Try to get to know him.

I released my breath, realizing I'd been holding it. "Arvid, you scared me," I gasped.

Arvid blinked. "Oh, uh, ok. Er...sorry."

"No need to apologize," I replied as he stepped in, closing the tent flap behind him. "Would you rather me not talk to you? You mentioned it makes you uncomfortable."

He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe you really aren't an evil creature, and this whole war has been pointless. Or maybe you're manipulating the Prince to topple our Kingdom."

"All I've ever wanted was peace," I said quietly. "So when I got captured on an **** mission to kill the King, and Master seemed to have a plan...I realized it was possible."

"So...why do you elves hate humans?"

"They know black magic is evil, and they want to get rid of it. They think the only way to get rid of it is to get rid of humanity itself."

"But...why didn't the King just tell us to stop practicing black magic so we could all live in peace?" Arvid asked.

"It's how he controls the people, and how he stays alive. He's more than a hundred years old, and black magic keeps him immortal, and the war keeps his storeroom stocked. He wants to keep the crown so bad, he's been spreading rumors about Master and trying to kill him before he can get coronated."

"Wait...what? Are you sure?"

"Why else would he give his son a pet Moonlight Elf?"

"Well...because...because..." he thought for a bit. "Because he wanted to prove to his son they were evil."

"But he's been sent to the front lines so many times, which was another **** attempt on him, by the way. He would've already formed an opinion about elves."

"Wait...but he's survived the front lines so many times. How do we know he's not a spy?"

"Because he's saved you countless times, and practically emanates black magic. Elves would never work with someone who had been in contact with black magic." Except for me.

He sat down and sighed. "I just...it's so much to take in. Elves aren't evil. Black magic damns us to hell. The King and High Mage have been duping us for years, and all my fellow mates wouldn't have died if the King would've just told us the truth and we stopped with black magic."

I nodded. "The King...he's starved me, **** Master to beat and whip me, and encouraged him to **** and impregnate and **** me... he's a monster. He's tried to **** his own son, and lied to the people who serve him, and tried to wipe my people off the Earth just so he can keep using black magic to stay alive."

Arvid sighed. "I've never heard of the King leaving the castle. Prince Rowan has come out to fight, and encourage the citizens, and be involved in our life...like...like his older brother."

"Whom the King killed."

Arvid nodded. "Prince Brom. He was a very good man. Brave young lad."

I'd never heard Master's brother's name before.

"The King said Brom just...got sick, but I knew Brom. He was so scared the King would kill him, that he stayed away from the castle. And he went back, just before his coronation, and just like that...he 'got sick and died.'"

I let out a deep breath. Brom tried to help the Kingdom, just as Master was trying to do. But the King kept getting in the way.

"I think I believe you," Arvid said, sniffing. "I've always trusted Prince Rowan. He's a splitting image of Prince Brom, and they've always had the same heart of gold."

I'd heard of Brom, back in the North. The Elves celebrated as his coronation became near, knowing that he could end the war. The celebration came to an abrupt stop as his **** was announced. Since then, the Moonlight Elves trained for nothing but the **** of the King who was puppeteering the humans.

"So, if we eliminated black magic, would the war stop?" he asked.

"We'd have to convince the North that humans aren't evil. Worst case scenario, the North stops practicing it, then the next generation, who are virgins to black magic, will be respected and accepted by the Elves."

"So...I'm going to hell?" Arvid asked. "They've done black magic spells to strengthen me in battle, and now it's sending me to hell?"

"Sun and Moon magic are light magic. It's...possible...that there's a way to purify the soul of black magic."

"You mean it?"

"I think so. But the cure doesn't currently exist, so we'd need to get the Elves and humans working together as soon as possible if we want to create a cure for damnation itself."

Arvid nodded. "Well, we better get going, then."

"Yeah."

"I should probably go guard the entrance," he said awkwardly.

"Yeah."

