The Little Water Elf

9- Runaan

「 She remembered that human
beings could not live in the water, so
that when he got down to her father's
palace he would be quite dead. 」

Rayla awoke the next morning with legs that felt like lead. She pulled herself up, her eyes drifting to the window, where the orange rays of sunrise drifted out over the open water. It had taken forever for her to drift to sleep the night before, despite the exhaustion that filled her being.

The bed that she lay on was nothing compared to the soft sand and moss that made up her own back under the sea. Her bed on land was a strange rectangular shape, as opposed to the clam-shell shape of her old one. How did humans sleep here every night? There wasn't even a warm current drifting through her room to keep her warm, all they had was a heavy cloth to drape over themselves.

She dropped her legs over the side of the soft cushion, and brought herself into a standing position. The pain filled her being once more, and she made her way to the closet where she selected a simple sea-blue dress that didn't seem to require a corset. Rayla didn't think she'd be able to handle the added pain.

The elf left her room with high hopes for the day ahead.

•  •  •

Callum was sitting on the beach when she found him. Staring out over the ocean with a distant expression. She stood, watching for a second, before joining him on the sand.

That startled him back into reality, "Oh, hey," he managed to say, relaxing as he saw it was only her. "I still don't know your name, that's pretty sad, isn't it?"

Rayla smiled, moving to a patch of sand flattened by the waves that clawed at the shore. She'd seen enough writing in her short time here to know that their writing was at least close enough to her own that he should understand.

Carefully she carved into the damp sand.

R a y l a

"Rayla?" Callum asked, and the elf nodded. "That's— that's actually really pretty."

She simply smiled not knowing what else to do. She couldn't speak, and conversation relied heavily on that.

Callum didn't seem bothered by it though.

"That reminds me, you were interested in learning sign language?"

Rayla nodded excitedly.

"Here, we can start with the basics," he began, carving letters into the sand and showing her the signs for each one.

Rayla repeated the signs, her joy slowly growing as she committed them to memory, finding a voice in a way she never thought she'd need to.

• • •

"Have you found her yet?"

"No, Runaan. There's no sign of her anywhere near the city."

The water in the cavern was dimly lit by a million luminescent pearls. They were currently in the council room, a rarely used cave at the heart of their city. There was never any need for it unless Runaan and his team needed to discuss the sightings of humans or a rogue shark roaming nearby waters.

This was a room designed to plan war strategies, not to plan search parties for a missing elf.

"When was she last seen?" he asked, a hand resting on his face as her tried desperately to search his memory for anything that might hint to where Rayla, the girl he saw as his own daughter, had gone.

"It's going to be fine," the only other elf in the cavern replied, a comforting hand being placed on his shoulder, "we'll find her. We'll find her if we have to traverse the entire ocean."

Runaan let his head rest on the chest of the merman opposite to him, hating himself for breaking so much in front of him.

"Thank you, Tinker," he whispered, trying so hard not to break down right then and there.

"Now, has there been anything you noticed before she disappeared," Tinker asked, "I know you had grounded her around a week before, though that did little to limit her recklessness."

Runaan's eyes widened, and with a single flick of his tail he was upright, "Oh course, that idiot," he mumbled, anxiety creeping into his being as he began pacing through the cold water, "She'd swum off to the border again, across the trench to find things for her 'collection', and was quite insistant on ignoring my warnings and—"

He paused, turning back to face Tinker with pure fear in his eyes, "Oh stars, what if she was captured by humans."

The long silence that followed was enough confirmation for Runaan.

He began the swim out of the cavern and through the city, "Order an ensemble of my team. Send them out to search the human side, I'll scan the shorelines for any sign of her."

"But Runaan, what if—"

"I don't care. If you find her before she leaves," he reached a hand into a small bag fastened around his waist, pulling out a small, glass orb that resembled a pearl, he tossed it to Tinker, "use the sea glass to contact me. Until then, you'll know where I am."

"Runaan—"

The elf was gone, swimming as fast as his fins would carry him, pausing only to grab his trident from its casing in the armory. It had been so long since he'd had to wield it in battle. It's familiar weight was almost foreign in his palms.

He then swam. It didn't matter to him that the sun had long set, nor that dawn was quickly approaching. He needed to find her.

He wouldn't rest until Rayla was safe at home.

When he reached the border, he hesitated. What if he really was overreacting, and Rayla was simply gone for one of her many rebellious expeditions out. For several days. Without so much as a single sighting of her from anyone asked.

Runaan heaved in a large breath of water, swimming up to the surface far above. He broke the surface and inhaled his first breath of air in countless years. Ever since the merfolk had withdrawn from actual combat (thankfully the humans were too terrified of their magic to travel by sea anymore), instead sending off magic items and specialized weapons to the surface.

He'd thought that her parents' death would've scared her into staying under the waves, where it was safe — and it had, for a span of a few years — until she started to grow curious of things outside the sea.

As far as Runaan could see over the waves, there was nothing.

Without another thought, he dove back into the depths and crossed the border.