"Sir?" I asked. My father sitting on a log across from me, had his eyes closed. I looked around the forest, the sight of it in the dark always made me uneasy. Talking to my father made me just as nervous, but today the forest felt heavier... more eerie.
"Close your eyes." A gruff response. He spoke elegantly, but my father was always slow to patience.
I close my eyes at his command. Just as we practiced, I breathe in and out. Making myself one with the forest. The very breath that I breathe is breathing in the mana of the forest and breathing out my own to see all that encompasses me. It's easy for me to do. I know what's there. But that's the problem... Monsters and beasts keep their eyes on us. Father could dispel them easily, but he allows them to stay close. Training. At this very moment we are completely surrounded by Wraiths, Goblins, Werewolves, and wolves. Occasionally the wolves nip at the Goblins but for the most part their attention is on us. My father's mana is to powerful to ignore. Mind you he can suppress it, as can I, but we have to let flow out to attract them... for training...
My father clears his throat to snap my attention back on exploring more than just the beasts. The trees and plants. The insects, birds, and rodents. Everything that has life has mana. Even the dead have mana, just a different form.
I open my eyes and look at him once again. I'm only 7 but he expects me to be a man. Why? He claims he doesn't have much time left. That he will be leaving me like mother did... "Father?"
He sighs heavily at me. "I guess 4 hours of training is enough."
He opens his eyes and looks at me. His golden eyes almost shining in the pitch black forest. As creepy as this could be his eyes are warm. "Reign your mana in."
We both suppress our mana and with a snap of his fingers the barrier that usually surrounds this whole forested mountain side is back up. I feel the pressure from before subside. I take a small breath of relief. "Ryistel. What is on your mind my son?"
"Do you think that... well maybe you could.... I'd just like it if ummm....."
"Out with it boy!" My father quickly losing patience.
"I want to hear how you met mother!" I blurted out. He never talked about her and only to tell me that she was a great woman. She had been a Healer in a small village in Rafta. That he had brought her back home to the Elven Kingdom, Lorakas, at her request. He always shied away from telling me much else, but I never got to know her and my thirst for wanting to know more was getting the better of me.
He studied me for a moment. His soft gold eyes saddening. Talking about the only woman he had ever loved was difficult and I feel bad for asking now, but it's too late to back down now.
"I will tell you this once my son. Then I beg you never to ask me again. Swear upon your name as a Lorakas that you'll never make me relive such pains again." His sad eyes looked into my soul.
Filling my words with mana I swore, "Sul Une Tuk NyeLorakas."
When doing this and speaking in elven tongue it invokes a promise that can't be broken. By swearing upon our family name it means that by going back on this it could mean death. I know what this means to my father and won't take it lightly.
My father imbued fire magic from his hand and cast it on to the arranged sticks we had set up for our fire. The sticks were ablaze instantly, and for a moment in the light I caught a proud glimpse from my father. I had remembered his teachings of our peoples language. He taught me it and the language of humans. Both were easy for me and both could have been imbued with magic and met the same thing but something about speaking in his native language for this was nicer for him.
"I was appointed King of the Elven people. I was tasked with exploring each nation and to know the lands intimately. Our people live centuries. Demons live a century or two, but most don't live that long given their violent nature. Angels live long lives too but after bringing Nephilim to this world they don't intervene. Spirits are constantly on a cycle of rebirth, when they are born again they forget their past lives and start anew. The average elf lives about 400 years. We govern the ways of the world, chart it's history, and make sure the worst of it never repeats itself.
As I've told you, I explored the demon territory, and the spirits territory first. For the first 30 years being king I did this. After that I went to the human territory. These territories have been out war with each other since before my father was king. I had no hope going into the human territory. Stories of enslavement of their own kind had filled my travels. Demons and spirits had no problem with talking to our kind. Humans are different. I had to cast illusion magic on myself so that I would look like them. I had to hide my mana and disguise it to be the same as theirs. I made myself look like a soldier just to get into the territory and feign ignorance with battle fatigue to make them believe that it's why I had no documentation of who I was.
Getting inside I went to the closest city to find an "Adventures Guild" to sign up as a person and gain identification. I went by Kyle Akers during those years. Kieran Lorakas would've been a dead give away of being an elf." He chuckled to himself, a break in his tough father approach at things. Talking of mother often did this to him... I smiled... if I ever went to the human world maybe Akers would be the family name I used as well.
"Anyways I took on odd ball jobs while I was under the name to make money. Buying food and taking shelter within the city to learn what I could of the nation. Longer story short I found myself doing a job of taking out a band of thieves. I had taken out most of them but one got away and fled to a small town called Rafta.
Using the technique you were using a few moments ago, I followed his unique and tainted mana to a clinic. He had told you mother he was attacked by a madman and needed healing quickly. Your mother being the pure soul she was helped him immediately and without question. I walked in and went to kill him, but your mother got in the way... She... ha... haha! She yelled at me and called me a fool! I was forbidden from taking her patient and that if I had correct documentation that I could take him after she was done!" His laugh cut through the night sky. "Astounded by her pureness I just stood there. Who'd have thought that a king respected across three nations would be talked to by a Healer in a run down clinic!" His voice became softer, "She finished and I showed her the papers. Proof that he was indeed the leader of the bandit crew I had been after. She handed him over to me with no fuss. I told her I'd be back with a thank you. I took him back to the Capital and turned him and headed back to Rafta. Going back to the clinic I actually felt nervous. Upon getting there, I had half my reward in my hand and intended to give it to her. She looked at me and told me just to take her out on a date and she would call it even...." His voice now but a whisper. "Little did I know she would steal my heart on that date. That she would beg me to take her with me to the elven kingdom after telling her who I really was... That she would insist on having you before she was too old to bare children....." No longer reminiscing his eyes met mine. "That my son... is how I met your mother. We couldn't be together in Rafta as Kieran and Erika. So I fulfilled each and every one of her wishes." He smiled at me gently.
This man is the one my mother knew. The one I know is strict, blunt, gruff, and unwavering. I wouldn't see this version of him again until much later in my life.