Meanwhile, at the girl’s side, Layla was chatting with the two girls throughout the walk. As opposed to the strictly question and answer style Lein used, Layla brought the subjects up herself, and talked about many important things to the two girls.
The female dorms and the male dorms were exactly the same, having multiple huts with six beds each. Since there were only the two of them, Layla guided the girls to a hut where there were already three taken beds.
Layla introduced the hatchlings to each other and the three elves warmly welcomed their new roommates. Layla then proceeded to leave after telling the girls that she will be here to pick them up tomorrow, so there was no need to worry about it. The two girls repeatedly thanked Layla as she left, their hearts filled with gratitude.
The next day.
*Don*. A low-pitched sound rang across the village, signalling the brightening of the skies. The curtain of darkness in the skies never changed, but some periods of the day were brighter than others. This was how the elves split the days.
The first drum of a day signalled the brightening of the skies, the period when the skies would begin to gradually light up. The second drum would be sounded when the light was at its peak and would begin to dim.
The third one sounded right before a period when darkness would soon cover the skies, warning the elves of the darkness that was to come. The last and final drum of the day was sounded in a period between the third and the first drum of the next day, reminding elves that remained awake that half the darkness passed.
There were the four drums used in all the villages to tell time, the periods being known as the first light, second light, first darkness and second darkness respectively. There was always a patrol unit that would be assigned with the task of sounding the drum each day.
However, most elves did not rely on these four drums for time. Due to the lack of time telling devices, most members of the tribe had sharp body clocks honed from a very young age. The drums only served as a reminder for most of the elves and was primarily used divide the day.
The drum used for these four drums was located near the heart of the village, and produced a lower, deeper ring than the drum located near the gate. This prevented confusion from arising between the two drums as the sharp ears of elves could easily pick out the difference between the two drums.
Today, the hatchlings were supposed to gather at the field at first light, however the air in the hut where Alz and the others were living in remained still. As if expecting this, a figure approached the hut silently.
Lein let out a sigh as he looked at the six hatchlings who still lay soundly asleep on their beds. However, there were no traces of the disappointment one would expect to see in his face, rather, he was showing a bitter smile which rarely appeared on his face.
This was one of the tasks he hated doing, playing the role of the devil. Every year when the hatchlings first arrived, they would sleep in on the first day without fail. After all, the trip here from the central village might not have been much to him, but it definitely took a toll on these ten year olds.
He always felt the urge to let them sleep so they could recover properly, but he had learnt from his predecessors and also from his own experience that he couldn’t be light on them now. Being light towards them in the first few years would only end up harming them in the long run.
He shook his head lightly to dispel these thoughts from his mind. This was his duty and responsibility, as the one in charge of them. Therefore, he roared, at the top of his lungs,
“WAKE UP! WHAT TIME DO YOU ALL THINK IT IS! GO ASSEMBLE AT THE FIELD NOW!”
The boys were naturally shocked by the sudden roar, jumping up from their beds instinctively. Their eyes were hazy as they looked around trying to figure out what was happening. As soon as they saw the expressionless guard captain standing in front of them, they quickly understood the situation.
Looks of panic appeared on their faces as they frantically got up and gathered before Lein.
“Follow me.” Lein said coldly as he looked at the hatchlings’ reaction. He then turned and left the hut without waiting for a response.
The hatchlings exchanged looks of fear and unease but quickly jogged up, following behind Lein. Thankfully, they knew from yesterday’s interactions that Lein was not as cold as he appeared, but their hearts still raced with unease.
The picture was entirely different at the side for the girls as Layla warmly greeted the two girls at the entrance as she had promised, setting off towards the field together in smiles and laughter.
She addressed some of the girl’s queries during this time and told them that they could look for her if they had any more questions in future.
After about 15 minutes, both groups arrived at the field at around the same time, where they saw that village chief and several other elves were already standing in wait.
“I’m see that all of you had a good night’s rest. Let us start by introducing some of the people around the village.” Blain’s deep voice rang in the ears of the hatchlings after he shot a quick look at each of them.
The boys felt like a load went off their chest when the village chief did not mention anything about their tardiness. They felt like there were small barbs piercing their heart as their worry and unease built up on the way here and the silent, expressionless Lein only made it worse.
Blain walked up beside Lein and Layla and said, “I believe you should already know that Lein and Layla are in charge of the warrior and supporter hatchlings. They will also be teaching you what you need to know during the first 3 years of your stay.”
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The village chief then went on to introduce the group of people who stood in the field. There was the tailor who was in charge of making and mending clothes, the apothecary who was in charge of medicine, the librarian who was in charge of the library, among many other roles.
The people who stood here were representatives selected by each group to give a brief introduction of each field to the hatchlings. Incidentally, the physical trainer whom they first met when they arrived at the village was also present.
The eight elves initially focused their attention on the village chief and the various representatives, but four of them soon became distracted as they saw various familiar looking faces among the group of elves.
Link’s eyes reddened when he his gaze met with the woman who was introduced as a tailor. His mind instantly blanked out and nothing else entered his head.
Caila also began sobbing as she looked at the apothecary representative while Polon stared blankly at a couple who stood behind the various selected representatives.
