>>5779203‘You have to come from somewhere.’
That was what Izirina Henzler had said, and it stuck with you. She’d meant it more in a literal, biological sense, but there was a mystical sentiment to it which rang true as well. Biologically, magically, you were an elf—well, half an elf—from the tradition of the elven seers and mystics, the druids and ‘Ath Tel Syol’, or what the humans called ‘Wild Mages’. You had spent years no burying yourself in books, slaving over stir-sticks and potion-cauldrons, dissecting animals and chopping up herbs without really understanding the heart or root of them… Human magic, or at least the magic of the northwest.
Maybe it was time to get back to YOUR heart, to YOUR roots, and to that philosophy of nature which underpinned your interest in biology to begin with. When your mother had sent you away, and then again and more finally when the mystics of Iternagreyn’s Tower had ‘suggested’ you study among the humans, you had done so almost unthinkingly, running away and turning your back on the source of your pain and alienation… But it was your birthright, too, wasn’t it?
“You’ll have to excuse me from that hike,” Logan Pearce had said, brow high and crunched together as you explained this to him, as you packed your bag on the last day of the school-year. “You’re sure you don’t want to come join us? We were able to synthesize some pretty potent alcohol with alchemy and the trimmings from that last herbalism class.
“You want me to forsake my educational future, my mastery of magic, for MOONSHINE?” you’d asked.
“No need to get so grandiose about it,” he’d said, slapping you playfully on the shoulder. “I’m asking you to come get drunk with friends to celebrate changing the bands on our hats. How about it?”
You smiled back at him, and shook your head, saying: “Save some for me when I get back.”
“Not a chance,” he’d laughed, and wished you luck thereafter.
