(Second draft of first scene in a novella in my fantasy setting)

"COME HERE!" father bellowed. "Come down here, you worthless piece of quivering

..."

The rest of the sentence drowned in Mother's singsong sweet, "darling, we received a letter today. You must hear it!"

A'Grih pulled a green velvet tailcoat over the shirt of elven silk, white as the Blessed Father of Snow. It snagged for a moment on his horns - black with coppery tips - and he carefully pulled the coat loose. Before the next bellow rose up to his room, he was out of the room and hurried downstairs, small cloven hooves clip clopping on the solid oaken steps, thin tail tucked carefully under his kilt.

Father was standing at the bottom of the stairs, scroll in hand. A'Grih felt a faint embarrassment - his father had put on a coat, but not bothered with much else. The large, curved ram horns adorning his head were polished to perfection - but he had forgotten to brush his fur. Maybe he hadn't bothered with that either.

Mother was pale as the Snow, clad in a loose, white dress as usual, but her cheeks were flushed with excitement. "It is an invitation," she gushed. "The Lady Ekira has invited us for dinner in three days."

No doubt of it; the scroll bore the grand seal of the governess of their province, Father's old commander, and leader in the wars against the elves. A'Grih felt his hands become clammy. "Me, too, ma'am?" He asked carefully.

"Oh cut the bowing and scraping already," growled Father. "What are you? A slave? A riderbeast? Or..."

"Enough, dear." Mother cut him short. A'Grih knew the end of the sentence anyway "or an elf?"

"Yes, darling, you too. Aren't you proud?"

Father had always spoken highly of the Lady Ekira. A'Grih's tail curled in between his legs. He was glad of the kilt.

Father patted Mother on the shoulder. "The Lady will be appointing new positions. We should bring her a gift. Maybe she will even be moved to look kindly upon this runt you produced.

"He's yours, too," Mother replied. It was an old and not very serious argument of theirs. A'Grih hated it every time.

Father snorted and ignored it. He said, "maybe she can use him as cup bearer or something." He barked out a laugh.

Mother giggled. "I'm sure he would be an adorable page," she said.

A'Grih forced out a smile.

Mother continued, stroking her son's horns, copper-yellow like the Blessed Sun-queen, "I am sure she will approve of him. He is Sun-touched after all!"

A'Grih flinched instinctively.

"Ouch!" She sucked on her finger. "You mustn't do that, Grih-ling."

Father growled, "he nicks me, he gets a wallop. You indulge him too much."

A'Grih felt his tail curl tightly against his inner thigh, under the haunch-length kilt. Father would not approve of him being scared.

"I know, darling, but try not to damage him before he is presented to the Lady Ekira. It would reflect badly on all of us."

Father snorted again. "Maybe the runt can go find the gift, then - that should reflect better. The old dwarf caves aren't entirely empty and looted. Maybe there's some nice bauble we can pretty him up with."

A'Grih stopped himself from bowing. "As you command, s... father." He turned and clip clopped back up the stairs to fetch his sword.

Father shouted after him, "and take off that skirt! What are you? A eunuch? Or..."

He shut the door on the rest of the sentence, his mind knew it perfectly anyway, or an elf and then Mother would giggle. Sweetly and unkindly.

He kept the kilt. And the vest of elven silk, white as the Blessed Father. When he rode out it was evening and the last rays of the Blessed Queen glittered orange in the foreign threads. With the setting sun in his eyes, he headed to the Ashen hills, looming dark and forbidding. He had seen it from his window for sixteen years, and a vague sense of excitement filled him, at finally approaching them. They were the border of the northern realm, and rose in peak upon peak out over the Red Plains that separated their Sun touched kingdom from the unknown lands of the Lunar kindreds; elves, humans, dwarves and the strange Tsik, birds with human faces. The Ashen hills were rumoured to contain dwarves, hidden in the deep dark caves – but other rumours claimed the dwarves were dead, fled, or mere legends. Treasures on the other hand – all rumours spoke of them. A’Grih wondered why there would be treasures – but no dwarves to protect them, or anyone else for that matter.

The night was deepening, black upon the black hills, when he arrived at the path to the caves. His pupils widened, like a cat, drinking in the light of stars and the two moons, and he stepped lightly down from the riderbeast. It grunted a wish of good luck, and A’Grih stroked its nose.

