Vaegon was growing increasingly irritable. It had become obvious to Hyden and Mikahl that the elf’s missing eye was causing him a sort of pain that wasn’t physical. It was keeping Vaegon from seeing the subtle auras that he needed to see to find his people, and in turn was causing some deeper agony inside the elf. Vaegon’s temper grew short, and he was sharp with his responses and comments.
Hyden tactfully broached the subject, and pointed out that they had no more time to waste. Vaegon finally admitted defeat. Two full days of travel, it turned out, was more than even he thought they could spare. He tried to explain to them about the powerful concealing magics, and the mobile nature of his people’s secret home.
“Our city, if you could call it that, doesn’t actually exist at the location where you might find and enter it,” Vaegon said, with sadness and longing in his tired voice. “It moves as our people move. The Queen Mother is connected to the forest through the Heart Tree. If we were so inclined, we could be found in the Reyhall Forest in the west, or in the Gnarish Tree Wards, beyond the Giant Mountains. We have forests that we favor. The Evermore is one of these. We were visiting it when I was born, nearly a century ago, so to me, this is home. To get back to my people, to find my home though, has become impossible. To find the entry points in the powerful wards that conceal it, one must have a certain, and uniquely elven vision, and I have lost that.”
His hand fiddled with the patch over his empty socket as he spoke. The sorrow, and agony he was feeling was plain in his voice. It was as if he had been utterly defeated.
It wasn’t easy for the haughty and superior elven archer to admit his newfound weakness, or to accept the fact that he was blind to his homeland, but he swallowed his pride, and let reality set in. After he finished his explanation, he started off into the woods again. They agreed that he would look the rest of this day, and then they would move on. He would look again when they stopped, for the entrances were many and could be found throughout the great forest. He knew he had kept them there too long, but it was only because he hoped that the elves would have noticed him blundering about, and would send a party out to investigate. If any of the elves noticed him, they would surely tell his father, or brother, if not the Queen Mother herself. After all, he was well known amongst his people for a skill he no longer had.
Neither Hyden, nor Mikahl, had realized how old Vaegon actually was. In terms of appearance, and in relation to the human aging process, he wasn’t that much older than they were, but in actual years, Vaegon was old enough to be one of their grandparents.
Mikahl couldn’t conceive of the idea of Vaegon’s age very well, but he understood the elf’s inability to get home. He was haunted by the same feeling. Sure, he could find his way back to Westland, but according to Borg, it wouldn’t be his home that he found when he got there. His mind carried him back to a memory of youth then. A time long before duty and responsibility had swallowed up the promise of the future.
Once, as a boy of seven or eight, when his most important duty in life was the nightly candle snuffing in all the great halls of Lakeside Castle, he and some of the other castle brats had pulled a prank. Had big old Lord Ellrich’s daughter, Zasha, not been involved, he and his conspirators might not have survived King Balton’s wrath.
A feast was being held for some local event, a name day, a wedding, or such. Lord Ellrich from the south, and a few of the northern dukes, were the only attendees of note, other than the king.
The main course was to be a huge glazed pig, complete with an apple in its mouth, and served on a bed of green lettuce on a silver tray.
For hours, it had sat there in the kitchen, sprawled on the rolling cart it would be presented on. Mikahl remembered its pinkish-brown skin, all slick and shiny with honey glaze, as clearly as if he were looking at it now. The troop of castle brats, and the visiting Lady Zasha, who at that time was a long way yet from being a real lady, had hidden with their surprise behind the heavy curtains of the bard’s alcove in the dining hall. They fought the giggles, grunts, and the wiggles that always seem to plague children when mischief is about, while desperately trying to remain undiscovered. They peaked through the curtains, at the unsuspecting feasters, and waited patiently while the servers brought out the courses one at a time. Keeping their surprise quiet and still, was a chore, which caused many a snort, and a few squeals of worry and mirth.