A week. That's how long I've spent in this ruined cottage, listening to elven children squabble and watching dust drift through a hole in the roof.

The wound on my shoulder is sealed, an ugly scab beneath my black fur. My paw aches only at night now. Most of the days, I just sleep. When I'm awake, I eat—always enough, sometimes more than I should. Thankfully, the children make certain of that by bringing me plenty of meat.

It took three days before I could stand without tipping over. Five before I could limp to the corner and back.

Qi had also started to slowly trickle in my chest-core now. But the most painful part of everything? I lost Tidemother's Embrace in the fall. Nothing much I could do about it now, but it still frustrates the heck out of me; that was my first hard-earned artifact.

The children, Ennor, Myra, Sali, have made themselves my caretakers. I've permitted them since I'm just too tired to fight their attentions, and despite what you might think, nothing is a good substitute for food.

I've also learned more about them throughout the week. Ennor and Myra are siblings. Ennor is soft-faced—chubby, I mean, quick to smile, and seems like he has a crush on Sali. Myra, the smallest one, is very attentive.

Sali is their neighbor, a little older, a little taller, and always insisting on leading even when there's nowhere to go.

They talk constantly. Sometimes at me, sometimes around me. It seems that Ennor and Myra's parents work tree thinning the old trees on the outer borders of the forest.

Their father only comes home once a week, always tired and smelling of cut wood.

Sali's mother is a widow. Her father died as a ranger, long before she was born. She recites the story with an eloquence that suggests she's told it more than once.

"It's been twenty-five years since he returned to the soil," she said.

Through the books i've read at Sunmire, I could vaguely recall that elves lived a long time. Three centuries if they're lucky and careful.

This meant that the children in front of me were actually far older than I was, even after I combined my current and past life's age.

Ennor was thirty-two, Myra twenty-eight, Sali forty-one. Still children by elven measure. This helped me strengthen the theory I've always had in my mind. That the body prevailed over the mind.

In my first months of living in this world, I still had the bearing of an old pug, confused at everything and tired at everyone. However, as I grew older, my mind regressed, as if trying to create the correct balance.

This was why I've become quite childish now. My mind had finally matched my body after the Sanctum of Isolation.

Myra, ever the diligent one, noticed me watching her whenever she fussed with the little stack of belongings she and her brother kept in a corner. One afternoon, after Ennor and Sali ran outside to chase a lizard up a tree, she padded over to where I lay.

She held out a book. It was heavy, thick, and bound in green hide, the title engraved with silver leaves. I blinked at it, then at her.

"This is for you!" she said, setting it down. "Didn't you say you liked reading?"

She was right. I'd told them on the second night since Myra used her question, asking me what I liked doing.

It was one of the safer things to admit about myself. Books, after all, ask for nothing except your time, and that I had plenty of. Still, I did not expect her to actually bring me one.

I turned the book over with my paw, careful not to tear the pages.

The ink smelled faintly of moss and sap, different from the dust and oil at Sunmire.

In Sunmire's books, it said that elves were blasphemers for worshipping the forests. They mocked them for praying to roots and stones, instead of to the light that touched everything.

Reading this book, I was even more confused now. Elven history was quite a lot like Sunmire in how they preached their faith. They both even had hostilities against those who acted against theirs, very typical of a faith in this continent.

Thankfully, though, the book wasn't only about faith. There were chapters on elven growth. According here, elves were children until at least eighty. I stopped reading to stare at Ennor, who had entered the cottage while I was busy reading, and was now snoring softly against the wall, drooling on his sleeve.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Apparently, most elves stay unchanged for decades after that, one long plateau where time passes without leaving a mark. But after two hundred years, aging speeds up.

Of course, that was just for the ordinary sort.

I learned something else, too. There are other elves, those of a higher-tier, the book called them. They were the ones blessed by forest spirits, chosen by whatever passed for a deity in this place. The children spoke of them sometimes, almost reverently, almost enviously.

It explained why Sali, on that first night, stared at me with hope. She wanted to know if I was a spirit.

Their version of "awakening" was different. In Sunmire, it meant the day you were tested, to be put into the higher Phases. For elves, it was seeing the world the way the spirits saw it. Most elves, after their awakening, could see "animals on people."

