Coward

A'eitia

"We ended up in an Elfquest reality," I say softly. "At a point . . . a terrible point of disaster. A bit of hell, you could say. One which ended in a death of which nothing more I and the others here shall tell you, human."

I pause and move my spear down a bit to clean a spot off on it which still has blood on it.

....

Ah, I see you want to know what happened and why I'm being so short with this human man who've I've just met.

Well, first thing. . . . the easiest question to answer is the second one. He is not a family member or a friend, but a stranger who's asking about something that . . . is hurtful for my mother to have experienced. I had no problem with it because it was merely justice done. He had it coming, really AND he could have chosen the alternative sentence.

Basically, I and my husband agreed afterwards that this Crichton had no bloody business asking.

Well, actually I guess it was just human nature to ask but by elfin standards it was bloody rude! Will have to appologise later, but at the time . . .

What happened here was something we'd hoped we elves who'd come from a vanished Elfquest reality. What had brought it to an end was a time travel incident. My race... as it became what it became . . . was there on a now gone Earthlike world because of an accident. Ti'mma had been an ancestor called a High One. She and her peers had come to this Earthlike world (the World of Two Moons) in a search for others of their kind. They'd seen clues within human legend and myth and figured that others of their kind had visited this world in the past. Being able to alter their bodies like clothing and their space dwelling place (a strange spaceship we'll call the Palace), they'd reworked themselves and the Palace to appear as things from legend. In this case Ti'mma and the other High Ones took on the form of elves and made the Palace to look like a fantastic, glowing magical castle.

Problem here, though, was that the High Ones had brought along others with them who I can only say resented their lot in life. They'd come to be something of a servant class for the High Ones and wanted their freedom. Well, that sounds benign enough, I'm forced to admit, but the way they went about winning their freedom was nothing else but a betrayal that I'll skip right now for brevity sake. They caused an accident which forced the Palace to travel back into time to the Stone Age of that world. The High Ones became the basis of the legends which lured them to that world. Also, while the servants (Trolls) scurried off and escaped from the crashed Palace, a lot of High Ones got slaughtered by cavemen, who were very frightened by these strange beings before them who'd appeared in a flash and bang from the sky.

Those, like Ti'mma (then named Timmain) who managed to escape vanished into the night and eventually formed the basis for my and other elfin tribes. They'd lost the stars so weren't happy at all with their exile, but spared their children the knowledge so they didn't know what they'd lost. I and the other elves learned later, but that's later when we'd regained the Palace from the Trolls (who'd taken over it after the primitive Stone Age humans had moved on).

Now, there's a lot of history here I'm not going over. Go to here if you feel a need to know it:

http://www. elfquest.com /main.html

I'd rather not go into it right now, okay. Not all of that.

What we had happen in this universe was what had happened in my universe. We had here an elfin male named Rayek who aspired to regain the glory and such of the High Ones for himself and other elves. Wanted to get the elves off this world, where our powers were diminished by something in the environment. Felt we were diminished. Might have been, but then again it was our home by that time. And say what you will, the idea he had come up with to save the High Ones was sort of suicidal, really. He wanted to spare the High Ones the pain and suffering that had happened to them on this world by preventing the event which brought about me and my fellow elves. It would spare the High Ones their downfall, but would wipe out my and my people's origins. Rayek thought and felt that the Palace could shield those who'd be wiped out otherwise from the paradox, but let me tell you something. First, if it could do that it meant that IF it worked (something that Ti'mma says was iffy at best) then we elves would have to stay within the Palace walls forever. Step outside and the time paradox would erase the unfortunate's existence. Bad enough, that. And then there is the fact that then (as now) we elves do rather like . . . the outdoors. Like open land and such. Walking in nature and all that stuff. The inside of the Palace was nice enough, but a piss poor substitute for what we had enjoyed outside. Crack up soon, you see. Oh, as elves we had a lot different time sense compared to humans ("soon" for an elf would be rather LONGISH for a human being, let's say), but soon enough we'd be going stir crazy.

Bad enough that, but let's not forget that if Rayek succeeded there were all those ancestors of the High Ones from the time they landed back in the past to US which would be going "goodbye" here as well! Something that really isn't very nice to contemplate, don't you agree!?

