Underneath the building was an enormous hall carved in the mountain rock. There, Ottaine and Eluik were spending many hours perfecting their physical endurance and martial arts skills. The cantine served as a meeting room and a lecture room (’no need to heat up other parts of the Domicile if there’s just two of you’). For the first few months, they were to continue training and learn about Special Forces. After that time they were to go through an initiation ceremony. At the moment they still knew nothing about it.

Life in the Domicile was a holiday after all the hard work and drills of the Academy. Yes, they still had training and a lot of things to learn. Unlike in the Academy, in the Domicile, they were treated like partners. Even though the morning activities were starting with the sunrise they were so used to the pattern that they didn’t even need an alarm clock. Ottaine noticed she needed fewer and fewer hours of sleep and at the same time every time she was going to bed she was falling into the deepest sleep phase. Sometimes, just like in the Academy, she was entering her room so exhausted she was falling on the floor already dreaming. After a month Greghom, who was preparing for his return to the Southern Military Academy, told them the goal of those tiring training is to teach them how to fully control their energy before they go through the initiation. ‘You can do it, it’s in your blood kids, keep finding the way’. And they did. Eluik said it was like an inner voice telling him exactly what to do and how very precisely. To take a breath like this, to relax the muscles like that, the voice was more and more frequent and clear. Ottaine found herself struggling with the task. There was no voice nor intuition or technique she could learn. She was getting more and more frustrated and even jealous of her mate who was not better than her in any way and didn't work harder than her. Why did he know what to do and she had absolutely no idea!? It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t nice, it was nobody’s fault, but it hurt. She was a tough woman and knew better than to whinge about the way things were, yet she did cry in her pillow once or twice a week angry with impotence.

One day when she was fighting with Eluik in the underground hall, suddenly he froze in one pose, gave her the strangest look and said, a bit surprised:

‘Ota, inhale deeply and at the same time you prepare for attacking me and maybe when you move your...’

He couldn’t finish. Ottaine rushed at him with full speed and power, they fell on the hard floor, and she said ‘Do it again! Do it again!’ with a puerile excitement. They returned to their positions and once more Eluik ‘felt her body and her energy like an echo’ as he described it later, as prompted by her.

From now on he was guiding her through the most exhausting tasks that required a helping metaphorical hand. Not much changed for her, she still struggled to control her energy despite Eluik’s tutorials. There was still impotence and she was somehow dependent on Eluik’s help but she didn’t find it infuriating (to her surprise). It only meant that sometimes there’s nothing you can do but to let someone else take you where you need to be and swallow your silly pride. Others comforted her saying it doesn’t matter that she can’t progress on her own. The fact that she was better at it, with or without help, was enough.

‘You need to feel it in you, don’t have to master it, just feel,’ Shove, the eldest Domicile inhabitant, once said. ‘After the initiation, everything will change anyway.’

Finally, they learnt all about Special Forces. Shove met them one evening in the upper floor lounge, with a glass of wine and maturing cheese, to give the lecture.

‘There are many legends and tales about how essudi were born. An army of mechanical half-alive-half-dead beings that enter the human body to play havoc, destroy and even kill? Do you remember the legend saying that some of them had consciousness and basic intelligence, biological or artificial? Or that tale about experiments on babies done by the same people who resurrected dragons, who artificially changed human features and essudi are descendants of those children? Yes, I like all those legends and tales. The truth is they are just legends, each of them holds illogical and wrong assumptions.

In fact, our origin is not clear. It started somehow, this ‘feature’ was implemented this way or another but in time people lost track of it. We only know it still exists because we see people like us being born. What is the thing that made essudi hundreds of thousands of years ago? What is the genie that sleeps in some people? We are capable of doing things that are impossible for other people. We have inside us some mechanism that harnesses energy from others and we can use it in an extraordinary way. What is this ‘energy’ you should ask? Strength, stamina, resilience and all of them combined.

Essudi are being looked for among military students simply because in the last hundreds of years only there they were being found. You see, you not only are able to resist mental influence or potentially can break a wall using your bare hands. You share some other character features that make you choose this path of life in a uniform. Also, we don’t want to look anywhere else. We want essudi to be Special Forces officers, already prepared to serve the country.

Coming back to the topic, something in humans spreads and is showing itself from time to time randomly. Maybe think of it like... eyes colour. Elves aside, everybody has dark eyes. But from time to time a child is born with eyes of light colour, grey or hazel or even green or blue or amber. The light eyes appear now and then and the same happens with essudi. But that part inside you is dormant until we help you to awaken it. The beginning of this method is unclear so it is unclear how the relationship between dormant and not-dormant parts work. After it’s done you will be able to use life energy to strengthen your body and mind. The downside is you will need to take it from others. Your body will know, without you being conscious of how it functions, how to change the charge in your cells to attract energy particles from another body. Solummger has a law controlling this energy stealing and you must learn it by heart and never break it...’

