In Loki's Honor

The way the elves reacted after I gained the Trait made my jaw drop. The unease they had around me went away at once, and they would talk to me like I was one of them.

After breakfast, I was allowed out of my room and I got my first glimpse of the elven village. My room was on the forest floor, but a wall of roots surrounded the clearing. Massive, dozens of meters wide trees rose up like skyscrapers. forming a hexagon with seven trees, one in the middle. Bridges were woven from vines crisscrossed from one tree to the next above me. Along the trees' trunks, the elves built their houses and workshops.

On the ground, rays of sun filtered down through the forest giants' leaves and traced a calming pattern of light and shadows on the ground. Most of it was moss-covered stone, but patches of dirt allowed bushes and grass to grow. Some stone buildings dotted the clearing inside the hexagon, and from a few of the plumes of smoke rose up only to be sucked into some kind of building fifty meters or so up the trees.

I spent the first day wandering around the clearing. I saw Elves working copper and bronze into tools, weapons, and ornaments. Another one was working a silvery metal into a beautiful sword. On another corner, sculptors worked stone and wood into works of art. I noticed there were no animals around. After I went to the other side I found a lake the approximate size of a handful of Olympic pools put together. I laid on a rock next to the shores closed my eyes, listening to the calm waves rocking the lake.

After a quick nap, I completed my lap around the clearing. Some elves were also lazily strolling around as if they had all the time in the world. In a sense, they did. They looked at me and waved. I also noticed two things. One, that very few elves wore blue. And two, there were no elven children. I expected to see a few pointed-eared tykes prancing around.

When I returned to my room, an elf lady was waiting for me. She smiled and pointed at the table with a pile of a dozen thick books. She had the air of a school teacher. I sat where she pointed and she pulled the other chair to sit by my side. Taking the first book, she started.

The books had pictures, and carefully drawn glyphs next to them. I recognized it immediately. It was a picture book for children. She would point at the picture and say a word. Then she would repeat the word, but pointing her long and slender finger at the glyphs one by one. On the third pass, she broke it down into syllables and repeated slowly. Then it was my turn. She would make me repeat until my pronunciation was acceptable. Her standards were high.

The day went by, and it was clear to me that until I learned the Elvish language, I wouldn't move on to other subjects. But I had a bed, clean clothes, and five meals a day. The elves ate light, but they spread their meals. There was breakfast at sunrise, then an early lunch before noon, afternoon snack, dinner at nightfall, and supper late at night. The average elf slept only for four to six hours every day. I had no complaints.

Mrs. Bemere was my Elvish tutor's name. She was relentless. If I added "perseverance" to the picture book, I would put her portrait next to it. I wasn't dumb and I had two perks to accelerate Skills, but it took me a month to learn the first level of their language even with System aid.

You gained the Fulgenian Elvish (language, rare) Skill.

This elven country was called Fulgen. You have one chance to guess the forest's name. The language's rarity was the reason the bar was so high. It was considered rare to me because I was not an elf. Compared to the world's population, the frequency of the Skill granted it such status. For the Fulgen elves, it was classified as common. But it wasn't over. She changed her books, to include grammar, derivations, and inflections. The way you spoke was very important. Cadence and tone were part of the language and speaking a phrase fast or slow could change its meaning. But two weeks later I acquired the Skill, it was already capped at the dread " ".

"I don't understand. You were making such good progress," Mrs. Bemere said with a friendly tone.

Elves didn't speak, they sang. I had a huge handicap. Since I didn't speak much during my first five years, my mouth didn't adjust its shape and the muscles weren't trained. Yes, I knew how to speak English, but the physical exercises a baby naturally did as it grew up and my body required to vocalize was never done. And I couldn't explain to her why. I wasn't supposed to be in the system yet.

"Can we keep trying, Mrs. Bemere? I am sure this is some sort of blockage that will pass later," I butchered their language using the words I could.

