Quaraun left the tavern and trudged through the wet, muddy streets, until he made his way back out of the village. He continued walking until he came to a meadow.

"Tall wet grass. Damn."

After walking nearly a six hours through the waist deep tall grass, blueberry shrubs, and thickets, he finally reached the safety of the old growth pine forest, overlooking York Hill, once again. Black smoke billowed up from the mill's row of smoke stacks. By morning 3 of the hundred foot tall chimneys would be gone, along with most of the mill's west end. But the North Dam side would survive. Here it was safe to stay and wait out the massive hurricane.

He searched around a bit for a grove with enough of a flat area for him to set up his tent on, then, pulled out his wand, walked around in a circle for a few moments, muttering enchantments, while drawing sigils in the mud. Moments later, his pink and magenta striped tent POUFFED into existence.

Quaraun used his wand to make a glass-like barrier around the tent, to keep out the wind and rain, and protect it from any trees that might fall during the storm.

Once inside, he hung up his wet cloak and robes and changed into dry ones. For a while he set about to weaving more of his pink and magenta stripe silk and later spent a few hours embroidering other yardages of pink silk.

Outside the rain continued to pour down, while the thunder rumbled and lightening flashed.

"Sounds like a big hurricane. Stuck in the bay and swinging back like a rubber band. I'm gonna be stuck here a few days."

And as he predicated, Quaraun was stuck in this location for several days. The torrential rains of the hurricane whipped through the trees, sending limbs and trees crashing around him.

Quaraun waited out the storm by dying and spinning and sewing and weaving and embroidering. Being a merchant of pink, embroidered silk scarfs and dresses, Quaraun took any opportunity to replenish his stock. In between dyeing silk worm cocoons, spinning silk threads, weaving silk cloth, embroidering silk yardages, and sew silk clothes, he wrote in his scrolls and read his books.

Quaraun lost track of how many days it had being since he set up his tent. This place was secluded and peaceful. No one bothered him, and so he was content to stay put.

The heavy cloud broke open above the tent.

"No," Quaraun said. "That's not correct."

He crossed out the sentence and stared at his scroll, speculating how to better word what he wanted to say.

The heavy cloud broke open above the little pink striped tent.

"Nope, that's not good, either." He scribbled out that sentence as well.

The old Elf sighed, rolled up the scroll, and returned it, his ink bottle and quill back into his pink beaded heart shaped bag of holding.

Writing was not his strong point. Still, Quaraun made a point of writing down the events of each day, at the end of the day, before retiring to bed for the night.

Today was different.

Today, it was raining.

It was still raining.

It had been raining all week.

Quaraun was glad he had decided not to rent a bed or a room or a space on the floor at the overcrowded inn.

Hurricanes usually lasted only a day or so before moving on. This one was stuck in the gulf and had stuck around all week. He couldn't imagine spending a week with that lot at the inn. Of course, they were likely all dead by now anyways.

This spot where he had found to pitch his tent was much nicer.

Quieter.

Peaceful.

And though he hated using magic for everyday things, it had been a simple matter to put up a magic barrier to keep out the rain.

The hurricane was still spinning around like a top, trapped in Saco Bay's massive horseshoe shape, and so instead of moving on, it just kept riding back around.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Two merchant vessels had come crashing down beside the tent. Twenty three more were scattered about the yard of Pepperell Mill. Three of the mill's smoke stacks lay shattered and crumbled not far away. Back in Old Orchard, three hundred acres of apple trees were uprooted and now floating in the nearby Scarborough Marsh. The pier had collapsed, as had the roller coaster and more than 200 hotels. Saco, Biddeford, Old Orchard Beach, and most of the rest of Greater Portland, lay in ruins. Ten thousand dead and counting, many hundreds of bodies would never be found, all ready dragged out to see.

And yet, the storm kept raging, as the death counts continued to rise with each passing day. The biggest Hurricane in Earth's history: The Great Gale of 1846, decimated Maine, and Quaraun, once again had a front row seat, just as he had, hundreds of times before.

