Tenza leaves after that. The elf said she was expected back home as well, though she seemed reluctant to leave. As late afternoon arrives, Tenza walks back into the village. Everything seems normal, some of the Kingsguard are even milling about, talking with other people or playing games with their friends. She finds the man from before walking about the market section(a line of stalls and booths), inspecting the goods–or, more accurately, the women advertising them. He spots her and comes over. "Ah, the little Elf-hunter! Where's the elf?" She scowls at him. "I couldn't find it." She replies, the man smiling as though he'd won. "Too bad. Well, you may as well just leave it to us to take it down, then." Tenza scowls, indignance and pride making her bristle. "I WILL kill it. Just...not today." The man laughs. "You better hurry. Wont be long now till we set on it." With that, the man leaves, returning to the market without a single glance back. She doesn't care. Invisible to everyone else, she slips between two houses, turning right to get to the stables. There's a loft above the pens, and while there is no ladder, it isn't that hard of a climb, anyway. Not with the practice she's had. As far as lofts go, it isn't that bad. Hay is strewn about everywhere, a pile collecting for where she sleeps, a window that allows the moonlight through on clear days, and a lantern nobody cares about enough to take back. And then there's a small tray, in clear view. It has a half-loaf of probably day-old stale bread, some gnarly carrots, and surprisingly, a piece of overdone meat. Tenza doesn't know who keeps sending up food, or how they even get it up here, nor why they care, but it is the one true kindness anyone had ever shown her. She takes the food and leaves the tray, a stone she had found is left as thanks. Not just any stone, though. This one was both pretty enough to be admired, but it was also useful as a tool for sharpening weapons. Whenever she left for the day, and then come back, the tray and whatever she'd left were gone, then returned when she did at nightfall. In this loft, Tenza spends her time sharpening her own weapons, making arrows, sewing her clothes back together when she finds tears in them, and keeping her senses and mind sharp. Today, she settles onto the hay she's made for her bed, and thinks. On one hand, she has apparently been offered friendship with humanity's greatest enemy: an elf. On the other, they're still deadly creatures and what would people think? Actually, no, she doesn't care about what they think. Why should she? If the elf killed her, nobody would care. If she JOINED it–her, they would label her a traitor and probably try to kill her. The village boys would love that opportunity. But like her, this elf is young. She knows things, but she's unaffected by it. She willingly spoke to Tenza, and SHE asked to be friends. 

That elf was the first person to actually accept Tenza. 

She spends the rest of her waking time mulling everything over, before coming to her decision. 

She'll meet the elf again. Warn her about the Kingsguard, and destroy the status quo. 

If her own people don't want her, why would she say no to the thing that does?

The next morning, she wakes up just at dawn, mostly due to being cold(it was a safe place, but poorly insulated), and packs her things: a compass she took off a drunk Kingsguard about two years ago, her bow, crossbow, arrows, knives, and other gadgets, a map, and a water skin. The village is silent at this hour, even the camp of hunters outside are asleep, making it easy to slip into the woods without being seen. Her walk is calm, peaceful, even, and she pauses to enjoy the birds waking up to greet their friends with song. Soon, though, she finds the place the elf had been, and waits...

Again.

This time, however, when the elf arrives, Tenza steps into view, momentarily taken aback by how her face lights up upon seeing her. "So you DID come! Great!" She says, her smile shining like the dew on the grass in the sunlight. "Yes. I did. But just because I did doesn't mean we're instantly best friends. Our kinds are still mortal enemies." She warns, which does not discourage the elf in the slightest. "For now. Now, we sort of got off on the wrong foot when we first met, so how's about we start over? My name's Aziphrael, I'm a forest-fire elf." Tenza takes this in. She's a hybrid, then. "...and now you tell me your name." The elf presses, smiling at the human's disgruntled expression. "Fine. My name is Tenza." The elf smiles. "That's a good name. It suits you." Tenza grunts, and Aziphrael motions for them to sit down. "I'm betting you have questions for me." She begins, a look of triumph flitting into her gaze at Tenza's expression of guilty confirmation. She motions for the girl to go ahead. "Why don't you have a dragon? I've heard that you all have dragons you live with." The elf smiles, plucking a flower out of the ground beside her. "Typically, only the warriors and some travellers have a dragon. The Royals always will, as is they right, but for the rest of us, we have other means to get around." She explains, stroking the petals. "We do have smaller dragons, though, little ones to carry messages, but not every elf has a dragon, no." She elaborates, and Tenza tilts her head. "Smaller dragons? We never heard about those, only the big ones." The elf shrugs. "We usually let the Sky Elves transfer messages, they can deal with winds better and are quite fast. Like how you have the messenger boys that travel from village to village." "I thought you kept to your own kinds?" Aziphrael's ears prick up a bit. "No, we have trade and values for each Tribe's unique abilities, much like how you value the different trades of different people in your communities." Slowly, Aziphrael manages to coax Tenza out of that hard shell, the two of them swapping facts about their lives and customs and such, without revealing too much to pinpoint any real weaknesses, but enough that Tenza can see the clear similarities of their lives. Eventually, Aziphrael stands up, and grabs Tenza's wrist. "What is this?" She demands, to which her reply is only a mischievous grin. The elf suddenly bolts, dragging her along behind, Tenza struggling to keep up and match her pace, focusing on where her feet are going so she doesn't trip. "You're overthinking this! Quit watching your feet, and just...run!" Aziphrael says, leaping over a log, and continuing on her way. Tenza huffs, but decides to give it a try. She looks up, watching the elf's back, and trusts her feet to go where they need to. Shockingly, they do, and it's like there's an ease in Tenza's chest, a tightness slowly relaxing. "This is what we call the Walker's Grace. Specifically only Elves use it, but humans can too. All you need to do is trust your body to keep you upright, and you'll never trip." Aziphrael explains, finally releasing her hand. They run like this for a while, eventually developing a game of tag, which ends when Tenza manages to tackle Aziphrael and they tumble into a river. The elf comes up first, laughing wholeheartedly. Tenza would be lying if she said she didn't want to keep Aziphrael laughing like that. They lay out on the large, flat stones to dry off in the sun, and admire the big stone Tenza found in the water. It's huge, big enough they needed to work together in moving it, covered in dirt and mud, but it's peculiarly shaped and there's glints of something shiny beneath all the muck. "I haven't seen a rock like that before! It's so pretty!" Aziphrael exclaims. "I wonder if there's anything inside?" Tenza looks around for a place to try and break it open. "Wait, if you want to break it, we should clean it, first." They go back into the river, and after a good 20 minutes of struggling to wash the rock off, Aziphrael cries out in what Tenza assumes is her language, and crouches in front of the massive stone. "This isn't a rock!" She says excitedly. "It's a dragon egg!" Tenza freezes. 

