A failure in a forest

The imperial province of Ohlm was, at least in theory, the largest province of all. It had a rather small population though. Both of these things were due to the Ohlmenwald. A massive forest, larger than most other provinces all on its own and larger than some put together, it accounted for about 80% of Ohlm’s total size. A lot of people lived near it and a few even lived within the outer boundaries of it, but as the forest grew denser and darker human habitation was nonexistent. Deep within this forest, weeks of travel away from the nearest human settlement, someone was enjoying a lazy morning.

Beldor stretched his long limbs as far as they would go, making the leaves he was laying on rustle in a way he found pleasant. He supposed it was time to get up, it was probably well after noon. Flat on the ground as he was, he couldn’t see the sun well enough through the dense foliage to check. Reluctantly, he stood up to his full height. In most areas this deep in the Ohlmenwald, the trees would be too tall for even him to reach the tops, but not here. A long time ago a fire had raged through this part, and most trees here were still comparatively young. As such, he simply needed to reach up and push a few treetops aside to see the sky. Yup, definitely past noon. He let his hands drop back down and the treetops snapped back into position.

His arms were long, as were his legs. To human eyes, his proportions would look strange. It would probably not be what any human would notice about Beldor first, though. That would be his height. Beldor stood roughly 20 feet tall, which was tall even for his own kind. What kind was that? Humans would call him and his kin giants, but they simply called themselves the failed. That might sound sad or bitter, but most failed weren’t very sad or bitter about it at all. It was what they were.

Beldor wandered over to the nearby stream at a leisurely pace, dunked his head into it, and drank. He didn’t drink for long, he needed surprisingly little water for a being of his size. Beldor wondered what he wanted to eat today. Failed could subsist on just about anything, and again, shockingly small amounts of it. Well, small in this case was relative. They still ate far more than any human would, but not anywhere near the amount one might expect a giant to eat. He reached out for a branch on a nearby tree, as wide as the shoulders of a grown man, and snapped it off with ease. He ate the leaves and smaller branches growing out of it first, but eventually moved on to just taking big bites out of the whole thing it until was all gone. There, that should keep him sated for a little while.

He wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself now. That was normal, just part of being failed, and a big part of why they were the failed. The Creator had made them first. Well, maybe not quite first, that part wasn’t certain. But they had been made before the humans. The Creator had made them to be resilient, robust, and with few weaknesses. Failed were big and strong. They had tough and thick skin that still allowed for excellent temperature regulation. They were unaffected by most diseases. Their digestive systems were excellent, able to digest almost anything and extract nutrients incredibly efficiently. They could live just about anywhere and be comfortable. Surviving took basically no effort for a failed. And therein lay the problem. The Creator had made them too formidable, not realizing that it would make them unmotivated and rob them of any urgency. The Creator had not wanted to make slow and lethargic beings like them, when the mistake became apparent, The Creator had moved on. The failed weren’t bitter about this. They had not been as intended, so The Creator had wasted no more effort on them. They could understand that, even relate to it.

Beldor found himself bored. That wasn’t unusual. He was all alone out here, at least most of the time. There were few failed in the world and, as most of them were rather sedentary creatures, they didn’t run into each other very often. He wouldn’t mind the company of humans, even though they were frightfully busy little beings, but humans rather tended to mind the company of failed. He supposed that was understandable. Most failed would mean humans no harm, but the sheer size difference scared the small ones. Humans had been The Creator’s next project after the failed, and they had turned out more as The Creator wanted, so more effort had been invested into them. They had flourished and grown numerous. The failed were not bitter about this, nor did they resent the humans or bear them any ill will for it. Most of Beldor’s kind carried affection for humankind, seeing them a bit like little siblings. Very fragile and terribly flimsy little siblings. But then that fragile and flimsy nature had ensured they were the busy and urgent little creatures The Creator wanted.

Beldor picked up one of the rocks he kind of liked and threw it at a larger rock. It shattered. Oh well. This was more or less how most days in his life had gone since he had first entered the Ohlmenwald. He thought he’d been here for roughly 70 years now, arriving when he was only 110. Barely an adult by failed standards. The Creator had been good to the failed, despite them not turning out how The Creator wanted. They had not been destroyed, they had been allowed to retain all their many strengths, and The Creator had even tried to make a nice homeland for them. The Creator was kind like that. It was probably one of the reasons why kindness was so important to failed. Most of them avoided **** and killing, even when it came to animals. They could easily live off of plants only, so why inflict pain on anything? It was one of the reasons Beldor avoided humans. It would usually end in ****, no matter how hard he tried to stop it, and **** between humans and failed almost never ended well for the humans.

Beldor was strolling around his usual haunts, not sure what to do with himself, when he heard something that gave him pause. Failed senses were deceptively sharp. It would be easy to dismiss them as lumbering oafs, but they could hear, see, and smell far better than any human. And Beldor had heard talking. Talking and singing all at once. He knew what that meant. The Ohlmenwald was on the eastern side of the continent, stretching almost all the way to the coast. So, it was literally on the opposite side of the continent from the elflands. But despite that, Beldor knew, there were elves in these woods. There had been for all the 70 years he’d lived here. For the most part, he’d never known them to do much. They just watched him sometimes, followed him around a little. He was happy enough to let them do that if they wanted to, not that he understood why they would want to. The elves were not creations of The Creator though, so attempting to understand them would probably be futile. Even more futile than trying to understand humans. He had not realized that the elves thought they were hidden from him. So, when he had, after decades of just ignoring his infrequent visitors, decided to out of sheer boredom to try and talk to them it seemed to really scare them. They’d made quite the ruckus and two had started throwing some kind of magic stuff at him. It hadn’t done much. Failed were innately pretty resistant to magic, and those fireballs wouldn’t have done anything to his tough skin even if that weren’t the case. Fireballs in a forest. Beldor shook his head.

A few minutes later, Beldor heard them again. He sniffed the air. They were close. He looked around and, sure enough, a few of them were watching him from a treetop. They must have thought themselves hidden in the dense foliage. He wasn’t going to make the mistake of approaching them again, so instead he just smiled and waved. An awful lot of chattering broke out among them after that. Strange little creatures, elves were, with none of the earnest charm of humans. He trotted on, not really sure where he was headed.