Zenora
33. The Punishment

Brock’s point of view:

I don’t agree with where we are going, but I couldn’t let her go alone either. Nor could I hold her against her will as Cirilya was in perilous danger. If I did force her to stay and Cirilya would’ve died in those two days, Emily would never forgive me for it. Besides, when I demanded her to use the portal at the tower, Dolly got killed and I’m not going to have another dead body on my account.

“How is she doing?” Emily suddenly asked me. I could hear Cirilya’s breathing getting more shallow and slower than before. Her head felt hot as well. I guess the fever Emily said she had, isn’t lowering at all. Her condition is getting worse, but I didn’t want to worry Emily even more.

“Within a few hours we will reach the forest, she will make it there. I promise you.” I said, at which she smiled slightly and I hoped that I hadn’t just sold her a lie.

Emily looked amazing though, flying on her own Gryphon. A rare purple Gryphon even. Her red leather armour looked a bit weird against the purple colours of the Gryphon though. Maybe I was going to get her another gear set so that if she was going to ride her more, they could match colours.

“Brock, do Orcs speak in a different language just like the Elves do?” She asked me, shaking me from the thoughts about a new armour.

“Yes, but where is this coming from? Have you heard any Orcs talking?” I asked her in return, at which she nodded her head.

She told me that the Orc – which she killed at Dolly’s body - had said that more Orcs would come to kill her. I was amazed that she could understand an Orc, just as she did the Elves! Did her destiny even reach out to our enemies? Do they want to have her as well? Maybe that’s the reason why she was attacked in the first place when she was with Dennis and Anna on Earth. I’ve already had several meetings with the King, Archeops and some of my other men, but we never got to a reason as to why the Orcs had attacked her. I told her we would look into that later when we got home.

“Em… Emily… n-noo… d-d-don’t go there.” Cirilya sputtered, interrupting our thoughts while she had lifted her head a little, noticing where we were headed before she fell away again.

Emily’s point of view:

“We have to go faster, Brock! She can’t take it much longer.” I yelled to him.

I know Brock wanted to comfort me earlier but I had noticed her shallow breathing as well. We needed to get there soon. “Can you go even faster than this Bastet?” She nodded and I laid down on her back, holding the reins even tighter. “Brock, just keep going, I’m going to inform Norim already!” I yelled at him and I told Bastet to go.

Bastet lifted her head, hovered still in the air for a moment, flapped her wings a few times very slowly but then quickened the rhythm at an exponential rate. She roared fiercely into the dark sky and with a loud bang she surged forward, the point of her beak splitting the air which flew around us aerodynamically. She went so fast that the reins almost cut through my hands from me holding them as tight as possible. And what would take two more hours to reach, was now in sight within thirty minutes. Bastet was very fast!

I told Bastet to go slower and made her glide down gently. I had stopped her right before the forest, got off and thanked her with a hug around her neck. She was drained of all her energy because she had to use it all to go this fast. Then, I walked towards the entrance of the forest. No Elf was to be seen, but I knew they were here as hundreds of them lived in the tree’s canopy.

“You come here, all alone?” I heard the voice of Norim behind me.

“Yes, should I be afraid that anything might happen to me?” I snapped at him when I turned around, he chuckled softly before he replied to that question.

“Even though you’ve had a bad experience the last time you were here, we are actually peaceful creatures. But since you are back now, I know that you aren’t here for pleasantries, like a nice walk through the forest. Are you?” He turned the conversation around.

“May I ask how old you are?” Wondering that question for a while now, because he didn’t look that old to have an adult child of his own. “Nine-hundred and forty-three years young, Princess.” He said.

Okay… that’s very old… I guess they are immortal, just like the Elves in the stories on Earth. I shook my head and continued my questions. “Since you have lived all this time here on Zenora, why is it that the ‘peaceful’ creature that you are, wanted to punish his own daughter for saving a human?” I asked him to see if I can rattle his cage. He stayed very calm and didn’t say a single thing about my question. He just stood there, arms crossing his chest.

“I just can’t imagine any reason why you would want to sentence your own daughter to death!” I yelled to him now.

He laughed a bit “I’m not in any way obliged to you, to tell what had happened, but I’ll indulge you for a moment. She had violated something so important, something so sacred that I was forced to do what I did.” He said calmly.

“Well, I suggest you keep on talking and explaining to me more, before I go to the Orcs and share my destiny with them as it seems that I can understand their language as well.” I snapped, pushing out my last straw to get him to rile up.

Luckily, he was stunned by my information, but he clearly wouldn’t want to talk to me. I stood up and walked up towards the entrance of the forest again. I didn’t plan on leaving, as I’m on a mission here, but I wanted him to think about what I said.

Norim’s point of view:

Could she really understand what the Orcs say? She wouldn’t go share her abilities with the enemy right? That’s just outrageous! Besides, how did she find out that I have a daughter and that I punished her? Shit, she is walking away now, going to her Gryphon again. Should I tell her? I mean, that human she spoke about knew the secret as well. Hell, she was brought back to life with that secret!

“Wait.” I said to her with a sigh and she turned around, trying abysmally to stifle a smirk. “Please come here, I’ll tell you everything.” I said and we both took a seat at a soft patch of grass.

“A long time ago, a female human got attacked by Orcs when she was younger. This was during the beginning of the big war. An Orc’s arrow had pierced her chest and soon she was about to die. Cirilya had seen that and had brought her to the forest. She knew the woman was about to die and laid her in the pool filled with our sacred waters and began to chant our healing song. But the waters and the song are so sacred to our kind, that we only use them for our own, and only in the utmost emergency. This is because if it were to be used too much, the healing properties of the water could eventually be drained forever. So, when I saw Cirilya using the pool for a human, a near-to-dead human, I got really angry, but I was too late already. The eternal glow of our sacred waters was gone. It had flown into the human body, saving her life but at the same time condemning ours, to stop to live forever.” I said with sadness in my voice, truly feeling like a failed leader for not being able to rejuvenate my kind’s lives.

“So, the waters can’t heal anymore? Shit!” She suddenly said, completely ignoring the severity of this story! How rude can she get?

However rude she was, I explained to her that the healing properties went away when the female had drained all of it at once, as she was on the brink of death. Didn’t she just hear me? But when I wanted to continue my story as to what kind of punishment I have given my daughter as I didn’t actually sentence her to death, but I didn’t get the chance because she interrupted me.

“I don’t care about the death sentence at this point. You should think about, why your daughter would have done such a thing in the first place. I’ve spent all this time here for nothing!” She yelled at me and now I got angry.

“She made sure that our kind, our tribe, wouldn’t last forever anymore! The glow of the water was the only thing that kept us alive for all of these years, it was the thing that makes us immortal! She took that away!” I yelled back to her.

“Well, I hope you can let go of your anger towards her because I brought her here to heal her, save her! But I guess it’s all for nothing.” She said in a sudden calm but an extremely sad voice.

What? Cirilya is coming here?!

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