Chapter 1

When I woke up, I found myself in utter confusion. What surrounded me was not the unflattering walls of the stingy apartment that I was used to living in, instead, I was surrounded by more wilderness than I had seen in years. The sounds of an old malfunctioning TV were instead replaced with a cacophony of creatures, some of them sounded familiar but others I had no basis on what to match them with.

My brain swam with questions: How did I get here? What was I doing here? What happened to me? Yet as I dwelt on these questions, answers seemed to pop into my head. I got here by traveling with my companions. I was looking for ancient ruins in the forest, and I did something shameful, so I took this expedition upon myself. No matter how deeply I thought, the answer to my last question never got answered.

Wait I'm getting distracted by digging too deep into that last question. First, how was I getting answers to questions I don’t know the answers to? But internal questions aside, I traveled with companions? Focusing on my surroundings, I took in every detail of the makeshift camp. The camp was in a dugout area surrounded by the roots of a giant tree on the scale with a redwood tree. In the center was a dying campfire, it was large enough to provide warmth to the entire campsite, but was small enough to not attract predators.

Scattered around the campsite was a mixture of camping supplies. A few small travel packs lay together on one of the roots. On my side of the camp was a strange-looking bed role, on one of the bed roles was a person. The only defining features I could see were short braided brown hair and simple clothing. Looking at this figure had me wondering what I looked like.

Looking down I immediately noticed that my chess was protruding and a long brade of blond hair was down to one side. Am I a girl? It was the only thing that passed through my mind, for the past twenty-odd years I had lived my life as a man. Now I had to get used to this different body and all the quirks that came with it. As I stood up there seemed to be a disconnect from what I had imagined standing up would be like. I stumble a little bit but the muscle memory of this body seemed to take over making a smooth recovery.

“Princes, are you ok?”

I spun to face my questioner, as with the getting up I almost fell over with how quickly I turned. Standing in front of me was a girl who looked to be in her early 20s. She wore very simple clothing covered with fitted leather armor, however, that was not the most striking aspect of bout her. The girl had white hair tied into a braid that contrasted perfectly with her stone-gray skin, her face was the definition of beauty.  It looked sharp yet supple at the same time. The look was disgustingly close to the uncanny valley for me, the only thing that brought me out of the feeling was her silver eyes and ears. Her ears were longer than normal human ears and came to a pointed tip.

She was an elf, and a dark elf at that. She is a Moonseeker, the thoughts caught me off guard but it was the thoughts of this body correcting my mistake. So if she is a dark elf, Moonkseeker, then that means I am an elf as well, Sunseeker. Bingo I was an elf, Sunseeker, quite, based on that fact, given that I have been staring at this elf, Moonseeker, she must be quite worried about me.

“Princes, I'm sorry to ask, but are you ok?” her voice was smooth and deeply feminine there was a little bit of gravel to it, but it greatly complimented her appearance.

“y-yes” speaking felt stranger than walking, it felt as though there was no disconnect between what I wanted to say and what was said. But it was strange hearing a voice that was not my own speak the words I wanted to say.

“Are you sure, you don’t look well Prin-”

“It's ok, just a little shaken.” my companion's face had a perplexed look. “Sorry, I had a bad Dream.” she now wore a more perplexed and worried look.

“What's a dream?” the dark elf's question threw me for a loop, was dream not in their vocabulary? What would be a good substitute for the world dream, Vision?

“A vision I guess?” Her face was now a mixture of surprise and horror even though she tried to hide it, I wanted to ask what her issue with what I said was but what was her name? The question was pointed towards this bodyes memory and the answer followed shorty, Deslan.

“Declan, did I say something wrong?”

She shook her head in relief. “no, you didn’t say anything wrong. I'm just surprised that you would share something incredibly personal with me.” immediately I felt regret, did I spill something that was meant to be secret, Yes.… Maby? How did this body not know unless it didn’t know itself? The best thing to do now is damage control.