“Stay here, my friend,” he whispered, and then he started climbing the path, dark grey rocks against dark brown soil, under the looming ashen grey hills. A glint of moonlight passed over the silk and eyes and golden horntips, and then A’Grih himself was a shadow within shadows. He found a crack in the rocks and he pressed himself into the deeper darkness under tons of stone, into the bowels of the earth itself.

It was oppressive, blinding, deafening. There were no moons to light his way, no breath of wind and tree to soothe his cheeks and measure space. There was only the crack, the path, the smooth walls against his groping hands, and he went onwards. For a brief moment he wondered if he might find anything at all, and what might happen should he return empty handed, but the thought was so much more terrifying than the night under the Ashen Hills, that he walked onwards, for hour upon hour.

It must have been close to dawn that he heard the faint tinkling of metal on stone, smelled the smoke of torches, and the blackness subtly lightened to black greyness. He understood that not all of the rumours were merely that, and tore off the arms of his elven shirt, once white as Blessed Father, now grey with dust and darkness, to bind around his hooves and muffle the clip clopping against the rocks and pebbles.

Guards there were, between him and the tinklings and the treasure, but he moved past them like a shadow within shadows. He wondered a little at that, wondered how he could sneak and not be noticed by strong warriors, ever alert, but he moved onwards to the light that beckoned him.

Before him stood a room, square shaped, with a forge in the corner, enticingly hot like the Blessed Queen, and a table with the prettiest little bauble A’Grih had ever laid his eyes on. A brooch of filigree gold around a blood red ruby as big as his thumbnail. He wanted to take it – and then he saw the craftsman beside it. A dwarf, of course, shorter than himself, but as wide as father over the shoulders. His silken strands of gold hair was plaited and tucked into tiny metal bands, and a leather apron covered a simple tunic and woollen leggings. Slippers were on his feet – feet with toes like a female – A’Grih shook himself at the oddity. He had never seen the Lunar races up close, but he had always imagined them a little like himself – only frailer.

The dwarf looked up, startled by the intruder, opened his mouth to shout, and A’Grih moved to grasp the brooch.

They stood still, one with a pair of harmless tweezers in his hand, the other with a hand on the brooch and the other on his knife. They looked into each others face; panic, anger, desperation and fear.

A’Grih saw beyond the terrified, round face of a pitiful enemy into a soft face, a face of gentleness and kindness – and between them it seemed his hands rose in strange gestures. From the gestures rose beings, flowers, animals, stars and lights. Dancing, shimmering, appearing, disappearing. He lifted his real hand, stared at it, moved it – and around it moved ghostly shadows, shadows that with only a little concentration coaleced into beings, flowers, animals, stars and lights. He stared at the dwarf again. It was sweating, looking partly at the ghosts between them, partly staring into the depths of his eyes. “Enough!” it whispered. “Enough! Take the jewel and go! I can’t do this. I can’t know this. I’m not this.”

“But you are,” whispered A’Grih back, dazed. “My Source. I – I didn’t even know it could be a singular being like this. I didn’t even know I had a Gift. I didn’t know…” For a moment his heart sang – then the terror of what father would say engulfed him. He grabbed the brooch and ran back through the shadows, shaping them now with purpose to surround him, and the guards did not know where he passed them.

Mother squee-ed with delight when he entered the dining room. She rose so fast, her knife clattered to the floor, and the succulent chicken that was her breakfast splattered off the plate. “Grih-ling, my darling, you are back!”

Father lifted an eyebrow at him, probably in surprise that he was still alive. A’Grih stopped just inside the door, straightened and held out the brooch, and announced, “I have found a gift for the Lady Ekira.” And then he added, nervously, “and I think I have a magic Gift too.”

The second brow lifted. “Almost impressing me, runt. What sort?”

Mother took the brooch and studied him with hungry eyes.

A’Grih felt himself sweat and redden. “Illusion,” he mumbled.

Father laughed. “Well, I guess that’s worthy of a piece of elf hide. Leave the bauble here, and go practice your dainty tricks. Maybe the Lady will like it.”

A’Grih forced himself to just slightly nod, and back out of the room. He closed the door behind him, and let the shadows and tricks partly cover the sound of father’s well, I guess that was all we could hope for. And mother’s let him entertain Lady Ekira – it may appeal to her feminine side.