Shove continued telling them what he knew and answering their questions. At the end of the day, when Eluik and Ottaine were alone, they agreed to be slightly disappointed. They expected a big revelation and all they got was ‘it is what it is, nobody knows how or why, deal with it, goodbye.’

Many evenings they were hanging out in the lounge or in one of the rooms talking and laughing, drinking beer from the nearest (ten miles away) village and just... being happy.

‘Oh, when I think about how my life has changed in the last few years... how it is different from what I imagined it would be by now!’ sighed Eluik one evening. He already felt this nice swish in his head. Leaning back he noticed the chandelier was blurry.

‘I don’t even miss my mates from the Academy. Yaruk, Lanerrik. They are in the Civil now. I was supposed to be with them and look at me now! Watching this strange chandelier.’

‘Right... where is this conversation going?’

‘Does it need to go anywhere? Aren’t we just introducing ourselves... a bit more?’

‘I think you’re right. I was supposed to be in the Infantry or Naval, and I miss Kyeta, my best friend. Now look at me, I’m drinking lager and hang out with my new mate. Am I a traitor?’

‘What do you think Kyeta is doing now?’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t say that! If she’s doing what she likes doing, then it’s someone with wide shoulders and muscular thighs.’

‘Ok, no more. Shut up,’ Eluik cut her with a giggle.

‘Is she so beautiful?’, he asked after a not very long moment.

‘Yes. And she’s an elf, remember?’

‘I don’t really fancy elvish women. I like dark hair and skin that does not show the colour of your veins. It’s creepy.’

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

‘It is! And the hair colour is not what they say. It’s not golden or white, it’s usually like... dirty water.’

‘Ah, you’re talking about the light-haired elves? And what about the eyes?’

‘Oooh I love their eyes! Everybody has a different shade, sometimes the colour changes with the sunlight. But they are prone to sunburn and to wrinkles. I wouldn’t like to be an elf.’

‘You mean more than you are now?’, he laughed referring to her supposed elvish ancestors from the Great River Land.

‘You know what?’ said Ottaine watching the chandelier changing its defined outline, ‘when I was in Sjaell I had this idea. To send every Sjaellenian Elf to Skyer-Er (you know, Eluik, there are no Elves in Skey-Er!) and everybody like you who has never seen an Elf - to Sjaell. Not to see the other world and other people but to experience being looked at like you were a shop exhibition, being pointed at and walking with a court of assisting kids following your every step. Yeah, that’s what I would do if I were a queen.’

‘Ah, so you think I would behave like that in front of an Elf. That’s not very nice of you to judge me by one aspect of my personality or origin. The place where I have lived, the part of the world where I was born. By my curiosity and willingness to find out about other things and asking you questions about elves or... southern weather.’

‘You have never asked me about the weather.’

‘But I would. I’m asking you now. How is the weather down there? Any different from the north?’

‘I have no idea. I have never been to the north.’

‘Aaaah I see. So if you went there you would stare at the distinguished bazaar tents we have on market days, you would follow that one leg and one arm woman who lives on the Mill Road and every morning jumps up and down the Main Street checking her time on the Town-Hall Clock Tower. If you had a child you would point at her with your finger saying ‘look, Ota jr., at this strange woman! Look!’ Wouldn’t you?’ Ota kept staring at the chandelier that stopped swinging some time ago. No, she wouldn’t be like that. Why did she assume he would act stupid in front of something he had never seen before?

‘Understood. Sorry.’

‘That’s ok.’

‘So... changing the subject’, started Eluik sitting upright, ‘we talked about my type of a woman. What is your type of a man?’

‘Oh, dear! I don’t know. I’m not sure if I have one. I like... what do I like? My friend Verlar is very handsome but I wouldn’t call him my type. Not in the way you mean. I never fancied him, adored his look like a piece of art, nothing else. Maybe...’

‘Maybe you like smart guys, eh?’

‘Maybe. I do. Of course, I do. I prefer the brain to the body. But something specifically? Sense of humour? Intelligence? Wisdom? Maybe a sage with a long white beard would be for me!’

‘Didn’t you fancy or were in love with anyone?’

‘No. Never. That arrow always misses me. Even Kyeta had a hard time convincing me to choose someone just to try. So now you know...’

‘I understand. It has never been easy with girls for me either. I never had a girlfriend but I was in love... two... three times if I could count that five-year-old I loved with all my heart and whose name has left my memory together with the smell of my grandfather’s orchard.’

‘And you were five too?’

