myself, I’d have been killed on the spot. Where’s the hope there? When one who tries to start a revolution is killed, where does that revolution go? Into the ground, that’s where.”
The First Clanless stepped back, ashamed by his own words. There was another silence among the elves, with the exception of the dissonant notes being played in the backdrop of the Insubstantial Plane, almost like a score.
“Is this who I become, huh? Reckless, sleazy, and condescending?” asked the Young Faljere. “Because if this is my future, I want no part of it.”
“But this is who you are, and there is no denying it,” spoke Clanless.
Young Faljere shook his head in disbelief. “And that’s coming from you? How ironic. Wasn’t it you who said that you were a ‘renewed’ man who only shared out body?”
“I did. And for that…I realise I am wrong.”
The phrase seemed to take everyone by surprise, with mouths agape and eyes blank, trying to find the right words for the situation. Clanless, instead, lumbered forwards, and although his steps were cumbersome, his face seemed to have lightened for the first time since the war.
“I was born in fire, to the drums of war. From the body of a broken man who was not prepared for the conflict that was presented. The reason I was not ready for that type of life was my detachment from my past faces. Each one of you are suited for your own times and situations, but none of you seem to be suited for each other’s. That is why you all change who you are, to better suit the situation at hand.”
“Much like yourself, then?” asked Young Faljere.
Clanless paused, unable to think of a proper answer that would please them. Part of him still didn’t believe that he’d said all those words, but part of him also seemed to see the sense in them. Born from war, for war, he could handle that. A hardened man capable of fighting, killing, and making difficult choices. But he thought back on how he’d hurt Idina, both in body and spirit, and how many other people he would hurt in this form. He was a warrior, but he wasn’t Faljere. None of them were Faljere. They were simply Faljere’s ways of coping with the situation at hand without bringing blame to himself.
“Yes,” answered the Clanless, “much like myself. Because I am ready to accept that I am only the warrior Faljere, and you should all accept the faces you are. In the end, we are all masks though. And now it is time for those masks to come off. Faljere must reveal his true self now, for the sake of others. To interact with his past minds, accept but never forget what happened. It’s time to stop running and hiding, for we must now face what only together with all of our minds and skills we can defeat.”
The sky darkened, and a bird cawed, but the elves remained still.
“I…agree?” stated Young Faljere, to which the other elves nodded.
“The spell was meant for you to think of the solution, and you have,” explained Faljere to the Clanless.
“Don’t be so stupid. We figured it out,” replied the Clanless grumpily.
Faljere smiled and grabbed his comrade’s hand. “Then ‘together’ we shall do this.”
Soon, all hands were holding each other’s, and a bright orb of light and energy began forming in the center before all went bright.
Within the brightness, one last face showed. The face of a weary elf with kind eyes and a determined brow.
The face that was no longer a mask.
For the elven monk, it was a time of torture and regret.
As he awoke, he realised he was not yet awake at all, but simply in the 'dream world' that his incantation had taken him to. He knew it was no normal plane of reality, or even part of his own cleansed mind. It had to be the Insubstantial Plane.
Yet again, he was faced with the black rocks along the ground against a backdrop of colours, some unidentifiable to mortals such as himself. Above him, in the sky, a bright diamond moon shone against a darker ebon one. Off in the distance, a small patch of trees was left standing, surrounded by much debris and many ruins. To observe them would probably hold no benefit for peace. His body radiating blue energy, the elf began slowly walking towards the blackened woods, not removing his spirit-like hands from his large blade.
I am now one with this world... he pondered to himself as he looked over his glowing blue body.
“No need to whisper,” said a voice from afar.
The elf drew his blade and raised it above his head, grimacing to strike fear into whomever it was that supposed sneaking up on him was a clever idea. However, his features softened in alarm and his arms trembled under the weight of the sword he held.
The figure who approached him at a surprisingly rapid speed from the dark, dusky woods did so with simple, friendly steps and a slight grin on his face; not a menacing one that one would use to conceal their darker thoughts, nor a condescending one that would make the target feel their own self-worth depleting. It was a welcoming grin that spoke to the soul through the eyes.
“You!” howled the Clanless, regaining his conscious and raising his blade once more in opposition to the figure. “I knew you were behind this trickery!”
“Don’t be such a fool,” replied the figure. “Sirmothalnir intended for this spell to work out like this. It was the spell to bring upon dreams. Dreams of angels past. You were willing to risk your own sanity for the sorcerer’s spell to take effect. Here you are, then. Your angel past.”
