"I'm the last Elf and live in Human society now, remember?" Quaraun stated. "Plus I wasn't raised by Elves. Since I was 9 years old I was raised by a Thullid priest who lived in a Human village. I'm more at home with Humans than Elves."

"Yet ya speak Elvish," BoomFuzzy said. "And make me speak Elvish to ya, when ya knows I barely know de language."

"I don't make you speak Elvish.

"Ya only talk to me in Elvish. Ya does no talk in a language I can understand better."

"BoomFuzzy. You know better than that. You can speak to me in whatever language you want. I know eighty-four languages, remember? There is bound to be a language you can speak fluently that I can understand. And you changed the subject. I was pontificating and you interrupted my pontificating and now I don't know what it was I was saying. You made me forget."

"Yi were saying how ya dids no believe in concept of evil and how evil was just a way to dehumanize others."

"Oh! Yes. That's right! Everyone has fears, things they are afraid of, personal things like loneliness, deprivation, or insignificance, and when you call a person 'evil' you put yourself in a mindset of dehumanizing them, removing from them, those fears they have, so that you can see them in your mind as emotionless and pitiable. When you call a person evil, you set yourself in a frame of mind that allows you to remove from them everything that gives them a connection to you, which makes it easy for you to hurt them, tease them, bully them, even kill them, because by branding them as evil, you have labelled them as not a part of worthy society."

"And ya point?"

"I don't believe you are evil."

"Sure ya do."

"No." Quaraun shook his head. "I don't. I wouldn't love you if I did. I couldn't love you, if I did."

"I am Evil. Evil, with a capitol E."

"Says who?"

"Everybody says so, Quaraun. Ya knows dat."

"Everybody is wrong than."

"Ya going to be de one tree what stand against the wind, clinging to the cliff when all the rest fell down the mountain together, eh?"

"You are NOT evil."

"Nobody wants me here."

"Here? Then we go somewhere else."

"No. Here on this planet. Dis realm. Earth hates me."

"You need to get out of that mindset. I love you and I somebody. And as long as that is true, than not everyone hates you and not everyone sees you as evil."

"Everyone celebrated me death."

"I didn't."

"They made holidays and feast days on the anniversary on day me died."

"I know they did. It was terrible of them and I hate them for it. Death is not a thing to celebrate or leap for joy about. One should never be happy to see the life go out of another being. That just goes to show right there that THEY not you were the ones with evil thoughts in their hearts and minds."

"T'oughts ya did no believe in evil?"

"I don't believe in evil, as an entity like Humans do."

"What way at Humans do it?"

"Humans call another evil, so they can feel justified in hurting the person they call evil. They think if they call a child evil, that makes it all right to beat the child to death, because now they can say it was just an evil entity, a Demon or Spirit that just looked like a child. People don't want to admit that they commit evil acts when they beat a child to death, so they lay blame on the victim, by saying the child is evil, saying the child wasn't Human, saying the child was a Devil, so they can feel justified in smashing the child's face in with a brick. In my experience, every person who runs around with the word 'evil' on their lips, is themselves evil and is only calling others evil as a way to draw attention away from how evil they themselves are."

"And all dat comes from a man who beat hims own children to death."

"I didn't... I never hit my children."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Ya killed them."

"I gave them poisoned candy, knowing it was poisoned. I didn't beat them to death."

"Did ya not do it because ya saw them being evil?"

"I... " Quaraun fell silent.

"So speaking from experience in being one who kills a child while calling them evil, eh?"

"That's not what happened."

"I seem to recall otherwise. Did ya not lay blame de victim for why ya had to kill ya own wee younguns?"

"I don't believe in laying the blame of your own evil deeds on the victims."

"No?"

"No."

"Why'd ya kill ya children, Quaraun?"

Quaraun didn't answer.

