Disclaimer: This is not the final version as it will be available from the usual e-book sellers and eventually, bookstores. Rather, it should be seen as an (almost) final draft. If you are interested in becoming a beta reader, or you have any comments, suggestions or thoughts that you feel I should consider before publishing please drop me a line using the contact form.
Gabriel
As the practical day to day leader of the militia she couldn’t really hide. Suitors started to call on her. They were all magnanimously willing to overlook her half elven heritage for a tumble. She turned them all down. She did continue her efforts to speak to travellers and caravanners, still attempting to learn more about half elves. Many of the visiting traders were vastly more worldly than the Thetwickers and seemed less reticent to speak to a half elf. She tracked down anyone interesting who came to Thetwick from the outside world, hoping to learn more, especially about elves and half-elves. Most people weren’t helpful but sometimes she spoke to someone who was able to add a tiny piece to the puzzle, albeit ever so small.
It was on one of these expeditions that she was in the town looking for a storyteller that some of the children said had come into town on the most recent caravan. She found him near the square, a tall dark haired man with matching eyes. He had a deep, moving voice and the children listening to his stories were mesmerised. After he had finished with the stories for the day, he turned to her.
“Is there something I can be of assistance with, Milady?”
“I’m no noble, Master Bard. I was hoping, though, that you might have time for me to buy you an ale and perhaps a meal and that I might ask you some things about what goes on in the world outside of Thetwick?”
Buying people a meal was how she normally got visitors to sit down and tell her things. Bernard paid her for her work as acting militia Captain, so it was an investment she could easily afford. She noticed him looking her over and glancing at her sheathed sword.
“Perhaps then Mistress, if you tell me your name, I would be most delighted to. I am Gabriel,” he said with a slight bow.
“That seems fair, Master Gabriel. They call me Alagariel.”
“A pleasure, Mistress. If I might be so bold, I detect an elven heritage, do I not?”
“You are right. I am a half-elf. Orphaned. I was adopted.”
“I see. Your stories may be more interesting than mine then. I do accept your gracious offer, of course. No entertainer worth his salt turns down a free meal and conversation in such company.”
Gabriel was both well travelled and intelligent. He was able to tell her a lot, including several tales about elven women who she assumed he had bedded though he left out specifics. She found he actually left out a lot of specifics and was more interested in poetic licence. He visited Thetwick several times over the course of a few years. She grew to become very fond of him and learned a lot about the rest of Taladaria from him. She was happy when he was in town and her relationship with him became quite intimate and eventually he became her first lover. She knew that it was never going to be a settle down together kind of relationship, but she was curious and he was attractive and gentle, if a bit of a vagabond. It was because of the time she spent with Gabriel that Ala eventually began to wonder whether Palady and Bernard might just be a little bit wrong about what she was.
Her lifespan and time to mature just didn’t fit what travellers, especially Gabriel, had told her about half-elves. Gabriel had told her a little about his dalliances with a number of elven and half-elven ladies. Between all the blushing she learned a little about the difference between how elves and half-elves sleep. What she’d learned from him had shocked her when she realised what it must mean. The fact that she didn’t sleep, at least not in the way that humans did was a giveaway. Gabriel had been very clear that the half-elves he had known definitely slept. He didn’t hide the fact that he’d had plenty of opportunities to observe. Only elves didn’t. He’d even asked some of these women them about the difference, he said.
Her rest was more a sort of meditative half aware trance, quite different from what she saw humans doing. It just didn’t seem to fit with being a half-elf. A few weeks after that she realised that no other conclusion was possible. She had to be a full blooded elf. The lifespan, the sleeping and the fire magic she hid from everyone but Bernard, it all added up to only one possible conclusion. She even decided to stop dying her hair after what turned out to be one of Gabriel’s last visits to Thetwick. The final drop had been when Gabriel pointed out a discrepancy in her reasoning about using the hair dye.
“So… just so I have this straight, Ala dear. Your adoptive mother, who said you were a half elf… she wanted you to dye your hair… so you’d look more like a half elf?”
“Uhm. Yes. I guess. It sounds odd when you put it like that. I don’t know. Maybe she had a half earth elf in mind, they’re the most common, right?”
“They are I think. Perhaps that was her intent. Well, I’m just asking. So, all this, was over a century and a half ago at which point you were already decades old? Just so I have my numbers straight?”
