~o0o~

THREE MONTHS AGO: Quaraun glided through The Godforsaken City. It was night time and there was little danger of anyone seeing him. So, he could forgo walking on the Elf's feet and glide along on his tentacles instead. Because Quaraun was only five feet six inches tall yet his hair is twelve feet long, he was able to use his hair to lift himself off the ground by a few inches or even several feet.

Whenever a Human caught Quaraun hoovering along, seemingly gliding through the air, they assumed it was magic. A levitation spell. He was, after all, a mage.

The secret to Quaraun's supposedly magic hair, was that it was not actually hair at all, because Quaraun was not actually an Elf. Quaraun was female parasitic, alien JellyFish, disguised as a male Elf, wearing the body of a dead Elf like a fur coat.

Quaraun's hair, was actually thousands of very fine, thin JellyFish tentacles, which was why his hair was bio-luminescent and glowed in the dark, and why his white hair, shimmered silver and blue in the light resembling fish scales.

When around other people, Quaraun moved as an Elf does, walking on his feet. However, when alone, like tonight, or with people he trusted, Quaraun used his tentacle-hair to move. Doing so lifted him up off of the ground. This led to the rumours that he could levitate. And most people, when they noticed him hovering feet not touching the ground, were so busy looking at him hoovering, that they do not notice the way his hair stiffened to support his body, while long parts of his hair, the parts pooling around him on the ground, were actually stiffened into spider-like feet moving along the ground.

Tonight, there was no one out on the streets. No one to notice the Elf, as he hovered nearly a foot above the ground, moving along on his tentacles instead of his feet.

Quaraun was new to this village. He knew some of the people in The Godforsaken City, which wasn't really a city. He knew the Guild members who lived here, but he had never visited any of them before, and Quaraun had vastly changed since any of them had last seen him.

Last time Quaraun had attended a Guild meeting, he looked every bit the male Elf he was. His wife and children were still alive, but BoomFuzzy was dead.

The Moon Elves were forcing him to wear the traditional silver and blue outfits of their culture and his hair was much shorter.

That was three hundred years ago. Before he resurrected BoomFuzzy as a Lich and killed the Moon Elves.

Today no one would have guessed him to be male, not until he spoke, and even then, his voice could have been mistaken as being a female with a husky voice.

Behind the silks, the make-up, the jewellery, and the mega long hair, it was nearly impossible to tell that this was a male Elf. His having been born so short, light framed, and feminine featured to begin with made telling what gender he was all the more difficult, even when he was nude.

Quaraun was looking for Ghirardelli the Swamp Hag. He knew her swamp was in these parts, he just wasn't sure where and he wasn't keen on running into any Guild members, especially not Finderu or one of his cohorts.

The last thing he wanted was more trouble with the Guild. They already had a reward out for his head, preferably not attached to his body where it belonged.

The Guild of Wizardry, regulated the use of magic.

No one was allowed to practice magic without proper Guild membership and authority.

Special permissions, permits, and papers, documents and credentials were required to practice magic.

Quaraun didn't have any of those things.

Not that it mattered. They'd still be wanting him dead even if he did have them. Years ago, Quaraun had been a law abiding wizard and kept his papers and permits and licenses up to date, practising only the allowed magic arts, shunning the forbidden magic forms, etc. etc.

All that was before BoomFuzzy died, though.

Before the Moon Elf village was destroyed.

Before Quaraun lost his way.

Before Quaraun gave up on good, kind, helpful white magic arts.

Before Quaraun turned to Necromancy, Sorcery, and Demonology.

Before Quaraun had murdered is wife.

Before Quaraun had murdered is 4 young children.

Before Quaraun had resurrected BoomFuzzy.

Before Quaraun became The Pink Necromancer.

Before Quaraun became the most feared being on the planet.

Before Quaraun became the most powerful wizard in the world.

Before Quaraun had eaten his father.

Before Quaraun became known as Quaraun the Insane.

Quaraun's Guild papers had expired two centuries ago.

And it had been even longer since the last time Quaraun had attended a Guild meeting. The last meeting he'd attended, the Guild's counsel had declared him a renegade wizard, a danger to society, and had ordered him to be executed.

Quaraun used illegal magic to escape.

Magic the law abiding Guild members had been unable to counter.

The Guild would have had to break their own codes to catch Quaraun.

Thus Quaraun escaped.

And now, Quaraun had wandered the world for two centuries, alone, never staying any place more than a few days, avoiding any village known to be the habitat of a Guild member.