"Quaraun. I know what happened. I ghost, remember. I walk among de living seeing all, hearing all, and not being able to interact with none of it. And somehow ya figured out a way to see and hear me and for dat I am grateful, as it is dreadfully lonely to be a ghost and have no one, not even other ghosts, see or hear you. But all dat means is I saw what ya did. I heard why ya said ya did it. Ya killed ya children, Quaraun, because ya t'oughts they had become evil and ya wanted to save dair souls before they turned evil. Ya said it yarself, Quaraun. Was dat not ya laying blame on de victim, calling dem evil to make it easier for ya to slit their throats after ya poisoned dair candy?"

"They were celebrating your death."

"They did not know me, Quaraun. They was born after I died. There was no evil in their hearts, Quaraun. No malice for me. They were singing a holiday son they heard others singing that day at the festival. That's all they did. They did not even understand the meanings of the words. Quaraun, ya killed ya children because ya did no want to hear de words of dat song coming from dair voices."

"They were celebrating your death."

"They went to de village with dair mother to celebrate de anniversary of the day a great monster died and made de world sage to live in by not being alive any more."

"It was your death they were celebrating."

"Aye. But dey were your children, Quaraun."

"My children were learning to hate you."

"Rather than kill them, ya could have taught them de ot'er side of de story. Taught dem why ya loved me, why dey had no reason to fear me. Ya did not have to kill them. Ya overreacted Quaraun. Ya excel at overreacting. You know dat does ya not?"

"It made them happy to sign about your death."

"There is no greater joy in the hearts of Man then to feast in celebration of me death. And here you be trying to resurrect me, t'inking yarself not evil for doing so and wondering why de Humans wants ya as dead as me. But I comes anyways because I have to. I is needed. I is hero Humans have no understanding of. De see me as de wants to see me and de wants to see me as evil. So be it. And if I be a hero, I need to be a good one."

"How much death is too much death?"

"What?"

"How much will the body break if it is subjected to that pain, that pressure, of too much death? Is too much death possible? Is there such a thing as enough life to be worth living? How much death can one witness before death just becomes meaningless and you feel nothing any more?"

"Yis asking hard questions to answer."

"I think it's a common question among the survivors. What if it were you, in your own time? In the end, how much would they have to endure and die for their people? For their home? It's an impossible question to answer without first understanding the reality of what they're facing. How many times did we lose our family on a mission? I think I've seen too much death. I'm just desensitized to it now."

"Aye. I see dat. It worries me, Killing comes easy for ya now."

"It does."

"It should not."

"The way I am, I cannot help but feel like killing has become natural now. Like I'm always meant to be doing it. Like it is the only thing I know how to do. Like I'm born with this knowledge in my soul and my mind and no matter what I do I cannot change that."

"What happened to ya?"

"Someone once lost their entire race of people. They claimed that their world had been invaded by a new species, and that their leader and some of his warriors escaped with me from the planet they had been forced to leave. He wanted us both dead, so he made sure we could never return and that our species would never live again."

"The Thullid invasion of the Moon Elves."

"Yes, but were were peaceful. I we only killed to survive. This Elf, he was dying. Weak and sick. He would not have lived anyways and his body would have been left to rot. What was the harm in taking his body and making it my own? I hurt no one. Nor did my mother. We are all alone here."

"No, we is not. We have each other."

"Yes. But you are dead. You are a ghost. I can not touch you, nor you me."

"Aye. But we is together. And that makes us safe."

"Yes, yes it does."

Quaraun was tired.

Tired of fighting, just for the right to stay alive and live in peace.

Tired of running.

Running from The Guild.

Running from The Justice Mages.

Running from Humans.

Quaraun was just tired.

Exhausted and ready to let go and sleep forever and ever and ever. He'd been through hell. He'd done everything he could possibly do to get where he was, and all he'd been able to do was run. He'd fought monsters. He'd tried desperately to keep his friends alive but...he couldn't save them all.

He couldn't save BoomFuzzy.