Farron groaned, a strange sizzling energy in his veins encouraging him to wake. His pain felt dulled and he didn't even remember at first why he should feel pain at all. As he cracked his eyes open, he was met with an unexpected sight. Green flowed around him and an elf crouched at his side, touching the dull ache on his head.

Oh. Was that the source of this strange ripple going through his veins. Tilting his head slightly, he blinked at the stranger, too baffled for a second to react in any proper way. Blue eyes took in all he could see as if starved for the sharpness of this image in front of him. Rather than being dazzlingly colorful, right now the world just looked so sharp he couldn't doubt the reality of it. Farron couldn't help but stare because he also liked what he saw.

A roar split the sky. Farron jerked away, snapping his gaze to the break in the fort's wall. The entire earth seemed to shake and he realized after a second that it wasn't the sky that roared. Spires of earth shot up into the sky, pushed aside by a jagged rip that seemed to go all the way down to hell. People screamed, both elves and humans alike as they were thrown out of the path or swallowed. At the chasms end, a single figure stood, illuminated by sickly red light.

Spinning away from the strange elf, Farron threw a handful of powder from his satchel, moving before he could even think. The material ignited, sending sparks into the air. "Stay away, filthy magic user!" he snapped. Grabbing hold of his sword again, he took off, not giving the elf a second glance. He felt it. He still felt that sizzle in his veins telling him not to go and yet, he didn't listen. Both sides staggered heavily with their loses and the voices of his comrades returned Farron to reality.

For now they would retreat, but it was not an honorless one. A single spire pierced the inner wall of the keep, reminding the elves of just how close these forgotten human alchemists had come to annihilating them all.

"Stay away, filthy magic user!"

It had confused him, but as the sparks ignited in the air, he had no time to think things over. The fort was invaded but thankfully not taken over. The elves live to see another day and a messenger was sent to inform the king.

The attack the night before had sent the elves into a state of shame. They still had good defenses, but they had slacked off over the hundreds of years of peace. They've fallen into a false sense of security until the humans and their false magic bombarded them.

They had headed straight to repairs, trying to temporarily fortify the broken wall while keeping their distance from the spire that pierced the inner wall. If not for the human's retreat, the fort may have fallen.

All elves in the fort were agitated. It would take days for the messenger to reach the king and maybe weeks for the army to march the distance, if the king would send them reinforcements, while it may only take a few hours for the humans to regroup and use even more frightening false magic to finally kill them all. They knew that the humans did not invade to capture but to raze the fort, leaving no enemy alive.

Echildur was called as soon as the humans left the area. Being the only Vazarin, his powers were in high demand. He felt confident after successfully healing that one soldier in a matter of seconds, but as soon as he started with these elves, he felt a sense of emptiness. Back during the fight, he could feel his powers trembling through his body but now he felt nothing.

Once again he failed to completely heal the wounded and some even passed before he could get to them. The fort was filled with mourning over there fallen brothers. The death of any other creature was trivial to them for they have lived over hundreds of years. But the death of an elf was something else all together.

Farron paced away from the fires of their base camp, only minutes after their briefing ended. He couldn't understand why they retreated. Archaedes and the other leaders spoke as if nothing went against their plans, but he knew just what the more powerful alchemists could do. Farron only followed the basic formulas and used what others created first. Yet he was proud of the progress he made in the years since he joined this cult. Briefly touching the runes tattooed over his old burns, he sighed. If he wanted answers, then he best ask the questions himself.

Moving into the firelight, he circled toward a large tent second only to the Master's in size. Just before he reached the entrance though, a hand grabbed his arm and roughly pulled him aside.

"Farron! I know what it is you want to say!" the familiar female voice hissed. Right against his ear, the gravelly quality to Lucille's voice made him hesitate. Normally sultry despite her rough sound, he narrowed his eyes to hear none of that music now. Taller than him despite her youthful face, the woman wore her long black hair twisted back from her pointed ears as a proud sign of her heritage. Alchemy did not only call to humans.

"If you know, then you should let me say it. I know you think the same!" he snapped back.

Lucille held him when he tried to pull away toward the tent again. "Someone who lost control on the battlefield should not make demands even if you are his 'son,'" she snapped back. "Now come with me or I won't share what the others have been saying with you. They would never say it themselves since you're too loyal. But we also want to fight." As she found a shadowed corner far away from the fires and the tents, Lucille finally let him go and leaned back against some supply boxes. "Now, why did you let your magic out like that?"

