Kiril's Story...

THE BEGINNING

Kiril Ashtreader, son of traveling merchants, came to his present occupation of ‘Scout’ by chance. When he was 14,  traveling with his parents on one of their many trips, selling their wares, they came upon a badly-wounded Elven warrior maiden. This young elf, Jessaril Stormweaver, by name, had survived the predations of a marauding band of Gnolls, and was sorely wounded by the attack.

Young Kiril was fascinated by her, from her exotic beauty, the sound of her musical voice, to her unusual garb and gear – mostly of her tales of her travels. Jessaril needed many months to heal, and, in repayment, offered to tutor the young Kiril in some of her skills.

So, Kiril was mentored by the Elf maiden and learned to hunt and track; he learned the use of sword and bow, how to survive in the harsh lands of his home, new languages and customs. He was schooled to be wary of the unknown, and to never take for granted what he thought he knew.

Yes, his family was well compensated by the kindness shown to a stranger.

THREE YEARS LATER...

“Kiril, what have I told you about sand traps?” Jessaril asks the young human.

“They are a danger to the reckless, and that I must always be wary. They are very hard to spot, but the presence of subtle concentric wave-like patterns in the sands gives them away. More like suggestions of  patterns, I think you actually said. Are you asking me, now, to see if I spotted that one about 20-feet to our left?”

“Oh, very good” exclaims Jessaril. “I do so dislike wasting my words. It is most heartening to see that I have not done so in this instance.”

“No Jess, you have not wasted your words. And by the way, have I told you recently how much I treasure the time you spend sharing your knowledge with me?” Kiril asks her frankly, his eyes upon her.

“Kiril, you have, and all jesting aside, you have proven an apt pupil. I am most pleased to teach you. You’re seventeen now, and I have tarried here in your homestead for far too long. It is good to know that when I leave, my promise to your parents to teach you some of my skills will have been fulfilled.”

Kiril stops in his tracks, turns to face her fully, and then says, “I knew that you would leave us one day. Is it that time?”

“Soon, very soon, with the passing of the moon, I will depart for my own home. But you have learned well, and I expect to hear of you from time to time”, Jessaril replies to his question.

“We will miss you. I will miss you. And you must know that we feel that you are part of our family now. You will always have a place at our hearth and table... and in our hearts.”

Jessaril, High-Lady of the High-Elven Stormweaver clan steps forward and embraces the young human fiercely, and huskily breathes out, “And you and yours have found a place in my heart too.  I am honored, and humbled to find the kindness, warmth, generosity, and yes – love – that’s been shown to me. Of all the memories that I have accrued, and expect to gain in the years to come, I see none that will have a higher place than the three years I have spent here.”

“Oh Jess, my heart will never be complete with you gone. But I understand that you must go. I do hope to see you again. Of course I may run out of time, as I am merely human, not an ageless Elf like you. But I do hope!” Kiril says back as he hugs her back, and then he dares to place a kiss on her flawless cheek.

Jess, at first freezes as she feels the press of his lips, then moves her face around, looks deeply into his eyes, smiles warmly at him. “Just this once”, she murmurs, and presses her lips to his.

Kiril, taken totally by surprise at this, but, as he has loved his mentor from the very first day that a terribly wounded, but so enchantingly beautiful, Elf maiden turned up in his life. And now, as he finds himself in a tight embrace with, and being soundly kissed by, the object of many an erotic fantasy ,as well as love, he can but return the kiss, and see what happens.

A moment or so passes, the two of them sharing the embrace and kiss with evident pleasure, their hands just starting to explore when, “How sweet!” a rough, guttural barking-voice utters.

Breaking apart, Kiril instinctively places himself between the direction of the voice and Jessaril. His shock of the interruption turns to dread as he sees, not a single individual, but a full-dozen Gnolls standing about 70-feet away. And these Gnolls are all girded for war.

A band of marauders. ‘This is going to get ugly real fast,’ he realizes.

From his side, Jessaril, who sidesteps Krill's gallant attempt to shield her without even thinking, has a hand wrapped around the hilt of her blade. She goads the band, “Gromtooth's tribe. I thought you were all dead. I see that I have more work to do.”

The Gnoll in front, a bulky brute, well over 8-feet tall, replies, “Oh, you know of us?”

“Indeed, I have killed enough of you, including Grimtooth himself. I see I missed a few. Well, I thank you for presenting yourselves so I can finish the task.” And then she draws her finely crafted Elven blade and moves forward with graceful, but determined, steps.