The Lady’s house was a little fortress; towers in stone guarding a mansion over three floors, and manned walls surrounding the property. Farmlands belonging to her stretched for miles around, and A’Grih was sore by the time they arrived. Mother insisted on riding, and of course father couldn’t walk beside her like a servant or common soldier, so they all rode – despite the goatlegs of the males in the family not being particularly suited to it. The riding beasts were distant cousins, sentenced to the lowest caste for the crime of having four legs, rather than the more civilized form of two hands and two legs that most of the Solar people were blessed with. A’Grih had always tried to be kind to his beast; treating it to snacks and a gentler hand than what mother used on them.

His thoughts turned to that Source he had found in the Ashen hills. He promised himself that if he found it again, he would treat it at least as kindly as he treated the riding beast. He had been dreaming about the young dwarf every night, the softness, the scared and gentle eyes, like a newborn calf. But there was no way his parents would approve of it, so he sighed quietly and resigned himself to the fact that he might be Gifted – but he would never be able to use it to full power. He absentmindedly scratched the furry neck of the riding beast, and it grunted pleasantly.

He noticed mother looking at him, and he grabbed the reins again. She was tight faced and stern.

The guards bowed to father as they let the family in. He was wearing the open tailcoat, but had pinned all his medals to it, and beside him hung the ancestral sabre, heavily decorated with furs and feathers and a lock of hair from an elf. The story was that father had defeated one of the most ancient elves in single combat, and ripped the hair from its head, at the same time as the sabre sliced its throat.

Father brought them at once to the Lady Ekira in her great hall. She was standing on a staircase leading up to other parts of the mansion, a few steps up from the guests, so that she might keep an eye on the proceedings. Behind her were two guards with the hindlegs of a wolf, chestplates gleaming on their wide torsos and muscles that rippled as they grasped their spears. Father stopped a step beneath her, mother stood beside A’Grih a step below that, with a hand firmly on the boy’s shoulder.

Father bowed and offered the Lady his sabre. “I hope my service is still to your liking, oh my commander.”

She touched the hilt with a long, slender finger. A short gesture of acceptance, and father put it back in its sheath. “Certainly,” the Lady said. “You have always done well. But I am getting on in years, and the most courageous I can do is be a planner of new battles and bring forth new generations of warriors.” She smirked and glanced behind herself at one of the guards, “thanks to these two, I am sure my offspring will be of superior quality.”

Father stepped to the side, and said, “fighters fight, but for the truly superior seed, you need a Gifted to fertilize it.”

Mother pushed A’Grih up a step, and he almost stumbled. Shaking, he lifted the brooch and let his Gift surround it, making it pulsate in colour, the red swirling, the gold sparkling, the whole brooch disappearing into blackness for a moment, and then returning to normal in his hand.

Lady Ekira graced him with a smirking smile and pinned the brooch to her cloak. “I find him acceptable. Enjoy yourselves.”

The stone room, covered with tapestries and wall hangings, was crowded with the up and coming, the veterans and the hangers on. Servants milled between them, clad in the Lady Ekira’s colours; black and orange, carrying trays filled with every delicacy under the Sun. The crowd whispered, rumoured, enticed and goaded, each voice competing with another. A’Grih looked around nervously. Ekira herself stood halfway up the staircase to the second floor, quietly observing the proceedings. Her eyes touched A’Grih’s for only a moment before passing coolly onwards.

In the crowd was also a massive beast-form with a woman’s head and lion’s paws. A’Grih suspected it was someone’s pet or guard animal. It walked freely among the demons though, and somehow it made him sweat with fear.

The party had socialised for maybe an hour, when the Lady Ekira spoke up, clearly and neutrally. “My friends, my subjects, my colleagues and my mates, I have a very special guest here tonight.”

The crowd fell silent, but A’Grih could see them casting glances at each other – or up the stairs in case the guest was there.

She continued, “this guest is a Favoured of the Blessed Queen.”

Shocked gasps; a Favoured one? There were not many – they were Her servants, Her generals, Her handful of specially appointed. A’Grih felt slightly faint. Noone stepped forward – only the lioness-beast padded to the staircase and sat down on its haunches, with the tail curled around the paws.

Lady Ekira bowed to it.

It was only a curt nod, cold, neutral, but it acknowledged the rank and superiority of a beastformed demon. She looked at the shocked crowd. “Let me introduce to you E’Rechto Phasa, Favoured by the Queen as Her Huntress.” Moonhuntress, the name said.

The beast, E’Rechto, opened its mouth and spoke in a woman’s voice, yet deep and with a hidden menace, “thank you, Ekira. For your invitation and your welcome.” She rose and prowled into the whispering and murmuring crowd. “I hunt the Moons’ people,” she growled. “Those that are of that blood, or are allied with them.”