Stuck in the horseshoe of Saco Bay, the hurricane made it's way across Maine yet again, for the seventh time in the past three days. It was why hurricanes did so much damage whenever they hit Maine, and it was fortunate that hurricanes rarely hit Maine. But the hurricane had been pelting the area for more than a week now, and was no longer a hurricane, but rather was not just a very large storm. The Saco River had flooded every town along its banks and Pepperell Mill, in Pepper Valley, Biddeford, was underwater and had been evacuated.

Quaraun could have moved on, but he was in the high grounds, and he liked sitting and looking down on the Saco River estuary. And watching this storm, had become an annual event, something he did every life time. It was the birthplace of BoomFuzzy, his lover from long ago. Biddeford had been BoomFuzzy's home, and though Quaraun had never been to Pepper Valley while The Elf Eater of Pepper Valley had been alive, he returned here each year to be nearby to the place his dead lover had called home.

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BoomFuzzy.

This was BoomFuzzy's home.

The place they had never been while BoomFuzzy was still alive.

Quaraun had only one wish: he wished that BoomFuzzy were still alive.

He watched as thunder crashed against the horizon, and a cold wind whipped through him as rain started to fall. There was no one here, only himself.

He closed his eyes, leaned his head back and let the rain pour upon him, let himself feel its chill. It had been raining all week. It had rained and rained and rained.

There were things about Biddeford he could not change, would not change, no matter how hard he tried. An so, Quaraun were arrive here, every year, every spring. Every winter. To sit with the Saco River and watch the rain.

But with the hurricane arriving only days after Quaraun did, the elderly wizard found it difficult to go outside and watch the birds and fishermen in Saco Bay. Of course, there were neither birds nor fishermen out there right now anyway, any that had been foolish enough to not leave the area, were not splattered dead on the sides of the big red brick mill buildings.

Quaraun had busied himself with weaving and embroidering and sewing, the entire week, but, the ground was cold and damp, and he was old and weak. His bones were hurting, his hip was aching, and the moist, foggy, rain filled air, was wrecking havoc on his rheumatism and arthritis, making it painful for him to sit at his weaving loom today.

And so it was not yet night and not yet time for bed, but Quaraun was sitting in his tent, contemplating going back to bed, to sleep off his aching bones and hope that the rain will finally have stopped by the time he woke up.

Listening to the pitter patter of the rain, Quaraun was stuck sitting in his tent, waiting for the rain to stop, not quite tired enough to sleep, but hurting too much to do anything else.

Some days, immortality and eternal beauty were nice.

Other days, like today, the side effects of old age reminded Quaraun just how very old he was.

The ancient wizard tried to figure out how old he was. The problem with this, was he didn't know exactly when he was born. Quaraun had been born some time around the Human's year of 800 A.D.

The other issue with this, was he did not know what the current Human year was.

The other problem, was the local Humans were protest English rule, so, they had stopped using the English calendars, around the same time they had tossed all the English tea in the Atlantic Ocean.

Quaraun was not good with math or numbers in general, so he struggled to calculate his age.

An exact age was near impossible to determine, but even a rough estimate was difficult.

Quaraun finally concluded that he was somewhere older than four hundred years old and somewhere younger than a thousand years old, and decided that seven hundred and fifty years sounded like a good number. So declared himself to be seven hundred and fifty years old. And he had spent the past three hundred or so years telling people that he was seven hundred and fifty years old.

And now today, he sat in his pink and magenta stripped silk tent, resting on his pink and purple striped silk pillows, wearing his pink and fuchsia stripped silk robes, wrapped him his pink and orange striped shawl, wondering how many years it had been since he had started telling people he was seven hundred and fifty years old. He wondered this now, today, because his creaky bones were hurting worse than usual and he wondered could it be he was now over a thousand years old?

After concluding that he must by now be over a thousand years old, the old Elf sat on his pile of pink striped silk cushions for a few more moments, struggling to determine of what he could do to pass the time. Specifically, he concluded that being old was a depressing thought, and he wondered what it was he could do to take his mind off the thought of old age.