“Daslan, I would appreciate it if you didn’t spread this information.”

She gave a slight bow of her head. “of course princes, my lips are sealed on this matter. But it's best if -” As she started to look past me she was hit with shock.

“I knew it!!” the voice of a young energetic female erupted from behind me. Tuning around I saw that girl who was lying down early had woken up. Her face was more juvenilia than Deslan's but still had the uncanny beauty, of course, there was her long and pointed ears that canceled out the uncanny feeling. Her skin was more of a ruddy color. Her clothing was still simple, but now that she was facing me I could see a tabard that had some form of iconography on it that felt religious to me.

“Sarel, what do you mean by ‘I knew it’?” Deslan's tone had a sternness to it that spooked Sarel. She was very neuroses to respond until l I spoke “Sarel it's ok to speak.”

“So..” her response was more measured but still cautious “I and many of the sisters at the convent have an ongoing bet that the Princess is not a pure-blood Seeker.”

“Sarel!! you should know better…….” Sarel sat like a puppy that was being disciplined by its master as Deslan was berating her. What is a puppy? I was shocked at the question, I forgot that I was not in my own body. But something else caught my attention, you can ask questions, Yes? I guess that was the best answer that I was going to get, but there was a question that I wanted to ask. Who are these companions to you? The response was delayed yet sounded sincere, they are my closest friends. I don’t know if it’s the body for my reaction to that information but I felt sad seeing my friend fight.

I had no idea how long the disciplining had been going on, but as soon as I approached it started to die down as they both turned to face me. The way they both looked at me as if waiting for me to say something to diffuse or help their situation. This body surprised me because before I started speaking it instinctively let out a sigh.

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“Sarel, I wager to guess that you didn’t start the bet on my personal life.” She nodded her head in vigorous agreement. “But, I would also appreciate it if you didn't partake in these bets.”

“Thank You!!” Deslan shouted with an air of victory. However, before she could continue I raised my hand to silence her.

“Deslan, on the other hand, your rebuke of Sarel was uncalled for. I can understand where your outrage comes from. However, I don’t need someone to defend me when I didn’t ask for it. Finally, I don’t want to see friends fighting with one another.” with that last line I couldn't help but cringe internally, thankfully it seemed to defuse the situation between the two.

Watching Deslan and Sarel apologize to each other, a word stuck at the front of my mind, friends. These people were not my friends, they were friends to this body but not me. Maybe that could be in due time, but the only people I consider friends were my battle brothers but those thoughts only brought back bad memories. And with the bad memories came instincts that had been drilled into me started to show.

The light coming through the tree canopy was at a slight angle, not entirely vertical but steep enough to show that plenty of daylight had been wasted by not moving. Seeing how their apology was still ongoing I turned to the bedrooms to start packing up.

It didn’t take long for the chatter behind me to dwindle down to silence. “Prinices are you, sure you're all right.” Tuning around to answer Deslans question I saw that both Deslan and Seral looked confused. Imdeitly I asked myself “What did I do wrong?” it felt like an eternity waiting for the internal response, Yes, my heart skipped a beat. What did I do wrong, what minor thing of this person's personality did I mess up? Would they suspect that I the current person in this body was not the same person that was with them yesterday? Deslan started to wear a large grin “You're unusually productive for this early in the morning.”

The tension within this body uncoiled with a massive sigh, looking back at the girls they now genuinely wore faces of concern. “sorry, I just get more worried the closer we get to the ruins. There is no need to worry”

“Princ-” I raised my hand to cut off Deslan’s concern, I was getting tired of constantly getting called Princess so I asked myself a question. Do you like it when your friends refer to you in a formal way? No. Good, that's all I need to hear.

“Please, Deslan and Sarel. I appreciate your concern but this is something I need to take care of myself, but if you do want to help, could you please drop the formalities?”

The statement hit Deslan like a ton of bricks as her face became red with embarrassment realising what she had been saying. Seral busted out laughing at Deslans discomfort only to be shooed away by her the next moment. Turning back around, she was scratching the back of her head “Sorry Alria, I got caught up in formality again.”