People parted almost reluctantly around her where she walked, and one stood broad legged before her. “I will not bow to a riderbeast,” he scowled.

She gazed at him for a moment, then she simply swatted him with an enormous clawed front paw. A’Grih swallowed hard, seeing the man’s guts spill out through the gashes. E’Rechto turned her head slowly to gaze around the room. “Anyone else?” she asked into the silence. There was no reply. She moved towards one or another then, sniffing them, and they scampered aside.

A’Grih wanted to run, too when she stopped in front of him, but he was frozen with terror.

“I smell Moon on you,” she said. “What say you?”

He couldn’t breathe. The eyes that stared into his were on fire. Flames of the Sun goddess burned into his mind, laying him bare to the will of that exalted beast. “I have a Source,” he gasped, the words stumbling from his mouth.

“The Sun-touched boy is blessed! Lady Ekira has received a handsome gift!” she purred, but looked at him and continued, “…. and?”

A’Grih grasped his horns to stop his hands from shaking. He felt the fur between his thighs become wet. “It is a dwarf,” he whispered. It was like a thundering roar into the stunned crowd. He fainted, and his last thought was that he hoped father would forgive him for being afraid in the face of the Favoured.

He woke up in a large fourposter bed in a lavish bedroom. Velvet curtains covered the walls – and maybe windows. A fireplace at the other end of the room brought some much needed heat into the chilly autumn evening – although it might have been night or even morning. A’Grih didn’t know. The fur between his thighs was dry but matted. He smelled of stale urine and dirty hair, but he was still clothed, and for some reason that eased his mind. He got up from the bed and made his tottering way to the door. It was locked.

The ease ran from his mind like snow on a spring morning. He wanted to rattle the handle and scream for help, but it was clear as ice and sun that noone would be helping him. He was in the house of a Lady who had taken him as an offering of good will, and perhaps still in the house was a Child of Fire, one of the handful of specially Favoured that worked the Blessed and Divine Queen’s direct will. The Favoured that had caused him to spill the terrible truth.

He was a traitor. Yes, that was it. By bonding to that Lunar creature, he had betrayed his race, his family, his people. But he couldn’t help bonding. That was how Sources worked. It was some mystical thing, ordained by the gods, or chance or pure bad luck. A’Grih stroked the golden tip of his horns. So much for being sun-touched. It was just a superstition anyway. That the slight copper colouring should indicate some special luck from the Blessed Queen – no, he had no luck, now.

A voice outside the door silenced him. It was the Lady Ekira, speaking to her soldiers! “There must be an entrance to the Ashen hills near their estate. He would have gone that way to see that dwarf. Bring it – he will do much better with a Source stabled nearby. It would please me to see how much he is capable of. Sources are rare and valuable.”

Yes, they were. There was a rumour that all elves had one – it was what made them such a formidable enemy, but also the subject of so much scorn. Like a source-less elf was the saying. But the other Kindreds had not been so blessed by the gods. Dwarves rarely had them at all, humans and demons only some. Tsik-birds? Nobody really knew. But for A’Grih to have a Source - that made him valuable. A Gifted with greater power, greater finesse and complexity in his spell work. But only when the Source was near.

For a living being to be a source was not unusual in itself – but A’Grih had never before heard of a Kindred being one. He thought he would love to have his Source near him.

Then he thought of what Ekira had said; ‘stabled’. Like the riderbeasts. Distant cousins who had the misfortune to have four legs, yet when they bred, they were as likely to produce full demons as any other parent. And yet they were ridden, stabled, treated at best like pets.

Like he had thought first of the Moonhuntress prowling through the party. A sickening feeling spread through his stomach. They would treat the dwarf as a pet – at best. The eyes that had loved him would be kept with animals, treated as an animal. A’Grih had not eaten much at the party, but the little that were, rose unwanted in his throat. He could not let this happen.

Ekira came into the room a little later, thought the figure lying still dazed on the bed was him, and, as she quietly went out again, a shade flickered in torchlight behind her.