A dragon egg?

A DRAGON. EGG.

The massive, scaled beasts that the elves mount and ride into battle. 

"It's quite big, though...usually they're about half this size." Tenza cocks her head. It's about the width of a just below-medium tree, and reaches up to Tenza's knees in height. If it were half that, the creature inside would be about the size of a baby, one that you would see swaddled in their mother's arms. So what beast would be THIS big? "Quick, we need to get it out of the river!" Aziphrael moves suddenly, and they move it to the rocks they'd used to dry off, as Aziphrael looks around. "We must keep it warm here. If we move it any more, we risk the mother losing her egg, and it may not hatch." 

Of course, that's when they hear a tap.

And another.

Aziphrael slowly turns to the egg, kneeling and motioning for Tenza to do the same. "Forget that, then. It's hatching, and we need to protect it when it does. Dragons are sacred to us, and if you're going to be friends with an elf, you should observe our customs." Everything's happening too fast for Tenza to fully understand, so she slowly kneels down beside Aziphrael as the egg starts to crack and rock. Aziphrael watches the egg closely, muttering something under her breath. A chip falls off, and what was probably a snout presses against it, a chitter escaping from within, and both girls tense, one in trepidation and the other in excitement. The egg cracks more aggressively, before it abruptly splits down the middle, and they gasp. 

Two scaly heads lift to face them. 

One is silver with little, metallic hints of purple, the other metallic purple with hints of silver. 

They're beautiful, Tenza is transfixed and in awe, she can't take her eyes off the purple one. Aziphrael exhales slowly, making a soft clicking noise, offering her hand to the little beasts. The silver one chirps, and shifts to untangle itself from its sibling. At the same time, the purple on moves forward, something compelling tugging at Tenza's mind, encouraging her to follow Aziphrael's example and offer her hand forward. The dragons move closer, that compulsion growing stronger as Tenza's moves closer, blue eyes locked onto hers, until it stops, sniffs her hand, and presses its head against it. 

The compulsion blooms. 

Something reaches out to her and connects. 

"Hungry." It says. She can FEEL its hunger, she knows without knowing it was the dragon's. The feeling is indescribable. She thought she hated elves and everything they did and lived with, but this, this is unrivalled by anything a human could do. The feeling is love, but strong and intense, closer and deeper than any relationship Tenza knows. She exhales the breath she didn't know she was holding, a breathless chuckle escaping her lips. "This is the bond between a dragon and their rider. You can see why it's sacred to us." Aziphrael has already scooped up her dragon, who is clinging to her chest, eyes closed and purring. Tenza nods, speechless. Truly, nothing can compare to what just happened. She turns to look at the little hatchling, smiling. 

And that is how she sees the exact moment the arrow piercing it's little body, instantly killing it. 

Tenza shrieks, an immense, crippling bolt of pain going through her head, and that connection is gone. The silence she never knew she longed to have filled is now empty, like a hole inside her mind. She cries, staring at the body of what was going to be her closest friend and companion in the world. They were going to grow old together! She was going to feed them all of the fish they wanted! Aziphrael jumps up, her own dragon emitting a hiss and clinging to her tighter, as the elf grabs Tenza's arm, and starts running, the adrenaline of the whole situation the only thing allowing Tenza to keep up, still sobbing uncontrollably. What happened? She painfully replays the moment in her head. 

The arrow. 

Of course. 

Hunters. 

They had killed her dragon, and she had been plunged into a world she thought she'd hated. They took the first true happiness she'd felt before away from her, without so much as a second thought.

So she allows Aziphrael to drag her away from the murder of her dragon, and into the safety of the trees, wherever she plans to take them.