After an elf's awakening, they lived longer, up to five centuries.

The more I stayed, the more I realized how little I understood about what people called power or faith. It was all the same, just arranged with different words. Elves saw spirits; Sunmire saw mana.

I saw the ways in which people held on to what made the most sense from where they were birthed at.

Take Grand Solar Vicar Talem, for instance. He was already 120 years old, which, for a human, was well past their average lifespan. The oldest Godbeast in recorded memory had only ever reached 261 years.

Two weeks have passed now since the crash. I no longer sleep the hours away. My paw still aches, especially when it rains, but I can finally put weight on it. I can move—well, more of a shuffle. Sometimes the children watch me, silent, but I ignore them.

Dignity matters even if no one else here recognizes it.

This morning, with all three out picking wild onions, I took the chance to climb up onto the windowsill. It wasn't as difficult as I feared, but it was awkward. My back paw slid once and I had to bite down on the frame to pull myself up.

I refused to call for help. If there's anything I still have, it's what I have left of my pride.

The shack sat at the edge of a shallow grove. The grass was long but well-trodden in places, a sign that the children came and went often.

Farther off, maybe a hundred meters or so, stood another house with a slate roof. That was Sali's home, or at least the house she returned to each evening.

For a while I simply sat there, half out the window, half inside, feeling the air. It was cooler than I remembered. My fur ruffled in the breeze, still uneven where my fur had been shaved in order to properly bandage it.

I hadn't asked Sali directly, but I'd pieced it together from their chatter and the occasional mother elf visiting just outside the cottage. This place had belonged to Sali's father. It had been his woodworking shop once upon a time.

But after Sali's father died, her mother had no use for the place. She'd sold or given away all the tools, leaving the shed empty. No one came here for years. It was too far from the main house to be useful, and too full of memories for her mother to fully dismantle it.

In time, the children had claimed it as their own. It became their "secret" hideout, though I wondered how secret anything could really be with three children coming and going every afternoon.

During the day, the cottage is empty. The children vanish each late morning, scattering to whatever they're required to do for education, prayer studies, and training among elves.

Sometimes they'd grumble to me.

Sali would rattle off a list of daily lessons, Ennor would complain about reading runes, and Myra was more interested in practical skills than in memorizing elven songs.

But I didn't mind the solitude. It was easier to recover in quiet. Sometimes I would sleep, other times I'd read a few pages of Myra's book, or simply lie on my side and let my thoughts drift.

Before I knew it, it was evening now, the sun drooping low behind the trees. This was always around the time they returned. Sali usually led the way, the others trailing behind, bickering about who'd manage to sneak in some snacks during lessons or which elder had told the dullest story.

My time here had become peaceful. Too peaceful, maybe.

I could feel myself growing complacent, lulled by the tranquility of slow days and quiet nights. Even my own caution had faded when the wind carried new scents, I barely bothered to notice.

Today, for instance, Sali's scent had lingered near the shed a little earlier than usual, but something about it was off. I shrugged it off. She always went home before coming here anyway, sometimes with Ennor and Myra, sometimes alone.

I was stretched out on my bedding, working at a stubborn knot of fur along my back with my teeth, when I heard footsteps crunching along the path. I didn't bother getting up; the children were predictable, and my pride was as comfortable as it was lazy. The latch clicked. The door swung open with a creak.

I expected Sali, or maybe the three of them together, arms full of scraps from dinner. Instead, the figure that stepped through the door was not a child at all.

An elven woman stood in the doorway. She was taller than most humans, and her hair braided close and streaked with a pale silver indicating that they've passed 200 years old, though her face showed none of it. She wore a green cloak and a practical tunic.

For a moment, we both just stared. I was caught mid-lick, one hind leg extended, tongue halfway out. If I were still the old pug, I might have barked in surprise. Instead, I blinked, then slowly lowered my paw.

The woman's eyes narrowed, her gaze falling first to the bed of straw, then to the half-empty bowl beside me, then to the green book lying open by my side.

"...So this is why they've been spending so much time here," she said, her voice soft but not kind. "I see."

I didn't respond. I just licked my nose once.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.