A’Grih released the spell when she was out of sight, panting with the exhaustion of fooling both sight and ears. He kept a light shadow about him as he snuck through the house, and to the front door, but to cross the courtyard unseen? He was already shaking. The fainting had taken its toll, and the spellwork was an effort he had never before experienced. Father and his armsmaster had drilled him in fighting until he was ready to drop. Mother’s punishments… no not even they were as draining as this Gift. He had endured Sun and Snow, he had endured their words, their laughter. And still this was worse. There was only remedy that his heart knew – his Source. The gift to fuel his Gift, to fuel him. A burning need and desire that he experienced for the first time in his life. He had always run from his life, tried to escape, tail between his legs like a scared dog. Now for the first time he had something to run to.

Keeping himself cloaked as he snuck out the door, he surveyed the courtyard. Morning had come. A half-dozen riderbeasts were penned in one corner, fighting over scraps from the party. A handful of guards were stationed around the yard, and two more by the gate. And a few strides to the right of the door Moonhuntress had found a sunny spot to lounge in.

His heart stuck in his throat and the ground seemed unsteady under his feet for a moment again. Blessed Queen, save me! He thought. Give me the strength to pass her! He closed his eyes and pulled on the last dredges of energy. Silent hooves. And nothing where his body should be. Now he could only pray that was good enough, and he stepped out into the open courtyard as if it were a great and terrible chasm.

One step.

Another.

Moonhuntress lifted her massive head and sniffed the air. Oh gods, his scent! A’Grih blanked the smell and almost fell over. The only thing he had left to sustain him was fear and adrenaline.

The lioness-beast sniffed again, but lowered her head back on her paws. She did not seem to register him.

He tottered a third step. Four. Five.

Was that the sound of gravel?

He panicked and ran. Galloped and sprang like a goat, swallowing the three-score yards across the gravelly courtyard.

He heard the roar behind him, at the same time the guards tried jumping in front of his now very visible form.

But they were too late. He was out of the gate, running like had never run before. If terror gave wings, he was like the great eagles, faster than the riderbeasts, faster than the guards.

Faster than the Moonhuntress, he hoped.

He did not slow down before he was outside the Lady Ekira’s property. He chanced a glance behind him. He could see noone, but that meant very little. There were woods, fences, shrubs – and magic. A’Grih hunched down behind a boulder to try to catch his breath. The tiredness was far beyond the work of the body, though, and he wanted to sleep for a year.

But he couldn’t. His source was the only remedy that would truly work – and he didn’t expect the Lady Ekira’s fighters to be kind to it. He started crawling on all fours like a beast, step by step. Yard by yard, he crept until all that he could think of was putting one foot in front of the other. Occasionally he lifted his gaze to the Ashen Hills only a mile or two ahead of him. They seemed to be at the other end of the world.

Step.

Source.

Step.

Source.

Step.

How he came to the hills unhindered and still breathing he would never know, but suddenly the ground rose before him and he stumbled on dark grey rock. The day-sun warmed his back and he crawled away from it up the path he had walked only a few days earlier. The crack was there, welcoming him, and he let the darkness swallow him. He stopped for a few moments to reorient himself, and heard ahead of him the laughter of guards. Demon guards having fun. And the whimper of a dwarf.

A’Grih crept forwards along the black walls, and finally noticed the pain draining him too. His knees had been rubbed naked and raw, and one hoof was cracking. He had broken most of his nails, and his hands were bleeding. He still had his knife, but he wasn’t sure he had the strength to use it. He peeked around the corner.

He could taste the energy. Like a thousand little suns exploding all over his body. Like the sweetest fruit enveloping his tongue. Like he was dancing on water and dreaming the earth. Like he was singing the song of a thousand beautiful birds. He saw his Source. He drenched himself in his Source. He sucked up his Source and he drowned in it and it fed him like nothing else in the universe could feed him. He felt invincible, and he lifted his hands to create the most wonderful spells he could imagine. A thousand vibrant wasps fled from his fingers and attacked the guards. A dozen images of warriors stormed into the little forge. Illusions all; light and sound and clouds upon the eyes, but the illusion of pain, the illusion of eyes blinded was enough to send them running.

Straight past A’Grih. He was cloaked to all the senses, and they did not even notice when he touched them. He could stab them, and they would think it was the wasps – or the fearsome warriors, and his shape would blur, move, disappear, reappear elsewhere.

There was no fighting back for them and they ran from the forge, away from his Source.

That was when he noticed the state of the dwarf. Chained, beaten, muzzled. The demons had amused themselves with playing with him like a dog. He was curled up like a dog, cowering, terrified, raggedly breathing through the riderbeast muzzle. A’Grih uncloaked himself from the illusions, and trotted over to him. Found a hammer to break the chains, found his knife to cut the muzzle.

