Grimoires and Gunsmoke

Yzael was walking down the strange and bright hallway of a heavily guarded healer's building when her hand subconsciously slid onto her abdomen where she had been wounded.

By all accounts she should have been dead by such an injury, but the marvels of this magicless world had pulled her back from the brink. The fabric of her tunic, foreign yet adapted from the materials given to her by the local healers, was smooth under her dainty fingers, a stark contrast to the roughness of her battle-worn gear. She paused, her eyes reflecting a turmoil of gratitude and disorientation. This world, so starkly different from her own, and she had thought it to be a crucible of survival, but it seemed more akin to the academies or healing houses of her homeland.

Glancing back at her escort, a stern yet not unkind soldier that trailed behind her with his strange tiny black staff in a leisure manner. He was one many wardens she would receive, but this man would occasionally strike up a conversation, only to quieten up in frustration after remembering they couldn’t understand each other.

However, that was slowly starting to change after her many encounters with this world's scholar. Yzael could now start having simple conversations with everyone that surrounded her and she eroded the language barrier between them with each passing day. It was partly due to the innate natural High Elves to gravitate towards scholarly or magical endeavors, but Yzael herself had always had an ear for languages. It was a necessary skill in her line of work where contracts and alliances were as varied as the realms themselves.

Yet, the tongues of this world were intricate in a way that was both challenging and frustrating. English, as it was so called, seemed to have so many unnecessary or even contradictory rules that it often felt like trying to decode arcane spells written in the shifting sands of the Wailing Dunes than anything else. Yzael had discovered that here, context was as crucial as the words themselves, and the nuance in tone could alter the meaning of a phrase entirely.

“Hey Mike, babysitting again?” Suddenly a voice called out from behind her and her escort.

They both came to a stop and the escort, apparently named Mike shot the newcomer a weary gaze. “Ya, pretty much.” He admitted rubbing his eyes. “You know, when Brass said we’d be overseeing a bunch of magicians or something, I figured they’d be all fire and brimstone, trying to escape or hex us. But look at them,” he gestured loosely to Yzael and then to the others in the vicinity, “more than content just to cooperate and do whatever they’re told. It’s,” he sighed dramatically, “boring.”

Yzael, who had been listening intently, tilted her head in curiosity at the statement. Doing any such thing like causing a fire or trying to escape would just guarantee her death and even though she was a few centuries old, she very much liked living. The long eared woman then cleared her throat, drawing Mike’s attention. “It would not make sense,” she began, her English rough but intelligible, “to make trouble. You treat well, I have no path to return...” She searched for the right words, “no... no place to go.”

Mike’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, his posture straightening as he turned fully to face her. “What the fuck? You speak English?” he asked, his voice tinged with a newfound respect and a hint of embarrassment for his earlier words.

“I am learning,” Yzael affirmed with a small smile. “Your world is... different. But fighting, escaping... not always the path of wisdom.”

A quiet lingered in the hallways as Mike turned around and gave the other guard a look that said he didn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “Huh,” he finally murmured, almost to himself, “Well I’ll be damned.”

The other guard chuckled, shook his head and ducked back into the room he was in, leaving Yzael and her escort to their own devices

A new found curiosity started to seep into Mike as he scratched his head "Well, that's... impressive," he admitted, scratching the back of his head. "Didn't expect you folks to pick up on things so quick." He glanced down the hallway, as if ensuring they were alone, before leaning in slightly. "So, if you don't mind me asking, why cooperate? I mean, if I were in your shoes, not sure I'd be so... accommodating."

Yzael considered the question, understanding the depth of what he was truly asking. "In my land," she began, choosing her words with care, "we have a saying: 'To know the river is to avoid the flood.' I am not my own realm, and your people hold the… um… What is the word?” Yzael furrowed her brow as she wracked her brain. “Power! You people hold the power."

Mike nodded, the lines on his forehead easing as her words sank in. "Makes sense," he conceded. "So, what's your plan then? You just gonna wait it out, learn what you can and hope for the best?"

The blending of the words ‘going to’ into ‘gonna’ caught her off guard for a moment, but Yzael's smile turned wistful, "Another saying, 'Even the smallest seed can one day be the largest tree.' I will learn, grow, and when the time is right, perhaps I will find my way home. Until then, I will flourish in the soil where I have been planted."

A derisive chuckle left Mike’s mouth as he adjusted his weapon to a more comfortable location. "You've got more patience than me, I reckon," he mused, his gaze drifting off. "If I was thrown into some foreign world, I probably wouldn’t listen so well."

