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A rippling... flowing... swirling... blue.

The river was staring, reflecting... and in the shallow depths of the watery canvas mirrored back a glint of green.

The woman above blinked her eyes... and the river blinked back at her.

Throughout, encompassing everywhere, the early morning dew smelled potently of the early dawn of spring, of moss, of fish, of rain, of rot... and of humans.

Skeletal carcasses drifted slowly along with the tide, pungent lumps of clothing and flesh still clinging to its surface... what little remained of what nature hadn’t yet consumed.

A stray piece had washed ashore on the riverbank, the rippling, the flowing, and the swirling, delivering one before her knees.

.....

The bone was brittle, tiny... barely the length of her palm she observed, as she lightly ran a finger across its coarse texture.

A human child told the sharp putrid stench overpowering her senses. But edging an inch close, however, she sniffed again.

“Gi-Girl...” She whispered out to herself, her lips fumbling to even shape the word.

It was a word foreign to her, peculiar, and the most she only understood was that the word definitively spelled doom.

In times especially grim, the word could even deafen and overpower the shrill cries of terror she would hear, stifling her own breath, her own voice, as she watched helpless as they take another, and another...

Those humans...

Always taking ...

“Girl,” She repeated again, properly now... the small child’s bone drenched with the distinct foul odor of a Gritlin. It was a familiar story recounted many times over.

The night was cruel to the lost and unfortunate. This child must have wandered far from her tribe. Too far, it seems... finding such a grisly end.

A deserved end.

“D-Die...” She muttered again – another learned word, before nudging away the bone with force, rippling, splashing, gently drifting along with the current once more.

The river ended far into a lush valley... where the humans had recently taken root with their gargantuan structures of wood and stone, occupying, festering, taking...

At least like this... this wandering lost child would finally find her way back home after all.

The woman twitched her ears, hearing every noise of the forests’ whispers, the skies’ gentle hum, and the river’s quiet stirring, loud rumbling, awakening, breaking, then – pure instinct, effortless, her hand shot forward, ensnaring a fish in mid-flight, which was now struggling to free itself from her tightening hold.

But it was no use, and soon, limp and dead, it joined the ever-rising pile that she had amassed. For a while, she repeated this process, all the while never once missing, slipping, her strike always reaching, her senses never once faltering... failing...

The humans have been edging too dangerously close as of late. Even in the light of day, she could hear them rustling about, always hunting, always looking... always taking...

But they won’t take her, she refused to allow it... and most importantly, she would never, ever let them take Her... it will never happen, no matter what may need to happen to see it so.

After a while, the woman slunk her ripply reflection away from the river’s edge, rising to her feet, and stowing her large impressive haul into a basket that was painstakingly handcrafted as a present gifted to her during her ceremony of ‘Jor’, that, amidst many other offerings, remained her favorite to this day.

After all, She had made it solely for her...

Above and below, the woman clambered her way across the ever-shifting, changing woods. Here, no tree stayed rooted, no stone remained as they were... and even the very land itself would move and drift, insidiously, drastically altering the landscape until all sense of familiarity had all but faded.

Many had lost themselves wandering this region of the land, and many had just as well lost their lives here. Much like that small child from before... but not her, never her...

Through grounds slanted and arching, the woman slid effortlessly onto even plains, continuing her trek out of the maze of green without much incident.

Until her ears began to rapidly twitch.

Instinct instantly took over once again, and halting, she moved a single step backward.

At once, a shrill whistling pierced through the air, and she watched, alarmed, as as a passing arrow flew by before her very eyes, the pointed tip striking and deeply embedded itself into a nearby tree, bits of ruptured wood landing in the still grass before her feet.

Then echoing from somewhere at the same time, the cry of alerted prey resounded aloud, as well as the panic scamper of hooves fading deep into the heart of the forest.

Finally, quitely, from far to the left of emerging from a violent rustle of bushes, a thin, feeble figure collapsed onto the ground in a flutter of swaying loose leaves.

She stared, sniffed...

A human.

Her body stiffened, and she felt her muscles clamp, both hands already into tightening fists, bracing...