Took him in his arms. Embraced, stroked his head, murmured soothing sounds until the dwarf rested easier.

“I am sorry my dear. I couldn’t come sooner. They pulled it from me. I didn’t mean to tell. There was… there was someone who dragged it out of me.”

The dwarf tried to reply, but it came out as muffled sobs.

A’Grih hugged him gently, taking care not to touch the wounds. “Can I take a little more,” he murmured, “to ease your pain?”

The dwarf nodded against his chest, and A’Grih felt the suns explode again, as he pulled and numbed the bruised nerves. He heard the dwarf’s breathing ease up.

“What is your name,” the dwarf whispered into his embrace.

“A’Grih. Yours?”

“Gramhet. Am I safe?”

A’Grih thought for a moment. He had not seen the Lady or the Favoured follow him, but that didn’t mean anything. And the guards would be perfectly healthy when the illusion wore off. “No. I think we need to get out of here.”

They stumbled together back up the passage. A’Grih making just enough light for them to find the path. The guards were nowhere to be seen, but he was still afraid. The lady would not forgive him for running – and neither would mother and father. It was beginning to dawn on him that he had made a choice that he could never go back on. Never going home? There was terror at home – but it was still his, and there was his room, his riderbeast, his clothes, his weapons, the books he had delighted in, the armsmaster he had grudgingly respected. The groom that had treated him kindly in return for how he treated his beast. The cook that had treated him to food when mother had punished him. Mother's handmaiden that had soothed his bruises after training with father. Mother and father overshadowed them all, their voices drowning the kindnesses, but there had been kindnesses there. There had been a home.

And now it was gone.

“Where do we go,” he asked the dwarf hanging on his shoulder.

“I can’t go home,” Gramhet cried softly. “They would never accept you. I had to lie about the brooch. I told my master you robbed it from me. It was taken off my wages. It will be years until I have paid them back. Years as his apprentice, while my brothers graduate and make their own businesses. Years while others live off my work. And now I can’t even do that.”

A’Grih frowned. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to him that the dwarf had had a life before him. He knew nothing of the boy really. Destiny had just captured his heart. He cursed silently.

“I can’t go home, either,” A’Grih said. “At best you would be tied up in a stable. Sources are valuable, too valuable to destroy – but they would find ways to destroy us both for the gall to be different.”

Gramhet rubbed his raw forehead. “Karchevet,” he said finally.

“The dark forest!” A’Grih felt his stomach knot. “Are you sure?”

“There are elves there – they would probably shoot you on sight. But it is hard to be seen in that place.” He added with a touch of anxiety, “or so I’ve been told.”

A’Grih smiled faintly at him. “Would you know how to survive in a forest? I have lived in the comfort of a house all my life.”

Gramhet shook his head, “I have been in the comfort of caverns and Kindred and towns. I can’t hunt, I have only seen food delivered on a plate.” He frowned. “But the food comes from somewhere. We grow little underground. There are farms on the west side of the Ashen Hills. Maybe we can head that way?”

“It will be hard to get there through the dwarven ways. So much people. I’m not sure I can cover us that much.”

“Then we take the southern way. There are fewer living there. It ends in the Karchevet forest, but there should be paths west and north out of the woods and to our farmlands. There are humans living there, but you are not hard to disguise as one. Change the appearance of your legs, and blank out those pretty, shiny horns, and you could pass for human. The ears are a bit pointy, you might want to fix those too.”

“Pointy ears – elves have those. Can I pass for an elf?”

“No, you shouldn’t risk it. They are steeped in magic. It would not take much of a Gift to penetrate an illusion.”

A’Grih was impressed. “You seem to know a lot! Do all Lunars know so much of the various Kindreds?”

Gramhet shrugged. “I had to learn about magic as part of my training. Some of our workings are meant for Gifted to enchant further. We needed to know how to make them suitable.”

They walked for a mere hundred yards though, before their way was blocked. Guarding demons, side by side across the entire corridor, knowing A’Grih’s Gift, they would not let them pass. A’Grih tried cloaking the two of them, but the guards pointed a wall of spears towards their hidden shapes. Gramhet held him tightly, he couldn’t see the dwarf, but he felt him squeeze, and the thudding of an anxious heart next to his own. Then he noticed the scent of perfume, and the wall parted just long enough to let the Lady Ekira through.