There was a moment of shared silence before Mike's curiosity piqued again. "”You seem pretty smart, what made you uhh…” He paused trying to find a more tactful way of asking this. “Why did you come here, to our world I mean?" he asked, his voice dropping to a softer tone, aware that he might be broaching a sensitive subject.

Yzael stiffened as a grimace started to spread across her face. Anger and disgust welled into her stomach as her eyes dropped to the floor and for a brief moment, she seemed smaller, the weight of those she lost and those she had yet to find fell on her shoulders. "I… No, we were tricked," she admitted, her voice a mere whisper. "They said I would be stopping criminals and bandits, not... invading."

She has had a similar and much more hostile version of this conversation the other day with men and women who saw her as a threat. It had been a trying ordeal, one that had tested her patience and resolve as they pushed it to the limits to see how she would react.

But the conversation she had found herself in at this very moment was much more… approachable. The genuine curiosity and willingness to listen gave her a sliver of hope that understanding could be reached. Although she also couldn’t blame the others for their suspicion and their prodding; it was their way, it seemed, of making sense of her and her people's sudden appearance in their world.

"I have not been treated with cruelty," Yzaeled clarified to Mike, a note of earnestness in her voice. "There has been no torture, no violation, no stripping away of my dignity or necessities, so I have no reason to um… not listen so well?” She said, turning away to walk back to her room.

Her memory then went back to the interrogations and remembered how the interactions were... grating. They questioned everything, poked and prodded at every piece of logic she had to offer for hours on end. It was absolutely exhausting, especially when her command of the language was still developing.

As Yzael moved away, the conversation with Mike drawing to its natural close, her mind inevitably drifted back to Gideon. He had been a steadfast presence in her life for years as a comrade in arm in her party, and his absence now left a hollow space within her.

Most of her kin would have called her a fool for feeling so strongly about a presence that was only there for a fraction of a fraction of her life, but Yzael came to learn that wasn’t how relationships worked. A person or a being could only be in your life for just a few moments for them to affect you in deep and impactful ways. A lesson her longer lived people haven’t learned due to their insular and near xenophobic ways.

In the ensuing chaos of their unexpected transition to this world, many that she had known and worked with had either fallen or disappeared. Gideon had been among those who had vanished in the tumultuous battle that had taken place. The memory of the explosion that had nearly claimed her life was as clear as the bright hallway she now walked. Gideon had been the one to pull her from the brink, finding shelter in a decrepit building as the world outside succumbed to madness.

The hubris of the Sepharic Empire led them there, and in a desperate bid for victory, they had unleashed a horde of weremen. Those specific beastmen were usually held in check by their shamans, but in the Empire's lust for power, they had intoxicated them through profane rituals sending the beasts to fall into a frenzied state. The beasts raged and howled, attacking friend and foe alike as they descended upon the town that Yzael and Gideon took shelter in.

She remembered the terror, the acceptance, and then Gideon's eyes… He had that very same look of determination when he was about to do something foolish. With a promise of salvation he had disappeared up the stairs of the crumbling building and that was the last time she had seen him, before darkness claimed her.

Next thing Yzael knew was the painful and disorienting white lights that sear into her eyeballs. The cold touch of metal against her skin, the beeping of strange arcane machines, and the feeling of the tube shoved down her throat. They had saved her, yes, but at what cost?

“Where are you…?” Yzael whispered to herself as she gazed out of the window, an act she found herself doing as of late. Each and every time, she wondered if he was looking up at the same sun from a different corner of this vast, strange world. The logical part of her mind whispered that he was likely gone, that she should prepare herself for that reality. But the heart, especially one that had beaten for centuries, was not so easily swayed by logic, regardless of what her people would like to say.

Yzael held onto the hope that Gideon had somehow survived, that he had escaped the horror of their last stand and found safety. Yet, as days turned into weeks, and no word of him reached her ears, that hope began to dim.

Heaving a sigh, Yzael sped up her pace, eager to return to the solitude of her room and the comfort of her own thoughts. As she turned a corner, however, the sight of Emma and Dr. Stenhouse entering another room she had passed dozens of times over, caught her eye. The scholars had been her bridge to understanding this world and their patience and warmth was a welcome respite from the cold and brutal interrogation rooms.

"Emma! Dr. Stenhouse!" Yzael called out, speeding up to a jog.

The two scholars snapped their heads around and welcomed her with the same warm manner to which she had grown accustomed. “Yzael!!” the two yelled, opening their arms into a hug.

As she approached and accepted their odd, but intimate greeting, Yzael looked into the room, her heart leapt into her throat. There, amidst the clinical ambiance, was a familiar face, one marked by a strange black patch over one eye and shorter but equally pointed ears to her own.