But the human didn’t attack, or more rather...

It couldn’t.

Sunken, hollowed eyes. Skin clinging haggardly to bone. Clothes torn and tattered. Another story too familiar.

Another lost wanderer.

The human managed to flutter open its eyes, muster out a feeble breath, before eventually, the sense of danger rapidly took over... finding her within its wide, fearful gaze.

“Elf,” He quickly scurried back, flailing an arm, searching for his flimsy piece of wood and string that had fallen with him. “Stay back! Back!”

The human made noises, shouted. They were always shouting, always making those noises... and she never understood it.

The human successfully found its loose bit of string in the grass, and fumbling, aimed another sharp stick squarely at her.

Trembling, wavering.

She wasn’t too worried.

The human will miss.

“Nes,” She instead whispered, noticing his gruff features, and the low grumble of his voice.

“W-What? What?” The human exclaimed, blinking desperately, before it gasped, sputtered. “Y-Yes! Yes! Nes! I am a man, yes! Nes! Man!”

“Man...” She muttered back. “You... man...”

Another new word.

The man lax his aim, lowering the piece of sharpened wood to his side, his breath leaving him feebler by the second.

“You understand... you...” He trailed away, hissing, thinking. “Elf... Temmel’na Ghul?”

“Ghul?” The woman’s eyes shimmered in surprise. He could speak. She could reply. “Ghul ala Eshwlyn.”

“Esh... Eshwlyn...” The man weakly nodded, his gaze barely focused. “Sa Eshwlyn... tere... terena...” He gritted his teeth. “Fuck, just – ! Help me please...”

Help.

She didn’t know that word.

But she could understand what he wanted, what he needed... pointing a quivering finger at a small dangling fin hanging limply at the edge of her basket.

“Help...” He repeated again. “Help me... Eshwlyn...”

The human was going to die here, succumbing to weakness, starvation... another nameless victim of this cruel forest.

That’s the thing about these humans. They die so easily.

Fortunately.

“Nes...” She called back out to him. “Temmel’na ghul?”

The man made a painful grimace. “Cale...”

“Cale,” She said, mimicking the shape of his dry lips. “Cale... you... die...”

Cale veered his glance back towards her, hearing the shuffle of her feet, the sound of her voice, steadily growing closer and closer.

“W-What? ” He stammered, confusion in his strained eyes. “Die? Wait, why? Hold on! Wait! I didn’t do anything! Stop. STOP!”

Why was he here? Why was he this close? They had the valleys, they had the rivers, the mountains, the lands vast and infinite. They already had everything... and now here they were here, still wanting more.

Still taking more.

Always more.

“Cale... die...”

Out of desperation, fear, Cale drew something out from his hip, glinting, shimmering, swiping at her with a ferocious roar.

Eshwlyn stopped the momentum of his arm, gripping, tightening, the snap of bone effortlessly echoing... and through his cries and screams of utter agony, his weapon landed in the grass with a dull, dampened thud.

“Bitch!” He spat out, wincing, flailing.

Another new word.

But Eshwlyn wasn’t listening, noticing instead the glimmer in the grass, and reaching for the handle, lifting it to her eyes, marveling at it, its glistening silver surface reflecting back the green in her gaze.

A sword.

She’s seen humans use these things before. Always violently, always grotesquely. The blood of her kind painting its serrated edges.

.....

Perhaps even more than humans, she hated swords.

“W-Why?” Eshwlyn heard the man whimper again, utilizing the last of his strength, trying to wriggle free from her hold. He was like a fish, helpless out the river depths. “What did I do to you? I haven’t done anything... I didn’t do anything!”

Again, she still couldn’t understand him. But she could profoundly hear the inflection in his wavering tone, the desperation echoes, his strangled cries ringing... just like many of her kind had, their pleads going deaf to their maddened cackles.

“Why?!”

Quietly, she answered him, repeating those same words she’s heard so many times before, “You deserved it,” before with a fleeting swipe, and a spurting red, silence fell upon the forest again.

Wiping the smear of crimson from her face, Eshwlyn took a whiff of the air.

Cale smelled utterly foul.