The Elves are a long lived mystical race that despite their isolationism, are often seen inside fairy tales and old legends. Due to their long lives, it’s hard for them not to end up being embroidered with one historical event or two.

Despite their longevity, encountering one is considered a sign of good luck. The size of their population is notorious for being small, and they rarely venture outside the area they live in. It’s not unheard of that if someone passes by an Elf decades ago, there’s a good chance they may find them still in the same area if they visit today.

In their long, long lives, the instinct to generate offspring is not something they possess. When living in times of peace, some people even think they are slowly going extinct.

…But then, why are there so many children in Daivette? What could possibly make a group of them end up producing so many offspring?

Elves are known for their lack of interest towards such things compared to the other races, oftentimes seen as solitary and apathetic beings when they are spotted while traveling, an activity that they seldom do.

A long, long time ago, a lifetime even for the elves, a great conflict scoured the lands, leaving deep scars that are still found to this day.

But for the people who survived it and are still alive now, it still remains as a fresh memory. Despite their isolationist nature, despite doing their best to avoid it, the elves had gotten involved one way or another.

And when it all came to pass, too much too many had been lost.

The dregs of scattered tribes, the leftover Elves sought out to rebuild somewhere far away from the land they had suffered in. And so the village of Daivette was born, a venerable haven for the lost, and home for the downtrodden.

Otherwise, people wouldn’t be as welcoming as they have been to that girl.

——— –– –– -- - -

One day, there was a big commotion in the village.

This was unprecedented, even more so soon after their defenses were breached a few months ago. At first, some of the more guarded folk in the village stood up in alarm, fearing something bad was happening again, thankfully their expectations were subverted, though they could never have guessed how upending the news were.

Amidst them all, the children who craved exciting things more than anyone were the most thrilled at the prospect of something interesting.

Sedia, a young girl, grew curious, very rarely was there such noise in the village outside some holidays.

She was planning on minding her own business, as she did everyday.

Swiftly crossing through the gaps between the gathering people, she went to see what was causing everyone to suddenly stop what they were doing.

The people around her spoke “The rangers are back!”, “Gaviel was still outside, since when?”, “They are kind of late aren’t they?”, “I wonder what happened…”From what Jardim gathered, the rangers that occasionally adventured outside the confines of the village came back. There is always some movement when a team arrives from a patrol or a long expedition, but this amount of agitation is very weird, she thought to himself while moving closer.

Finally getting to the front, thankfully without much pushing, she finally saw.

“Who is that girl?” Someone near her said. Her own thoughts mirroring the question.

A small girl was hiding behind one of the rangers that just arrived, she hung her head low so it was difficult to see her face. Despite her small frame, everyone could clearly see her... Not because she was bad at concealing herself, but because of her… tail?

Sedia was having trouble believing what she was seeing.

The little girl, who tightly clung to one of the ranger’s pants, had a long, scaled tail jutting out from her back. She averted her gaze as she saw that the tail lifted the girl’s oversized shirt, which looked like it was everything she was wearing. Not only that, but from the corners of the man’s leg Jardim could also see something black and spiky jutting out, sticking her neck out a little she could tell those were horns on the girl’s dark hair.

Whether those were some sort of strange accessory or real horns she couldn’t tell, or maybe she just couldn’t quite understand what was happening yet.

Enticed by the curious situation the rangers brought, she along with the crowd followed the girl’s entourage. The whole time the little girl kept trying to make herself seem as small as possible as the people observed her.

Then, as they approached the Chief’s house, people began to disperse as the rangers and the Chief herself shooed people away.

Sedia knew that trying to eavesdrop would only land her in trouble, so she also left. But that wouldn’t stop her intrigue from growing.

——— –– –– -- - -

After the foreign girl disappeared somewhere Sedia went to play with the other children.

– "Who do you think that girl was?" –

– "I don't know, I didn't get to see her…" –

– "I wonder where she came from." –

– "Maybe she'll tell us more about the outside world!" –

Sedia's friends were all curious too.

"Huh who is that?"

Down by the side of the river, someone was laying down.

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Coming closer, they saw the horns, the tail… It was that girl! Sedia was the first to step near her, the other children attentively following right behind her.

"She's sleeping…?"

The girl was softly snoozing on the grass floor without a care in the world. Around her pretty insects fluttered, a dragonfly landed on the tip of one of her horns.

"Ooh…" The crowd of children awed in curiosity.

– "Hey, isn't she actually kind of cute?" – A boy said.

His shins were promptly kicked by another girl who was beside him.

"Should we wake her up?..." Sedia asked tentatively.

– "Maybe?... Aren't we supposed to leave her alone?" –

– "The adults didn't say anything though…" –

– "I want to play! Hey hey, why don't we invite her?" –

– "Since you said it, you wake her up!"

"Ah…" Sedia hesitated.

After some back and forth, eventually Sedia carefully approached the sleeping girl. "Um…" She began.

"...zzz"

"Hello?..."

No response.

Gathering her courage, Sedia tried poking the girl's cheek–

Oh… it's so soft. She thought, repeatedly nudging her more and more. The crowd of children watched with growing curiosity.

"Mnnyuu…" The girl turned left and right, Sedia kept nudging.

The sleeping girl finally woke up after a minute of Sedia's poking. "Wah!?"

Sedia giggled. "Hello!"

".......Wah! ????Ͽ??Ϛ???Ϲ???ϡ"

"Huh?"

It looked like the girl didn't speak their language… The children looked at each other, lost on what to do.

Eventually though, they would have fun with the foreign girl regardless, despite the befuddled face the girl had during the whole time.

