Breakfast. What a great joy.

“Chief!”

The door of the wooden cottage burst open due to excessive, blunt force.

“Hm?”

The blond-haired gentleman whose ears were covered by his hair turned to his door. There stood another gentleman of much younger demeanor whose ears were exposed due to his unwise hair.

“Humans! Knights on horseback are heading here as we speak!”

The gentleman’s ears twitched once underneath his well-maintained hair. The younger gentlemen continued on.

“What do we do? What if they plan to-!”

“Shush.”

The older gentleman sighed to himself before putting down his breakfast on the table next to him. He slowly stood up from his wooden chair. He looked outside to see the panic-induced state of those outside.

Fool.

“Ario, next time tell me before you tell everyone else. It gets frustrating having to deal with the aftermath of your blunders.”

Ario, the gentleman across from him began to turn his head away from shame. The older gentleman just shook his head in disappointment.

“Rally everyone and try to keep them calm. How long do we have?”

The younger gentleman slowly lifted his head, his expression becoming more solemn.

“According to the person on sight, ten minutes at most.”

The older gentleman raised his hand and began stroking his chin in thought.

“Go and gather the noncombatants to the entrance, in the meantime, gather the rest and hide weapons somewhere that can be accessed quickly if a battle does take place.”

Ario quickly nodded his head before rushing out the door to fulfill his orders. The older gentleman, the chief, sat back down in thought, leaving his breakfast completely unattended.

…

The sounds of clopping quickly approached the city and its residents. The chief slowly walked his way out of the house and to the entrance of the nature-filled plain. The cloppings, which kept getting louder, eventually stopped.

The older, gentlemanly chief lowered his head for a moment to show respect to the people before him.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of the Knights of Apolytos coming to our front door?”

The armored man in front of the small army of knights looked to The older gentleman and asked an important question.

“Are you West Wood’s Elf Chief, Oidasos.”

The gentleman, Oidasos, smiled and gave a slight nod and a quick reply to the man’s question.

“Why yes, I happen to be so.”

The armored man scoffed at the elf chief’s answer. He turned away and walked back into the crowd of knights. Then came a man of tall stature who wore formal black attire and donned a pair of glasses that seemed to dim the light behind his eyes.

“Good Morning to West Wood’s Elf Chief, Oidasos. I apologize for the sudden visit, but Crown Prince Dimitrius Verntis' matter is of desperate answers.”

“I understand good sir. May I ask your name since you already know mine.”

The tall man laughed to himself silently and bowed quickly so as to start his introduction.

“My name is Hubert Asteri. I am the crown prince’s personal assistant and will be serving as his proxy in this matter.”

Oidasos’ ears twitched twice at the assistant’s words. His smile continued to persist as he started at Hubert.

“Well, Mr. Asteri-”

“Just Hubert please.”

“Hubert.”

The chief sighed quickly so as to not disrespect his company.

“Do you mind coming inside to discuss these matters? We can hold a grand dinner after our matters are over. Oh, and please just call me Oidasos as well.”

“With pleasure.”

The assistant quickly shooed the knights away as the two headed toward Chief Oidasos’ office. The room was quite spacious and sat many people with the chief at the head of it all.

“Please excuse me as I grab a table to sit between us.”

The chief began to dig into a small walk-in closet off to the side. There, a table large enough to sit a gathering of four was brought to the middle of the room. The chief quickly pulled up a seat for himself and gestured to the envoy.

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“Please grab one for yourself.”

“Thank you.”

Hubert grabbed the nearest chair and pulled it to himself; sitting down in a comfortable position, he got down to business. Laying his arm on the table, his right hand very slowly raised to cup his cheek. His dimples grow even deeper and his eyes become thinner.

“I don’t plan on humiliating you. It's not much of a pastime for me, so let me get started.”

His dimples suddenly disappeared and the slant in his eyes mellowed out. His hand was lowered back down onto the table, adjacent to the left.

“The crown prince wishes for you and your elf village to join the kingdom as citizens.”

The elf chief, Oidasos, does not make a slight change in expression, as if expecting as much.

“And if we refuse?”

The envoy shrugged his shoulders in a slightly exaggerated manner.

“We were ordered to leave you be no matter what you chose. We were only told to come here to get your answer. Anyways, is that your answer?”

Oidasos’ ear twitched once from his answer.

“Yes. I don’t want to get into politics you see. I may be the leader of this territory, but I am not that of a royal.”

Hubert looked unsurprised by his response and decided to change the subject slightly.

“Then let me be impudent for a moment, if a war were to break out between the Apolytos Kingdom and the Elvin Kingdom of Sylvain, which side would you choose?”

The older gentleman looked at the envoy in disbelief. He openly sighed in annoyance before seriously looking at Hubert.

“I, nor anyone else in this place, will ever side with the Sylvain Kingdom. That doesn’t mean we will join a war against them.”

Hubert’s dimples returned as he pushed back on his chair and stood up.

“Okay then, I think these serious matters have concluded. If you don’t mind, can you show me somewhere I can rest till dinner?”

