~o0o~ Chapter 4 ~o0o~

"Will you stop touching me!" Quaraun yelled at Unicorn.

"No. I refuses to."

Quaraun had just finished brushing his twelve foot long hair, an endeavour that took several hours, and Unicorn, a little black furred trickster Faerie pony with a gleaming silver horn on his head, had decided it would be great fun to mess the Elf's hair back up. He had run up behind the Elf and twirled Quaraun's Rapunzel locks around his horn, but when he tried to run off afterwards, somehow got his horn stuck in Quaraun's impossibly long hair, which Quaraun was now trying to untangle.

“I canna move,” Unicorn whimpered mournfully, now regretting having messed with the Elf's hair.

“You shouldn't have stuck your horn in my hair.”

Unicorn shook his dreadlocked mane, trying to get his horn out of Quaraun's hair, but just made the tangled mess worse.

“Stop moving,” Quaraun snarled.

“Just grab some scissors and cut it.”

“I'm not cutting my hair! My father cut my hair. I'm never cutting my hair again.”

“Ya Daddy issues is becoming problem.”

“Shut up.”

“What ya gonna do in a few years when ya needs servants to carry ya hair?”

“It won't get that long.”

“No? It already long enough that ya always tripping on it. And ya canna sit down any more without making a fuss over where to puts ya hair otherwise ya can'na move iffy ya sits on it.”

Quaraun's pink pupiled blue eyes flashed with anger, as he continued, now silently to unwrap his hair from the pony's spiralled horn.

“Ya too easy for enemies to catch now. Ya wants to run away, all dey has to do is grab ya hair un then ya canna move.”

“I'm not cutting my hair.”

“Ya does nae have to cut it short. Just cut two or t'ree feet off of it.”

Unicorn wiggled again.

“Stop moving. You're making it worse.”

“Dis were bad idea.”

“Obviously.”

“Why did I do dis?”

“Because you're a nut.”

“I wants to run free. Galloping through the fields,” Unicorn moaned sadly.

“You could be if you hadn't been trying to annoy me.”

“It fun to annoys ya. Makes me horny unicorny.”

“Stop moving.”

“I can nots.”

"Stop it!"

"No."

"I'm gonna push you off a cliff," the pink Necromancer snarled.

"Oooooooooh!" the undead pony whinnied excitedly. "Go ahead. I ain't died by cliff death yet. Might be fun to die cliff death. Shatter me guts all over de rocks, let the birds feast on me entrails. Heck, let me know the next cliff ya sees un I'll save ya the trouble un go jump off it meself. Goody, goody, goody, goody. A new way to die!"

Quaraun glared at the Unicorn, who right now was purple and had a mouthful of Quaraun's long white hair gripped firmly in his teeth.

Unicorn in life had been a Phooka. A Faerie Horse that lived in the swamps and feasted on lost travellers. His real name was Gwallmaiic, though Quaraun frequently referred to him as BoomFuzzy, and he had been many centuries ago, the King of the Realm of Fae, a job he never enjoyed as his true passion in life was cooking. Unicorn was a gourmet chef.

Gwallmaiic was a shape shifting prankster Fae chef from Pepper Valley, who's primary diet consisted of Humans, but over time he'd developed a taste for Elves and so had switched from eating Humans to eating Elves, thus how he had been nicknamed The Elf Eater of Pepper Valley.

Originally from Scotland, Gwallmaiic had grown bored with slaughtering Elves in Europe and set his sights on the New World, spending the past few centuries living in Nova Scotia terrorizing the Human settlers. He had roamed aimlessly from the frigid Far North down the coast line all the way to the tropical Everglade swamps. Then back to the North again. He went inland to the Great Lakes for a while, where he ate the tree dwelling Cookie Elves after learning to bake Elf shaped cookies.

After eating all the Keeblers, Gwallmaiic headed to the North Pole to be the head chef at Santa's Village, making friends with the evil old red robed, child murdering Frost Lich Leprechaun and his Phookan partner in crime Krumpas.