“We know you are there, my pretty gift. Come home with me, and we shall give your little Source the care it deserves. I am not out to hurt you. Why would I hurt my pretty one?”

A’Grih squeezed Gramhet back. Kept the shadow on them both.

“Very well,” Ekira said crisply. “Guards, forwards.”

Side by side, not a foot between them, they advanced. A’Grih and Gramhet backed as quietly as they could, but A’Grih knew he couldn’t keep this up forever. He stopped, dug his hooves in, and pulled on the energy. Gramhet seemed to stagger for a moment, then steadied. The dwarf was so blessedly solid, A’Grih’s heart leapt with a joy he had not known was possible. His heart sang, his Gift sang, he let the cloak fall and twisted the exploding energy into daggers of excruciating pain towards his enemies.

They knew it was only an illusion, but illusive pain hurts too, and soon the guards were writhing in agony on the dirty floor. Screaming, shaking, tearing at their own skin and eyes to desperately be rid of the hallucinations tormenting them.

Ekira stared at them for a moment, then drew her longsword and walked forwards.

A’Grih soon realized her strength. She did not care that her sword turned into ice or fire or snakes. She did not flinch at suns sparking in her eyes, or wasps penetrating every inch of her skin. He needed more, he needed stronger.

He needed different.

He reached out to find Ekira’s other senses. Her sense of balance – she reeled and stumbled.

Her sense of space – she bumped into the wall and cursed.

Then A’Grih drew his own sword and let the shadows part just long enough to send out a copy of himself. The copy lunged and missed. It was meant to. Ekira dodged, laughed and stepped backwards to where he truly was. He stabbed her sword shoulder.

She shrieked, tried to shrug it off, like the imaginary pains he had thwarted her guards with – but this was not an illusion. Her arm was useless and the longsword clattered to the ground.

Ekira grabbed her knife with her left hand and spun around. Real pain and makebelieve imbalance was getting to her and she stabbed into darkness that was nothing. A’Grih stepped aside and punched his sword into her belly. She twisted towards him. Tried stabbing where he was. Grazed his leg. She fell and continued stabbing at his legs and shins. “Come home,” she whispered. “To your parents, your people, your Kindred. Don’t let those filthy cowards pull you away.”

A’Grih thought of his parents, his people, his Kindred. He thought of Mother. He thought of Father. He thought of the beast – no, the Kindred – that he had ridden on only yesterday. He thought of Moonhuntress who would kill him for being with a dwarf. He thought of the woman lying in front of him who would have locked him up to seed her children, and who spat on love. He thought of Mother and Father who laughed at kindness, and rage overtook him.

The energy disappeared. A’Grih fell to the ground. The red rage disappeared. Before him lay Ekira, bruised, bleeding. Her smirking smile replaced with bloody cracks, and her yellow eyes blackened. Why did he stop?

“I won’t allow this.”

The dwarf. The dwarf had taken the energy.

A’Grih turned to him, pleading, “I need it! I need to kill her. Give me!”

Gramhet shook his head, eyes closed. “No, I won’t be party to murder. Look at her. She is broken.”

Ekira wasn’t getting up. But A’Grih needed her dead. “Please! It is mine!”

“No!” The dwarf glared at him. “It. Is. Not. Yours!”

Gramhet added more softly. “Would you treat me like your animal? If you kill her with my energy, my heart will shatter. I would follow you to the ends of the earth, my Gift, but if my heart is to break – I must choose it myself.”

A’Grih stared at him, looked at Ekira. She was broken, beaten. But he had so much anger, so much he needed to release. So much tears.

Gramhet put a hand on his shoulder. “Let us go, Gifted friend.”

A’Grih touched the soft fingers, accustomed to crafting beautiful baubles, and felt himself a very ugly little object. Gramhet squeezed his shoulder, “now, please?”

A’Grih nodded and rose slowly. “As you wish. You choose.”

Gramhet sighed and shook his head, “stubborn demon. We choose. You and I. Together.”

Then he grabbed the demon's hand and took him back to the forge, supported A’Grih as the gift cloaked them both, supported him as they brought light to dark tunnels, far from the caves of the dwarves, supported him as they walked in silence into the deep forests where dwelled strange creatures and ancient elves and even further into lands owned by humans. He supported his demon as he changed his shape to resemble those they walked among, and he supported him in the night where one hug, one touch, one kiss chased the nightmares. Not in a day, not in a year, but Gift by gift in a lifetime.