“Faljere…” muttered the Celtic Elf in return, not lowering his weapon.
“Why do you say your name like that?”
“It is not my name!” cried out the Clanless; at the same moment, his weapon swung outwards, narrowly missing Faljere’s face.
“Calm yourself, Faljere!” the monk-like elf retorted.
“THAT IS NOT MY NAME!”
Another swing at the spirit, this time more clumsy and desperate. Still, it did not hit its mark, and Faljere simply stepped out of harm’s way.
Clanless, exhausted from his assault, let his blade drop to his side and his legs collapse under him. He hit the rocky ground with a loud thud, one that echoed like a quake throughout the spirit world. In the sky, the ebon moon and the diamond moon looked down upon him, their thoughts unknown.
“Angels past…you are no angel!”
Faljere chuckled heartily, a remnant of his past. “Angel, my friend. A spirit meant to bring along healing. That is what I am…a past face of yours.”
Clanless began to bring himself to his feet, never breaking eye contact with his opponent in this verbal debate. “My face has seen war. This is a new face.”
That may have been enough to shake Faljere, as his face went dull and his brow furrowed. “It is a worn face. You are not the only one of your kind. Would you like to see the others?”
Clanless growled, almost as a dog would if they felt threatened, and charged with his fists towards the other elf. Still, Faljere showed no fear and reached his left hand out to the Clanless’ chest. Once he was stopped, the gentler elf placed his right hand over the Celt’s brow, thumb resting on the nose’s bridge. Both sets of eyes closed, and a wave of purple energy washed over them like a great wind. A howling sound drowned out his own thoughts, and even with his eyes closed, the light flickered on and off between hues of colour.
Clanless screamed at first, fearful of what was happening to him, but his voice caught in his throat when he listened, hearing that he had been joined by more screams.
His screams.
He opened his eyes to the energy, seeing masks much like his own face, albeit in different phases of life, flying past, looks of utter despair plastered on them. Flabbergasted, the elf backed out of Faljere’s grip, falling over onto his back.
Around him, the winds were finally dying down, and the rainbow of shades faded back into the sky. The world around him—the Insubstantial Plane Sirmothalnir had created to house the souls of those who used his spells—had returned to normal.
Except for the decorated pedestal upon which he knelt. It wasn’t quite high off the ground, and was divided into three tiers, the first two acting as steps to the top. It was a wide circle with runic words on five different smaller circles all connected by lines, creating a pentagon within the large, circular totem.
Upon each of the five circles stood a new wood elf, bearing the faces of those who were screaming inside the tempest that Faljere had created. The one closest to the Clanless on his left was young and bright, his features softened by his age and his eyes full of life. Beside him was a familiar warrior, although his face was just as soft as the first. The one thing that made him different from the other was his lack of elven facial tattoos.
Beside him was a man much like Faljere, albeit with a sinister air to him. His eyes were slanted like knives as if he were squinting, and his mouth was stretched into a mean smile that reached from one cheek to the other. Faljere stood to his left, looking the same as he had before.
Then there was the Clanless.
There was a moment of silence before the first of the elves spoke, looking around at his companions. “What—what is this?” he wondered aloud, his voice youthful.
“The spell of Sirmothalnir,” replied Faljere, stepping off of his circle. “It brought the faces of angels past together.”
“But whose past?” wondered the first elf again.
Faljere raised his thin hand and pointed to Clanless, whose brow was creased with unease. “His. You are the angels of his past.”
“And therefore…you are all my future?”
“Of course we are, my child,” sneered the third elf, his voice like a pit of serpents. He stepped off of his circle and approached Faljere, trailing his snake-like fingers across the elf’s shoulders as his nose rubbed lightly against his face. “Isn’t that what you were going to say, Monk?”
“Begone, wretched slime, or I shall slay you.” The words came not from Faljere nor the child, but from the second elf who resembled Clanless in garb and voice.
“Now, now, warrior. Ease your blade before you hurt yourself.” With that, the sleazy monk placed his skeletal fingers upon the Celt’s blade, lightly lowering it. “You’ve hurt more than just a few by attempting heroism.”
“And who are you to speak of me that way?” cried out the second Clanless.
The monk tittered with derision as he merely walked away from the warrior.
“What is this before me?” asked Clanless. “How are they me?”
