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Palady Explains
Once, when she had been in Thetwick for some time, Palady had sat her down and explained things to her.
“Now Ala, I think you’re old enough that we should have a little talk about you and where you come from.”
“Old enough?”
“Well, I admit that I don’t know how old you are, but you certainly look like you’re around six years old or so.”
“We have to talk about me because I look like I’m six…?”
“Like a six year old human, yes. You get older very slowly, I’ve explained before that that’s because you’re a half-elf, right?”
“I know, Palady. You’ve told me many times. You tell me… most days.”
“Good. What I haven’t told you about is how you came to be in Thetwick. At least not in any detail.”
“I think… I was brought… by soldiers?” Ala said, feeling a stirring of memories.
“That’s right. About twenty years ago now, when my Jack was still alive and Emma was still with us.”
Ala grew quiet. It always made her sad when she thought of Emma. Emma was… or had been one of her two human sisters, the younger of the two. The girl had been abducted by raiders from Selinus, she knew. She’d really loved Emma. She didn’t know where Selinus was, but she knew Emma hadn’t been the only one taken that day. Other villages had also been dragged away by the Selinan men. Palady had explained that it was something terrible that sometimes happened in the Westmarch. It was very rare that they ever dared to ride all the way to Thetwick itself. The last time, before the day Emma had been taken, had been years before Ala arrived in the village. Some of the hamlets further north had to contend with raids more often, Palady had told her. The Selinans came to steal cattle, horses and sometimes, like on that day, even people.
“I still miss Emma too,” Palady comforted her, stroking her hair. “As well as Jack. It’s quite normal to think of her. Let’s hope she’s safe, at least, shall we?”
Ala could see older woman’s eyes reddening at the thought. Palady quickly pulled herself together and continued.
“But today we need to talk about something else, alright? We can’t think of the people we’ve lost and loved all the time, even though we sometimes want to, can we?”
“I guess not,” she said, though she was wondering if they did it too little.
“So now I’m going to talk to you about how you came to Thetwick.”
“OK.”
“The soldiers that brought you were led by a warrior, William the Bull. A proud and honourable man, he was. A hero. William was Jack’s half brother.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it’s true. He was a good man, it’s said that the Duke even commended him personally many times. He was one of the Duke’s best soldiers. Anyway, William and his soldiers happened upon some enemy soldiers, humans and even some other creatures. William thought they were probably returning from an ambush…”
“An ambush?”
“Yes, that’s a place where travellers had been attacked and hurt by orcks and nasty creatures. He and his soldiers stumbled upon them by accident, William said.”
“What happened then?”
“They managed to chase off the bad creatures and men. They didn’t have time to look where exactly the ambush had happened, even though they could tell from the things that the bad creatures were carrying that it couldn’t have been far away. They looked around, but couldn’t find any other survivors.”
“I was really the only one?” She asked, hoping, though she really knew the answer.
“I’m sorry Ala. I don’t know if your real mother and father were among the casualties, but I’m afraid… I think they might have been. It’s more than likely, I’m sorry.”
“I know, Palady,” said Ala seriously. Thinking about it made her feel empty inside.
“Of course you do. Yo know so many things for such a little girl. Now let me continue the story. The soldiers found you, tied up, slung over a horse. You were a prisoner, so the soldiers freed you and took you with them. Apparently you tried to run away several times. William didn’t really know what to do with you, so I said it was alright if you stayed with me. I promised to look after you.”
“You look after me very well, Palady.”
That caused the woman to smile. “Why thank you, Ala. That’s kind of you to say. But, I think we both know you mostly look after yourself, don’t you? Sometimes you are even the one looking after the rest of us.”
It was partially true. She often took home what she found in the forest often bringing home many mushrooms, berries, wild plants and roots that they could eat. She liked to cook and often did help with the many things that were needed to keep the household running. She really did feel that Palady looked after her very well though.
Ala’s other, older, human sister, Olivia, was already married by then. She had a daughter of her own, named Amelia. Ala often looked after Amelia. Ala was so much older than she looked so that everyone in Palady’s family knew looking after Olivia’s daughter could easily be left to her. It was strange to some of the neighbours to see Ala and Amelia alone together when they were roughly the same size. Thirty years later, Amelia died in childbirth, greatly saddening Ala. After that, she also looked after Amelia’s two older children, Garrett and Aubree, very often.
Ala didn’t know any other half-elves and neither did anyone else in the town. She hadn’t been able to find anyone else who knew any, at least. A half-elf would live a lot longer than other people, Palady had told her, that’s why it made sense that she grew slower. She ached to know how much longer it would take and no one in Thetwick that she’d dared ask had been able to tell her anything useful. No one seemed to know how much longer it took a half-elf to grow up and the answers she’d had had been so different from one another that they were of no use at all.
Palady, her adoptive mother, whom she loved dearly had gotten very old before Alagariel had even developed breasts. That certainly wasn’t the way things worked for humans, she knew. She sometimes cursed her heritage because it put her so far outside the human world. She didn’t fit in with the other children of the village and she didn’t fit in with the adults, so she spent a lot of time on her own. Palady had always tried to hide the fact that Ala was a half elf. She kept Ala’s hair dyed brown and made her wear a headscarf or a hood and sometimes even both to hide her pointed ears. She made Ala arrange her hair so that even if the hood came off, her ears wouldn’t be clearly visible. It wasn’t that her being a half-elf was really a secret. Palady had tried to explain that it would just be safer for Ala if the villagers weren’t constantly reminded that Ala was different.
She often said, “not all folks are as open-minded as me, Ala, best be careful.”
Ala made sure to pay heed to her advice, Palady’s point had been made painfully clear so many times that it was impossible for her to forget about it. She had made a few friends over the years, but many of the villagers kept their children away from her. Those few friends she had made tended to drift away as the discrepancy in ageing made things strange for them. She seemed to lose the connection with them, somehow, when they grew up. The people around Thetwick were used to how she looked, with most knowing about her pointed ears, very pale blue eyes and her skin, which had a slight reddish-gold tinge. Ala didn’t think anyone knew that her hair wasn’t really mousy brown. Even so the villagers still mostly ignored her as they would most children even though she was usually far older than both the children and their parents. She was often even older than their grandparents, which she sometimes even forgot herself.