But Quaraun was in need of Ghirardelli the swamp hag, or rather, he just needed her head. He wasn't overly concerned with her body. He already had Gibedon's head. Finderu's head would be nice but, Quaraun wasn't wanting to make more waves then he already had.

Quaraun wandered through the dark snow covered streets, ducking away from the street lights and keeping to the shadows. The fewer people who knew he was here, the better.

"A library," Quaraun muttered to himself, surprised to find such a place in a village this small. "In a Human village? I doubt it's owned by a Human. I never met one with enough intelligence to be able to read. I wonder what kind books they have here?"

The library wasn't open this late at night, but that didn't stop Quaraun from picking the lock and walking inside.

Quaraun had long ago stopped worrying about laws.

What need had he to obey laws, when he was already wanted for crimes he had no intention of quitting?

Murder.

Drugs.

Sodomy.

Sumptuary laws.

"Ha! It actually worked," Quaraun mused as he looked at the lock. "I'll have to remember that spell."

Quaraun used his Rainbow Wand to light his way through the small building. It wasn't much of a library, but it did have massive bookshelves going all the way to the ceiling, cram filled every inch with books.

Quaraun was looking for magic books, especially anything on Necromancy, particularly on finding Liches. Formally a very lawful and moral aristocrat, Quaraun had long ago developed a bad habit of walking off with every book he found that he had not yet read, and as he carried a bag of holding on his belt, he had infinite room to make things disappear and not be found should he be searched. Were anyone to look in the tiny beaded heart purse, they'd find exactly 10 gold coins.

Not real gold of course.

Illusions only.

They'd turn into brown leaves once he had had time to escape. Quaraun himself was the only person able to reach in the bag and pull out anything from furniture to weapons to his massive eye blinding pink wardrobe.

As this was the home town of the Wizarding Guild and they had a ban on Dark arts of all types, Quaraun had little hope of finding anything useful, but it couldn't hurt to check. There could be an evil book disguised as a good book, and only Necromancers be able to see it. You could never tell about these things.

Quaraun had been so absorbed in exploring the library that he did not notice the shadowy figure slinking along behind him, stopping and waiting for the right moment to pounce.

Quaraun was coming around one bookshelf to see if there was another on the other side when he nearly bumped into the man who'd been following him.

"Oh, hello. I'm sorry," Quaraun said quietly as he tried to duck past the man.

Humans were much bigger then Elves, and a big Human, like this was, was especially much bigger than a little Elf, like Quaraun.

"Not so fast…." the man said.

Quaraun stopped and turned, wondering if he should stop or keep going.

"Get over here," the man commanded.

Quaraun looked around, confused, uncertain if the stranger was talking to him or not.

"I said get over here!"

"Me?"

"There's no one else here."

Quaraun stepped back. He felt frightened of this Human. It's voice was mean and violent, and it's breath smelt of beer.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you. I was on my way out."

Quaraun turned and quickly stepped towards to door.

"Oh no you don't!" The man roared as he ran after the Elf.

The man grabbed the first thing he could reach and threw it at Quaraun, hitting him between the shoulders, causing him to stumble and fall.

"Owww!" Quaraun yelped. "What was that?"

Quaraun looked and saw a small bronze statue on the floor, which he picked up and was looking at as he spoke, instead of looking as his attacker as he should have been doing.

"That hurt! Why did you hit me?"

Quaraun started to push himself back up, prepared to yell at the man, but the stranger, suddenly grabbed hold of the Elf, lifting him up and slammed his back against the bookshelves, hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

Quaraun was now confused and terrified as he didn't know who this man was or why he was being attacked. Quaraun's head throbbed. His eyes blurred.

"Thought you could sneak off by yourself and no one would notice, eh Sweetheart?"

"Sweetheart? I ain't your sweetheart! Who do you think I am?"

"I saw you back there at the tavern."

"Let go of me!"

"Pretty little thing like you shouldn't be walking home alone this time of night."

"You're drunk. Get off of me."

Quaraun tried to shove the man back, but this only caused the man to push himself closer to the wizard, squishing him against the books behind him.

"Bonny little thing aren't you?" The man said as he began grouping the Elf. Quaraun suddenly realized what was going on and became frantic.

"No! Let me go!"

Quaraun struggled to break free of his attacker's grasp, but Quaraun was a very small Elf, only standing 5'6" and barely weighing 130lbs. His attacker was a full two heads taller than him and far stronger.

