Chapter 5: Faerie Fire

It was calm at the riverside. Already late on the day, the sun was caressing the horizon, making its way down, ready to make room for the moon and the stars. The Night Elf female was sitting at the shore, her belly round with child. Her hand softly caressed the surface of the water, her eyes standing dreamy. Not far from her, a child was playing in the long grass. Well, playing … walking around unbalanced, trying to follow the butterflies and grasshoppers that moved around. Yet each time she tried to catch one, the little insects were that bit faster. 

Ly”Kalyn chuckled when she saw her daughter stumble in the grass and try to get back up to pursue her chase. Seeing her child like that made her wonder if this new baby would be the same, but she could guess the answer already. At least now she was certain who the father was.

A sudden snort, a warning sound, made the elven female to look up, seeing that a new creature, or better, creatures had entered the meadow. Chikwa deers, a cervine like creature that resembled a deer, but had some extraordinary features. The sex dimorfisme was easy to see, for the female often had a duller color and the feathers in their neck were much shorter then that of the males and their feathered tails were shorter. Their feather colors weren’t so bright either.

The males on the other hand, were a display of color and beauty. Sprouting from their crest, they had long feathers, just like their tails that were draped over the ground like a veil. You could say that they looked like someone had tried to plant the feathers of a peafowl onto a deer. 

The herd was looking curious towards the child that was playing in the meadow, but their peaceful nature didn’t alarmed them yet. For them, an elven child was no danger. 

One of the fawns even turned our curious, walking up to the young girl, stretching its neck, softly sniffing to find out what it was that was sitting there in the grass, staring at them with giant golden eyes.

Ly looked on, seeing how curious her daughter was towards the strange looking creatures. She didn’t rushed to ‘save’ her baby. As long if there was no danger, there was no reason to save something. Yet while Ly’Kalyn knew the rules of the forest and the fauna and flora, her daughter on the other hand still had to learn. A little bit to outgoing, she grabbed onto the nose of the young fawn, which made it bleat, spooked by the sudden touch. As reaction, the stag of the group jumped forward, spreading out his feathers on both his neck and tail as a warning, to make himself bigger. For an adult, it would be a gorgeous display of colors, yet to a one and a half year old child, it could only look scary. 

Scared by the sudden defensive display of the stag, the child started to cry. Ly stood up, ready to walk over to her crying daughter until she saw something she wouldn’t have expected. Suddenly the stag was surrounded by a bright light, like fire, going from green, blue and purple, surrounding its entire body. The fire didn’t seem to harm the creature, but it was more than enough to call for a retreat. With a bellow, he chased his herd back into the trees.

“Faerie fire?” Ly softly whispered as she picked up her child, trying to calm it down, softly rocking it in her arms.

“There there, you got spooked by that big stag, didn’t you?” She said with a smile, while looking at the sobbing eyes of Fae. 

Trying to calm her child by softly singing a song, Ly started to think on what she had just seen. A display of magic. It was very rare at that age. But more importantly, it wasn’t a common spell that she had just casted. Most young children who had an affinity with magic, would cast a minor illusion or use some prestidigitation tricks. Faerie fire wasn’t a part of that array … 

But Ly’Kalyn wasn’t surprised either. Not with what she knew, not with what she had done. It only confirmed what she had thought about in the past one and a half year. All those months, she had thought on who the father could be of the child she was holding. But with what she had just seen, she was no longer in doubt. It was clear as the river’s water to her. And it made Ly worried on what this would mean for her Tribe? What this would mean for her daughter in the future? And most of all, why had her goddess not punished her yet for her .. mistake?