She gave me a concerned gaze. "I find your metaphors most interesting, Ms. Lily. I can picture how a clump of leaves and branches barricading a river can relate to your current problem. Very well. You have determination, and that is commendable for someone as young as you."

Elves develop slower than humans. It isn't because they are dumb, it is because their hormones, bodies, and brains don't change as fast as a human. But then again, a human doesn't develop fast as a goblin either. I learned that at two years old, a goblin is already an adult in both body and mind.

My drive to keep studying Fulgenian came from a hunch I had. My rabbit sign language was also stuck at for months, but I never stopped developing the actual language. Once it was complete, I gained a Trait and the Skill at the level of complete fluency. The same happened to English. The System recognized my natural proficiency and granted me the Skill. Maybe if I did the same with Fulgenian, I would one day bump the Skill all the way to journeyman 35.

I continued my exclusive language training for another month, but not in the room with books. Mrs. Bemere would take me to hear poets, plays, and bards doing music recitals. I would have to later repeat what I heard, explain their shifts of intonation and what it meant, and so on. It was mentally taxing but that extra mile was what made Elvish so beautiful. Everything had meaning. Change the key and a new subtext is added to what you are saying. I could only compare to a guy I saw once, he played the flute but also hummed at the same time.

Two months later, I went from watching the performers to learning with them. Mrs. Bemere brought me to a poet friend of hers.

"This will help with your diction and pitch control, my dear," She explained to me before knocking on the poet's door.

An elf with well-groomed features and a colorful vest answered the door. He smiled at Mrs. Bemere. "Agatha, how are you? I heard you were tutoring our esteemed guest..." He trailed off with a nod from the language teacher. "Oh, how are you, little one."

Damn, the guy was handsome and charming. I bowed. "Nice to meet you, master. I'm Lily," I introduced myself using the elvish word for the flower.

"Oh, it is a pleasure," the poet gushed. "I'm Reynoyonyn, Call me Renyn just like my friends, my dear Lily."

"Renyn," Mrs. Bemere cleared her throat, "I wish you to train Lily. She needs to improve her speech, and I need your expertise to help her vocalize better."

Renyn clapped his hands, excited, "Yes, yes! I never had the pleasure of working with a human, and I wonder if their vocal range and physiology can lead to new phonemes or voice expressions. Maybe we can teach each other as we go, Ms. Lily, what do you think?"

"I would be honored to help, Master Renyn," I replied.

I was very relieved that he took this so well. Because honestly, compared to them, human vocalization was shit. Seriously.

Renyn took me by the wrist. "We will start right now then, please come in and make yourselves comfortable. Tell me, dear, what is your age?"

"I'm five, master. I'll be six at the start of next winter."

He looked at me with a serious. "You surely are very mature for a five-year-old. Especially for one that grew among wolves."

Busted. "I'm sorry, master. I can assure you I am not acting like now. This is me, as good as it gets. But there are things I can't talk about."

He caressed my head. "You were chosen by Yznera. Our Goddess and Mother gave us orders to welcome you as one of us and treat you as an honored guest. Of course, you have secrets. Now, come. Let's spend one fun day making strange sounds with our mouths."

"I'll leave you to play together," Mrs. Bemere said. "Lily, you are to come here to have lessons and assist Renyn in whatever chores he needs doing. Don't worry, he is a far more amenable taskmaster than me," She smirked and chuckled. Reminded me of wind chimes.

I entered Renyn's studio. Not a house. A studio. I could see the elves had a deep knowledge of acoustics, as there were softwood panels at odd angles all around the room. Some hardwood armchairs with a very inviting upholstery rested in a rough semicircle around an open area, where the performer would have a perfect place to make himself clearly heard. Renan took one of the armchairs and pointed me to the one next to him.

"Now, Lily. Do you speak Pekothasian?"

I shook my head. "No, sir. I never even heard of this language."

He frowned then chuckled. "You see, that's the language the humans of this region speak. Unless you were born on the other side of the Frostwyrm mountains, that's what you should speak."

