Working at her family's inn in the village Amara and far from the war raging through the rest of Cordelia, Aven Rose Knight doesn't think her dreams of adventure and excitement will ever be fulfilled. She resigns herself to only ever being able to r...
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Aven was awoken in the night by someone shaking her shoulder. She groaned softly, and then her eyes shot open when that same someone covered her mouth to muffle the noise. Immediately wide awake and very alert, Aven rolled onto her side and came face to face with Eldrin. Slowly, the elf moved his hand from her mouth and held his finger to her lips, indicating she needed to be quiet.
The girl nodded in response, and jerked her eyes around in a circle, trying to ask what was going on without talking. The elf looked amused, but thankfully seemed to get the message. With the speed of a drunken inch worm, he moved his finger to point at the mouth of the cave.
Aven turned her eyes to see what he was pointing at, and almost cried out in alarm. Three creatures were sitting by a fire, slumped into each other, bottles hanging from their hands. Even in the little light available, Aven could make out the tips of their pointed ears, and golden earrings dangling from their ear lobes. Only one species had pointed ears, dressed in green, and wore golden earrings. And, of course, that meant that there were three, intoxicated and unconscious elves, in the front of their cave. That, of course, was never a good thing when one was not wishing to draw unnessecary attention to themselves.
What are we going to do? Aven mouthed at Eldrin. She didn't dare make any noise, fearing that the elves would hear her. It was entirely possible that the noise she already had made could have woken them, and she was lucky it hadn't. Elves' razor sharp hearing was advantageous at times, and extremely annoying at others.
Eldrin just slowly shook his head, mimed sleeping, and nodded at her. He was telling her to go back to sleep. Aven didn't like that idea, but she supposed that unconscious elves would do no harm to her if she ignored them.
Aven forced herself to lay back down slowly and quietly, and then close her eyes. She might not truly be able to sleep, but she could certainly feign it. She'd gotten good at doing that when she learned that it got her out of doing early morning chores. Her parents knew that most of the time when they came in the room and she looked to be asleep, she wasn't, but that was only because half the time she'd started laughing before they left. Now, in a situation that could be life or death, she was certain that she wouldn't laugh and smile when someone tried to call her jib.
As she waited for the elves to wake up, Aven felt stress unveil into her chest. She wondered why the elves had even come to the cave, as most of their species seemed to think themselves too good for Ashanko. At least, that was what she had always heard.
– –
In the end, it was Berkem who woke the elves. He'd been sleeping soundly, neither Eldrin or Mae daring to wake him for fear that he may start when they did so. Sadly, that was exactly what happened.
Berkem must have had a nightmare, or something of the sort, because he woke with a sonorous yell, rocketing upright and snatching his axe off of the floor. In seconds, their drunken elf guests were also shooting to their feet, weapons at the ready and faces contorted into furious snarls. "Imposters!" One hissed loudly, twirling his weapon between his fingers.