As Quaraun continued to struggle against his attacker, the man began to kiss the Elf and as he forced his hard erection against Quaraun's stomach. There was no question the man had mistaken Quaraun, not only for a woman, but also for a prostitute.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Most men did.

Quaraun had grown quite used to the way Human males reacted to his physical appearance, but he was usually better at getting away from them before they had time to get close enough to grab him. The man forced his mouth over Quaraun's. The Elf squealed and screamed, trying desperately to push the man off of him. Quaraun was old and weak and frail, and lacked the strength to fight off his attacker. While he hated being accosted like this, he hated more the raging fury men went into, once they realized Quaraun was not what they thought he was.

A sense of panicked revulsion filled the Elf as he felt the man's excited cock pressing against him. The little Elf became frantic to get away, remembering the fact that men got really pissed off when they rammed their uninvited junk between his legs expecting a vagina and got something else entirely. They beat the crap out of him, they always did, and a tiny little Elf like him, didn't stand much a chance against the huge hulking Human that was bearing down on him, right now.

Quaraun managed to reach his hand up onto the man's face and push him back a few inches.

"Let me go," the frightened Elf whimpered.

The man laughed. "Playing hard to get are you?"

"No! I don't want to be got at all," Quaraun squealed as he slipped out of the man's grasp and tried to run.

The man grabbed the Elf's arm, spun him around and slammed him face first against the wall. The little pink robed wizard yelped as his jaw made contact with the wall, clashing his teeth together. Tears streamed down the Elf's face as searing pain shot through his face. But he had no time to think about the stabbing pain in his jaw. The man was fumbling with the slippery silk skirts, pulling them up to expose the Elf's ass for fucking.

Quaraun frantically, squirmed and wriggled his way out of the man's arms again, but this time the man punched him hard in the face, splitting his lip and sending the little Elf fallen backwards into another shelf of books. Several books fell off the shelf, landing on top of Quaraun. He scrambled to crawl away, avoiding being crushed as the tall wooden bookshelf fell on the spot when he had momentarily been.

Quaraun stood up, gasping for air and stared at the fallen bookshelf for a moment, trying not to think of how badly it would have injured him, had he not moved and then quickly ran for the door.

The Human ran after him screaming: "Get back here you dirty little whore!"

The man threw a knife. The Necromancer cried out in pain as he felt the blade sink deep into his side. The wounded Elf staggered and tried not to fall as he continued out the door and back into the streets.

In his hurry to escape the man, Quaraun crashed into a young female Faerie dressed in many layers of frilly lilac coloured dresses. Both he and the woman fell into the middle of the street, nearly being hit by a passing carriage. The horse reared and whinnied, and the girl screamed as the horses hooves came down inches from her face.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Quaraun muttered in a daze as he got off the woman, scrambled back to his feet and stumbled pass the carriage to the other side of the road, leaving the woman, laying in the road.

The man from the carriage, calmed his horse and continued onward, leaving the girl alone in the street as the would be rapist tumbled out of the library looking all around to see which direction Quaraun had run off to. As Quaraun ran across the next street and disappeared down the alley, the man turned his attention instead to the young Faerie whom Quaraun had run into in his hurry to escape. With one victim too far away to catch easily, the man now lunged on the next closest woman he could find.

The girl screamed as the man mounted her and prepared to rape her. The girl's cries echoed down through the alley, vibrating off the brick walls and reverberating into Quaraun's soul.

"Oh, hell," Quaraun muttered as he turned back. "I hate not being evil. I'm a sorry excuse of an evil Necromancer rescuing every female in distress."

The man was on the ground struggling with the girl and did not notice Quaraun had returned. The Elf stood, not sure what exactly to do, and looked around the street to see if anything brought any ideas to mind. He knew using magic of any type in this town would attract the attention of the Guild, their headquarters being here. Near the corner of a nearby building Quaraun spied a dislodged brick, picked it up, whispered something to it and then dropped it on the man's head. The brick, came down with a force far greater than capable of an object so small and knocked the man out cold.

Quaraun stood over the man and kicked him to make sure he was still alive, then turned to the girl.

"Are you alright?" Quaraun asked the girl.

"Yes. Thank you."

Quaraun helped the girl back to her feet.

"I'm very sorry. He was coming after me. You were not his intended victim. He thought I was a prostitute."

"You do look like one."

"Yes. I know."

"Are you an Elf?"

"Yes."

"We don't see many Elves in these parts. They're rather rare, you know."