“How are you me?” replied the first elf, the youngest of the five. “How did I become like this?”
Clanless snarled. “You didn’t. You died with the false monk!” He pointed to Faljere, who seemed slightly hurt by the comment.
“I’m not the false monk. I am the monk. The false monk is the one who hid from the enemy, behind a veil of dishonest peace. He tricked everyone into believing he cared,” Faljere countered.
“Now that is hurtful,” replied the Faljere duplicate as he slunk into the shadows.
The young Faljere looked on, slightly concerned for the dodgy elf. “I think you really hurt him.”
Faljere trailed his fingers through his golden tail that reached down his back. “W-Well…he…I’d know what he was,” he stuttered. “It’s why I changed. It’s why I became better. A real monk.”
“Why would I hide behind such a cowardly veil?” wondered the younger Clanless.
“Can someone just tell me what you are all doing here, and what you have to do with me?” grumbled Clanless.
“Well, it should be clear,” explained Faljere. Stepping into the center of the pentagon, he began pointing at each of the elves while naming them off. “You are the youngest of us. You are us when we were little. Naïve. But also full of hope. You are the Young Faljere.
“You,” to the Clanless-like warrior, “are what happened when the Elven Nation struck. Discontent with the decision of your Clan leader to join the Nation, you led a rebellion of other elves in different clans with the same opinions. You united together members of a nation to create your own while sacrificing what you fought for. Those tattoos you should wear with pride are hidden, but only to hide from corruption and invasion what you fight for. The First Clanless.
“And you,” to his duplicate, “are what happened when you had to hide from the very man who chased you and kept you imprisoned. You lived among monks if only to protect your identity. No one knew you didn’t stand for what the monks believed in, you only sought shelter. You are the False Monk. That’s why I am what I am: the Faljere that made it out of all that and became the final result.”
Clanless let out a derisive snort. “Clearly not, if I stand here.”
“I thought you weren’t the same people,” said the young Faljere.
“Not at all. We may have shared a body, but I am renewed. Further along than any of you. It was clear that the monk had always been a mask. In the end, only the true warrior could make it out.”
“And what does that say of me, then?” asked the First Clanless. “We wear the same colours, wield the same weapon, and fight the same way.”
“It means that you are just like any other wood elf, fool. No more special than any others in this circle,” Clanless sneered.
Faljere shook his head. “You are not well in the head, Clanless. They are what made you and I.” He paused with a pensive look on his face. “Well, me at least. You were
made by war. It was a small mistake, but an unavoidable one. Either way, it’ll come back to my type after this spell is over.”
The First Clanless stepped forwards, teeth bared and eyes wide. “You stand here, all high and mighty. It seems that you see us inferior to you, ‘True Monk’, is that not true?”
“Not inferior, no. Not by choice, at least. You are merely…undercooked, if that makes sense to you. I was smart to run from the past, because in the end it created a better Faljere. Your sacrifices—”
The First Clanless swung his fist, but yet again it was dodged by Faljere. “What are these sacrifices you keep mentioning? I want to know what it is I lose!”
Faljere shook his head. “I cannot tell you that. Clearly, then, you haven’t lived those events if you don’t know.”
“But why can you not tell me? I would like to know what happens—what become of me!” It was clear now that he was increasing in rage, his face bending more into the shape of the current Clanless’ usually was.
“No, you really wouldn’t,” answered Faljere, his face almost as intense through its general air of joy.
The First Clanless stepped back, breathing in and out to calm himself. Young Faljere stepped beside him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, but looked at Faljere with an insulted look.
“You lied to us,” he barked. “You’re not the ideal Faljere. You’re just a broken man who’s just as scared to face his own past as who you become. You’re a coward who runs from the truth and holds himself above the others, claiming to be a better man!”
“I ran, but not because I was scared! Because running was the only thing that I could do,” Faljere countered. “I returned. I really did. I ran but I never forgot the pain and torment we went through.”
Clanless’ eyes went wide: he’d seen in Idina’s eyes an emotion, a feeling. He couldn’t believe that a young and annoying face of Faljere’s past had put it so well into words. Those words were exactly what Idina had felt the entire time they’d been on their quest, or when she reconciled with him in the tavern for a split moment, or when they investigated the library.
This couldn’t be him. It simply couldn’t.
