“You’re not supposed to—” Surfer Dude said, echoing his master, but Elliot was already walking away.
He did take Surfer Dude’s point, and he did not want to be pushed off the fence, so he meandered along it a little, moving farther away from the group, and as he did so he came in sight of someone else who was standing slightly removed from the crowd.
She turned as Elliot approached.
She was tall, slim, and strong-looking as a young birch tree, and as she turned her long dark hair spun out in the steadily blowing wind. It formed a trail of darkness, touched by autumn leaves twined around her tresses: her pale face stood out in sharp relief, and so did the pearl-pale curling points of her ears.
This was an elf maiden.
This was, bar none, the coolest person Elliot had ever seen.
Elliot only had to look at her solemn face for one long moment, robbed of breath by both the wind and her beauty, and he knew. This was love: not the passing fancy he’d felt for Miss Tolliver his music teacher (in which he’d become confused by having a good relationship with an authority figure), or Simon Bae (confused by admiration for his skill in their shared art project) or Clare Winters (the guidance counselor had approved and hadn’t said Elliot was confused, but Clare had turned out to only understand a quarter of Elliot’s jokes, so she’d been confused all the time).
Elliot wasn’t confused now, looking into those clear eyes, at once dark and bright like pools in a deep forest.
He tried to collect himself. Now was no time to stare like a hypnotized sheep.
Now was the time to woo.
He had not seen any other elven girls in the whole camp. So clearly she was defying conservative elven customs by coming here, brave and alone and the victim of cruel oppression. Elliot’s heart went out to her. She was probably feeling scared and shy.
“Hello,” said the beautiful elven maid. “I was just thinking, and I mean no offence, but—how can any fighting force crowded with the softer sex hope to prevail in battle?”
“Huh?” said Elliot brilliantly. “The softer what?”
“I refer to men,” said the elf girl. “Naturally I was aware the Border guard admitted men, and I support men in their endeavor to prove they are equal to women, but their natures are not warlike, are they?”
Elliot offered, after a long pause: “I don’t enjoy fighting.”
She favored him with a slow smile, like dawn light spreading on water. “Very natural.”
“In fact,” Elliot confessed, encouraged, “I never fight.”
“You should not have to,” she said. “There should always be a woman ready to protect a man in need. I take it that you are bound for the council course then?”
“I don’t understand,” said Elliot, and then he shamelessly looked up at her (taller, why was everybody taller?) through his eyelashes and confessed: “I’m from the other side of the Border, and this is all a little overwhelming”—and distressing? Yes, Elliot felt that he was definitely distressed—“and distressing,” he added with conviction. “If you would be so very kind as to explain a few things to me, I would so appreciate it.”
He was going for a combination of shy and winsome. As he had never tried to act like this ever before, he wasn’t sure how well he was succeeding, but the elf maid unbent further. So he couldn’t be doing too badly.
“Certainly,” she said, and offered him her arm. Elliot, a quick study, accepted it with a sweet smile. “The council course is a course in diplomacy, mapping the lands to this side of the Border, learning about other cultures. Elven culture, for instance, is quite different from that of humans.”
“I am beginning to see that.”
“War training is seen as more prestigious, and has far more recruits,” said the elf.
“That is totally unreasonable! These people are idiots! I suspected it all along.”
“You are very forthright for a man,” said the elvish maiden. “But I understand that human men are not reared as delicately as elven gentlemen. I agree with you, moreover: both courses should be considered equally important.”
Elliot had not said that, but he was already unbecomingly forthright, so he fluttered his eyelashes and remained demurely silent.
He did not think the demure silence thing was going to work out, because he was only able to keep it up for a minute.
“What’s your name?”
“Serene.”
“Serena?” Elliot asked.
“Serene,” said Serene. “My full name is Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle.”
Elliot’s mouth fell open. “That is badass.”
Serene’s serious countenance did not change, but Elliot felt a subtle shift of that slim body: he was fairly certain she was preening.
“I’m Elliot Schafer,” he added.
“A strange name,” said Serene, adding gallantly: “But not unpleasing.”
Take that, every jerk at school who had ever laughed at Elliot’s name. No badass elven maidens had ever told them that their names were not unpleasing, had they?
“Are you interested in the cultures of the Borderlands?” Serene asked in a courteous tone.
“Super interested,” declared Elliot. “When you said peoples, you mean humans, elves, dwarves and . . . ?”
Please say mermaids, he thought. Please say something cool with wings.
“Mermaids,” said Serene. He could have kissed her. (He would have been really delighted to kiss her.) “Trolls. Harpies. Centaurs. Dryads, and various other peoples.”
“Badass,” Elliot whispered again.
That was when they both noted that the woman in odd clothes was there again. She turned out to be called Captain Woodsinger, and she was collecting them all for a roll call, which Elliot thought was ridiculous considering they had just lined up to sign into the Border training camp.
He cheered up when she started reading out names, and Blondie turned out to be called Luke Sunburn.
“Sunborn,” hissed Surfer Dude, once Elliot was done loudly making fun of this. “He’s called Luke Sunborn. Of the Sunborns, you know!”
“I don’t,” said Elliot. “And I don’t want to.”
“Centuries ago, the first humans came across the Border to the otherlands,” Surfer Dude recited, as if this was a lesson he had learned long ago. “Humans settled in this country near the Border, and lived among the creatures here, and brought peace to the Borderlands.”
He eyed Serene as he said “creatures” which Elliot thought was an odd way to look at the most beautiful and badass girl in the world
Elliot glanced at Serene, then back to Dale. “So this place is the otherlands?”
“Depends on your point of view,” said Serene. “Some people call where you come from the otherlands. It is, after all, on the other side of the Border.”
Though Elliot enjoyed debate, he was currently on an information-gathering mission.
“This country is called the Borderlands, though,” he said. “And the Border means the giant magic wall?”
Surfer Dude nodded and smiled his happy smile. “Yes.”