And here we land, right down near where this world's Rayek wanted to do the same thing as "our" Rayek had tried to do (only to end up causing a time paradox that wiped out that entire universe's existence). That danger aside, we still didn't want him to do it for reasons we've already said.

We appeared right in the middle of things, in the very midst of my old elfin tribe (or really this reality's version of it). Was most . . . shocking to see my analog and her me, let me tell you! Remember, I looked different even before I had the Rules and Agents grant me a new body which is a tribute to the role model I live my life by, but as analog and elf she could see me for who I was. She saw me, inside, and saw I was an analog of her (at some basic level). She probably didn't understand the doppleganger effect, my sister, but she knew something profound was here.

Which we didn't give her or the other elves (the Wolfriders) time to ask questions we really couldn't answer properly AND prevent what we knew was coming! We put them out to sleep by magic because we knew history was (sort of) repeating itself. See, changed though she was Ti'mma was able (this time around) to overhear the seductive call of an elfin b**ch named Winnowwill, which will galvanize him to attempt his "rescue" of the High Ones. She overheard it and basically countermanded the orders that Rayek, the "Master" of the Palace, gave it to try to travel forward to the time in the future where the High Ones (in their craft) got thrown back into the past. Despite the Palace not really being built for time travel, he'd be able to do it still (the event being a rather "loud" disturbance in the timestream, I guess, so followable), but that's not important. Hell, you could even say that while hurtful in the extreme, the fact that the loved ones of the Wolfrider chief, Cutter, were still within the Palace (and would be swept along with Rayek) and be separated from him for thousands of years (a LONG and aching wound to the elfin heart, dear one) wasn't important in the "big picture". I'll be d**ned if I take that view, but one could have made it. But whatever the reason, we elves who'd been reincarnated upon Terra Prime wouldn't be standing by to let things play out again even IF it wasn't our reality and history at stake.

...

We get up to the Palace and enter, to find a Rayek who's rather . . . honked at us. Then rather taken aback and fearful of us when he gets and eyeful of us.

First, he's seeing me, an elfin woman who looks like the one which he had thought he'd killed (long story that. . . . let's just say that he and Kahvi didn't part on the best of terms). That's jarring.

Then, he sees the ghostly images of our old selves. Kind of startling, I'm told, when I do it. But let's remember that Ti'mma was once called Timmain, a High One. So we have a ghostly High One opposing him that he thinks the world of (despite all his faults he did adore the High Ones, almost worshipped the High Ones) and he's gonna be VERY unnerved.

Unnerved enough to not be able to slow down what happened next.

Ti'mma, having vowed never to fail in her duties like another version (a version who'd turned away from what she'd witnessed, an elf attacking another elf as in what Rayek had done, slipping away into the simplicity and forgetfullness of the wolf)....

A yanking sensation is what Rayek feels right before he feels his wonderful elfin magical powers (psionic powers some would call it) vanish!

High Ones like Ti'mma can do that, you know....

Basically, right after that the diminished Rayek staggers to his knees Ti'mma says that until Timmain restores him (if she deems him worthy), then he'll have no access to even the ability to Send. . . .

Now, don't know about you, but I have a horror of suicide. It's an act of utter cowardice, my opinion. The ultimate in running away from your responsibilities and problems.

I'd backed off a bit to let Ti'mma do her spiel, leaving my spear besides her not trusting myself to just kill the SOB and be done with it instead of letting Ti'mma punish Rayek (or "grounding" as she puts it). How in God's name was I supposed to know that Rayek would use it on himself!

....

That's right, he killed . . . himself . . . . Drove the spear into his own neck than face the possibility of living a life without even a little bit of elfin magic....

Don't know what this Rayek had gone through, but even "my" Rayek (faced with much more dire situations) would never have killed himself...

Sigh.

Well, we get inside further into the Palace (shocked at what had happened) to discover that it was full of . . .

1. Starfleet bodies! Being that we are elves and not humans, we didn't see ghosts, but we sensed that the elfin spirits of departed ones weren't happy about their unexpected. . .er . . . house guests.

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