It took long time until she quieted down. Soon, she fell into an exhausted, heavy sleep.
I could only shrug my shoulders at that. I had always been rather average in human relations, and my recent experiences made things like emotions or empathy slightly fuzzy and distant. Perhaps I still lacked the knowledge in neurology and hormones to make my body properly process the feelings? So I sat and turned my attention towards my poleaxe. I still felt some potential hidden in there, and I used the free time to gain some understanding on that matter.
It likely took several hours, but I had not make much progress with the poleaxe, when Eala finally woke up again. Her face looked really scary, with dried red crust covering her cheeks. On a side note, either it was Eala’s individual thing, or elves did not leak mucus from their noses when crying.
After she washed and made herself look presentable, Eala turned towards me and asked something in her tongue-twisting whistling language. Seeing me stumped, she was lost for a while, trying to explain herself. Communication barrier is a bitch across time and space, it seemed.. And I had no oh so convenient “other world language” cheat mentioned in every damn second book there is about dimensional travel.
---
Finally Eala picked up a half-burned stick from near the campfire and tried to draw something with coal. Unfortunately, rather dark basalt rock was not the best material to draw with coal on, so she tossed the stick back into the fire. Then an idea came to my mind, and I tried to act on that.
I held my hands in front and concentrated. Soon emerged the most familiar shape that I had formed using my energy - a stake. After a while, I actually managed to use my improved control to first form a uniform ball and then create a rather crude step pyramid. Well, I was sitting on one of the steps of the original, so it was the first thing that came into my mind.
Eala’s long ears perked up seeing my actions, although she seemed to be slightly uneasy from the moment I materialized the energy. Nevertheless, she stretched out her hands and formed a water ball, that then split into eight and formed eight exquisite doll-like shapes. After a while, I could recognize these shapes as the elf party Eala was a part of - she definitely had a gift in sculpting. I was already certain in my guess about what she wanted, when she pointed at herself and at the figurine representing her before dissolving it and pointing at the seven remaining ones. She looked into my eyes, and in her glittering silver eyes surrounded by the trembling, long, snow-white eyelashes I saw the question she wanted to ask.
---
I might not feel much recently, with most of my motivation stemming from curiosity, but I was not so dumb that I would simply let her go ahead and have another breakdown. Not to mention that it wasted time, but it felt uncomfortable to see the pain but be unable to actually empathize with it. It made me feel hollow.
I raised my eyebrow and looked into Eala’s eyes.
“Are you fine?” - I formed a rather distorted-looking humanoid shape from my energy, before making it represent some hysterics with kneeling and bawling pantomimics.
It took some time for her to understand what I meant, before she sighed and nodded. That actually surprised me, as even on Earth in different countries have different body language. I had even paid special attention to avoid using signs with Eala, to avoid misunderstandings. To have an elf nod as a sign of affirmation was unexpected.
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Just in case, I nodded and said clearly “Yes.”. Eala repeated a nod and slowly said “Ye-ss.”. She mimicked the pronunciation really well though. Then I shook my head and said “No.”. I expectantly looked at her, and she caught up quickly, repeating with her own headshake and a “No”. I shrugged mentally - I could have taught her German, Danish or Russian, but I figured that English would be best start. Thanks to my parents going around a lot, I at least had a choice to pick from. With a father in diplomatic corps and an ex-bodyguard mother you get some experiences and mental luggage that help to be adaptable.
---
I finished reminiscing while I scratched my chin and looked at Eala. She looked resolute and stable enough, if only she would stop nodding and repeating “Yess” every now and then.
I stood up and motioned for her to follow. As we got around the pyramid’s entrance, the laid-out elf bodies came into view, Eala brushed past me as she ran over to their side. A little absent-mindedly I noted to myself, that even after a period of time which should have exceeded at least several days, I could detect no smell of decomposition. I stood aside and observed.
Eala approached the bodies one by one, firstly checking the gems below their throats. Each time she saw another dull grey stone, she looked more dejected. She also whispered a lot in her language that kept eluding me - whistles and complex vowel combinations made it hard to memorize and categorize.
After she had checked all the bodies, she brought out the black gem she used to wear before. She quickly wiped a hint of tears from her eye, as she threw a quick glance at me. I felt slightly annoyed - I did not mind if she cried a bit, I simply wanted to avoid dealing with hysterics, wailing and general loss of self-control.
---
The following events drew my close attention. Eala used her black gem to touch the grey stones on her companions’ throats, and as she did that, all colours slowly disappeared from their bodies. Black, gold, blue and yellow colours drained away, leaving only ash-grey colour behind. The dark skin paled and light skin slightly darkened as it turned grey as well. Before long, all dead elves looked like concrete statues of themselves. I guessed that they would remain as such, memorials to themselves or whatever rites elven culture might have.
But in the next few moments with a slight grating sound their bodies slowly began to disintegrate into dust. Or rather, fine sand. I felt my eyebrows climb all the way to meet the hairline at such phenomenon, before I got a grip on myself and assumed the experienced-reserved look that hopefully looked cool and reliable. I still needed somebody to explain what was going on and hopefully guide towards some sort of civilization.
---
Eala proceeded to gather the equipment and clothes her comrades left behind. She carefully folded clothes, tied up armor, belts and straps and took some pouches from their belts for herself.
Then, she turned towards me, and with a quick move with her hands formed a ball figure of me, which then sat down on her palm. Getting the hint, I sat by the wall and nodded to her to continue. She gratefully made a deep bow towards me, before turning towards jungle below.
---
She began to sing. Her voice, raising and dropping, reminded me of exotic places where numerous birds gather together. As she continued to sing, she occasionally kneeled down to gather a handful of sand remaining from elves, which she then proceeded to throw into the air. Unknowingly, wind appeared, despite the fact that I had not felt it there before. Rather, I remembered having felt only some very slight occasional breezes, but now strong gusts of wind picked up the sand Eala threw and dispersed it far over the jungle below. I even felt some slight magic gathering around Eala, and in my magic vision, I could see it being formed from the air coming from her throat.
Vibrations from singing contained magic? Or words have shape to magic phenomenon? Elven magic manipulation was interesting. I forced myself to stop thinking about that, as it felt somewhat disrespectful on this occasion. So I returned my attention to Eala.
The song, despite coming from her alone, felt like perpetual canon, with different sounds, tunes and vibrations overlapping and mixing, creating a unique feeling. I had little understanding in music, but even I felt being drawn into the tune. If there were sirens drawing sailors to their doom, their singing just might have been the same. After a while, which felt like eternity, Eala began to slow down her song and finally stopped. There was no more sand remaining on the step of the pyramid, and only few bundles of clothes, armors and weapons remained of Eala’s companions.