A smile returned to the chief’s face, though much more pained than before.

“Gladly.”

…

A dark abyss. An endless void of nothingness.

In this void lay nothing, sat nothing, say nothing.

Only a speck of light, which grew from nothing. It grew and grew. It still came from nothing.

Its form changed as it grew endlessly bigger. It was alluring; dangerous. That terror was so appealing. I felt like I was being drawn closer. Eternally closer.

A creeping feeling of death came. I did not fear.

The light became a woman. A human woman, it seemed. She stood there as if not an ounce of life. There was life.

It changed once. Then it changed twice. No matter what form it took, it was always attractive. It finally stabilized.

It was once again, in the form of a young woman. It was different. Horns, wings, a tail. All of these were a part of the woman’s body. There were no eyes. But I feel watched.

The light. The figure. The demon. The watchful feeling didn’t dissipate as I thought. It got more intense. I could feel my heart pounding. I was attracted.

No eyes. A mouth formed out from the darkness. It carried with it a feeling of terror. Endless pleasure. I felt cold. I had nothing. I was a floating nothing.

“Ki-“

…

Oidasos shot up from his pillow. His gaze carried over the quiet room. His head screamed out. A hangover.

I didn’t drink.

As he felt the headache dissipate, a knock on his door came. Three knocks. They sounded dense. Like a giant mallet was beating an even bigger barrel.

Oidasos approached the door. Another thump. Much less dense. Normal. Oidasos’ racing heart soon calmed. He opened the door. The bloodied door.

“Chief.”

The young elf’s attire was ruined. He was holding a sword covered in fresh human blood.

“Are you going to join us, Chief?”

“Ario, what are you doing? Why are you-?”

His eyes were unfocused. Ario’s eyes had no such luster that came accompanying him wherever he went. Oidasos closed his eyes and opened them. A faint glow came from his irises.

Magic.

Once again his eyes closed, releasing the previous glow. He stared straight at the young elf across from him.

“Do you wish to die a criminal, or die an elf?”

His lips rose upward. But there was no smile. A smile without life is no smile.

“Why would I want to die, Chief? I don’t want nor plan to die anytime soon.”

Oidasos’ ears twitched twice. There accompanied a smile. He walked closer to the bloodied elf. He touched the elf’s chest.

His heart.

A small circle of mana began to generate in Oidasos’ hand. An impaling spike of wood pierced Ario’s heart immediately after. His body slowly let down its resistance.

“Ario, don’t cause too much trouble for the Mother. She may be merciful, but that doesn’t mean you can be disrespectful. May nature embrace you.”

Ario’s body fell to the ground; out of sight. Oidasos could see the thing that caused the first three knocks. A singular armored human with a large gash straight through his heart.

He could finally see it. A battle caused by elves and knights. Oidasos’s irises began to glow as he observed the battlefield.

Figured.

Most of the elves fighting were affected by some kind of magic unknown to him. The same could be said for Ario. Only a select few had not been affected.

“What’s happening?”

Oidasos had walked over to one of the few elves not under the spell. He had been hiding off to the side, hoping he wouldn’t be spotted.

“C-chief! I-I don’t know. The others suddenly began to attack the humans.”

Oidasos had finally had enough puzzle pieces. He planned to try and disrupt the battlefield enough to lessen the number of casualties.

“Chief Oidasos, why hello.”

The ambassador, “Hubert” appeared in front of him out of thin air. He seemed fairly normal, but his smile. It was genuine.

“Seems your little elf tribe has caused quite a few problems.”

“Mr. Asteri-“

“Hubert.”

“Hubert, what is going on? Why are they fighting?”

The envoy’s irises began to glow a golden hew. His smile grew wider. A condensed explosion could be heard from behind. Oidasos turned around. The young elf who had just been fearing for his life a moment ago was now dead. Half of his body exploded into a red paste.

“Hmm. I wonder.”

“Hubert” walked toward Oidasos in a prideful manner. His mouth widened.

“It wasn’t meant to go this way, y’know.”

Oidasos’ ears twitched twice. The golden-eyed man’s smile vanished as he smashed Oidasos into a nearby wall.

“Those ears. I knew it. They’re damn annoying.”

“You-!”

Oidasos’ body became heavy as he could hear a cracking sound in the back of his head, though it never broke through.

“Tsk.”

The golden-eyed man clicked his tongue.

“As expected. I can’t break it. I guess I’m still not there yet. Those ears are really annoying to work around.”

His smile reappeared as he uttered his harmonious melody.

“Luckily, I won’t have to deal with them again after this.”

The golden-eyed man’s hand reached toward Oidasos’ torso. It moved around grotesquely before a stringing appeared that left him numb.

He knew he was done for. His body cried out in horror as the man’s approach grew closer. It was then over. Oidasos could no longer feel. His legs, arms, torso, head. Even his eyes and ears. They were all disconnected from his brain.

He was nothing more than a working brain trying to commandeer a useless husk.