One of the games they played was a special tag, when the game started, everyone was sneaking looks towards the girl to see what she would do. They tried to explain and show her the rules of the game, at first she just stood there looking lost, but eventually they managed to coax her into joining.

– "Whoa! She is fast!" –

– "Catch her! I'll circle from this side you do the other!" –

– "Got you! Run!" –

But when the foreign girl went to tag someone else, the boy was launched into the ground with a loud sound.

– "Ow!" –

Everyone momentarily stopped to see what happened.

The girl was frozen on the spot, opening and closing her mouth while wringing her hands. To everyone else it looked like she was on the brink of crying.

– "A-ah! Well– it's fine it's fine, see? It's ok she isn't hurt!" – One of the older boys immediately tried to reassure her.

All of a sudden they began to work together in panic.

– "Hahaha! That scared me, careful everyone, she's really strong!" – The boy that was tagged said, back sweating in nervousness. – "Don't worry It's just a scrape anyway!" –

That seemed to calm the girl down a little, as she let out a nervous sigh.

Despite the hurdles, the day was becoming one of the best ones Sedia had.

——— –– –– -- - -

Later, she heard there would be a sudden meeting between the elders, and Sedia was sure that it was related to that foreign girl somehow.

They would be using the great hall for the gathering, and compared to the Chief’s house it would be much easier to spy on what was happening.

With that in mind, Sedia rushed to the great hall.

When she arrived there, it seemed like they had already begun discussing among themselves, she worried that she wouldn’t be able to discover anything since there were already guards watching the perimeter but…

“What is this…?”

The guards were there… suspiciously leaning towards the entrance of the meeting area…

…They were eavesdropping too.

Not only that but they were blatantly ignoring the dozen or so people that were also peeking in on broad view from the outside, some even standing on top of each other’s shoulders…

The reality was, that everyone, including the people that were supposed to keep people away from disturbing the meeting, was dying of curiosity to know what was happening. The guards were tasked with keeping people out… but nothing was said about people looking from outside, and there wasn’t any worry about security anyways, what would people even do if they knew a thing or two about the meeting? It wasn’t like there was any danger.

So they turned a blind eye to the bunch of people peeking above the privacy panels that circled the meeting inside, they were also eavesdropping after all.

Sedia took the opportunity to join them, finding a crack in between the panels she peeked inside.

Inside, they talked about a bunch of things, which also answered some of her own questions about the girl, and created many more.

“What happened? Where did this girl come from? What are we going to do about it? Is she some sort of weird human? What race is she even?”

Sedia wondered what all the fuss was about.

“Why not send her back?” One of them asked.

The whispers of the growing crowd of eavesdroppers began to grow at the inquiry.

Apparently, they did not know too much of the girl’s origins, she does not speak any of the common languages… so communication is difficult. As far as they knew, the girl was alone. Any family or guardian she should have is nowhere to be seen or heard of.

With how young the girl seemed… oh she is building a pillow fort in the corner of the room.

The girl never showed any signs of having someone, what she was doing in the forest was anyone's guess.

"It can't be helped, until the forest calms down someone will need to look after her. There's also the situation with the Witch too." Gaviel, the stern looking ranger, pointed out.

As the meeting went on, apparently the girl was going to be put under probation, she was going to be supervised by Clauren, the village’s phony doctor, until they decided on something else.

The girl was an oddity, they thought she should have died judging by the way she was living in the forest, she didn’t. They thought the timing of her presence suspicious at minimum, but they let her stay anyway. They judged her innocent, but still kept their guard around her.

Sedia was more worried if the new girl would want to be her new friend.

——— –– –– -- - -

The new girl kept showing up at the strangest of places.

She appeared sleeping in various nooks and crannies, hidden in inconspicuous places. Sometimes they didn't even find her.

The children even made a game of searching for her everyday.

But then…

"Will she be ok Grandma?" Sedia asked her grandmother.

She was worried about that person, who seemed lost and spent their days listlessly staring into the distance.

"She…" Granny wouldn't say that the girl is in the best hands, gods know what Clauren has been up to these days. "She'll be fine, but until she asks for help herself the best we can do is to keep supporting her." She patted Sedia's head.

"Hmm." Sedia hummed an inconclusive response, flopping down into her grandmother's lap.

"Still, what were you even thinking?" Granny chastised. "Giving her a name all of a sudden like that?"

"Well, she didn't have one! So I made one for her!" She happily said. "It suits her, don't you think so?"

"Kuh!– That's not the problem!…" The elderly woman slapped her face. "Darn, it suits her alright, I can't even think of her as anything else." She grumbled. "But permission or not, it's not something to do so willy-nilly, girl! Names are very, very precious things…"

Granny tried to drill the weight of the situation into her harebrained granddaughter's head.

She sighed, "What's done is done, but now because of what you did to her, you must take responsibility. Understand?"

Sedia tilted her head, "Okay!" she said, without really getting it.

She didn't understand why Granny was being all serious about it, she was already going to take care of that strangely endearing and lost girl anyways! Sedia wasn't too acquainted with the newly named Syuufarin before, but as the days passed and she noticed the girl could use some help in making friends, she decided to take matters into her own hands. People always said they should help each other out after all.

"I'll be the bestest friend she ever had!" Sedia proclaimed with a beaming smile.

。。。

Granny Piyo observed the children from afar. "Oh dear…" she sighed, a tender laughter coming out right after.

She couldn't help herself, after seeing such kind and pure intentions, her heart was filled with a nostalgic hope and unbidden joy.

Her little granddaughter never fails to make her proud. The infectious smile on her face was proof of that.

"Ha ha! The future is looking bright! With all these blessed children, I can rest easy."

——— –– –– -- - -