Of Wardens: Clara

"Get her! Catch the blighted elf, you damn simpletons!"

She watched the humans searching for her - or trying to search for her, but they weren't doing a very good job. Not that she expected them to find her no matter how hard they tried. This was her forest and she knew it like the back of her hand, and these men didn't even have a clue of how to read the few signs that she'd left behind for them.

But that didn't really matter. They would not find her in the form she held not. She was a shapeshifter, a mage who had the ability to change her body to another form. She had spent days, weeks, even months and years studying animals to learn how to take on their form.

So what the humans would have to search for to find was not an elf but a small bird, a sparrow, sitting on a branch not to far from them, curisouly watching them, flying from tree to tree as she followed them.

'Silly humans...' she cooed.

Not only didn't they have a clue of how to find her, they were also walking around in circles, oblivious to their surroundings. It would seem that they weren't very experienced hunters. She felt a bit responsible for leading them around like this without a chance of finding their targets, and possibly losing their way back home when they tired of searching.

She flew down towards them, landed on one of the mens shoulders to meake her prescence noticed, but something happened then that she had not intended. The human, surprised by her sudden approach, struck her, sending her against a tree which he hit hard.

The fall to the ground fractured her small wing, as well as it broke her spell binding her to her birdform, transforming her back into her elven self. She carefully held her injured arm as she tried not to show them her pain.

"Andaran atish'an," she smiled at the three men that all stared at her with widening eyes.

"She's a witch!"

"Dan, we should get away!"

"Yeah, I don't want to be turned into a toad!"

"Shut up!" the one they called Dan growled, "No one's gonna turn into anything. The only thing that's about to happen is that this witch is going to pay for scaring away that halla!"

"Calm down friend, I wasn't trying to-"

"I'm not your friend, knife-ear!" He pulled out a short dagger, holding the cold steel against her cheek.

"I do not want any quarrel with you, but I couldn't let you hurt that halla," she tried to calm him down, "I will help you hunt if you need-"

"I don't need-"

Her golden eyes barely registered the arrows before they reached their targets and the humans fell to the ground, their blood coloring the grass crimson.

She looked up from their bodies to the archer that was approaching her.

"No," she looked down on them, saw their blood spreading over the ground. "Why did you kill them, Damien?"

"It was you or these shems, Clara."

"No," she stood up and looked at him, "Nobody needed to die."

"No?" Damien pulled out his arrows from their dead bodies and turned them over, picking up the humans knife. "It certainly looked like they were about to kill you."

"I could have calmed him down!"

"Stop your dreaming, lethallan! Slemlens despises us elves! And you are a mage at that" he roared at her, his hatred apparent in his words. But his expression softened then, "They would not have hesitated to take your life, and I would not let them just to prove you wrong."

She didn't answer him.

He sighed, "Come then, Clara, the Keeper is worried."

- - -

"Damien tells me that you were out following shems again, da'len."

"Don't call them that."

"I have told you not to endanger our clan simply because of your curiosity."

Clara lowered her head, "I am not trying to endanger us..."

The Keeper sighed. "I know you aren't trying to, but you are. If they were to stumble into our camp we would have to move. If we did not, the humans would try to chase us away, or be rid of us for good."

"They aren't all as bloodthirsty as you think, Keeper!" Clara defended them, meeting the older elf dark eyes, "Not all of them hate us, and they just want to protect what's dear to them, just like we do! If we would just try to communicate with them instead of running away we would see that they are just like us. They read and study, they know magic and-"

"I am sick of your fascination with their kind, Clara!"

She looked away from him, to the ground.

"If you won't listen to me and stay away from the humans, you should leave us and live in one of their cities."

"Keeper!" It was Damien who spoke, "You can't-"

"Yes. If she will not heed my advice and stay away from them, she should go to them."

Clara looked up at the Keeper, her feelings stirring inside her. Fear, confusion, excitement. He was right. She should stay with them. She didn't want to leave her family and loved ones behind, but if they didn't understand her, she couldn't stay. She would be better off living with the humans - and they would be better off without her.

"I'll go then."

"Lethallan, don't-"

"It will be alright, brother, don't worry so much" she smiled at Damien.

The Keeper sighed. "I hope that maybe now you will learn for yourself how these shems really are."

"I know they won't be like you make them out to be" she said to the older man, turning away to gather the few belongings she had.

"Know that you are always welcome to return to us again, da'len."

Clara turned to him, "I know."

- - -

Maybe the Keeper had been right. Maybe her clan had been right. Maybe she was foolish to trust the humans so easily, believing in the good in them.

She had been travelling for days now, visited villages and cities, but met no human that would take her as an apprentice, give her a room for the night. She had not met a single human that had spoken a kind word to her yet. Not even the elves from one the alienages in the cities had treated her with much more kindness than the humans, but they couldn't afford to take another elf into their houses.

The knight was cold and her small fire barely kept her warm. She had never realized that sleeping so close to others is what kept her warm at night even during these cold winters.

Maybe they were right. Maybe she'd been wrong about humans all along. Maybe she should go back home again...

Suddenly she heard something in the forest. It wasn't animals, it moved to clumsy for an animal. Humans. And there was a lot of them. She could hear the sound of their armors moving as they came closer.

Clara hesitated for a moment. If she put out her fire and transformed into a bird or a small animal, they would never know that she'd been her. But... she wanted to trust them still. Even if they hadn't given her any reason to do so, she wouldn't think that they were not to be trusted. They couldn't all hate elves. They couldn't all wish her kind from the world.

So she stayed. Waited as she heard them coming closer. Soon she heard them speak as well, heard as they discovered her fire and stopped, suspicious about who she might be. Only one of them moved closer to her now.

She stood up, backing away from the fire and into the shadows of the forest, ready to run if she had to, but waited until the human came closer.

The human, a female, came out from the shadows, the fire giving light enough for Clara to see her face clearly.

"Are you still here?" the woman called out, looking around to find her. "I mean you no harm, you can come out."

Clara stepped out into the light, waiting for the woman's reaction.

"One of the Dalish? What are you doing so far away from your clan?"

"I left my clan to live with the humans."

The woman laughed, but it sounded warm and well-meaning. "A Dalish that wanted to live with us shems? That's unusual."

"But not unheard of?" she said, but she realized that it sounded more like a question than a statement.

"No, you're right. It's not."

Clara smiled. This woman was who she'd been searching for. She wasn't like her clan talked about humans, but friendly and warm towards her.

"You won't find many humans living in the forest though, I'm afraid" the human smiled. "But if you want to, you are free to join my group as we are travelling to one of the cities."

Her smile widened, "You would let me travel with you?"

"If you want to."

"I do." She took a few steps forward again. "I'm Clara."

"And I am Hayden."

"Andaran atish'an, Hayden."

Hayden smiled, "Andaran atish'an, Clara."