The bolt of lightning arcs across the night sky, illuminating the verdant landscape and immovable hills. The natural totems of wood; the sparsely populated Deciduous, seemed to dodge away from the arc of energy as it crashed towards the ground. The sonic wave emanated along the length of the lightning's path, the sound heard for miles around. The wind whipped across the landscape, stiring up dust and dirt and creating projectiles from the loosest of objects. A torrent of rain fell from the sky, creating a stew of mud and grass and shrouding sight beyond a dozen meters including the village in the distance.
The elf blinked as the bolt's afterimage remained in the vision of his eye, his fake eye unaffected. He walked brazenly down the path clad in but a white travelling cloak and cerulean silks, head uncovered from the storm. Yet the elf was oddly dry, the rains and winds deflecting around a shimmering shield of air. His gloves were a soft lilac silk, covering up the ring of his station in his church. He wore no footware, his feed lightly muddy from the trek. The blood on his whirlwind flail washed off in the rain as he slung it back over his shoulder.
He had heard them before he could see them, his keen ears picking up their steps before they had breached the veil of the rain. He had spotted their traps and stepped around them. Their leader had had a nimbus of fire, a violent storm of lava with a rim of black smoke - mirroring the rage the man had held against elves. The elf had tried to pass peacefully but when arrows had been loosed at him he had no choice. A burst of air to knock them from their feet and borrowing the speed of the wind - they had not lasted long. He wore a frown as he carried on, disappointed. He lightly rubbed a wound in his arm where an arrow had slipped through his defences, his hand glowing softly as the wound closed.
Finally making it to the town he walked past many empty buildings shuttered up permanently. Even the blacksmith's forge was cold, little good had happened her. He made his way quietly towards the only lit building in the storm, the inn. The elf slipped into the inn to no small number of hostile glares. His kind was not welcome here, not as an elf and especially not as a Green. It didn't matter, he had places to be, and gold to spend for a night in a mostly clean bed. He took a table at the back of the inn in the shadows, keeping an eye on the occupants. He'd wait long enough for a drink and to get a room, no need to stir trouble and get into another fight.
He would soon reach his destination.
**********
Later in his room he finished quilling some letters, sealing them with a blank wax seal. He had family now, yet lacked the signet, for now. He smiled in memory, it hadn't gone as planned but he knew she was happy. For the first time in his three centuries he would have a name, a family. He had a home.
He would be gone in the morning before the villagers awoke and rumours spread. Three monthes on the road already.
He was happy.
The Airwalker wrote:Wander while you whistle,
Meander merrily mayhaps,
From fugue to furious foam,
Think thoughts of thistle,
Look, listen, lacking laspe,
As he humbly hurries home.