"Yes. I know."

"You're a male Elf aren't you?"

"Yes. I am."

"Why are you dressed like hooker?"

"It's a long story."

"Do you always dress like that?"

"Yes."

"You're bleeding."

"I know." Quaraun touched his lip. Blood was dripping from the cut where the man had hit him, even more blood gushed from the wound in his side, and he was trying to ignore it. Quaraun was a pure blooded High Elf and both wounds would be healed in only a few days, but the poor Elf fainted at the sight of blood. He didn't really want to faint here in the middle of the street.

"Are YOU alright?" The girl asked, seeing that the Elf looked weak and ill and was bleeding quite profusely.

"I'm fine. I'm used to it. It happens often. I heal quickly."

"If he thought you was a whore, why was he beating you?"

"Men get really pissed off when they ram their uninvited junk between your legs expecting a vagina and get another cock instead. They'll beat the crap out of you. I've have had my arms broken 3 separate times now, my hip broken twice, my back seriously injured more then once, and several concussions since I started dressing like this, because men came after me, thinking I was something very different then what I am. Do you know that I've had false teeth put in, because I had most of the teeth in the right side of my face knocked out? Do you know how much it hurts, to be hit so hard, you lose all the teeth on one side of your face? And it wasn't just my teeth that broke—it fractured my jaw and cheekbones. And each one of these was a separate incident. Did you know I'm nearly blind in my left eye, because one man hit me in the eye? I have to wear these claws because another man cut my fingernails off."

Quaraun held up his hands to show the girl the gold, jewel encrusted finger armours he was wearing.

"It's a good thing I'm an Elf. Were I a Human, I'd be dead by now and scarred for life. Well, I am scarred. Not all wounds heal without a scar. Oh dear. That one wasn't done by Humans. My own father did that. I'm sorry. I'm rambling. I'm always getting beaten and stabbed and hit and punched…."

"You're losing a lot of blood," the girl said as she pointed to the blood pooling on the ground around the Elf's feet.

Quaraun looked down at the blood gushing from his side and running down his leg. "And.. And. . . uhm. . . bleeding. I'm bleeding. Oh so much blood. Oh dear. I'm bleeding quite a bit ain't I? I lose so much blood, so often. So much blood. Oh dear. I'm dizzy. I'm gonna faint. I have to sit down."

Quaraun sunk to his knees and looked paler then usual.

"You sure you're okay? You're bleeding quite a lot."

"Yes. I do that. I seem to lose blood quite easily. Oh dear. I'm too dizzy to keep going. I'll faint if I keep walking. I might have to lay down a while. I'm so dizzy." Quaraun touched his lip again. "I'm lucky I'm an Elf and heal without scars. Men are always trying to fuck me and then beat the heck out me when they find I've got more between my legs they thought I did."

"Then why dress like that?"

"I am a member of a wizarding order and this how we dress."

"Are you a wizard?" The girl sounded overjoyed by this news.

"Yes."

"Oh how wonderful! I love wizards!

"Do you?"

"Oh yes! My father is a wizard."

"Is he?"

"You must know him."

"Must I?"

"Well of course. You're a wizard aren't you?"

"Yes, I just said that."

"Well then you must know him. He knows every wizard."

"Does he?"

"Of course!"

"And pray tell, why is that?"

"Why, he's the head of the Guild of Wizardry."

"Finderu?"

"Yes."

"Your father is Finderu?"

"Yes."

"Oh dear. I have such luck."

"He's knows healing magic. We live not far away. I'll get him."

"No, please don't do that. I'll be fine in a few minutes. I just need to rest."

"But he can stop the bleeding…."

"No. Please. I'm fine. Sit. Please. Keep me company until my head is clear."

The Fairy sat beside the Elf.

"So you do know my father?"

"Yes. I know him. Sort of. Or I did, many years ago. I've not been active in Guild meetings in many years. I don't live around here."

"You should come to the house and visit then. He'll be glad to see an old friend."

Quaraun smiled nervously and turned away.

"I did not say we were friends. He will not want to see me. No wizard in these parts will want to see me."

"Of course they will. All the wizards love getting together with other wizards."

"I don't work well with others. I'm solitary."

"Even the solitaries come out to socialize every once in a while."

"No. You don't understand. I am not welcome here. I came on business. I'll only be here an hour or two."

"My father always wants to see every wizard. It is his job after all."

"To regulate the use of magic. Yes. I know it is. Your father is very judgmental and strict. He does not allow many forms of magic."

