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War
At the fringes of the familiar world, an age-old elven settlement battled fiercely for its existence. Millennia of conflict had been sparked by a territorial dispute, centering around the ownership of one of the five remaining seeds of the world tree, Yggdrasil.
The Unseelie court viewed this seed as a potent weapon, capable of tilting the eternal balance in their ongoing rivalry with the Seelie court. Meanwhile, the elves harbored deep-seated fears of the potential abominations that might defile the sacred seed if it were to fall into the wrong hands. Relocating the seed proved an impossibility, for each location had been chosen by Yggdrasil itself, and entertaining thoughts to the contrary was considered blasphemous.
Amidst the chaos of war, a forbidden love silently flourished away from the watchful eyes of both factions. It unfolded between the daughter of an elven chieftain and a commander in the Unseelie army, resulting in the birth of a child.
Seventy eight years later, as she approached the age of her first awakening, a pivotal moment where the village would witness the revelation of her future talents, anticipation hung in the air. In front of an eager crowd. After all, being one of the direct descendant of the village Elder meant she had High Elf blood.
The expectations were high and no one could have predicted what happened next. The telltale stigmatas of Fae touch manifested in her hands when her time came. The uproar was immediate, all knew that no allied Fae visited their settlement the last hundred years. This obviously meant that the child was the fruit of a blasphemous union with their sworn enemies.
The same night, in silence, a group of settlers went to the mother's house to execute her without the chieftain's knowledge. The vice chieftain, the women's current spouse, was the mastermind, since his feeling of betrayal soon warped into deep hatred.
In a horrifying turn of events, the woman faced a brutal fate before progeny's eyes, she was lynched, spat on, and eventually burned on a cross. The child, next in line for the same grim destiny, witnessed the cruel spectacle unfold. In a desperate final attempt to save her only offspring, the woman mustered all her strength and, with a burst of power, detonated her mana core, a desperate signal to alert her father to the impending tragedy.
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And before the elves could proceed on their plan, awakened by his daughter's last cry for help, the elder rushed out to protect his granddaughter.
"TRAITOR! CURSE TO OUR KIN, THIS CHILD WILL ONLY BRING US GREAT CALAMITY AND THE IRE OF THE SEELIE COURT" clamoured the crowd, outraged by their elder's meddling.
But the Elder refused to budge and attempted to negotiate.
"The child is innocent of her mother's sin, please reconsider" he pleaded.
"Then she shall be tried by Mother Nature herself. Exile her to the forbidden forest, if a deity considers her worthy of living, they will intervene. If not, she could rot for all I care" said the vice chieftain.
"I unknowingly got married to a whore that went against traditions, and you are the main cause of it. As repayment for your daughter's wrongdoing, I think it is acceptable for me to decide the fate of this kid, I am the only legitimate parent she has left after all" he added spitefully, a sadistic gleam in his eyes.
The majority of villagers swiftly acquiesced to his proposal, and the following day, the child was abandoned in the Forbidden Forest to meet her seemingly inevitable fate.
However, before leaving her to face the dangers alone, the Elder clandestinely extended a helping hand. He crafted a shelter using a hollowed tree, conjured a magical well in close proximity, and imparted essential survival skills such as hunting and gathering.
Regrettably, the secret visits were uncovered by the vice chieftain, who, consumed by rage, opted to resort to extreme measures. In a fit of wrath, he utilized the stealthiest and deadliest poison he had looted from an dead in battle Unseelie fae to orchestrate the assassination of the Elder.
When the old elf's body was found, no one wanted anything to do with it.
`The gods must have punished him for the mediocre education he gave to his daughter` thought all the settlers
And everyone agreed to never talk nor think about this family of traitors, after all, they did not want to share the same fate.
To be completly sure that one would even learn their existence in the future, in the case the cursed child happened to come back to claim the village elder's role, the family registry including their names, roles, ancestors and feats were all erased or burned.
Those who knew of of the exiled child's existence actively sought to busy themselves and flood their minds with new memories to forget.
While the child survived a year unattended, the war's repercussions triggered the migration of vicious monsters into the once-familiar forest.
In the midst of a foraging expedition, she encountered a swarm of arachnids. Even if she managed to kill most of them and escape, the fight costed her a poisonous bite.
The same night, while her consciousness was slowly fading away due to her body losing the battle against the poison, a dryad, sent by the God of elves, was sent to the child's shelter to shorten her suffering, and let her soul depart peacefully in her sleep.
The soulless body soon glowed in radiance, washing away the poison and a divine hand planted into it the soul of another.