“Well… yes… but…”
“Half elves are generally well into their middle age, at two centuries? Rather than… you know… looking a bit like human teenagers?”
“I don’t really know what to say to that, Gabriel…”
“No need to say anything, my love, I was just wanting to get things straight. I’m considering a poem. The ‘Long-lived half-elven beauty’, perhaps. No. That isn’t a good name. I’ll come up with something. I’m struggling how to make it credible, though.”
She shook her head. He often said such things, carefully crafted to suggest something. He hadn’t written any songs or poems about her yet or if he had, he hadn’t shown them to her or mentioned them. She thought about the exchange a bit before conceding that Palady might indeed also have known more than she ever mentioned. She had no real idea of what her natural hair colour was any more. It was certainly a shade of red, she knew. She decided it was time to find out.
It wasn’t long after when Gabriel’s next absence became far longer than usual. Eventually she realised he probably wasn’t coming back. She remembered she’d been sad when Gabriel had last left. Had it been something in his manner, she wondered? He’d given no indication that he wouldn’t be coming back and their last parting had been warm. She asked other visitors if they had seen or heard of him, but he seemed to have disappeared. From her questions she was able to deduce that he wasn’t just staying away from Thetwick – no one had seen him at all since shortly after his last visit to her.
Unless he had suddenly chosen to travel further afield than he had ever done before, it worried Ala. A caravan groom told her she had seen him telling stories far to the west a few weeks after he had last visited. She could discover no later sightings of him. She wondered whether she’d been just another of his dalliances. Later on she had to admit to herself that he had never talked about any of his lovers in anything but the most glowing and fond terms. She’d taken him to bed willingly even though she suspected that he might have a few other ‘special friends’ in other places where he plied his trade. She didn’t expect him to stop travelling for her – didn’t even want him to, it wasn’t the life she envisioned for herself. She wasn’t looking for eternity, since that would mean watching him grow old and die, which she was not ready to do again. She considered going to look for him but she knew Bernard needed her running the militia. If something had befallen Gabriel, she would be too late and if he had chosen to move on he could easily be at the other end of the Kingdom or even beyond it.
% 25th of July/Soltop 989, Ford Inn, Alissa Corbin
She even travelled to the Ford Inn, in a moment of weakness. She had hopes of being able to secure some news about Gabriel. It was to no avail though she was happy to be able to sit and talk to Alissa, the Innkeeper’s half-elven niece again, though.
“Gabriel? Tall, dark… good looking? Wonderful voice? Of course I know him. He’s passed through here regularly the past few years. Why do you ask?”
“Well… he just… I thought he would have visited again by now.”
“Minstrels aren’t the most reliable sorts, Ala. Did you really come all the way out here to just to ask about him? Oh… wait… I think I get it!”
Ala gave her a look. It was obvious to Alissa that she’d guessed correctly.
“Well, very juicy. As your friend I should point out the many, many warnings you and I have both heard against getting involved with a travelling entertainer…”
“I know, Alissa, I knew what I was getting in to.”
“Yet, you’ve ridden out here after him with no particular plan?”
“Point taken.”
“Well, since we’re well past the point where and advice of caution is of any use, I really can’t do anything other than keep an eye out for him? I’m sorry Ala.”
“Thanks Alissa. I got into it in full possession of my faculties. I guess I’m just sad he’s gone.”
“Normal, I think. He was a nice man. Pleased I didn’t bed him now though.”
“Did he… try to?” Asked Ala, a little shocked.
“No, you know him better than I do. That man does not need to chase women. We flock to him. I certainly considered it, though.”
Ala realised that she was right. “You’re right. Oh well. What about you? How are things here?”
Alissa did not have an easy life. The Innkeeper, her mother’s nephew did not approve of either his sister or her half-elven daughter. He treated them much the way he did Ala, which gave them something to bond over. Of course, Ala only had to tolerate him on her infrequent visits to the Ford Inn while Alissa lived with the bastard.
Ala briefly considered travelling into Taladaria itself to continue her search but somewhere deep inside she knew that this was Gabriel’s pattern. He simply moved on. She was sad about it, but she had known that Gabriel was a wanderer and she had never intended for it to be a truly serious relationship. She decided to go back to Thetwick, where she knew Bernard needed her to run the militia, silently saying her goodbyes to Gabriel.
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