The ancient wizard contemplated getting up and working on his weaving, needlepoint, or sewing some more, but his hip was sore, so he continued to rest lazily on the pillows.

Quaraun suffered from poor health. This was not because of his greatly advanced age, however. He'd been born a runt. Small, sick, and weak, straight from the womb, no one had expected him to live to the end of his first week. His youth had been spent mostly indoors, in bed, reading books. There had been little else he was capable of. Though he had grown stronger as he grew older, he remained forever, two heads shorter than most other men and a full head shorter than most women. Quaraun wondered what it was that bothered him most: being short, or that he had gotten old?

At least he had immortality. That was the advantage of being a necromancer who was soul bound to a lich. The lich was immortal and now, so too was the necromancer whom had created the lich.

But immortality did not mean a life without suffering, or existence without pain, discomfort, and illness.

There were days when even the smallest injury would cause him agony; days when the slightest movement would make his chest tighten up and lungs burn and throat clench up.

Even the smallest things could kill him.

He could remember times when nothing was wrong with him. When he did not have any illness or pains to cause him grief. But this was his eternal punishment for a self wish, carelessly worded.

It made him wish for death. He knew that he should never wish for death. Yet every time he thought about it he found himself wishing, hoping and praying that he would die from something. Anything.

So he lived with it. He took whatever the universe dealt him with stoically.

And after ten thousand years of reaching the implosion of Earth, going back in time to start life over again, Quaraun had become bored with everything in general.

The Phooka of a thousand deaths. An undead lich, cursed to live his life over and over, endless eternities. BoomFuzzy. Quaraun knew the risk of binding his soul to a lich, but he'd done it anyways. And now he too, was cursed to relive life again and again, forever.

Immortality. Deemed by Humans to be a thing to strive for. To live forever. Was that not the ideal life?

Quite the contrary.

The aches and pains of decrepit age creaked their insufferable discomforts through Quaraun's elderly tendons and ancient bones. Pangs twisted inside of the aged wizard's body while miseries racks his joints, and the damp, dank, musty weather had only made every ounce of suffering that much more unbearable.

Quaraun decided that since rain cascaded down outside, and this tiny field seemed off the main road and somewhat secluded, with so little chance of anyone disturbing him, to set up his bedroll and go to sleep for a few hours.

And so the dripping wet drenched Di'Jinn silk merchant did precisely this, after spending quite some time first drying his long floor sweeping hair.

Quaraun listening to the soft hum of the crickets, cicadas, and frogs croaking and chirping and buzzing. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine that he was lying in the soft warm furs that lined BoomFuzzy’s bed.

The furs were soft and fluffy and smelled like him, and there was a comforting heat that wrapped around Quaraun when he slept. He wondered if it could feel as comfortable to anyone else, but he never felt more comfortable than with the furry blankets.

Feeling BoomFuzzy’s gentle caress, warm flesh and passionate kisses. He tried to remember what BoomFuzzy smelled like. BoomFuzzy had a distinctive scent to him warm and sensual like a mix of honey and moss blended with cloves and exotic spices and peppermint. BoomFuzzy spent most of his hours in the kitchen cooking candy, pulling taffy, braiding peppermint sticks, and rolling chocolate. The scent of sweet spices and pepper weren’t absorbed into his hair, skin, and clothes. A wonderful smell of candy hovered around BoomFuzzy everywhere he went.

A few moments later, Quaraun drifted off into a peaceful slumber, to dream pleasant dreams of his youth spent with his lover, BoomFuzzy.

"Argh!" Quaraun half screamed from fright and half yelped from pain in his hip, as he felt someone shaking him out of his dream.

A newcomer, a stranger, a mature female Human, stood in the eccentric silk weaver's tent with him, leaned over the dishevelled sleeping silk merchant, shaking him, struggling to wake him.

"You gotta help me! Please!" The woman desperately pleaded, almost yelled, while trying to nevertheless be quiet and whisper. "Please, help me!"