In the mud, squirming, dying Wood Elves gasp for their last breaths, their blood spilled by Goblin-forged iron, while their still-living sisters send their righteous shafts of retribution back at the invaders- ever seeking to push forwards.
Shrieking, Goblins topple from their towers, picked off one-by-one by superior archery. Still, the weight of Goblin numbers seems insurmountable: In this contest of skill and courage against sheer mass and malice, it seems that victory, if it is even possible, must come at a tragically high price!
Made functionally immortal by their magical congress with the ancient forest, Sylvan Elves are ageless beauties and peerless warriors, wise scholars and talented artisans. Goblins, by contrast, live lives that are brutish and short; capable only of multiplying and despoiling, their only art-forms are cruelty and desecration. A thousand-thousand Goblins could be slain and still more of their kind would come crawling back to loot and steal and kill again, all within the merest fraction of an Elven life-span.
An Elf like Iola, on the other hand, has lived for many lives of men- and would do so still, were it not for the cheaply made Goblin arrow in her stomach: Nothing more than a whittled branch with greasy feathers attached with twine and boiled-bone glue, clumsily socketed to a cold-forged piece of pitted, jagged, rusted iron. She howls her pain and anguish at the uncaring sky. As if the agony of her mortal wound were not cruelty enough, she must endure the bitterness of knowing that her precious Elven life has been cut short by so mean and pitiful a creature!
The forest spirits witness such suffering with capricious glee: Atavistic and selfish, they care only that at last their pain is shared by those who swore to protect them.
Beerman
2025-02-13 23:23:36 +0000 UTCPicardJean-Luc
2025-02-05 23:41:18 +0000 UTC