"So, Humans eventually kill each other?"

"Not just each other, but plants, trees, animals, birds. You vaporized everything with a very big gun. Entire forest disappeared. Burned to ash in the blink of an eye. America will be reduced to one, giant desert, with huge piles of rusted tanks and jet planes that fell out of the sky when left unmanned by the blast. They called it a nuclear war. I call it a disgrace."

"But some people survived, right?"

"No. After the war. Humanity rebuilt itself in bits and pieces, here and there, scientists set out to building time machines to go back and try to undo the war, but than, well, a side effect of the nuclear explosions was, a shit in the gravity pull of the Earth. It. . . days grew longer. Nights grew shorter. Summer grew hotter. The polar caps melted. And people panicked, because every one knew what was happening. New reporters showed what scientist said. The Earth was being pulled into the sun. And not slowly. Quickly. High winds took hold as the planet plunged forward. In less than a year, the Earth was sucked into the sun. The whole planet melted."

"That's terrible."

"It is. It was awful."

"And that's Earth future?"

"Yes."

"Can it be stopped?"

"I don't think so. I've been forward and backward through time so many times, so many places. Only minor things change. It happens a week earlier a month later, But it still happens."

"So if you can't change it why bother trying to change anything at all?"

"To make life better for people I love who suffered needlessly. I saw the moon, break apart, and crumble to dust. The moon fell out of the sky. And when that happened, the ocean rose higher. Entire continents were buries in water. But than the water evaporated as the Earth neared the sun. In the day before it reached the sun, mountains melted, riverbed flowed with lava, the entire planet became charred, people burned to death if they dared go outside. Everyone moved underground the escape the burning sun. And than, the planet was gone. Earth was no more. The planet and everything on it, melted and became part of the sun. I became The King of the Burning Planet. I led the people to the ships. They crowned me king of the Planet of Flames."

"The Planet of Flames? I've heard of that."

"If you have, than, you have spoken to someone from the future."

"Are you back here in the past, because there is no Earth in the future for you to live on?"

"Yes. There are quite a few of us. When the sun went into supernova, ships fled through time. People chose various ships based on what year or what location it was set to go back to."

"If you know the world is going to end and you know how, than, why bother with saving this village at all?"

"I told you, I want to make life better for people. Barely a hundred years ago, New England was nothing but pine forests. The Atlantic Ocean full plentiful of fish. Now look at it. Cites stand on mass acres of clear-cut forests. Dead fish, floating in polluted water, far outweigh the healthy fish in the ocean now. That's why necromancy."

"I don't understand."

"I am only one Elf. I can defend and protect nature from the millions of you Humans who are fast destroying her. But I can, follow your path of destruction and resurrect the dead you leave in your wake. And you Humans leave plenty of dead behind, so my job of restoring life to plants,, trees, birds, animals, and fish, is never ending, and all I do is this one region. I walk from Ivujivik to Boston and turn around and walk from Boston to Ivujivik. The trip takes me four years one way, eight years round trip. So, I will never catch up on restoring life to everything you Humans slaughter, but I do what I can, where I can."

"What you are doing seems rather pointless," Ghirardelli insisted.

"Yes. Sometimes I think that myself," Quaraun agreed.

"Then why do it at all?"

"It was what BoomFuzzy did. He taught me how to do it. Though his reasons were far from noble. He resurrected lich apricot trees and lich wormwood plants to make drugs so he could drug his victims and make them easier to catch."

"Is he around here somewhere?"

"BoomFuzzy? No. BoomFuzzy died many hundreds of years ago now. We had planned to come here while he was still alive. We were going to live here."

"BoomFuzzy? You keep talking about BoomFuzzy. But I don't know who that is. Who is that?"

"BoomFuzzy? You probably know him by his real name. King Gwallmaiic. King of the Realm of Fae. He was the necromancer whom most people referred to as The Elf Eater of Pepper Valley."

"The Elf Eater?"

"Yes. The Elf Eater of Pepper Valley. King Gwallmaiic. King of the Faeries. He was also BoomFuzzy the candy maker."

"You're Quaraun the Insane."

"Yes. You said that already."

"You're Quaraun the Insane."

"I'm not. . . yes. I am Quaraun, but I am not insane. I dislike that label. And as for my papers, well, there is this one. . ."

Quaraun pulled a wanted poster out of his pink beaded heart shaped bag of holding and handed it to Ghirardelli.

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE:

PREFERABLY DEAD:

QUARAUN THE INSANE.

Wanted for Necromancy, Demonology, Sorcery, Black Magic, murder, rape, buggery, sodomy, cross-dressing, bathing more than twice a year, eating Human brains. . .

