Mira's Hope by Erin Elliott Page B

home and started out in the direction
they had originally come into the village, because as he recalled,
Amrick’s house was the first one just on the outside. He walked
down a little path he hadn’t noticed previously for a few minutes
before he came to the tiny little home. He knew it was theirs,
because Quona was playing on the doorstep. He watched as she sat,
her upper half completely bent over on her legs as she examined the
writings she was creating with a small stick. She seemed intent on
her work and did not show any indication she heard him
approaching.
    Not wanting to startle her, but seeing no way
around it, he practically whispered, “Hello again.” Just as he had
predicted, the tiny elf nearly jumped two feet into the air. An
impressive feat considering she was sitting at the time.
    “I’m sorry.” He smiled when she looked
indignantly at him.
    “I thought you left this morning,” she said
bluntly.
    “Galena and Elenio did. I decided to stay for
reasons I need to discuss with your mom and dad. Are they
around?”
    She nodded and with a jerk of her thumb,
indicated that they were in the house. He stepped past her,
laughing quietly as she resumed her doodles in the dirt. He knocked
on the door while pushing it open to alert them that it wasn’t
their daughter entering. Tark stepped into a sunlit room that must
have served as their common area. Amrick stopped kneading the bread
that sat covered in flour on a round table near one of the windows
in the large room. She reminded him painfully of his own sweet
commitment partner. How he missed her!
    “I thought you left this morning,” she said,
surprise written all over her face.
    “My sister and Elenio left at sunrise. If you
have a moment, I would like to take the time to explain my reason
for staying behind. I gathered from the other day, that you are
among the elder elves of this village?”
    “Aye.” She turned her head as a male elf a
little older than she, entered the common area from another room.
He too had blonde hair that was thrown into a tail. He stood much
taller than Tark with thick shoulders and muscular body. His arms
were completely bare of clothing despite the cold weather and
covered in burn marks. Tark noticed this, but said nothing, nodding
in the direction of the giant elf.
    “This is my commitment partner, Fala. You
were saying?”
    Fala nodded in return as a way of greeting
and sat down on one of the chairs surrounding the table. He looked
even larger, sitting on the tiny chair, if that was possible.
    He would be a great ally , Tark thought
to himself. “May I sit?”
    With a jerk of her head, Amrick indicated he
could sit in the chair opposite of Fala. Tark sat quickly,
gathering his thoughts on where to start and decided on the
beginning. He started with how his family and he were descendants
of Lamiria and because of a visit from Mira, his son Moira began to
train his own children in the art of fighting. Through the
generations, this tradition had passed from elf to elf, until it
reached Tark and Galena. He explained how his father trained him
and his siblings to fight with bows, swords, and any other weapon
available to them as his own father had. He proceeded to explain
how they discovered Galena’s magical abilities and what this meant
to the elf race. He told of their journey and the difficulties that
they’d come across. How they thought they’d lost Galena at one
point, only to have Mira save her and completely heal her.
    “Now, my tale brings to me to here and what
happened the other day. I chose to stay so I may train other elves
to fight and to defend their villages as well. Torlics have been
given free reign over us. It can only be a matter of time before
Rau’s other monsters are allowed the same privileges. I don’t want
to see any elf suffer because of Rau’s anger toward us, but more
importantly, I want to see the end of elf enslavement. That means
we have to be ready to back Galena and help her get into