“You wouldn’t dare lay a finger in harm against your own mother, would you?” the dark haired, demon eyed woman hissed, advancing towards Yaevinn with blood soaked daggers in each hand. Her form was ghastly, sharp features in her face, vampiric teeth, hungry eyes, and lush black hair, but her torso and legs were more gaseous, wisps of smoke like a ghostly figure. The wispy woman thrust the daggers forward in a hazy blitz.
Yaevinn awoke with deep slow breaths, now familiar with his nightmares where he once would have awoken in a sweaty feverish daze suffocating under his high heart rate. The dreams that his mother appeared in were growing more cloudy, her form being consumed by smoke, and her hair and eyes had transitioned from blonde and green upon a fair soft elven face to a callous black and red killer. So much time had passed it was impossible for Yaevinn to actually recall what his mother’s face looked like. He was only just a boy when he had been taken by the Qualinesti mages, along with a dozen or so other boys. Was his mother smiling, waving at him as he rode off, or was she screaming in tears? Were her eyes woodland green, or a sandy beach blue? The ability of the mind to so firmly cling to whatever conjured truth was amazing and alarming. He set to his morning meditations, as he had done for so many years under the elven mages. The meditations were also becoming obscured by flashes of the past. Visions of the abducted boys being subjected to experimental infusions, the seizures his friends would have in the nights, bleeding from their eyes with their torsos contorted in an unnatural demonic arch, like that of one afflicted with tetanus. Super soldiers were what they were bred to be. The finest warriors, trackers, guardians of the Qualinesti woodlands. Seekers of the true fate of their Sylvanesti cousins. Only he and three other boys had survived the trials and tribulations the mages had encumbered the boys with. Violent seizures claimed the lucky ones, the monstrosities that lay just outside the safe elven woods mauled and desecrated the others.
Yaevinn packed up what little of a campsite he had, leaving only enough trace another skilled tracker could identify and began his trek to the nearby village where he would alert the elves that a large goblin horde was bearing down on them like a rapidly approaching thunderstorm that snuffs out a quaint summer day. The elves would either need to stand their ground and fight for their homes, or retreat further into Qualinesti territory and forfeit their livelihoods.
He took one last deep breath before setting a foot forward, only to be surprised by a strange voice behind him. “Goblin raid. Classic tale for a new hero, one destined for glory and a better world. Mind if I tag along?”
Mortified by his being caught off guard by a mere human, Yaevinn spun around in a battle pose, seeing a knight laying at the base of the great oak lighting his gandalf pipe, a distinctly vibrant green shield beside him. A friendly and inquisitive look in his eye.