‘Oh no, I was four. I couldn’t take my eyes off her the whole autumn in kindergarten. Then she moved away and my heart was healing till the Festive Week.’

‘So that’s three times,’ smiled Ottaine.

‘Well, I think we have passed another level of acquaintance. If you don’t mind I will go to sleep but I wanted to tell you one more thing. It’s been nice talking to you. You are a good mate.’ And Eluik left the lounge still finishing his third bottle. Ottaine soon followed his steps thinking why haven’t I fallen in love with anybody yet? What for devil’s sake is wrong with me?. This question she was to answer in the not so distant future. The answer would come to her as a surprise, a very nice surprise with the most beautiful face she has ever seen.

'What the fuck!!!!!' Ottaine burst in front of Shove, Loileh and Verlar Greghom (who came to the Domicile straight from the Southern Military Academy on the first day of half-term) and took two steps back.

‘Holy shit’ whispered Eluik and it was the first swear word Ottaine heard coming from his mouth.

Shove and Loileh started giggling while Greghom, as usual, kept his face straight and emotionless.

‘We bet that you, Ottaine, will be the first to react’ explained Shove and added with fake disappointment:

‘Loileh thought you would like the idea.’

‘Like it!? It’s gross! Disgusting! I think I’m going to wretch!’

‘But, hon, nobody is going to make you drink it,’ Loileh guessed that Ottaine and Eluik, like many before them, wrongly interpreted the meaning of what was just said to them. The legends, after all, stay with the human race embedded in the minds like a memory hidden behind a mist and shadow.

‘We need to infect you with the active blood component to activate the process. The component is in the blood. Absorbing it through the digestive system would be pointless, it must get directly into a vein. If there is nobody with your blood type we will ask the Solummger Science Society to extract erythrocytes and the serum from the sample. We used to have the neutral type but the last donor died fifty years ago. Maybe one of you will be the next one? Who knows. So let’s take the samples from you and get on with the rest.

#

There was no need to ask scientists for help. Neither of them was to become a donor either. The ceremony was to take place during Festive Week. Ottaine imagined the dark room filled with shadowed essudi figures and the sound of secret chants. And the scent of candles, naturally.

In reality, one afternoon they were taken to the ambulatory, a syringe and needle did the job, they were to rest the next seventy-two hours in case any side effects decide to kick in.

Eluik said the next day that he felt ‘funny’ in the head, Ottaine fainted twice but nobody, even she, blinked an eye. The following day she woke up very early feeling strange. She was at the same time light and heavy, calm and agitated, full and hungry. There were two Ottaines in her head and she could think two thoughts at the time. All these feelings and sensations disappeared after a while and she could ‘switch’ to another self without thinking of it, just like riding a bicycle without thinking about keeping the balance. Though that morning she wasn’t sure about how she would be able to deal with it. It reminded her of a very scary moment from eight or nine years ago when she had the misfortune to experience a ‘fen’ wind during a short school excursion on the East Coast. At that time she also felt like there were two people in her head but one of them was telling her all the bad things and made her want to run into the waves and disappear into the depths. The other one couldn’t get through the fog she also felt in her head, until somebody told her, holding her tight, that it’s the wind. Just the wind. That someone was her history teacher, Ms Tormeghom, whom Ottaine adored ever since.

This feeling right now wasn’t as bad and scary and yet the reminiscence was uneasy. Ottaine knocked on Eluik’s door. He opened after a moment and let her in. He hasn’t noticed any change in him yet but it was so good to talk to someone. The essudi in the Domicile were there for them too but they were all older, they had already passed the ‘transformation’ and they were not spending evenings in the lounge drinking lager or ale and philosophising till the morning star brightens the dark horizon. Eluik was her buddy, partner and support. Later that day he described the process as ‘sleeping dimension awakening’ which he didn’t experience as dual feelings and mind but rather a gradual rise of a new Eluik.

From now on they were fully transformed and had all essudi’s abilities. The ability to slow down your breath to the pace that would normally make you suffocate. The ability to have conscious control over all of your body parts, your heart muscles and the smooth muscles (and common sense to never use it). The ability to make people do what you want them to do, control their minds like the best mentalists can but without any effort or preparations. And many more that sometimes seem to be no different from fiction and magic.

The ceremony was prepared for Sunday. They were to find the darkest secrets kept by the Special Forces for centuries or even millennia. The most unbelievable truth was to be revealed and they were to go through the most obscure rituals. That’s what Ottaine and Eluik came up with letting the imagination fly high. They opened the door of the underground hall not knowing what there would be.

There was a cake.

And they were given Special Forces uniforms, everybody congratulated them and then everybody ate the cake and drunk beverages with a fair amount of alcohol. That was it.