“Ooooooooh Raaaaazy!”

I’ve been edging through the crowd for the past ten minutes, trying to find Myra amidst a sea of sweaty dancing bodies. Finally I make it upstairs and almost reach the outside world when I hear the voice of a siren calling me.

Temptation, I think. Oh how ye are cruel…

Mia bursts passed all the partygoers to grab me from behind, lifting me up and setting me down in her lap while her hands get to work on my fluffy underbelly.

“You’ve been ignoring me all night, Razzy-Wazzy.”

“I – Mi – ugh,” I groan through her scratches and scritches. My legs start kicking involuntarily.

“I – have to – quest - !”

It’s no good. I’m done for. My panting mouth has betrayed me. This girl’s hands are just too powerful. All I can do is try to force my eyes to beg her for mercy.

She pouts through her exertions.

“You don’t like my hands, Razzy?”

“I – it’s not that I don’t,” I stutter. “It’s just – I – I have somewhere to be…”

The smile that she beams down at me through her cascading blonde curls almost makes me regret my decision.

“You know,” she whispers. “I think she wants to see you, too.”

Her fingers stop their magic touching and I’m placed back on the ground with a little pat on my butt to send me on my way.

“A girl knows when she’s beaten,” she says with a wink. “And I know who you’ve had eyes for all this time.”

“Mia,” I state (quite firmly). “You’re drunk.”

“True,” she giggles, face flushed with the red haze of alcoholic possession. “Just…be good to her, Raziel. Ok? Or you’ll have to deal with me. Hehe!”

“Mia!”

“She’s outside, taking in the night air,” my buxom Elven goddess says with another cheeky wink. “Be a good boy and get her home early tonight, Razzy.”

I back away slowly as she blows me a kiss and eventually just turn tail and make a break for the front door. This has gotten way. Too. Weird.

Outside, the spore-lights of Glenheim are in full glow, throwing their natural luminescence across the entire vertically inclined village.

And on the roof of the house, a little [Snoop] reveals that there’s an armored elven woman sitting by herself, looking over it all.

Ok, Raz, I think as I ready my [Tailcopter] Just…speak from the heart. Tell her how you feel. Tell her –

Wait – why does this sound like I’m trying to do something else, here?

This world and the people in it make things so damn complicated…

I touch down softly beside her and waddle over, trying my best to block out the slightly more baudy music now coming from below.

“Enjoying the view?”

She turns to regard me with detachment. This is the first time I’ve seen her without her blade by her side.

“You should be downstairs with the others,” she replies. “These festivities are for you.”

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“Meh,” I snort, flopping down next to her. “These ears can only take so much.”

“You…do have very long ears.”

“…Thanks.”

She resumes her staring, not really looking at anything in particular. Around us the light-globes dim to a tiny flicker of their former luminescence. Night was descending on the outside world, and Glenheim’s magic was telling its inhabitants that it was well passed their bedtime.

“Palka really made all this, huh?” I say absent-mindedly, not really sure how to say what I have to.

“Yes,” she replies. “This great sanctuary is the fruit of her love and her magic.”

“She must – y’know – really think of you all as her children, huh?”

The way she looks at me now chills me. She brushes her neatly parted fringe and sighs heavily, sinking into her armor.

“Yes. She does.”

Come on, Raz. You need to just come right out and say it. What’s the worst that can happen?

“You know,” I begin, finding my voice. “I’m gonna have to move on soon, aren’t I?”

She doesn’t look at me now, but she nods. Slowly.

“You’ve been a great Master,” I continue. “And – well – I’m still pretty new at all this hero business. I could – y’know – I could – that is, me and Swift could –“

“I know what you are trying to ask me.”

She turns to me as if I’ve performed some magic trick.

“…So?”

It’s all I can say.

She stares at each flickering globe that lights her home, then at her sisters filing out of the hovel below with smiles on their crimson faces, wine spilling from their still-full cups.

“Someone else asked me to leave here, once,” she says, her throat clenching at the memory. “And my response was to throw their request back in their face. The face of my own Master.”

I look at her with wide eyes full of the desire to know more and also knowing that anything else she said probably wouldn’t help me.

“But now…” she continues, even as I’m about to just tell her it’s all good. “Now I am trapped between two paths laid out for me. That of Mistress Palka, who has always defined the glory of my life, and you – the Lightborn – who promises something else. Something I have never truly had.”

She doesn’t say the word. But I know what it is. It’s a word I’ve had to learn the meaning of.

“You said something once, Raziel,” she goes on, staring blankly at the whole village. “Something from your dog brain that I think actually resonated with me.”

There might be an insult hidden in that complement…

“You said we all wish to make our mark on this world.”

“Oh yeah,” I admit. “To be fair, it was from Swift that I heard it first. Don’t tell him that, though. I don’t want it going to his head.”

“I doubt he could ever be as brash as you are,” Myra sighed, standing and facing the pinnacle of the great mushroom. “But the sentiment is correct. We all wish to have purpose. We all wish to be remembered in the time we have on this earth. For Elves like us, it is rare we ever think of this. Our time is so long that it such concerns seem trivial – the domain of humans only. Yet lately I have been thinking that the walls of this place are not where I am destined to remain.”

I paw at her leg, trying to break her out of her weird reverie. This girl is too much of a stargazer.

“Hey,” I say. “You wanna help the world out there, right?”

She looks down at me with a grimace of doubt.

“I owe Palka for what she has done for me and my people. Yet your presence here tells me that I might be destined to leave. If you want the truth, I don’t know what I should do.”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

She knits her brows in confusion. “What do I want?”

I let out a puff of cool, crisp Glenheim air. “Look, I’ve met so many people who tell me about my destiny as Lightborn. But honestly, I never had a choice in the matter. Don’t get me wrong, I’m committed now. But you do have a choice. Palka isn’t forcing you to stay here.”

She looks away. “It is not that simple.”

“How do you know if you’ve never tried?” I ask, eyeing her with a playful wink. “A wise wolf once told me: freedom is a choice.”

She gulps, actually considering it while we share the lamplit sky of midnight. Below, there’s a bustle of activity as the Elves all retire for the night, hugging each other and bidding their friends goodbye. Swiftrunner’s glorious howl bellows from beneath us, followed by a round of applause, surely from his raving fans.

“You have gained Mia’s ability to wink like an idiot.”

I do it again. “It’s one of my best charms, right?”

She sighs, sags her shoulders, and offers me a hand to get down from the roof.

“Someone else once asked me to leave with them, long ago,” she says. “This time, I will at least promise to consider the offer.”

I smile as I hop into her arms, surprising her with my weight.

“That’s all I ask!”

“You…must lay off my sister’s cakes!” she shouts as I scramble in her arms. “She has clearly been too-“

BOOM.

The earth shakes. Every light in the stronghold stutters, bathing us in temporary darkness. A general shout comes from below, followed by the screams of Elves who point to the top of the great sanctuary’s roof.

BOOM.

Ash crumbles from the walls as plants fall to the ground and die. Something slams into the side of the stronghold again and pieces of the walls crack away, smashing against the hovels and bridges. In amidst all this chaos, I expect Myra to drop me instantly. But her hands only clench round my sides.

“Mia!” she shouts. “Mia, are yo-“

BOOM.

The wall behind us crumbles and falls, and darkness finally takes us all.