There seemed to be an internal chuckle that came from this body. It didn't seem like this was the first time this had happened, nor did it sound like it was the last time it would happen. With that apology, it seemed that our morning conversation had come to an end as everyone worked to dissemble the camp. Minutes later we were moving.

The Terrian was incredibly uneven yet beautifully alien. The massive tree roots were the primary obstacle we faced as we were moving deeper into the forest. The only thing that worried me was how much harder it would become to see. The forest canopy was becoming denser and the rays of sunlight seemed to diminish greatly. Yet to my surprise, the light within the forest stayed at levels that didn’t impede us as we traveled through the forest. I knew that if I was in my body, I would not be able to traverse this environment as swiftly as I am.

One thing I would have loved to try was the combat abilities of this body. However, those options were out of my control. As we moved Deslan served as a forward scout redirecting our movement away from potential conflict.  Eventually, the exhaustion of just traveling started to slow us down, thankfully we found a cove of roots that we could take shelter in as the forest grew darker. This cove was not as spacious as our previous camping location but was definitely more protective.

As we made our way in a beast's cry turned my attention to outside the cove, it sounded like there was some fight going on and it sounded close. Deslan dropped her pack “You two stay here and set up camp, I will go see what's happening.” before I could react she had already sprinted out the mouth of the cove. From behind me, Sarel sighed “Always the mother of the group” Tunning around Sarel was looking at the mouth of the cove, she then turned to look at me her face growing redder by the second. “ I said that out loud didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Sarel cupped her hands to her mouth and started babbling after hearing my response. Raising my hand to calm her I spoke “Don’t worry I don’t think Deslan would care about what you said, even if she found out.” Sarel fanned her face from embarrassment before returning to her task of setting up the campsite. Now that I think about it it was just the two of us in the campsite, if there was any time to inquire about that subject now would be the time.

“Sarel, is it ok for me to ask you a question?”

“Yes!!” the way she stopped her task and focused solely on my question reminded me of a puppy, what's a puppy? The internal voice reminded me of the predicament I was in, and I will tell you later. “your question Alria?”

“Sorry. About early today, what did you bet on?” she looked at me like she didn’t fully understand my question. “the bet that you made about my background what was it?”

“is it really ok for me to say?”

“if I'm asking then it's ok.”

She hesitated at first then but when I sat down next to her, her confidence spiked. “Many of the girls in the convent believe that you part beastshaper, because of your feurosity in dueling. But to me, you hold yourself too well in formal events to be part beastshaper. Other girls think you are part stoneformer, because of your stubbornness to not drop positions during an argument. But you don’t have an artistic bone in your body. So the only thing that was left was that you are part oracle.”

“so what makes the oracles so unique that you thought I was part oracle?” Sarel's face lit up with excitement at my question. “this is your area of expertise is it.”

“Yes, Yes. I know that many people dislike the Orcals, but I find them super fascinating. The Oracles were not known for their physical or magical prowess, nor were they known for their artisanship. However, the oracles were well known for their creativity and ability to think of strange and unique things. Not much else is known about the oracles since they disappeared with the other races long ago, but the one thing that is well documented is that the Farseekrs' ability to see visions is attributed to their mixed seeker and oracle blood.”

“you know a lot about the oracles, is this a personal fixation you have?” Sarel responded with a vigorous agreement before going on another tangent about the oracles, something about how some of the oldest elf buildings were made with some of the last remaining oracles' help. I wish I could have followed it more but it seemed that exhaustion was really getting to me. Cutting off Sarel I spoke, “Sorry, I would love to listen more, but I think I need to sleep.”

“Sorry, Alria I didn’t know that my taking was so tiring.”

“It's not, don’t worry about it.” the body yawned instinctively to the slowly creeping fatigue. I rolled out a bed roll and started to lay down. “we will speak tomorrow.” then like a light I was out.