Kiril, who realizes that a battle is a foregone conclusion, uses the distraction of the Gnoll’s anger at Jess's words, to launch himself forward, drawing his own short sword as he does so.

Thinking the odds in their favor, the Gnolls are caught off-guard by Krill's attack, allowing him the first strike.

And a truer strike it could not have been, for it took one of the creatures at the juncture of neck and shoulder, killing it instantly. As the monster dropped, Kiril turned his run into a roll that moved him to the rear of the band.

Meanwhile, Jessaril, a lithe blur that somehow moves among the Gnolls, slashing and cutting as she dodges and twists, avoiding the return strikes aimed at her. She seems to almost be dancing, but what a lethal dance it is. Her first three targets went down, two dead, and the third soon to be, as it tries to stuff it's intestines back into the slit in its stomach, without apparent success.

Jess's deadly and mesmerizing frontal attack has allowed Kiril free reign at the pack’s rear, which he uses to good effect as he dispatches another, his blade severing its spine, and another is removed as a combatant when the arm holding a nasty spiked-club is severed at the elbow.

And just that quickly the Gnoll’s numbers are reduced by half. The leader, recognizing the predicament they are in, yella out, in his own language, “Take the boy, I will kill the bitch that killed my father!”

But Kiril, having been taught the language of the Gnoll’s, as well as Orcish and Elvish by Jessaril, is prepared for the turning attackers and brings down yet another before it can finish turning and face him.

The three remaining now become much more cautious and determined. They steadily advanced on Kiril, no longer taking the youthful human for granted. They try to encircle Kitil, but he realizes what they are attempting, and refuses to allow them their stratagem, moving steadily to the side so as to keep them strung out, as they move in on him.

Suddenly he breaks and runs from them, moving in a zigzag as he kicks up sand. The three Gnoll warriors, thinking his morale has broken, give immediate chase, yipping in their excitement. But the monsters are only paying attention to the fleeing human, and not the ground they are traversing. Suddenly one of them yells out in fear as it runs into the very sand trap Kiril noticed earlier. Kiril, cleverly leading them purposely, to this spot in hopes of evening the odds. It has worked.

Before the remaining two Gnolls can aid their floundering, trapped companion, Kiril turns back on them and attacks.

Now he presses the bigger creatures hard, keeping them on the defensive. But two-on-one is tough odds, especially when the two are more experienced, bigger and stronger than the one.

But Kiril has learned well from a incredible teacher, and is the more skilled. Though cuts get through to him, and he starts to shed his blood, none of the wounds are serious or debilitating. On the other hand, the two Gnolls are taking much more serious damage. One in particular haa taken a pretty bad slice to its left leg, just above the knee, and is obviously having a difficult time moving.

In the meantime, Jessaril is dancing a lethal dance of her own with the marauders leader. He is quite skilled, and with his greater reach and strength versus the grace and speed of his smaller, weaker opponent, the battle seems to be a stalemate. But, it only seems that way; Jessaril is enjoying sparring.

But she decides it is time to end the bout. With incredible dexterity, she sways away from a mighty blow, that, if it had connected, would have cut her from right shoulder through to her left hip. Instead, this leaves the creature overextended, and Jess's blade slides straight into his heart as she ripostes. As it falls to the ground, dead, she turns her attention to Kiril.

She watches as Kiril guts one Gnoll. Another Gnoll’s head is just slipping beneath the sand trap’s loose soil, and the single remaining monster tries to limp away on a steadily weakening and shaky leg. But there is no way that Kiril is going to let it get away. Let it go, give it a chance to recover from its wounds, and it will soon be raiding innocent, defenseless travelers and homesteaders. Kiril loped up to it and, in a beautifully delivered, precision strike, removes the head from, what is now, a corpse.

“Magnificently done!” Jessaril exclaimes, then moves quickly to Kiril, as he collapses to the ground in sudden weariness and blood loss. She kneels next to him, and checks his wounds. Though no single wound is, in and of itself serious, he has suffered half-a-dozen, all of which bleed freely.

“You have experienced your first life or death combat. And this was a serious threat for any experienced warrior to face, yet you triumphed, and did it with aplomb! I am proud of you.”

Kiril replies, “I owe my victory to my teacher, for she taught me well!” And he smiles warmly at her.

“You’re a mess”, mutters Jess, as she digs around in her pouch to get her healing salve and bandages. She wets a cloth-kerchief from her water pouch and starts to clean his wounds so she can treat them before binding them, when Kiril starts to laugh.