The poster listed more crimes, but Quaraun rolled up the poster and stuffed it back in his bag, before Ghirardelli had time to read the rest.

"What's this?"

"The wanted poster you put up a few weeks ago."

"You took it down?"

"Told you I had papers."

"Yeah, you did. But I didn't recognize you."

"And do you know why you didn't recognize me?"

"No. But I suppose you will tell me."

"I will tell you. Because that picture looks nothing like me. Really, you need to get a better portrait artists. Ugh. Look at that picture." Quaraun took the poster bag out of his bag and held the poster up beside his face. "I am the most beautiful Elf the world has ever seen. Look at me!"

"I am looking at you. You kind of look like a freak."

"Freak?"

"Yeah, like something out of a Gypsy freak show."

"I AM a Gypsy."

"Well, that's explain you're looking like a Gypsy freak show."

"I am NOT a freak."

"You could've fooled me." Upon discovering who Quaraun was, the old woman was now very agitated. "You ARE aware the whole left side of your face is gone right?"

"I am perfectly aware of my scars. I do not need reminded they are there."

"You are standing there telling me you are the most beautiful thing there ever was, and all the skin has been ripped off half of your face."

"I'm usually wearing veils and gold chains connected from the rings in my ears to the rings in my nose, and these cover the scars, The shadows of the chains blend in with the scars and the scars appear to be nothing more than chain shadows. I was asleep when you barged in. Most people never get to see the scars on my face. I keep them hidden, because people are repulsed by them. I was beautiful before this was done to me by vile hate mongers."

"And your hands? Do you even have hands? What are those things?"

"My hands are dead. Crushed. Lifeless and immovable. BoomFuzzy built me these gold amour plates, that I could have hands again. They are enchanted. They function like real hands. My real hands, what's left of them, are encased inside them. I can do nothing with out my finger plates. I'm a cripple without them."

"You have no hands, you have no face, your hair drags on the ground, and your clothes are just... pink! You belong in a freak show."

"That's very derogatory. I feel that you don't like Gypsies do you?"

"No one likes Gypsies."

"That is not true. Only racist bigots hate Gypsies. And you were perfectly fine sitting here drinking tea with me, until you found out what I was. You're thinly veiled hostility is not welcomed. Nothing about my manner has changed. I am still the same person you asked to help you, that I was a few moments ago. Why are you suddenly on the defensive?"

"Why shouldn't I be?"

"You weren't feeling that way a few minutes ago. Not until you found out my name."

"You're filthy criminal Gypsy scum," Ghirardelli insisted.

"On the contrary, it is I who is perfectly clean. You on the other hand look and smell as though you've not seen a bath in months. It is you, not me, who is filthy."

"That's not what I meant by filthy. You're filthy criminal Gypsy scum."

"And before you learned my name, you didn't think that. You were quite continent to sit here and drink tea with me."

"I didn't realize I was drinking tea with a murderous, scumbag, Gypsy freak."

"I'm not a freak." Quaraun repeated himself. "You are just proving how evil you white Americans are."

"Well, you ARE wearing a pink dress."

"What difference does it make what I am wearing? And besides, this is NOT a dress. It is a caftan and a kimono. Both of which are men's articles of clothing, worn by men, not women. What is it with you stupid ass Americans and you inability to stop judging everything?"

"I don't care what you want to call it. It is a dress."

"Look at my face, not my dress."

"You've the face of an Oriental freak," Ghirardelli said as harshly as she could muster.

"Asian. Oriental is a white man's word. Hate slur. You are quite racist aren't you?"

"And you're a sorry excuse for a man."

"No. That's wrong too. I'm not a Man. I'm an Elf. I'm not Human at all, so I can't very well be a sorry excuse for one, seeing how I'm not one, nor am I trying to be one. And you were not being so hostile before you knew my name. Does finding out who I am really change how you think of me that much?"

"Whatever you are, you're a freak."

Quaraun looked away from the vulgar racist and stared at the wanted poster.

"This picture doesn't do me justice. That artist, clearly never saw me. How does Finderu ever expect to capture me if he can't even find an artist that can capture my glorious beauty?"

"You're very vain, aren't you?"

"Why, of course I am. You would be too, if you were as beautiful as me."

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

"A beholder's eye. That's a difficult thing to get a hold of. You know, I should do a sit down with your artist. Pose for my wanted poster. It would at least give you a fighting chance of trying to catch me. Not that any of you ever could. I am the most powerful wizard the world has ever known, after all. Now I ask you, does this even look anything like me? What were you thinking using this picture on my wanted poster? This looks nothing like me."

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"You look a lot older than I thought you would be."