“If you never forgot, then tell me the names of my partners. The members of the Clanless Guild of Elves,” ordered the First Clanless, raising his dagger as leverage over the monk’s words.
Faljere paused for a moment to consider both the names and the dagger at his throat. An empty threat, no doubt. “I have no idea.”
“And how old are you?”
Faljere placed his hand on the dagger carefully and lowered it. “I don’t know, I’ve lost count. Let’s see...”
“Fifteen hundred years old,” Clanless interrupted.
“That’s it, unless that isn’t it. I’ve lied a few times about my age,” Faljere replied.
The First Clanless sheathed his weapon while chuckling cynically. “Thirteen thousand years…if it were me, I’d have remembered people so important.”
“What would be the point?”
Although said in a relatively moderate tone, the words echoed through the plane, filing every crevice with their syllables. The First Clanless stepped back, aghast by the phrase and unable to follow up.
The silence was broken by the False Monk, who stepped forward with an uncharacteristically stern face. “L’irith Iam-Lur, Surnel D’il-Lar, and Arger Tillier. No last names were used in the guild.” He then turned to Faljere with an angry face. “How could you forget something that important?”
“I moved on.”
“No, you moved away from who you really are. Are you sure it’s really me who’s hiding behind a veil of deceit?”
“You’re no better, False Monk, who would abandon all hope to keep himself safe,” the First Clanless snarled.
“When all hope is lost, you do what you can to survive.”
“But you were the hope for the Wood Elf Clans! Had you shown yourself, you could have inspired the oppressed to—”
“Oh, listen to him ramble. How can you think so recklessly?” the False Monk teased, flapping his hands like a mouth. “Had I shown myself, I’d have been killed on the spot. Where’s the hope there? When one who tries to start a revolution is killed, where does that revolution go? Into the ground, that’s where.”
The First Clanless stepped back, ashamed by his own words. There was another silence among the elves, with the exception of the dissonant notes being played in the backdrop of the Insubstantial Plane, almost like a score.
“Is this who I become, huh? Reckless, sleazy, and condescending?” asked the Young Faljere. “Because if this is my future, I want no part of it.”
“But this is who you are, and there is no denying it,” spoke Clanless.
Young Faljere shook his head in disbelief. “And that’s coming from you? How ironic. Wasn’t it you who said that you were a ‘renewed’ man who only shared out body?”
“I did. And for that…I realise I am wrong.”
The phrase seemed to take everyone by surprise, with mouths agape and eyes blank, trying to find the right words for the situation. Clanless, instead, lumbered forwards, and although his steps were cumbersome, his face seemed to have lightened for the first time since the war.
“I was born in fire, to the drums of war. From the body of a broken man who was not prepared for the conflict that was presented. The reason I was not ready for that type of life was my detachment from my past faces. Each one of you are suited for your own times and situations, but none of you seem to be suited for each other’s. That is why you all change who you are, to better suit the situation at hand.”
“Much like yourself, then?” asked Young Faljere.
Clanless paused, unable to think of a proper answer that would please them. Part of him still didn’t believe that he’d said all those words, but part of him also seemed to see the sense in them. Born from war, for war, he could handle that. A hardened man capable of fighting, killing, and making difficult choices. But he thought back on how he’d hurt Idina, both in body and spirit, and how many other people he would hurt in this form. He was a warrior, but he wasn’t Faljere. None of them were Faljere. They were simply Faljere’s ways of coping with the situation at hand without bringing blame to himself.
“Yes,” answered the Clanless, “much like myself. Because I am ready to accept that I am only the warrior Faljere, and you should all accept the faces you are. In the end, we are all masks though. And now it is time for those masks to come off. Faljere must reveal his true self now, for the sake of others. To interact with his past minds, accept but never forget what happened. It’s time to stop running and hiding, for we must now face what only together with all of our minds and skills we can defeat.”
The sky darkened, and a bird cawed, but the elves remained still.
“I…agree?” stated Young Faljere, to which the other elves nodded.
“The spell was meant for you to think of the solution, and you have,” explained Faljere to the Clanless.
“Don’t be so stupid. We figured it out,” replied the Clanless grumpily.
Faljere smiled and grabbed his comrade’s hand. “Then ‘together’ we shall do this.”
Soon, all hands were holding each other’s, and a bright orb of light and energy began forming in the center before all went bright.
Within the brightness, one last face showed. The face of a weary elf with kind eyes and a determined brow.
The face that was no longer a mask.