Gwallmaiic lived with Santa and Krumpas for several years helping them poison gingerbread and give gifts to children as a diversion to the fact that they were kidnapping other children, which Santa kept in his vast frozen dungeons. In one night the three of them could round up enough children to last for a year, and when the food supply ran out, Santa would head out once again with a jolly Ho-Ho to give out gifts while Gwallmaiic and Krumpas took other children to refill their food strange.

Unfortunately, Gwallmaiic had discovered he much preferred the taste of Santa's Christmas Elves to the taste of Santa's kidnapped Human children and so Santa asked him to leave, and thus Gwallmaiic, when just passing two thousand years old, found himself in a village the Humans refereed to as: Ivujivik, Quebec, just south of Santa's Village.

Ivujivik, a word which means: the place where ice accumulates because of strong currents, was not far below the North Pole. 1242 miles north of Montreal, Ivujivik was Quebec's northernmost village. Nestled in a small, frozen sandy cove, the village was surrounded by imposing cliffs that plunged dangerously into the storm tormented waters of Digges Sound.

Ivujivik is the place where the strong currents of Hudson Bay and the Hudson Strait clash. Icebergs and rainbow coloured lights are frequently seen off the shore. During high tides, hapless animals are crushed between violent movements of sea ice. Few dared brave the icy wastelands the separated Ivujivik from the rest of the world.

Ivujivik was isolated from everything and from the undiscerning eye of a random traveller, there was nothing here but ice and snow. No life other then the seals and penguins and the polar bears who ate them. On the Ungava Plateau which crowned the cliffs around Ivujivik, the only plants which stubbornly clung to the rocky tundra were lichen.

Different peoples, including the nomadic ancestors of the Inuit, had inhabited the coast and islands of this area for about 4000 years, with seal, walrus and beluga forming their staple food source. But the populations were small, with the Humans of the area living in tiny tribal family units that followed the migration of the wildlife. Marine animals were abundant in these waters. Strong currents prevented the sea from freezing allowing hunting year-round. The myriad of islands housed waterfowl in the short frozen summers.

The Humans who lived here were of little consequence to our story. It was not the Humans of Ivujivik that made this area important to our tale, but the rather the Elves of Ivujivik.

The Elves of Ivujivik.

Small, reclusive, rarely seen.

Living in subterranean sea caves along the shore, exiting to the over world only under the safety on moon light, quickly scurrying back to their underworld at the slightest sound.

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The Elves of Ivujivik lived in total isolation from all other life.

They survived on the mushrooms and lichen growing on the walls of their opulatant crystal encrusted cave homes.

Cut into the cliffs of Ivujivik, dwelling like potter wasps hanging precariously off the jagged rocks.

Rumours existed the world over, of a race of tiny albino Elves, insane from their centuries of isolation, hidden somewhere in the Deep North.

High elves, who believed themselves Gods, because there was no one near by to question their belief.

Long thought to be myths, it was in Ivujivik that Gwallmaiic had found the most outlandish race of High Elves he had ever encountered: The elusive Moon Elves.

Moon Elves.

Unearthly albinos, with long thin, delicate pointed ears towering a foot over their heads. Whiter than the snow itself, with phosphorescent skin that glowed during a full moon. White hair, white skin, and pale frost blue eyes, so pale they looked white from a distant.

No other race of Elf had their strange glowing skin.

No other race of Elf had their strange foot long long ears.

No other race of Elf had their unnaturally white skin and hair.

No other race of Elf spoke a dialect anything remotely close to the language of these alien space Elves, trapped on a planet not their own.

Like Humans, most Elves were jewel tone shades of beige, topaz, umber, sepia, and copper. White skinned Elves were even more rare then white skinned Humans, to the point that many people did not believe there even existed such a thing as a white skinned Elf. The palest Elves known were the Sun Elves and the Silver Elves. The Silver Elves being cream coloured, green eyed Elves and the Sun Elves being yellow eyed blonds.

By the time Gwallmaiic had found the Moon Elves, the Silver Elves were already extinct, and both the Moon Elves and the Sun Elves were numbered at fewer than a 1,000 Elves total between the two, the Moon Elf village having a population of 349 at the time it was decimated.