"No. I think my birth village was just a week's travel away from here. I was outcast from society as a baby, master. But I might know a few words. Do these words mean anything to you?"

I spoke some of the words I remembered from the conversations between Rosalinda and the matrons. Renyn would take some of these words and speak them differently, asking me if either mine or his version sounded better. It was a wonder that his voice changed entirely when he spoke "human". I confirmed that his pronunciation sounded right and he nodded.

"It is amazing that you recall words spoken around you when you were a newborn. Most don't have such a good memory."

I looked away, "Yes, I remember a lot. I don't know if it is a good thing or not." He patted my head. I felt the inside of my nose sting and my eyes moisten.

"Sometimes, sharing painful memories can help," He cooed with a whisper that felt like leaves rustling in the wind.

"Rosalinda. That was the name of my mother. She was taken from this world when I was three months old. She was murdered in the cruelest way possible. The whole village was razed at that time," I said between sobs.

I felt the chair disappear underneath me as Renyn scooped me in his arms. He held me. "Let it out, child. Don't bottle the pain."

I threw my left arm over his neck and buried my face in his tunic. I bawled for who knows how long. When I stopped, my eyes stung. I left a trail of snot on the elf's tunic, but he didn't seem to care.

"Lily, would you tell me about Rosalinda. She might be gone, but remembering can make them live within us."

I nodded. He gave me a scented handkerchief and I made thorough use of the cloth. But the tears wouldn't stop. I remembered my deaths, of all things. The runaway truck crashing down the 42nd. The mole biting half of me off. The barbarian drowning me in the mud underneath his body. But that death was less painful than seeing Marion murdered.

I cried to exhaustion.

Marion, Grandpa Graybeard, Rosalinda. I felt responsible for those deaths. Living, again and again, might not be the great boon one would believe. Because you get to make new people suffer because of you. And their specters will forever haunt me.

I felt sleepy. Renyn was rocking me and humming a calming tune. I begged, "Please, master. I don't want to sleep. I fear the ghasts that might visit me in my dreams."

He put his hands in my armpits and lifted me as if I was a plume. He brought me to the center of the open area. "Then don't sleep. Let's make an exercise. Here. I'll make some sounds, and you repeat them." We did a series of vocalization exercises to warm up my vocal cords. When he was satisfied, he gave me an order. "Scream. Get your pain, your sorrows, your anger. Scream it all. Shout. Curse. Put it all out. Get angry. Go!"

I was confused. Somehow screaming in a stage was a terrifying proposition, as if I would bare myself more than stripping my body of all clothes.

Renyn noticed my hesitation, and pointed at a chair, "Let me go first, then. SIt over there."

The elf poet took his spot and started to scream. It was a shout of anger as if his wrath would blanket a city in hot magma. He was terrifying and my mind painted him with a red aura that threatened to break every bone of my body after he flayed my hide off. Then he shifted to a neutral stance for a brief moment before shouting pure pain. He wailed as if a million swords were disemboweling him. It made me reach out with my arm.

But what broke me was his cries of sorrow. He wept like Romeo when he found the love of his life dead in the coffin. He sniveled and whimpered like a father pleading a marauder for the life of his children. He cried like a soldier that was forced to kill his own brother on the battlefield.

And suddenly, he stopped. Renyn the elven poet returned to a neutral posture, flexed, and bowed.

He broke my heart with his performance and it was exactly that. Just a performance. I was shedding tears from my second tear bank, the one I didn't know I had. Renyn's act was horrifying. And it was beautiful and sublime at the same time. He put such raw emotion in his performance that I couldn't help but feel the rapport.

He reached out for me and gave me another handkerchief. I had no idea how many he had.

"I'll try to do it, master," I said after I blew my nose clean.

"Yes, yes. But first, let's find ourselves some refreshments," He said.  I took the hand he offered me and went with him.

Completely out-of-hand explosive-growth Status!!!