"Excuse me?" Quaraun tossed the wanted poster aside, and now pulled out a silver hand mirror. "Am I starting to look old?"

"You ARE old, aren't you?"

"I am an Elf. Pure-blooded Moon Elf."

"Aren't you the LAST Moon Elf, because you ate the other Moon Elves?"

"Yes. The things one must do to preserve one's beauty for immortality."

"I thought Quaraun the Insane was young. But you're an old man."

"Old? Do I look old?"

"Well, yes. When I hear people telling stories about you, I didn't realize you were an ancient old Wizard. I thought you were some young mage. People describe you being all lovesick over The Elf Eater of Pepper Valley and, well, the way people talk about you, I thought you'd be a teenage girl or something. I don't know. I wasn't expecting The Pink Necromancer to be an ancient old man, that's all."

"Ancient? What do you consider ancient? I'm barely four hundred years old!"

"Didn't you say you were seven hundred and fifty years old?"

"I don't know. I might of."

"Why don't you know?"

"I can't count. I don't know what year it is. I don't know what year I was born. I don't know how old I am."

"What's the oldest thing you remember. Like a world event or war or something."

"I remember Charlemagne. I was a child, when he was king. The Di'Jinn said he was a god king, for a Human. I remember I was still quite young when he died. He had 18 children by 8 of his ten wives. I was still a child when he died. He was 70 years old and I remember thinking, how dreadfully young Humans are when they die. I would still be a child at 70 years old."

"Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne died in 814 A.D. That's. . . that's. . . that's a thousand years ago."

"A thousand years? Has it been so long?"

"Do Elves live that long? Don't Elves only live around four hundred years?"

"I am immortal."

"Immortal?" asked, puzzled by this possibility. "How so?"

"Souls. I'm a soul eater. That sword of yours might come in handy."

"Why woul. . ."

"I could use a sword that draws out souls. Anything that makes removing souls easier is going to be a boon for me. Would you be willing to sell the sword to me?"

"Sell it? No. And to you? Definitely not."

"Oh well."

"Why would you want it?"

"Why wouldn't I want it would be a better question, I think."

"It's cursed. It'll kill you if you don't feed it souls."

Quaraun laughed.

"Why is that so funny?"

"I am a Necromancer soul bound to a Lich." As he spoke, Quaraun set out several pink seven knob candles on the table and lit them. At the centre of the ring of candles he placed a pair of pink bride and groom candles, then tied them closely to each other, bound together, wrapping them with a long pink silk ribbon. "I could, if I choose, break that bond. Break the spell that bound us. But I still love him and so every night, I renew the bond with a renewal spell. Even though he is now dead these many years, our souls are still bound together as one."

"And that is relevant? How exactly?"

"You have a sword that steals souls from the living, yes?"

"Yes."

"And I am a Necromancer who is soul bound to a Lich."

Quaraun said no more and went back to the candle ritual he was working on. Ghirardelli waited for the Elf to finish speaking, but it seemed he was done, as now all of his focus was on the bottles and jars or oils and powders and herbs that he was now mixing together and anointing the candles with.

"Are you going to explain yourself?" Ghirardelli asked when she realized the Elf was no longer paying any attention to her.

Quaraun looked up from his mixture of pine needle essential oil, carnation flower bath crystals, and wintergreen incense powders. "What is it I am to explain?" he asked as he went back to his work, now sprinkling the mixture over the candles, causing their flames to fizzle and spark, with bright bursts of colour as the oil and salt hit the flame.

"I don't see the relevance of your being soul bound to a Lich and what that has to do with you wanting my soul eating sword."

"Ah! You do not understand Liches and what they are or what they do, yes?"

"I understand Liches perfectly. But I don't see what that has to do with my sword."

"But you do not see the connection between Liches and your sword. This tells me that you do not understand Liches very well at all." Quaraun placed a bowl filled with violet coloured bath crystals on the table, and dropped clusters of purple wisteria blossoms into the bath crystals, crushing the petals as he did so, releasing their strong floral fragrance into the air. "So, tell me than, what it is you know of Liches and then I shall understand why it is, you do not understand the connection."

"A Lich is a type of ghost."

"No. A Lich is a type of wraith, but continue."

"The spirit of someone who commits suicide and can not go to Heaven because they committed self murder. They are condemned to walk the world of the living for eternity. Ever hungry, ever thirsty, ever full of insatiable desires, but never able to quell those desires."

"Yes," Quaraun agreed, nodding sadly. "No matter how much they eat, they are never filled, their hungry pangs never go away. No matter how much they drink, their thirst is never quenched, their throat always parched. They forever lust for the warmth of others, but can feel nothing of the physical body, no warmth, no pleasure. Tis a sorrowful thing."

