“I think it’s alright to kill animals for food. It’s how nature feeds itself,” said Elena, again with that sad look prominently in her eyes. “But those beings across the river that I told you about, they don’t just kill for food. They kill the animals because they don’t like them running around their lands. They kill for the sake of killing and also for the joy of killing.”

And that brought back some seasonal memories for the elf. Every year or so, the elves would form hunting squads and they would go out into the Great Plains and hunt. They usually hunted the herding animals like the cattle and the antelopes. They hunted for the meat and the pelts. But in the frenzy of the hunt, they usually killed more than they should. Many carcasses were never harvested and they were left there to rot. Those animals simply died for the excitement of it all – they all died for nothing. And he never thought that there was anything wrong because this was how it was supposed to work. The strong would always kill the weak. And he had never thought otherwise because there was no reason to think otherwise. He was an elf and the elf can pretty much do whatever they wanted. They were the strongest race of the Great Plains. But after what happened yesterday, that perception was somewhat shaken. He knew now that there were stronger beings. But he did not worry much about it. He reasoned that the goat was only an individual and it did not follow that he could take on the whole elf race. As a whole, they were much stronger.

And then, he recalled something that his tutor once told him. Long ago, their forefathers had lived in the Great Plains. There were villages, towns and castles built by the elves in the open fields and lives then were good. They farmed, or at least they hired farm hands, and they never did built anything themselves but they hired labourers to do it, and the yields were abundant because they can farm as much as they wanted to farm. Who were there to stop them? The fields were empty. (Well, that was according to their definition of empty. There were indigenous settlers. The elves either hired them as farm hands or they would drive them away.) They had everything: vegetables, potatoes, corns, wheat, barley, rice. They also farmed animals for food and they also hunted. They never ran out of anything. They had so much that even the farm hands could eat as much as they wanted. Lives were free and they could go anywhere with their horses. No one dared to mess with them. Then one day, the elves started to turn up dead, murdered, killed, without apparent reason. Then, skirmishes broke out at the frontiers. Soldiers were sent out and many did not return. Fear spread. Morale was low. It went on for fifty years and the bodies kept piling up. Obviously, the elves killed them too. They were wildmen of the type they had never seen before. Rumours said that they were the outcasts from the Fareast and they seemed to be inexhaustible. Unable to sustain the losses, they decided to leave the plains because it was not worthwhile anymore. A sinister force was coming and they must go into the forest and join their brothers and sisters, the forest elves. It was much easier to set up defence point. Therefore, the era of the Plain Elves had drawn to a close.

So now, with the sudden new perspective, Darius thought that that was just another way of saying, ‘we had retreated,’ or, ‘we had run away.’ We were not as strong as we seemed. And there was also the war with the orcs. That did not go very well for the elves. His father refused to speak anything about it. Even the long alliance with the dwarves was broken. They only wanted to do business now, the contractual agreement type. The long walk today gave him plenty of time to think. He thought how he could have just died that easily in the tavern. Now, he felt that he could just be like those cattle that he shot, he could die simply for the entertainment of others. It seemed that an elf could also be the receiving end of very bad things.

“It’s good that you can now reflect back on yourself,” said Elena, her look becoming innocent and pretty again. She hunched forward a little, her hands supporting her chins as she looked at Darius with her big eyes smiling.

“Honestly,” the elf said rather solemnly, “I really don’t know why we go out all the way to hunt those animals. It’s not that we really need the meat or the fur. We can always get them from the dwarves, or the forest traders. We have many things to trade. And we still farms and we breed stocks and we make better cold resistance linen. They are way better than fur coat. We don’t need to kill those animals. The hunt is more like a tradition. To celebrate the old ways. A remembrance. It really sucks.”

“So, Oldbark’s effort had not been worthless.”

“What do you mean?” said the elf as he placed the last twig and the cabin was complete.

“Remember the flower, back in the cave of roots, the one that sprayed you?”

“How could I forget?”

“That was actually a charm. It’s called Sanctify.”

“A charm? Oldbark put a charm on me?” the elf said, astonished and getting slightly agitated. “But why? Why does he want to do that? He already had me bound up like a pendulum.”

“Yes, he did. No need to get all worked up about it. He was only helping you. Sanctify can neutralize Provoke that’s in you. You won’t want to be walking around with Provoke.”

The elf was stunned on hearing that. He did not seem to comprehend.

“You didn’t know that you were under another charm, did you.” The elf was processing the fact. “Nemo? You didn’t know? It figures.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Provoke? Sanctify? So, are you saying that I was charmed before Oldbark charmed me?”

“Yes. Is it very hard to understand? And the one you had was a strong one. It was not easy break. The street sorcerers, they can’t break it. You’re lucky that Oldbark helped you. He doesn’t always help outsiders.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Oh, very nice of him. Placing a charm to cancel another charm.”

“That is the way.”

“Where do you think I got it? What does it do?”

“Hard to say. Many magical beings know how to cast Provoke but not many could cast a strong one. This is one high level magician.”

“What does it do? What does it do?” asked the elf, getting worried.

“Why so anxious? It’s already over. Anyway, it’s called Provoke. So it provokes you. It makes you angry, makes you impulsive, more spontaneous. It could fill you with rage and hatred. All the negative stuffs.”

“So that was why I was so angry in the tavern. The lizardmen did some silly things and I suddenly got so angry that I threw a … a fork at him.”

“You threw a knife at him,” corrected Elena.

“It was a butter knife. Not really a real knife like a steak knife,” retorted the elf. “But who wants to do such a thing to me?”