At first the chuckles were soft, but they grow in intensity until he shakes with mirth.

Jessaril pauses in her treatment until he manages to choke out, “Bad timing!” Then she, too, grins and joins him, laughing at the interruption of what had promised to be an afternoon of intimacy turned into a fight for their very lives. Talk about an unforeseen twist.

Jessaril decides that camping in the general area, after, of course, moving from the immediate vicinity of the dead Gnolls, will be best. This will allow Kiril to heal and let his body replace the blood that was lost during the fighting.

It also allows her to consummate the interrupted tryst. Which, to Kiril's delight, begins that very evening, and continues for the three days that he needs to heal, before Jess feels comfortable letting him travel back to the Ashtreader homestead.

“Kiril, I need you to understand some things, and I don't want you to be hurt. While I do have love for you, I don't have the kind of love needed for us to be a mated couple. As an Elf, with a existence that stretches so very far, my view on life is different, vastly so, from yours. Humans, to us are exciting because you try to cram in so many experiences into such a short time. You are like a very hot, but also very-short burning fire. For us to tie ourselves too tightly to a Human and then to lose them, at least for us, so very quickly, is, for many of us, debilitating.

I have a Great-Uncle, Polistrian, that fell in love and married a Human. When he watched her grow old, and wither away in such, what is for us, a brief time, well, he never really got past that. We lose people in many ways, battle, illness, injury, and yes, to time. We understand and accept this. But you Humans are gone, in what to us, is a blink of an eye. It is not unheard of for a courtship to last a century, or more, among us.” She cups his chin in her hands.

“I am drawn to your vibrancy, your awe at the newness of things that I take for granted. Your passion is so much more intense than is the norm to me. But while we can enjoy ourselves intimately, and I have indeed enjoyed our lovemaking, it cannot be more than this.” The concern that she is hurting him is obvious.

“Jess,” Kiril replies seriously, “I have always been aware, I think, that we could not be anything beyond teacher and student. These past few days are more than I ever expected. Dreamed of, yes. Expected, no. I do love you, and always will. But, Jess, I know, deep in my heart, and accept, that we cannot be more. Know that you have already given me the greatest treasure that you possibly could.”

He claps her hands in his. “And I also realize that I have probably driven you crazy over these past three years. After all, I have been something of a shadow to you,” with that Kiril gives her a wry grin.

Jessaril reaches a hand out and runs the tips of her fingers across his cheek. “Crazy? No, not really... There were times it was a bit hard to catch a breath, but I could see how you looked at me, could see the yearning that was there. I must say I am relieved to hear you say that you understand.”

She smiles at him fondly, “Did you know that your mother apologized to me for what she thought your obvious case of, as she put it, puppy love, was putting me through? As a matter of fact, both of your parents offered to absolve me of my pledge to teach you over a year ago.”

“No, I didn't know. Now, that's, rather, uhm, embarrassing.” Kiril shakes his head as his cheeks grow warm.

“Don't let it bother you. I was not concerned. I didn't see these last few days happening then, but you were already controlling yourself, even then, and you were such an apt pupil to teach. I do not regret a single day of my time in your home. You have been an absolute joy to train. Nor do I regret these last days.”

“But I have a long journey ahead of me. As I have mentioned in the past, that I am from the forests of Kyonin in Avistan. And that is quite a distance from here. So I will be moving on soon. I now feel confident in your taking care of yourself. That encounter, though very unwelcome, did show me that my combat training wasn't wasted. You’re not a blade dancer yet, but competent, yes,” she says with a warm smile.

“Gee, I certainly wouldn't want you to feel like you wasted your time,” Kiril flippantly responds with a smirk.

Jess laughs back at him, then reaches both hands out, grasps his head, pulls him to her, and sighs into a full mouth kiss. Coming up for air, she gasps out, “In the morning, we leave for your home, but for now, let’s enjoy each other.”

Kiril responds in actions, not words.

A week later. Kiril and his parents are watching the retreating back of Jessaril as she starts her journey back to her own homeland. Jess is leaving a second home behind, but she is fairly confident that the young man that she mentored will be seen by her again. After all, she did draw out a detailed map for him, didn't she?

THREE MONTHS ALONG...

It's been three months since Jessaril left to return to her home. Kiril is thinking. She

should nearly be home, if not already there. I wish her well, and will never forget her. She taught me so much, about life, combat, survival, and yes, about love. But still so much more even than that. How to think; broadening the scope of thought that otherwise would have limited me, about the culture of other races, languages, many different skills, bardic music, magic, and numerous other things that shall stand me in good stead in the years to come.

