“Aye, my mentor,” the sparkly creature began, “the most renowned of the Startouch elves, the archmage Aaravos. I accompanied him to Elarion, a human territory plagued by dragons that made no effort to hide their distaste. They asked our kind for help, and at the time, it seemed the majority were selfish, refusing to aid the humans. I came to realize too late that they may have had the right of it.“
She paused to let out a sigh, heavy for her small form. "Despite it all, he believed the humans had potential, and sought to teach them magic. He was my mentor at the time, and I had faith in him, so I attempted to help… But the magic they learned was not that of the primal sources, and I paid for their discovery with my freedom.”
“This was hundreds of years ago… or is it thousands now? I have long since lost my sense of time.” If she’d simply existed the entire time, it would have been easier to keep track. But taking into consideration lengthy rebirth cycles, and the lonely waits between each master, it was impossible to know.
She went silent for a bit then, allowing Claudia to think on what she’d said. Perhaps she’d over-answered slightly, but if this mage really was so curious about it all, she’d explain it sooner or later regardless. She hummed thoughtfully at the question of libraries. “Not many, and not for a long time. Seldom few of my masters possessed such an interest in books.”
Claudia arched an eyebrow as Titania spoke of an elf she’d never heard about, her expression becoming slightly more disbelieving as she mentioned coming to the aid of humans and outright frowning at the declaration that they may have been right. And yet, what else could she expect from an elf?
From an elf that had been chained to an amulet, however. Claudia looked away for a moment, then focused again on her research. She couldn’t imagine spending hundreds of years, or even thousands, like that. She didn’t want to imagine it either.
“Is there a way to free you?” She asked at last, softly. It wouldn’t be a decision to be undertaken lightly, not with her power and not with the state of the border, and nothing changed the fact that Titania was an elf. An elf with a grudge against dark mages, and a possible threat to all Claudia held dear, but there may be a way to free her while minimizing the danger. Or there might not, and then Claudia would at least have something to hold over Titania. She wasn’t sure about how she felt about that prospect.
However, at least now Claudia had something to start from, so she moved her research to Elarion and related topics, swapping some books for others and humming to herself.
“Did Aaravos invent Dark magic, then?” She asked, not long afterwards. “Or did he learn it from someone else?” Where there records, perhaps lost to humanity? “Did he create some kind of academy?”