Farron hesitated, not sure just how alone they could ever be. However, he needed to share it. "I...I don't know. The sensation was just so strong that I couldn't hold it back. The magic in the air...it felt alive. I'm afraid that my heart..." He shook his head, refusing to say the rest out loud. The fact that his heart might have been somewhere out there on the battlefield. No, he knew already that it was true. That short haired elf. But if he admitted that now, he would already be lost.

"I see..." Lucille murmured. "Then it is dire indeed. Tomorrow night, meet me back here. There is something that we need to test well outside of this camp."

Farron nodded. No matter how loyal he might feel toward Archaedes, he couldn't help but agree with Lucille. He needed to get close to that fort again in order to know for sure.

Echildur had spent the whole day healing what he could heal and over a third of his patients had died even before the day ended. By midday, the fort felt empty. The elves were either at the wall trying to patch it up as much as they could, preparing their food, or recuperating and assisting in the barracks, and the dead had already faded into dust, scattering in the wind and disappearing, leaving nothing behind but damaged weapons and armor.

By night he had moved to the wall, asking around and inspecting the elves who were on patrol duty. Just as he finished bandaging a soldier's forearm, another elf walked up to him. "The stars shine bright upon us, Echildur."

"They shine brightly upon our meeting." he had greeted back. He looked at the tall elf, comparing his weary state to the lively (but still in pain) elf he had met the day before. "How is the wound on your back? Are there any new wounds I should know of?"

Undrion shook his head, a sad but hopeful smile on his face. "Being injured, I was sent to the back of the army, far from this wall. The only pain I have is for our fallen brothers." He had paused for a moment as he looked past the wall then back to the healer.

"Faemil? How is he?" the tall elf asked, wondering about the fate of his closest friend. Echildur's head hung low as Undrion mentioned the brunette. He could remember the elf, shyly scratching the back of his head every time he brought someone who needed healing to his quarters. He could also remember the elf, barely two hundred years old, gasping in pain on one of the beds in the barracks, blood seeping through his stomach.

"Faemil has joined the spirits."

Come the next evening, Farron met Lucille at the supply boxes again. He'd been careful, but it seemed no one suspected anything anyway. The alchemist leaders maintained their truce, not offering a single explanation as to why. Farron got the impression that Lucille tried to ask as well, but with her tight lipped, terse look, he didn't bother questioning her. "So what exactly is your plan?" he asked instead.

Lucille motioned farther away from the camp and started walking, only speaking when Farron fell into step next to her. "We're going to sneak into the fort, or at least near enough to it in order to find this elf you mentioned. Prove things once and for all. And I...have a suspicion of my own." She shrugged one shoulder, not explaining further than that. Farron didn't expect that she ever would, not matter how much he asked.

"Fine." The two of them slipped out of the camp, using the gentle shadows of the night to hide their advance. Moonlight and Lucille's superior night vision guided their way until the fort's walls stood only yards away. They used the clump of trees for cover, waiting for a minute. Guards patrolled the walls, but two individuals dressed in black blended in far more easily than an army. It worked well for hiding, but now what? Farron stared up at the walls, wondering just how hard it might be to find this single elf.

Undrion took a while to recompose himself, giving Echildur the chance to just face the sky, close his eyes, and feel the cold wind brush through his hair. It was unexpectedly a peaceful night as if the chaos the day before didn't happen.

"Walk with me." the tall elf had invited him, leading him to the top of the wall to look at the forests outside. "Do you remember what it was like outside the fort? Your life as a young elfling?"

Echildur looked to the dark forests in front of him, feeling the slight urge to run into the woods just as he did when he was a child. "I do. There is little that an elf forget, my friend. We remember most, if not everything. I remember running through the woods with my friends with wooden bows in our hands. We would practice all day and patch up our bruises at night, waiting for our mothers to finish cooking our game. I remember ... freedom." he shook his head and looked at the walls. "I don't mean that we are kept in here like prisoners, but sometimes, I wish that we could take more trips outside than just a planned visit to the Tree."

Undrion nodded at him, eyes locked onto the sky. "All I've known was life with the army. I was raised by soldiers who found me in a basket floating along the river. I envy you, Echildur. You know how it feels like to live among the trees, just how a true elf should live. Not in stone fortresses."

Just then, Echildur felt another fluctuation in his powers. He whipped his head to look around the forest with his hands gripping on the stone wall he was leaning over. Unrion was confused at his sudden movement but his confusion slowly turned into panic. "Echildur?" he asked hesitantly.

Echildur had whispered his answer as if they just rolled off of his lips without his knowing.