Arvid gave me a nod, grabbed a chair, and sat just outside the tent flap, closing it behind him.

I sat down and tried t relax as I waited for Master to return amongst an army of humans.

.

~ ~ ~

.

Master swallowed, shifting back and forth in front of the crowd which awaited his announcement. I watched through a the bars of the cage and a hole in the tent, where he insisted I hide unless he told me to show myself.

He took a deep breath. "Soldiers of the South," he bellowed. "As you know, I am Prince Rowan, the younger brother of Brom. My coronation is approaching, so I stand before you to speak, just as my brother did."

He swallowed. "You remember the news, of the healthy Prince, scared the King may outright make an attempt on his life, returning to the castle to be coronated, and suddenly...falling ill and dying within the day."

The soldiers exchanged glances, remembering the day they learned of Brom's ****.

"Frankly, I fear the same result."

They whispered amongst themselves.

"The King has worked hard to make himself immortal, and has no intent of letting me be crowned to his kingdom. He gave me a Moonlight Elf as a pet, hoping she'll kill me. He's sent me to the front lines countless times, hoping I'd never return. But here I stand, with an old spell being the only thing keeping me alive despite poison in my food, blades through my chest, and scars on my back. I tell you true, he has tried to kill me many times." He pulled up his sleeves, showing the scars that laced his upper arms from the front lines, the King's assassins, and me under the attack dog spell.

The soldiers muttered to each other, their fears confirmed. The King was trying to kill the Prince.

"But I am not the only one he has hurt," he said. "He has outright lied to all of you. And I don't mean when he lied about what happened to my brother, I mean that he has lied about all of black magic."

The crowd looked confused to hear the speech turn in an unexpected direction.

"We know the elves fight us because they don't like Black Magic. They believe it damns us to hell, and that they must get rid of it. Imagine how surprised I was when the High Mage himself told me himself that it was true."

The crowd got a bit louder. Some were in disbelief, some were in distress.

"Please, everyone, please, I'm not finished. The King has used black magic to keep himself alive, and has kept us using it so we could beat down the elves who know the truth, so he could control us, and he has let fellow soldiers die just so he can keep his crown a few more years!"

Everyone was in uproar.

"Silence! Please, calm yourselves," he yelled. "I know you want proof, right?"

"Yeah!" they all yelled.

"I brought the Moonlight Elf he gave me. She had protected me, and healed me, just as she can heal all of your wounds."

"What?" they hissed to each other.

"She is not evil. She does not seek ****. She simply wants to prove to you that her moon magic will cure things black magic can't even touch, and with no side effects."

"How do we know that Moon Magic won't damn us all?!" one man yelled.

"You don't have to be healed by her, I just want to prove that elves are not inherently evil."

And with that, he pulled out his sword, and made a slice up his arm.

The Doctor wheeled me out of his tent, and the crowd split to watch me being pushed up towards Master.

I bit my tongue until it bled, feeling countless eyes on me. To make it appear less ritualistic, I spit the saliva and blood onto his hand through the bars of the cage, and he rubbed it over the cut he'd made up his arm.

People watched in a tense silence as he wiped the fluids off his arm to reveal that the cut was completely healed, with nothing but a scar left behind.

"Those of you who are sick, wounded, or cursed, can be healed by Akira the Moonlight Elf," Master announced. "She wants to earn your trust, and anyone who wishes to be healed can now step forward."

Arvid immediately pushed to the front of the crowd.

I placed a hand on his forehead. "Your eye is infected," I diagnosed. He held out his hand, and I spit into it, glad I wouldn't have to lick it. He lifted his bandage and rubbed the spit on his eye. "I can heal it further by doing this under the full moon or licking your injured eye with my tongue itself."

He tore his bandage off and faced the crowd. He couldn't see, since his eye was still gone, but the ugly inflamed tissue surrounding his eye melted into a healthy tan.