Alz also directed his gaze at a couple who stood behind the representative who were also looking at him gently. The male elf was trying to look tough, but his body’s shaking gave away his pretense while the female elf’s eyes were bloodshot, and tears were streaking down her cheeks.
Naturally, Blain who was standing in front noticed this, causing the sides of his lips to curl up slightly into a smile. He turned a blind eye to the hatchlings’ lack of attention as he continued on with the introductions. Soon after, the introductions concluded.
“That will be all for today. For the next two weeks, you will all be staying with a family from the village. They will be teaching you more about the things you need to know during this stay.” Blain concluded the introductions, before turning to leave the field with a smile on his face.
The central elves were promptly received by their assigned families and brought out of the field while most of the remaining elves also quickly vacated the field, leaving the entire field to the twelve elves who remained.
As the other elves left the field, the parents finally stopped holding back and moved right up, embracing their children. No words were needed as the children returned the embrace, finally experiencing the warmth they always craved in the past ten years.
It was an unwritten rule in the Calla tribe, to allow the returning hatchlings to stay with their parents at the beginning of their trials. This was a form of compensation towards these elves who sacrificed much by staying in the frontier villages, and as a form of compensation towards the children.
Still, these terms were extremely unfair for those who lived at the frontier tribe, but this was tradition. Some elves had to pay the price for the tribe to continue existing, and this price fell on them, the elves who lived in the frontier villages.
The Calla tribe is split into eight villages today, a single central village and seven frontier villages. However, that is not how it had always been. The entire tribe were gathered in one village at its peak, when it had boasted of more than two thousand members, and was among the larger of the small elven tribes.
Despite the long average live expectancy of 140 years on average, elven populations were generally small in size as it was very difficult for their race to bear offspring. This could be seen from there being only four children from the entire village ten years ago.
This was despite the population of more than 150 elves living here in the fourth village. This was also one of the main reasons behind the strong bonds among the elves.
The Calla tribe landed in its current plight due to the greatest enemies of their tribe and the deadliest predators in their part of the woods, the wolves.
The southern part of the forest they lived in were known to be infested with wolves. These wolves usually moved about in the time period after the first darkness and before the first light each day.
They launched multiple small-scale attacks on the villages several times each day, which were fended off by the elves who were on guard or patrol duty. These attacks were usually easily handled and led to no casualties.
The problem came when they launched large-scale attacks. Large-scale attacks involved seemingly endless waves of wolves grouping up to attack the target. These attacks had no discernible pattern to them and were impossible to predict.
There had been records of more than 20 years where there hadn’t been a single large-scale wolf attack. However, there had also been records of nearly consecutive large-scale attacks, such as the attacks that split the tribe, the ‘Great Wolf Disaster’ which happened 120 years ago.
During this disaster, the tribe received a second large-scale attack right when they were recovering from the damages incurred from a large-scale attack which ended just on the previous month.
The tribe was shocked then as they did not expect an attack at this period. This led to devastating damages being done to the tribe as the 2000 strong tribe was reduced to a mere 140 members who were lucky enough to flee successfully.
The survivors then headed to the elven capital, Alvein to seek refuge then. However, they only managed to rebuild the village four years later with large amounts of aid from the capital when the wolves finally cleared from the area.
The capital provided the survivors with 100 combatants and 300 non-combatants, along with large amounts of food and water, allowing the tribe to avoid the fate of being wiped out.
Right after the village was rebuilt, the tribe elected a council formed with elves older than 120 and elves who were renowned for their intellect and wisdom in the tribe. This main purpose of this council then was to come up with countermeasure to avoid the disaster of four years ago.
The council immediately began to discuss countermeasures to the issue, but eventually only came up with one proposition which seemed feasible.
The initial proposition was for guard posts to be stationed at strategic positions around the central village, so that they could warn the tribe if any signs of large-scale wolf attacks were seen. However, the darkness in the forest coupled with the nocturnal behaviour of wolves made it difficult for the posts to scout out the wolves’ movements effectively.
The ineffectiveness of this plan became apparent when the tribe was once again struck by a large-scale attack six years later, which the tribe barely managed to fend off.
The flaws of the initial idea immediately came to the council’s attention, so they discussed the matter and came up with another proposition, leading to the frontier villages the village has today.
These frontier villages were built at the location of the old guard posts and were meant to be ‘dummy villages’, serving as decoys for the wolves. Several years later, the next large-scale attack struck, wiping out the sixth village that was targeted then.
The central village noticed this and immediately prepared to evacuate, but they realised that the wolves were just prowling around the sixth village and started scattering four years later. The plan had succeeded, but it came at a heavy cost.
With a heavy heart, the council ordered for the sixth village to be rebuilt and repopulated while the entire tribe mourned for the loss of the valiant members of the sixth village.
Due to the constant threat at frontier villages, the council also decided that newborns were to be brought back to the main village for the first ten years. When they reached the age of ten, they would then be sent for their trials and elves who showed promise were allowed to return to the central village.
After many cycles of frontier villages being destroyed and rebuilt, the tribe arrived at the present. The members of the tribe all understood the importance of this traditions, which had protected the village time and again.