"Their minds are racked with insanity from centuries of suffering and mental torment of never feeling an end to their suffering. It is their punishment for the crime of murder."

Quaraun blew out the candles, and whispered words in a language Ghirardelli did not recognize, then waited for the smoke to drift away, before turning to the Swamp Hag to address her.

"You know only the bare basics of Liches, then?" He asked her.

"I know what I just told you and I know finding out that much wasn't easy."

"I see. Well. Not all Liches are created equal. And there is more to Liches than just being punished suicide victims."

"You're saying there are different types of Liches?"

"Yes. But for our purposes, the suicide victim is the correct type. BoomFuzzy did, after all, kill himself to become a Lich. Everything you said is correct, but it barely scratches the surface of the clay. You are clawing at a brick and only getting dust under your nails. You have a lot to learn before you get to the heart of the matter."

"And the heart of the matter is what?"

"The short of it is this: a Lich can gain redemption through repentance of sin, but to do that they must return to a physical body and live life again, this time, making amends for the wrongs made in the first life. However, in order for that to happen, the Lich must have someone living, not just anyone, but specifically someone whom they committed a crime against in life, must forgive them and love them enough to resurrect them."

"Resurrect them?"

"Yes."

"Is resurrecting a Lich even possible?"

"It is. Someone who was wronged by them and is willing to forgive them. A Lich must find a living person willing to forgive them and help them enter a physical body. And that, my dear, requires souls."

"Souls?"

"Yes. Souls."

"What do Liches need souls for?"

"In order to give the Lich a new body, one must gather up enough souls to animate a golem."

"Are you saying you are trying to resurrect a Lich and you want my sword to use to gather up souls, to create a golem for the Lich to live in?"

"Exactly that, yes. Except, I already made the golem." Quaraun reached into his pocket and pulled out a wooden box. In the box were several smaller boxes. He removed one of these and opened it. Inside was a glowing blue ice sculpture of a unicorn. He carefully took it out and held it up for Ghirardelli to see. "This is an ice golem."

"It's small."

"I can change it's size with my wand, when the time comes to use it."

"Is it. . . a unicorn?"

"It is a Phooka. More like a Kelpie, than a Unicorn, but yes, a type of Unicorn."

"Why did you make the golem in the shape of a unicorn?"

"BoomFuzzy is an Unicorn."

"Wait. What?"

"King Gwallmaiic, The Elf Eater of Pepper Valley. He was a Phooka, a black Unicorn. Similar to a Kelpie."

"He was a man. . ."

"No. He was not. He took the form of a Human to blend in with your society, but he was a horse."

"Your lover is a horse?"

"Something like that." Quaraun put the little ice golem away. "Beyond that, there is a JellyFish living in my brain. So technically, I think I'm already dead. At least, my Elf body is. Elves only live 400 years, yes, that is correct, but I'm a Thullid living in an Elf's body. I'll survive for many thousands of years. I already have. I just never lived in a host before arriving at this planet. Never needed to before."

"A host? What do you mean by a host?"

"I am the Sacred Pink JellyFish." As he spoke, Quaraun took the pink seven knob candles off of the table and placed them in a red wooden box. He next placed the pair of bound together pink bride and groom candles, and placed them on top of the seven knob candles. He then gathered up the salts and oils and herbs and violets and lavender and wisteria and carefully placed all of those things on top of the bound bring and groom wax figures. On top of this, he laid a silver mirror, facing downward, then closed the lip of the wooden box and got up, taking the box with him, to put it in the fire pit. The fire blazed and flared brightly as the flames doubled in size, engulfing the box.

"You said that before."

Quaraun did not answer the woman. Instead, he sat down in front of the fire and watched the box burn. The salt and herbs and oils mixed with the flames, turning the fire a bright blue, as the pink candle wax oozed out into the fire pit, forming ripples of melted wax around the edges of the mirror, embedding it into the wax. After a few minutes, the blaze died down and the fire burned itself out.

Quaraun watched as the liquid wax solidified once again, now forming into a melted pink disc shape, full if ashes and bits of burned herbs, and a scattered of salt crystals. Quaraun picked up the wax disc and carried it to the table at the back of the tent, placing it in a wooden chest, where Ghirardelli could see there was a large stack of similar wax discs. She assumed he made one of these every day, by the look of how many were there.

Quaraun returned to his resting spot on his pile of pink silk pillows once again, pulled out a pink glass hookah, and turned his attention back to Ghirardelli while he smoked his liquid hashish pipe.

