Chapter Text
Heroes of Exandria; Origins
"Ellisar!! Stop" the girl called as she kept up after the elf, the two of them jumping from rock to rock, along fallen trees over the brambles, on their way back from their newest victory. Her hair was white and her eyes green, as she skipped between trees and rocks outcropping from the ground.
“It's not my fault if you can't keep up Kyra, maybe I've just got a lighter stride than you do” The elf looked back with a smile, as he quickly jumps up to a log on the cliff edge, overlooking their town. He was smaller in frame than the more muscular girl but lighter for it.
Kyra hops along and over to him, sitting on the log as he knelt behind her “Think it'll make any difference?” She looked back at him after a while green eyes meeting hazel.
“Doesn't particularly matter, I feel. Nobles will be nobles and will keep their levies raised if they feel. Even if we did kill the dragon” the elf shrugged, generally not too pressed.
“Hmmm, I seem to remember my sword being the lethal strike, while, you were busy with its conjurations” She shot him a smirk, as she stood and offered the boy her hand.
“Right, and just who saved you from that skeleton aiming to cleave you in half while you were celebrating” he was quick with the retort.
“I knew it was there, just wanted to make sure you got something out of that” She sent back a challenging grin, and the elf rolled his eyes with a smile.
The world started to fade…
The elf awoke with a start in the middle of the night, holding his face as he sat up. Dreams of the past still haunt him. He moved his fingers to his face and traced the scar that ran diagonally, from his right brow to his cheek. A wound retained in a fight with a former friend. After everything. He felt the wound and reassured himself it was just a dream and not the past.
He glanced at his new companions. The warlock, sitting against a cliffside asleep. Andromeda was his name Ellisar believed. The dark aasimar stood contrasted against the fire by the lines of gold that ran through his skin, like cracks across the gold canvas, and his long blonde hair pulled into a braid. His eyes moved to the other one, a small tiefling girl, Despira, blue as the sky, with shorter dark blue hair and horns that grew from her upper forehead, and ran about six inches up to a point. Her tail wrapped around her as she slept.
The elf sat up, pulling his knees to himself. He was alone, and the other two were asleep. He could afford to be vulnerable. Afford to reminisce, at least a little. He thought about how they met, and the mission they were on. But, other thoughts came to mind first. The past, pushing its way in again. Causing another memory to bubble up.
“Ellisar. Stop it.” his sister said, as she gently moved a towel along his eye, then to his nose, to his cheek.
“You couldn't of bloody boiled the water to make it any warmer???” The boy said, arms crossed, and teeth clenched as the wound stung still.
“Not in the state you're in. Plus this will keep you alert” she doused the towel in the water and soaked it, then applied an extract again “I'll focus more on comfy healing when you decide to take this up with Ayana” she said, with a snicker. She would raise her hand up and ruffle his hair, unfurling the well-kept hair.
“Ellisar. Stop it.” Kyra said, as she gently moved a towel along his eye, then to his nose, to his cheek.
“You couldn't of bloody boiled the water to make it any warmer???” the elf complained as he looked up to Kyra.
“Not in the state you're in. Plus this will keep you alert” Kyra doused the towel in the water and resoaked it, then applied an extract again, her ranger training coming into use as she fashioned medicines from their surroundings. “I'll focus more on comfy healing when you're back home.”
After a moment, the elf sighed “Fine” he sulked, as he leaned against the white-haired girl, letting her go about cleaning his wound.
She gently moved her arm around his back, as her other stayed busy with her first aid, Kyra looked at him saying, “I appreciate your bravery, ya'know. I just wish you weren't so-”
“Stupid?” Ellisar asked with a weak chuckle.
“Well yes,” she snickers as she gets shot a glare, smirking back at him “but also so self-sacrificial. Blah blah elves blah blah immortal I know, but that doesn't mean you're invincible you dolt.” she said, flicking his nose.
Ellisar gave a soft chuckle, “It does mean I can protect you though.”
Kyra smiled, her expression warming a bit, “Do you really think I'm the one that's gonna need protection?”
“With that attitude, you'll need it eventually. I may be the sidekick here, but the hero isn't always right” Ellisar said, looking at her, a more earnest expression about him.
“I wish you'd stop calling me that. You'll make me believe it” She looked to the side with a small blush, then back to him, more resolute, “I'm not the hero, you're not my sidekick. We're friends, Ellisar.”
“Yes well, I'm grateful for that.” Ellisar said, then, felt the world start to grow blurry again, as he refocused.
Why?
Why get these memories now?
The elf puzzled to himself, as he looked to the east. The sun was once again rising over Exandria, banishing its moons Catha and Ruidus to the night. He started to ride and stretch, as he went to work trying to stoke the fire. Memories simmered to the surface, threatening to take over again.
Fire….gods, so much fire.
And the screams…
His name screamed at him through the inferno. The inferno he caused.
“ELLISAR! STOP!” Kyra’s heart raced as she ran along the rooftops to her own, where the elf stood. He had a lit rag, that he was stuffing into an alcohol barrel.
“Oh don't act like you care now, Kyra. You don't give a bloody fuck about me or my people” the elf scowled, glaring daggers into her.
“Ellisar it doesn't have to be this way! I didn't want this?! Why would I have?!” She yelled back, across the distance between them.
“Because you always have to be the hero, didn't you Kyra? A dragon, a giant, some bandits, you were always the first to get up, and the first to get credit! I never got a single bit of recognition, I was always in your shadow!” he screamed at her, as flames licked at the rag.
“I never saw it that way! You know that!” the white-haired girl screamed to him, her hands up, showing she had no intention to hurt him, just trying to get him to listen.
“Then you just had to be the hero during this little revolution. You stood by and watched them kill them! Kill all my family! Kill all the elves, any they could find! And you didn't do anything!” he screamed, slashing the roof, sending the barrel to the floor as the straw that made up the roof over the courtyard gave in, stopping just short of collapsing under Kyra.
She watched in horror as her house was set ablaze beneath her, her family home, all the memories, what she had left behind, she heard the battle behind her, the people she'd left behind.
“And now you have the nerve to lecture me for inflicting but a fraction of the pain you've caused me” he said as he pulled his rapier, and leveled it at her.
“It didn't have to come to this! We could've run, we could've worked against those who did this! Could've found the ring leaders, brought them to justice, I wanted equality, not this!”
“You HAD that opportunity and you FAILED Kyra. I will NOT fail” he spat, then quickly sheathed and looked to his bow, knocking an arrow aimed at the white-haired girl
“Ellisar, stop.” She put her hands out in front of her, not moving to her swords or her bow, despite her instincts screaming for her to.
The elf looked down and to the side. As if he heard that, echoing every time he's heard it. Every time she's said it. Every time everyone else has.
“Please, we can still fix this” she implored, to her friend, the boy who she'd grown alongside, who she admired.
“No, Kyra. This time, we can't” he shot his arrow and it impacted the support of the roof she was standing on, bringing it down to the ravenous flame below.
She looked up at him, her last clear memory before her back impacted the flame below.
The elf stood over what he'd done, horrified in himself but indignant that this was correct. He jumped from the rooftop. He looked across the manor to where his people had held up Kyra's friends. The Goliath he hired was dead. The tiefling boy had run. He pulled up his hood and ran. And he didn't stop.
“Ellisar, come back” Kyra coughed out, weakly, before she was swallowed up by a mental darkness, thoughts consumed like the smoke surrounding her.