Keep your guard up.

I jumped to the back of my cage and got in a defensive position.

"Woah, woah, I-I'm more scared of y-you than you are of me," he stuttered.

I needed to seem approachable and friendly. That was part of the plan. But with the Innkeeper stuck in my mind, I couldn't back down yet. "You don't hurt me I don't hurt you," I said carefully.

"I'm half-dead from an infection. I couldn't hurt you even if I wanted to."

"Are you going to...like...call over the army or something?"

"No, Rowan said not to. He likes you. That, and he seems to think you can save my life."

I swallowed and nodded.

"Good to know the trust issues are reciprocated," he said, trying to **** a chuckle.

"Sorry, Master's the only human I've gotten to know who hasn't outright wanted to or tried to **** me."

"For real? People don't have the common sense to back away slowly when they see you?"

"The King's abused me, beat me, and encouraged me getting ****. His soldiers have hurt me too. On the way here an Innkeeper had me chained up, whipped, and clubbed."

"Holy mother of magic, and you don't have a scratch on you."

"Yeah, moon magic. I heal every night."

He chuckled. "That's handy. No wonder the Elves can beat us despite their population."

"I'm the last moonlight elf alive. My friends are dead." I looked to the ground. "No one else can do moon magic."

"What? How'd we...I mean, they...take down...I mean, get rid of, I mean...sorry, I'm being insensitive."

"The High Mage put a **** spell on rookie guards and placed them outside his chambers."

"What's that?"

"So that when we killed them, the damage we inflicted on them was also inflicted on us."

"He...wait...wait a second, my son just joined the army... His name is Tybalt, he's got hair like me, he's a little wide but that's all muscle, he's a good kid. Did... Did..."

"Does his face resemble yours?"

"Yes, he certainly takes after his father. Is he okay? Your friends didn't...kill him, did they?"

I closed my eyes and racked my brain. "The one with the scar on his eyebrow?"

"Yes! Yes, that's him!"

"He's fine. He guards the prison cells." And wants to fuck me to **** with a stick. Well, they can't all be winners.

Arvid let out a sigh of relief. "Oh my... Thank you..." He started crying. "I'm sorry, I just... I..."

"Arvid...if the King finds out that you're helping Master, he'll do awful things to Tybalt."

Arvid nodded, his head in his hands. "Yeah, I suppose he would..."

"But Rowan and I will come up with a plan. No one else has to die because of the King."

He nodded. "I hope you're right. Did they place any black magic spells on him yet?"

"No, not that I sensed last time I saw him."

He sighed with relief. "Okay, that's good... Do uh, do you have family?"

"I'm the stepdaughter to the King up North. He's got countless children, so...I'm not, well, that important. I'm more useful in the army than the castle, since I was born a Moonlight Elf."

"So they just, sent you to war?"

"They sent me to training when I was two years old. The Southern King tried to sell me for ransom, but they didn't take it."

"Oh." Arvid sniffed and scratched his beard. "So, rough family life, then?"

"Most Elves happily live in families. It's amazingly similar to here. But Master is the first...well, elf or human, who was remotely caring towards me."

"Well... I'm not gonna attack you or anything, so I guess you could add me to the list."

I nodded and smirked. "Yeah, I've never carried on a normal conversation with anyone besides him."

"I should probably go guard the entrance," he said awkwardly, "so uh, good luck."

"Thanks."

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

I sat down and tried to 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..."