Like other cold region Elven races, the Moon Elves of Ivujivik were small, though not as tiny as the four foot tall Cookie Elves of Lake Gitchegumee or the even smaller Christmas Elves of the North Pole. The Moon Elves were the tallest of the Arctic Eves, most standing around five feet tall, with the tallest of them never reaching to six feet.

Quaraun himself was five feet and six inches tall, which was quite tall by Arctic Elf standards, but having been raised with Humans who were considerably taller then he, Quaraun over time had developed a severe inferiority complex over his lack of height.

The Moon Elves of Ivujivik, were a near mythic race of Elves, often mentioned in legends but never seen. So rare were they, that many Humans said they never existed at all. They lived underground, in crystal caves, cut deep in the snow cliffs of the Deep North.

For centuries people had wandered into the Deep North hoping to get a glimpse of these rare exotic whiter then white albino Elves, but few had ever sighted one. It was by chance and dumb luck that Gwallmaiic had discovered the Moon Elf village, here on the cliffs of Ivujivik.

Gwallmaiic had spotted a Moon Elf, Quaraun, travelling through the Frozen Forest a few miles to the South of Ivujivik and followed him to see where he went.

Quaraun stood out from the other Moon Elves by the way he dressed. Though born here in Ivujivik, Quebec, Quaraun had spent most of his youth and young adult years living in the burning deserts of Persia, raised with Gypsy Humans and DiJinn Demons, while learning the art of wizardry,

Thus, while other Moon Elves wore thick white polar bear skins and protective white beluga leather, Quaraun wore brilliant coloured silks, rich with heavy embroidery, and as his favourite colour was pink, he was most often seen in varying shades of pink. And so while other Moon Elves were near invisible as they moved white against white in the endless snow, Quaraun could be seen from many miles away in his eye popping shades of pink, the only colour among the blinding white snow.

Upon discovering the location of the Moon Elf Village, King Gwallmaiic, Elf Eater of Pepper Valley, built himself a gingerbread house at the southern edge of Ivujivik, at the edge of the Frozen Forest, where the tree line ended and the tundra began, shape shifted himself into the form of a half-Elf named BoomFuzzy and began selling drugged candy to the Elves.

He soon discovered that the Moon Elves tasted vastly different from other Elves and the reason they looked so different from other Elves was because they were in fact, not Elves at all, but creatures from another planet, trapped here centuries ago by their space ship having crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.

None of the survivors of the crash knew how to repair their damaged ship and the local Humans mistook them for Elves, so they pretended to be Elves and never left. After centuries of pretending to be Elves, they eventually forgot they were not Elves. The Moon Elves bred only with themselves, the Silver Elves, and the Sun Elves, because they were the three races to survive the crash, none of them being true Elves, all of them being alien to planet Vesonta.

Quaraun was seen as a blight to his village. He'd become infected with a parasite known as a Thullid, a Demon that possessed people by eating their brain. A common creature on his home planet, but rarely seen here on the planet the Humans called Earth.

Thullids were tiny larvae, that burrows into the brain, slowly eating the victim's brain and growing to fill the skull. They hollowed out their victim's body, killing the Elf and wearing it's empty husk of a body like clothing.

While Quaraun was born a Moon Elf, the Elf had died in childhood and a Thullid now lived inside. It was for this reason he was sent far away to the Desert of the DiJinn in Persia. While the Moon Elves suspected him of being a Thullid, they could not prove this fact without killing him, cutting his head open, and looking inside to see if there was a brain or a JellyFish looking creature inside.

And as Quaraun was the only male heir to the Moon Elf throne, they did not want to risk smashing open his skull until they first had a second male heir to replace him. So they sent him away to forget about him and focused on producing a new male heir. They did not expect all of his siblings to be born female, nor did they expect him to one day, 75 years later, to walk back into the village, now a famous wizard, dressed in eye blinding pink dresses.

It was Quaraun's being a famous wizard that was bothering the Moon Elves most of all. If he was a nobody, they could smash his head open, slaughter the Jelly beast living in his skull, and just let one of his sisters be a regent Queen until she gave birth to a suitable male heir to be King.