Elena smiled for she already knew what kind of knife that was. “You certainly don’t look friendly. Perhaps you have unknowingly made some enemies or knowingly made somebody mad. Stepped on somebody’s toe lately?”

“Oh, I get it. Someone wanted to kill me because I’m not friendly.” The elf stopped and sat beside the lay of fire wood for a while, gathering his thought.

“You seem distraught.”

“Of course I’m distraught. It’s not every day that you find out that you were double charmed. I could have died because someone played a prank on me. This Provoke sounds dangerous. It should not be simply taught to anyone. It should be regulated. Is there a Council of Magic or something? They should ban it or something?”

“No. There’s no Council of Magic. Why should a magician join such a thing and be controlled by it. But it’s not all bad. Once in a battle long time ago, a powerful pixie cast a Provoke on an incoming army and they all ended up fighting among themselves and killing each other.”

This came like a thunder out of the sky. The elf started to imagine the scale of the scene and it completely blew his mind. An army killing each other because of fake rage, the elf thought. They cut each other’s throats, chop off each other’s limbs, kick each other’s groins, all because of fabricated emotions.

“That’s evil,” the elf concluded, and it came straight from his heart. He was really disturbed since this did not seem to be a fair fight. War was supposed to be swords against swords, swords against shields. The better skilled would win. The better armed would win. But magic? It changed the battle completely. And how to defend against such magic? It’s impossible, he thought. Whoever has magic will win.

“Think about it in another way. It’s just like you shooting down all those cattle. It’s not fair for the cattle. You should think from their perspective too.”

The elf was wordless, looking down at the pile of woods that he had just made.

“Where can I learn something like this? Can Oldbark teach me?”

“You can’t learn magic. You have to be born with the power. The instructions are just mere instructions. It trains you on how to use it and how to grow it. It cannot make you into a magical being.”

“What? In that case, I’m destined to be a cattle. I can’t even prevent the slaughter.”

“In a way, yes. The cattle can’t prevent themselves of being slaughtered. But, in another way, no. You can always shoot the magician with your needles. And there are ways to counter magic. The bulls can charge back and you may not be able to shoot them all down in time. So, it all depends.”

Darius suddenly felt that this world was so unkind and unfair. Why certain beings could learn and use magic and some couldn’t? It was a one-sided game all along. The end was determined long ago. Just like the cattle.

“Don’t feel so down. The world is never fair. And it’s not that one sided as you may think. But look on the bright side. There aren’t that many magical beings. In fact, they are very rare. Most beings lived out their whole lives without ever meeting one.”

“Are you one of them?”

“Yes. I’m a dryad.”

The elf did not know anything about dryads and did not bother to ask. “And Oldbark?”

“He’s a tree.”

“So tree is a magical being.”

“No. Oldbark is an exception. He had attained consciousness and somehow became magical. I don’t know how he did it. Oldbark himself doesn’t know how. He said that he simply woke up. And Oldbark may not be a he or she. He may not have a gender.”

Suddenly, there was hope. “So, there’s a way of turning magical,” the elf said lighten up a bit.

“Yes. There are cases like that. But again, very very rare. You shouldn’t aim to turn yourself magical so that you can defend against magic. Learning magic takes a long time. It’s definitely longer than learning how to use your needles.”

The elf did not quite hear that because he suddenly recalled that he was now under Oldbark’s charm. So he asked rather anxiously, “Errr… what does Sanctify do?”

The girl replied, “Don’t worry. Sanctify is a good magic. It dispels negative charms. Especially the lingering type. So, it’s like anti-Provoke. It also promotes goodness, lifts the spirits and increases your positive energy. You know, all the good stuffs.”

And the elf suddenly knew why he was being so nice. It was the charm.

“But it can’t change your nature, if that was what you’re thinking. It just amplifies the goodness that was already in you. It’s the same with Provoke. It amplifies the bad characters in you. If Provoke is cast on a being that is purely good, it would never work. You seem disheartened. A little angry. Why? Do you like being your bad self when you’re Provoked?” the girl asked.

“Not really,” the elf said after thinking for a while. He was angry and disappointed that he was so helpless. He was charmed twice. He was manipulated twice. Once by a badman and once by a good tree, assuming that he was good. He was being played around like some toy and the player was not god, just some indiscriminate magicians. And the worst was, he did not even realize it. He began to question his ability and his true self. Who was he really? The way he acted, the way he behaved, the way he thought, was it himself or was it the charm? He could not tell since he was under the influence of magic. Even this anger, this self-doubt, was it him?

“Stop thinking about stupid things. A person is always under some influence or another. Your parents influence you. Your tutors influence you. Everything in the world influences you. Magic is just another one.”

She has a point, he thought.

“A person is continually changing. Nature is changed by nature itself. It’s an inevitable outcome once you interact with nature. You must grasp the important thing. What have you become? For most beings, they have the idea that being good is better than being bad. Unless you think otherwise.”

“What would happen if Oldbark didn’t cure me?”

“Nothing much. You will just continue on in that state. Well, at least for a while. If you didn’t manage to get yourself killed over some silly matter, you’ll go back to who you are when the power wears out.”

“You mean a charm can wear out?”

“Everything wears out. Nothing in nature is perpetual. It’s just a matter of how long. Some charms take hours, some take days, some take years. It will end, one way or another. All things do.”

“You know, you are very wise for a girl.”

“That’s because I’m not a girl. I’m four hundred and forty seven years old.”