Lysandra.

Yzael froze, her eyes locked onto her kin. Lysandra had survived. The relief that washed over her was profound, and for a moment, she could do nothing but stare and take in the sight of her former commander

Lysandra turned, and their eyes met. A myriad of emotions passed between them both, it was a mixture of relief, sorrow, joy, and the unspoken questions of how they had both come to be here, in this world so far from home..

"Y… Yzael?" Lysandra's voice was choked, but the strength in it was undeniable. She stood, cautiously, as if still unsure of her body's limits in this place.

Yzael pushed past the scholars and stepped into the room, her previous destination forgotten. "Lysandra, by the heavens, it is you," she whispered, moving closer.

But the sudden barks from the guards stationed in the room snapped her from the reunion's trance. "Stop! Stay where you are!" They ordered sharply, their weapons snapping up to a readied position as they assessed the situation.

Dr. Stenhouse and Emma, realizing the tension escalating in the room, quickly intervened. They moved forward with their hands raised in a calming gesture, positioning themselves between the guards and the two elves.

"Please, stand down!" Dr. Stenhouse's voice carried the weight of authority and urgency. "This is a critical moment, a delicate reunion! There's no threat here!"

However, the guards were resolute, their training kicking in. They weren’t swayed by Dr. Stenhouse’s plea, their focus solely on maintaining what they perceived to be a secure environment.

"Stay back!" one guard reiterated, his tone leaving no room for negotiation. The other guard, meanwhile, brought his radio to his mouth, clicking the button to communicate with their command center.

"Command, we have a situation in the east wing, room seventeen. Possible security breach, over," she reported, following the concise and clear-cut manner.

The response crackled through the radio for all to hear immediately, "Roger that, maintain your position. Reinforcements are en route. Contain the situation, over."

Emma moved swiftly, placing herself between the guards and Yzael, her voice raised in a mix of anger and desperation. "Don't you dare!" she yelled at the soldiers. Her past confrontations with authority had left a sour taste, but none so bitter as this. "She's not your enemy! She's not a lab rat for your sick fucking experiments!"

Mike however, just stood there with his own weapon at the ready. He knew Yzael wasn’t the threat they thought she was after his conversation with her and remained conflicted in what to do. Does he perform his duty, arrest her and resolve this misunderstanding? Or does he interject and try to defuse the situation and risk a court-martial.

But that all went out the window as Yzael threw up her hands. She felt it just as Lysandra felt it. The two women looked at each other in horror as a violent surge of magic rushed into them both, filling their veins with power she hadn't felt since arriving in this foreign world. It was overwhelming, like a dam bursting within her soul, the mana starved agony she had suffered was now replaced with an excess she couldn’t even possibly absorb all at once.

And that’s when realization struck. Yzael’s eyes widened as crackles of bright fluorescent blue lightning shot from her fingertips, the energy striking the ceiling with a sound like thunder. The room illuminated with an eerie light, causing everyone to shield their eyes and casting shadows that danced wildly against the walls. The soldiers, unprepared for such a display, instinctively snapped their weapons up, firing in order to remove the new found threat, However their bullets ricocheted uselessly off the magical shield Yzael had thrown up just in the nick of time.

“NO!!!” Lysandra screamed, springing into action.

Still a seasoned Freelancer and hardened warrior, the elven woman used the influx of mana to empower her movements. She was a whirlwind, as she tackled the female soldier, causing her to slam against the wall with a force that left a crack in the plaster. The soldier’s weapon clattered to the ground, sliding across the floor far out of reach.

The second soldier tried to pivot his weapon toward the new threat, his finger tensing on the trigger. But Lysandra, with reflexes honed over decades, was quicker. She grabbed the barrel of the gun, yanking it downward as the soldier fired, round after round with each bullet digging into the floor in a burst of dust and debris. With a swift, fluid motion, she yanked the weapon from his grasp and swung it like a club, the stock shattering against his head with a crack. The soldier crumpled, stunned and disoriented, trying to do his best to get up, but he was left dazed and vulnerable on the ground.

The room fell silent for a heartbeat, the only sounds the painful ringing from gunfire in an enclosed space and the labored breaths of soldiers and elves alike. Lysandra, her face a mask of fear and regret, let the broken rifle drop from her hands and started backing up, pressing her back against the wall. She looked at her comrade Yzael, her eyes also wide with the realization of what they had just done.

It was then that the door burst open, and a flood of heavily armed soldiers poured into the room, their own weapons drawn, pointed directly at the two elves.

“GET THE FUCK ON THE FLOOR! SHOW ME YOUR GODDAMN HANDS!”