"Only dark magic and evil forms of sorcery."

"Your father has a lot of opinions on what he believes to be evil and not everyone agrees with him."

The girl suddenly lost her bubbling joy and began to look frightened.

"Are you evil?"

"According to your father, I am."

"You don't look evil."

"I don't feel evil, either, but your father disagrees and he wants me dead."

"Dead?" The girl stop up and stepped back, now looking very afraid. "There are only a few wizards who are so beyond evil that they have a price on their head. You aren't one of them are you?"

"Oh, yes, I'm afraid I am. Your father had quite a high price on my head last I knew. Seems to get higher every year."

"Who are you?"

"No one that concerns you."

"I've never heard father mention a wizard like you. I would have remembered a pink wizard who dresses like a prostitute. And he'd've mentioned you. If he wants you dead, there would be posters and descriptions of you…."

"There are. Oh, there certainly are. I've seen hem. Read them. Not entirely accurate and sometimes too accurate. I've changed."

"You don't seem evil."

"Thank you. There are not many who would agree with you."

"I've meet evil wizards, lots of them, and you can tell in a split second they are evil. I bet if you came to see my father, tell him you changed, he'll see that you are good now."

Quaraun smiled nervously and looked away again, his checks flushed with shame.

"I'm not what you think I am, Girl. There's no coming back from what I've done. Your father is right to call me evil. He is right to want me dead. I am evil and deserve to die. I have done horrible things."

"What have you done that was so bad?"

"I am a murderer."

"You killed someone?"

"I killed a lot of someones."

"Why?"

"They were evil. They deserved to die. Or I….I thought they did at the time. I'm not so sure any more. There was no law willing to serve them justice and so I took justice into my own hands and I used very dark magic to do it."

"Well, that's okay. Evil people get killed all the time. That's why we have so many executioners."

"Yes, I had noticed that when I arrived. You have a great plethora of gallows in this town. And dead men hanging from the trees."

Quaraun rubbed his hand round his throat nervously as if expecting to find a noose there.

"It makes you good if you killed evil people. My father would like that."

"No. Your father and I have different definitions of good and evil. The men I killed, your father thought they were good people, because they killed a man he thought was evil and he will not believe otherwise. He will never believe otherwise."

"Well, why did you kill them? I mean, what they do?"

"They locked me in a tower and tortured me. And then they hung me upside down in a tree in the centre of town, naked, for the villagers to torture me and humiliate me as they say fit. They mutilated me. The scars I still have, the ones that didn't go away. In order to heal, I need time to rest and focus on my healing, but they injured me so bad, that I was unable to heal myself and scars remain. Then they killed my family. "

"You must have done something to be punished that way. What did you do?"

"I fell in love with the wrong person. BoomFuzzy. I am a male and so was my lover. BoomFuzzy took me into his bed and used me as though I were a woman. And I enjoyed it and let him do it, and returned often to his bed for the pleasures he provided me. They tortured me because I bedded with another male. They mutilated me, saying if I was going to act like a female, then I should be one. Now I can love no one male or female."

"Are you a eunuch?"

"More or less. I am mostly intact, but I am badly damaged. I can receive the love of a man, but can no longer give it to anyone. I am mutilated."

"I'm sorry."

"If you choose to love an unsuitable person, one whom others deem unfit, unworthy of being loved, you pay the price."

"What price?"

"They hung me, in a tree. Upside down, by my ankles, naked, in the city square. For everyone to see, for days and days. Crowds came to beat me, whip me, torture me in every way they could imagine. Everyone."

"Everyone?"

"Everyone."

"Who's everyone?"

"My friends, my relatives, my neighbours, my family, my father, my wife, my dear, sweet little children."

"Your children too?"

"I loved my children. But I loved BoomFuzzy more. I had no desire to choose between him or them. I loved them both. They turned my children against me. They made the choice for me."

"How old were your children?"

"Ten and twelve. Two girls. Two boys. Two sets of twins."

"They were so young."

"They are dead now."

"Your children?"

"Everyone. All of them. I poisoned them all. Later. After. My father. My wife. My children. The people from the village. I executed them all. That's the reason I'm wanted for murder. But it was not murder. They were evil people. That's why it was not murder. They deserved to die. They tried to get away with their crimes. They claimed their corrupted atrocities to be respectable good deeds. Crimes masked as laws are still crimes."

"You even killed your children?"

"Yes. I did. I murdered my children."