But Quaraun was a wish granting wizard with a high rate of success and cults of adoring worshippers were popping up all over the planet in his honour. Superstitious Humans in desperate situations were singing praises to the Moon Elf whom many were now calling a god.

The Dark Ages of Humanity were trying times, with pestilence, war, famine, sickness, and plague around every corner. To find an immensely powerful, yet kind hearted Elf wizard who was not prejudiced against non Elven races, and whom had both the desire and ability to help every one he meet, was a blessing unlike anything the Humans had ever known.

The Pink Necromancer was being hailed a Messiah come to save Humanity, and when he walked from Persia back to the Moon Elf Village on the cliffs of Ivujivik, Quebec, he had done so with disciples of desperate Humans following along behind him, setting up road side altars and worshipping him all the way.

These roadside altars now acted as markers to pilgrims seeking healing of their sick and raising of the dead. A path straight to the centuries hidden Moon Elf Village.

The Moon Elves liked their privacy. They did not like the pilgrims, the cultists, the disciples, the tourists, the greedy, the needy, the beggars, and the worshippers who were making their way to Quebec in search of Quaraun.

For thirty years they held their peace, but it did not go unnoticed that a Phooka had arrived in the Village and was killing the Moon Elves one by one, nor did it go unnoticed that Quaraun, was not only dressing like a she-Elf, but that he was acting like a female as well, bedding with other males, allowing other males to copulate with him as though he were a female. It was his bedding not only with other males, but with non-Elves that outraged the Moon Elves and in the end resulted in them finally taking action.

And so the Moon Elves began hatching a plot to kill two birds with one stone and get rid of both the Thullid infested, sodomizing wizard and the Elf Eating Phooka at the same time.

Unfortunately for them, they did not know that just outside their village was camped an army of Liches, lead by the Dark Elf Necromancer General Gideon the Great, waiting for the attack command of their King.

The Moon Elves attacked in single accord, their peaceful and completely harmless wizard, torturing him and nearly killing him, setting a trap and using his bloody body as bait for the Elf Eater, not knowing that it was the Elf Eater himself who was Quaraun's lover.

The enraged King slaughtered the Moon Elves whom had crippled his Elf, not expecting his General to turn on him in mutiny. For the first time, Quaraun took the life of another, killing Gibedon to save King Gwallmaiic.

Gibedon, the most feared Necromancer of all, the General who lead the Lich Lords to battle decimating everything in their path, was defeated by a little peace loving Elf who now found himself in control of the most fierce Liches on the world. And thus started the now widespread rumour that Quaraun must be the most powerful wizard in the world, for who other than an even more powerful wizard, could defeat the previously undefeated Gibedon the Great?

The truth was far less dramatic. Gibedon's death had been an accident. Quaraun grabbing a dagger that lay on the ground and more or less tripping and falling and inadvertently stabbing and killing Gibedon with a fatal knife wound. There was nothing wizardly or powerful about how Quaraun came to kill Gibedon.

But the rumours strayed far from the truth and every attempt by Quaraun to correct the rumours was laughed off as his being overly modest. No one would believe that Gibedon's death had been an accident and so wild tales of Quaraun's vast abilities as an all powerful Necromancer circulated far and wide with people now believing the gentle harmless wizard to be a horrific monstrous sorcerer.

But the dagger that killed Gibedon, was the same dagger that Gibedon had run through Gwallmaiic's belly moment earlier. Gwallmaiic was badly wounded in the fight and despite Quaraun's efforts to save him, the infection grew worse, causing the Phooka to take his own life in order to avoid the agony of a long and slow death.

With his lover dead Quaraun's mind sunk into madness, as he hatched a plot for revenge, living up to the reputation people had falsely given him, spending one hundred years building a massive Necromantic ritual unlike anything any wizard had ever attempted before: to build the ultimate Lich, a Lich that was truly immortal, and could never be killed, a Lich that could die as many times as, as many souls as it took to bring him to life.

On the hundredth anniversary of BoomFuzzy's suicide Quaraun murdered every last Moon Elf, including his wife and children, to resurrect the evil King Gwallmaiic, as the Lich, BoomFuzzy the Unicorn.