In the time since she’s left, I’ve helped my parents on a trip of the area, selling the family’s wares. My mother, Terrica, selling her herbs and poultices, potions and salves. My father, Kintris, a master craftsmen of musical wind instruments, though he can't play them, at least not well, (not that stops him from playing anyway). It is sometimes hard to reconcile that the famous minstrel, Logaris, was an ancestor from four generations back on my father's side.

According to father, our name Ashtreader, is from Forilias Ashtreader, an Elf that married a Lady Knight, one Dame Estralia. Of course this was over five hundred years ago, and the Elven blood is very much washed out of our veins by now. We are one the oldest families in the region, but any past honors and glories are forgotten.

Strangely, Jessaril was familiar with our families founding, though she herself isn't that old, being a mere three hundred and eighty three. But the story is known to her. Forilias wasn't even from her city, but apparently he was a well-known Elven Warder, one of those that act as our Knights do among our human nations.

I needed space from the memories of Jess, and time to find myself, so after returning from the peddling trip, I set out to see more of the lands than I ever did while traveling on the quarterly trips with my parents.

At first I just wandered, living off the land, selling furs that I gathered and cured during this time for money to buy that which nature didn't provide. After six months of this, I came across a town in need of help with a Gnoll problem. Well, I can honestly say that I am not fond of these creatures, so I accepted a job to either chase them, or to kill them, off. Of course the mayor figured that I was too young and inexperienced to succeed, but no one else was coming forth.

I tracked this town’s band, discovering that they were seven in number. I also knew that Gnolls don't get chased off worth a damn, so I needed to be smart. I needed to find them divided.

I watched them for three days, and found out their routines. Every morning, three would leave to hunt, two would guard the camp, while the last two would scout out the area, I guessed for their next strike.

I set traps around the camp on the evening of that third night. In the morning, having ascertained the direction of travel of the two scouts. I moved ahead. I set the traps that their route would take them through, then waited in ambush. Sure enough one of them was caught unawares by a deadfall trap, and as its companion tried to help, I brought it low with a well-placed arrow.

I then put the other one out of everyone's misery.

Moving back to the their camp, I found out that the party of three hunters had yet to return, so I had a window of opportunity to further reduce the odds. I shot one of the guards at distance, wounding it. I then shot the other one as it rushed to me, wounding it as well.

Just before it got to me, I had dropped my bow, and drawn my sword. Then I tumbled by the monster as it tried to hit me with its battle axe. But the tumble was unexpected, and as I closed from behind, I managed to strike a mortal wound. Turning quickly, I was in time to evade the rush of the other Gnoll.

This one was more skilled and more canny, and our blow and counter-blow went on for several seconds. Seconds that felt like an hour. But in the end, it lay dead and I had a new, if shallow, cut on my left forearm.

Now I had to get ready for the remaining three. I took myself back to the brush, erasing my tracks as I went. An hour went by, then another before the hunting party returned.

Upon finding their guards slain, They rushed about trying to figure what, or who, had done this. I stayed well hidden and watched. Finally they calmed, and, as dusk arrived and went, two of the three turned in.

As I thought, with no discernible tracks and no overt signs of threat, they relaxed. I waited a further two hours before I carefully, silently, made my way up behind the sleepy guard. One near-silent rush and a sword thrust, later finds me catching and then easing to the ground the body of a very dead Gnoll. The two others never stirred. And they also never woke again.

The worst part of the job wasn't killing the band of Gnolls, it was collecting the ears as proof to turn in to the mayor. After I collected my bounty, thirty-five gold coins, plus what I recovered and sold from the bodies and camp, I was one hundred and thirty gold coins richer.

Now I didn't enjoy this job, but I will not stand by and let these marauding creatures wreak bloody havoc among those who have done no offense other than being in their path. I had no qualms about what I did. Not all my jobs went as easily as that first one, and I have the scars as proof.

Over the next several months, this was what I did. I hunted Gnoll brigands, lived well on the proceeds, and then, running low on funds, (though I did manage to send a goodly portion to my parents), repeat.

One day I was sought out by a person who was hiring people to cleanse a ruined city so that it could be rebuilt and resettled. That person was Garavell, which led me here to the present day.

And to a beautiful, young Human-Elf Sorceress named Spring.

Who, with a mere look, and a soft-spoken, "Hello", cast a spell on me. For I believe now, I fell in love at that moment, though I knew it not at the time.

This, then, begins our story...

o0o