"Gûr edhel."

Lucille was talking. Farron could hear the words rolling around him, but he no longer listened. Just like on the battlefield, the world around him sharpened even as the power inside of him turned unstable. Without thinking, he pressed a hand against a tree trunk in order to steady himself. Eyes stared toward the fort's walls, straining, searching, even before his mind knew what he looked for.

"...So I'll meet you back here in thirty minutes, okay. Good luck," Lucille said, the words finally breaking through his daze. Farron snapped his gaze back to her, eyes wide. The tall dark elf woman didn't notice though, already wrapped up in her own plans.

"Yeah," Farron managed after a second. She turned away from him and he breathed a sigh of relief because he didn't know how he would explain just what went on in his head right now. "...Good luck." He watched as Lucille disappeared into the shadows. He didn't know to where or for what reason. The wave of saturation hit him again and he turned his gaze back to the fort's walls. This was why he came wasn't it? So what did he plan to do? For the first time, he realized he didn't come here with a plan. Maybe he just wanted to prove it to himself that those things he felt on the battlefield really were the result of meeting his soulmate. He couldn't doubt that now. The elf might be his enemy, but they were still soulmates.

Stepping away from the trees, Farron walked toward the wall, still unsure of what he planned to do. His feet just couldn't take the idea of standing still right now.

Echildur watched as a figure slowly walked towards them from the tree line. He kept his eyes on it -no- him as he moved closer to the walls before noticing the sentries around him aim their bows at the dark silhouette. "Wait!" he shouted, "Don't shoot. Please." Undrion had understood what happened and nodded to his friend. He signaled for the sentries to stand down and explained with a simple phrase. "Their stars meet."

The elves on the wall understood his meaning. The value of a soul mate to an elf is one of the most precious especially because time itself can take it away in the mere blink of an eye. And now that they see that their healer's soul mate is not elven, their eyes filled with pity and mourned for their friend's heart. They know that he will fade to dust soon and that there is nothing that can prevent it. The loss of a soul mate always leads to the death of an elf's heart.

Echildur had leaned further off the wall trying to take in as much detail of the human as he could in the darkness of night and once he knew his soul was close enough to hear, he softly spoke. "I have been waiting for too long only to meet you hiding in the dark, gûr edhel."

Farron looked up sharply, realizing that not only had he been spotted, but that he was the center of attention. Shrinking back towards the shadows, he hesitated. A voice spoke to him and his insides churned at the sound. He wanted to obey, but he wasn't sure he even came here for that. A soulmate would make him weak. And a soulmate, would use magic. He glared at the grassy floor, feeling his anger rising again.

"If you've waited for me, then you'll come and meet me beyond the trees," he hissed back. He didn't like the thought of others watching and listening. They were the enemy and he, theirs. How could this go well? Farron certainly did not trust them and they should not trust him either. However, he couldn't help but want to be alone with the short-haired elf he'd met before. Maybe he could understand things without getting involved. They couldn't be together, but still. Farron turned his gaze back toward the wall before pulling a stone from his bag. Using a knife, he scraped some off and mixed the powder into the soil, watching it glow.

"If you attack me, my brothers will come for me," he added, nodding to his glowing patch. Lucille would find it and understand. It was a signal and one he intended to make use of. After a second though, he turned toward the trees, letting himself disappear between the branches where he could have privacy. The elf would come right? If so, then then what? Farron wasn't really sure.

Echildur hurried to gather the rope conveniently placed on the crates behind him with Undrion trying to convince him not to go. "My friend, the woods are dangerous at night and that man uses fake magic. It could be a trap!" he tried to reason. The vazarin paid him no attention as he moved towards the edge of the wall, preparing to haul the rope over it. "We cannot afford to lose you, Echildur. You are the only healer we have."

He looked towards the tall elf with a small understanding smile on his lips. "I will return, Undrion. I know my duties ... I just need to meet him." He jumped over the wall and started climbing down, the archers stationed near the area simply watched as their vazarin left the fort. "Just remember, Echildur. You are an elf." Undrion called as he watched his friend descend.

Echildur let out a shaky breath as he landed on the ground, a few leaves cracking under his weight. He looked at the glowing patch of earth in front of him then towards the tree line. He was nervous but he also felt excitement as he walked into the trees. The ancient elven rune on his amulet glowed a faint green and his surroundings were dimly lit giving him a chance to at least see something in the dark.

He could feel him nearby and he whipped his head towards that direction. "Gûr edhel," he spoke softly, "I am here."