"I did say that before. Yes," he said between puffs of smoke. "Yes, I did. I am not an Elf. I simply wear the skin of a dead Elf the same way you wear a coat. I am a Thullid, living inside the body of an Elf. I am a female. I like beautiful things. He was a beautiful male. Such great beauty was wasted on him. An Elf who would never leave his village, never have a will of his own. Live forever as part of the hive mind that made them all identical in thought. But with me, the whole world can admire his beauty. The entire world can gaze up the glory that was his perfect body. Think of him as being like the fox fur stole worn by a wealthy noblewoman, because that's what he is to me."

As he chatted, Quaraun pulled a rusty, orange fox fur stole from his bag and wrapped it around his shoulders. He then arranged the pink tourmaline crystal charms hang from the rows of chains connecting his nose rings to his earrings. Ghirardelli watched the male Elf priming and fusing as though he were a female. It occurred to her that Quaraun's being female and not male would, in fact, explain his feminine actions.

"You are a female, Thullid?" Ghirardelli asked the Elf.

"Yes."

"And you are wearing the body of a male Elf?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you wearing a dead body like it was clothing?"

"Because he is beautiful. Bewitching." Quaraun pulled out a silver mirror once again. "Have you ever seen anything more gorgeous than he?"

"That's why you keep pulling out these mirrors, isn't it? You aren't looking at yourself, you looking at him."

"That would be correct."

"You know, I thought you were joking before about the whole Thullid thing."

"I never joke."

"Yeah, I'm starting to think that's true."

"I fail to understand why you appear so shocked by this."

"Well, you DO seem a little bit on the crazy side and you are homeless and living in a tent. But you're being a female would explain the styling your hair and wearing your clothes as though you wee female. So, you are saying that you ACTUALLY are, quite literally, you ARE The ACTUAL Sacred Pink JellyFish?"

"Yes. I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. You Humans are so annoying. You never believe anything anyone says, because your society is built on a web of lies. You all lie to each other so much on a daily basis that you think everyone else automatically lies like you do. We are not as corrupted and perverse as you deviated, immoral, lying thugs are. I am not a Human, nor an America, nor a Christian, I'm not even from this planet, Earth is not my native home, so stop treating me like I'm a lying ass piece of white trash, shit faced American Christian Human Earthling."

"I wasn't accusing you. . . hey, you know, I'm not a Christian myself. Christians don't exactly abide with having us witches around, you know!"

"I told you I was the Sacred Pink Jelly Fish and you said you thought I was joking. A joke is nothing but one of many forms of telling a lie. In my culture, we cut out the tongues of vile miscreants like you who speak in jokes. Jokes are lies. Lies are evil. Lairs do not deserve to live."

"I. . ." Ghirardelli didn't know how to respond. The Elf, looked livid. He was truly terrifying just now. He was mad. No. He was pissed. Furious. Accusing him of not speaking the truth, seemed to have triggered some deep internal rage within him.

Ghirardelli knew that if even half the humours about Quaraun's extreme violence and excessively bad temper was true, then she had to change his mood, and fast.

The old Elf, did not wait for Ghirardelli to respond to him. He continued ranting his hatred for Humans and lies. Lies and Humans.

"I speak the truth always and only, just because you don't know how to tell the truth to save your life, doesn't give you the right to treat me like the lying piece of shit you are!"

"I wasn't. . ."

"My culture isn't built on lies like yours is. We are a Hive Mind society. Everyone knows every thought everyone else is thinking. Isn't even possible to tell a lie, because no one can hide any thought from anyone else. You Humans, think you can hide thoughts by lying, well guess what, I'm a psion and I can see your thoughts, just as well as I can hear your voice, so can't hide nothing from me."

"I didn't mean. . ."

"I know every single time you lie to me, and you've been lying every other sentence out of your mouth since you walked into my tent. I know who you really are, why you are really here, just like I know that no men were chasing you, and you were well aware I was The Pink Necromancer before you even found my tent. I know you heard people in the tavern talking about a pink Arab and you figured it had to be me, Quaraun the Insane, it couldn't possibly be any one else, so you set out looking for me and made up that cock and bull story about men chasing you on the fly."

"I didn't make up. . ."

"Humans and lies. Lies and Humans. You are all alike."

"Men really are. . ."

"Not an honest bone in your body."

"You don't know me. . ."

"No you me! Yet you judge me anyways."

"I wasn't. . ."

"Bah! Humans! No pure thoughts in your soul. Twisted and corrupted, creatures full of lies and filth."

"I'm not. . ."

"Lying, filthy, shit bag, gutter scum, pieces of trash, every one of you."

"WILL YOU SHUT UP!" Ghirardelli yelled.