He grinned like a fool and wiped the sweat off his brow. "It works!" He screamed. "Wait, could you help me see again?"

"Bring me the eye of anything during the full moon, and I can shape it into a new eye for you," I said, smiling, realizing how much joy my power could bring.

Arvid immediately laughed and began dancing. "Merek! Merek is back there, he's my best mate, he lost his leg and the infection is getting to him, come on," he said excitedly. "Could you even fix his leg?"

"Do you still have the leg?" I asked.

"Doc?"

The Doctor standing behind Merek, who was sweating bullets in a chair, nodded.

"Then yes," I replied.

Arvid hurriedly ran to Merek, and scooped him up in his arms.

Arvid carefully lowered Merek outside my cage, with his bleeding, pussing stump of a leg sticking in where I could reach it.

Yeah, it was disgusting to lick wounds. So I uncovered his bandages and spit into my hand, rubbing at over it. Rowan handed me a rag, which I used to wipe everything away. The wound itself was healed, so I began licking at the crusted-over bloody stump as the inflammation began to fade away. It tasted pretty nasty.

"I get to see my family again, Merek," Arvid exclaimed happy as could be, "And so do you. See, I promised you I'd bring you back home in one piece!"

Other soldiers began to follow Arvid's precedent, and accepted my healing abilities.

I spent hours watching injured human soldiers grow grins on their face upon realizing they'd see their wives and children once more.

I never slept that night. I was tired, had an awful taste in my mouth, hungry, and thirsty, but I had never been happier.

I was actually helping people. And the humans...they appreciated me.

Even those who didn't trust me eventually let me heal them. The joy was contagious, and the doctors were shocked.

I finished hours before the sun would come up.

"Is it alright if I release Akira from her restraints?" Master asked.

Everyone looked hesitant. Some froze. Some nodded slowly. But no one said no.

Master opened my cage and I crawled out, rising to my feet.

"You did good," he whispered, giving me a side hug. "You doing alright?"

"I'm awesome," I whispered back, smiling.

He reflected my grin. "Good girl."

He turned to face the healed soldiers.

"The King had been telling us that black magic is our savior, and the Elves are trying to take it. This is not true! He tries to get rid of the Elves, because they know the truth, and he wants more resources. He knows he is damned to hell, and his only hope is to become immortalized by taking the souls of magical beings just to fuel another week of his life."

They were beginning to accept his message.

"The Elves," he set his hands on my shoulders, "are not the enemy. The King is."

He paused for effect.

"He has killed my brother, and unless we are willing to stand against him, he will kill me too! He'll prolong this war for an eternity, carelessly sending all of you to fight and die just so he can live long enough to see your great great grandchildren follow and die in your footsteps, only to be damned to hell to suffer right along with you!"

The crowd exchanged glances.

"This war needs to end! We can stop this! We can stop the battle, the war, this condemning magic, and the King who has lied to us! He, alone, has caused your ancestors to be trapped in eternal suffering, and he alone will bring the same fate to you and your descendants unless we do something about it!"

They began getting into it, nodding in passionate agreeance. Those who were hesitant were drawn in by the fact that their Prince, as well as their fellow soldiers, had come to a new, definite resolution.

"The King's reign of a century must end!"

"Yeah!" a few soldiers yelled.

"He'll never send another soldier to hell for a war that only he will gain from!"

"Yeah!" more chanted.

"Down with the King!" Master declared.

"Yeah!" some exclaimed, while others began chanting "Down with the King! Down with the King! Down with the King!"

My ears perked, and I spun around towards the front line, my eyes widening.

"Down with the King! Down with the King!" the soldiers continued.

"What's wrong?" Master asked.

"Do you hear it?" I breathed.

"Down with the King! Down with the King! Down with the King!"

The chant was starting to be drowned out by the roar of an elvish battle cry.

"Down with the King! Down with the King!" a few stopped, and it began to fade. "Down with the King! Down with the King. Down with the King..."