Ashwood Village stood near the Northern frontier where demon territory pressed uneasily against the borders of mankind like an old wound threatening to split open again. The village itself possessed little worth by noble standards. The farmland was poor, the roads frequently collapsed into mud during heavy rain, and winter storms routinely buried outer buildings beneath snowdrifts tall enough to swallow livestock whole.
Even Elara remembered arriving there half-dead.
The first resurgence of the demons had already consumed her original homeland by then. Ancient elven settlements hidden deep within sacred forests vanished beneath blackened fire and corrupted magic as the demons swept through the frontier after centuries of silence. Entire bloodlines disappeared so completely that later scouting parties found only ash and melted stone where cities once stood.
She remembered screaming.
Then running.
Then nothing.
By the time the villagers found her beside the roadside, she could barely remember her own name.
“She’s an elf,” one villager whispered nervously while staring at the starving child wrapped in torn fabric.
“She’s a child,” another answered angrily.
That ended the discussion.
Her adoptive mother carried her home inside his winter cloak while her future father loudly complained that bringing home another starving mouth would bankrupt them all before spring arrived. The entire walk back to the village was filled with exhausted bickering as they argued over whether kindness or starvation would kill them first, yet neither of them loosened their hold on her for even a moment.
By the time they reached home, her mother was still grumbling under her breath while already preparing soup over the fire.
Elara eventually learned that this was how kindness worked in poor villages. People complained first because life was difficult, but they helped anyway because abandoning others was even harder.
Her adoptive family possessed almost nothing. The roof leaked during heavy snowstorms, their chairs wobbled unevenly across wooden floors worn smooth by years of use, and meals stretched through questionable mathematics and increasingly creative soup recipes whenever winter supplies ran low.
Yet somehow there was always enough room for one more person at the table.
“You eat too quietly,” her adoptive mother once told her while shoving another piece of bread onto her plate.
“You walk too quietly too,” one older brother added suspiciously.
“You stare like a squirrel,” another sibling informed her with absolute confidence.
“I.. I don’t know what that means,” Elara admitted softly.
“Neither do I,” he replied immediately. Then everyone laughed anyway. It became one of those precious memories that hurt to remember.
Elara slowly began helping around the village as the months passed. She repaired fences, gathered herbs, read letters aloud for villagers who never learned how to read properly, and helped prepare food during long winters when everyone survived through shared effort.
Then strange things started happening around her.
Minor wounds of children playing around her healed faster.
Fevers of malnourished villagers faded overnight.
Exhausted workers regained strength after resting nearby.
The villagers called it luck, but Elara stumbled upon a morsel of truth during winter when her youngest adoptive sister collapsed from a fever.
The village healer quietly informed the family that the child likely would not survive the week. But that night, feeling desperate and wanting, more than anything else in the world, for her sister to live, Elara sat beside the bed while holding her sister’s hand and listening to her shallow breathing.
Then she remembered feeling unbearably tired and experiencing the sensation of something warm leaving her chest before darkness swallowed her thoughts completely.
Her sister’s fever broke before sunrise, but Elara collapsed for two days afterward.
The village healer could not explain what had happened. All she knew was that the dying child had somehow survived while Elara lay beside the bed, looking pale enough to join the dead herself. It was then that rumors spread quickly in the quiet village. That people began whispering whenever Elara passed nearby.
Some called it a blessing. Others called it strange. A few simply stopped allowing their children near her. But one thing became painfully obvious. Nobody understood what she was. Only Elara knew that if she wished for something hard enough, it was bound to come through.
That night, Elara sat silently outside the kitchen doorway while her adoptive parents argued in low voices beside the fire, both believing she had already fallen asleep.
“What exactly did she do?” her mother asked quietly while stirring the soup pot with visible tension. “Was it healing magic?”
Her father rubbed both hands down his exhausted face.
“I don’t know,” he admitted honestly. “Maybe some elf magic bullshit.”
Her mother immediately smacked his shoulder.
“Don’t say it like that.”
“What else am I supposed to call it?” he said defensively. “The girl touches people, and then suddenly they stop dying. That sounds like elf nonsense to me.”
Despite the words, Elara could hear the fear underneath his voice.
Not fear of her.
Fear for her.
“The villagers are already talking,” her mother whispered, the sound barely carrying over the crackle of the hearth.
Her father didn't answer immediately. He stared into the embers with the same hard, narrow-eyed expression he wore when the Duke’s men arrived to reassess the grain stores, finding ways to squeeze an extra bushel out of a starving family.
After a long silence, he let out a heavy breath.
“Only because they’re scared. Imagine if the nobles heard about this… or the priests… ha.”
The laugh was dry, devoid of humor.
The room fell deathly quiet. Then, his voice lost its levity, hardening into something iron-clad.
“No priests. No nobles. No travelers. Nobody hears a word of this.”
Her mother nodded slowly, her gaze drifting toward the darkened doorway where Elara sat huddled in the shadows.
“She’s still our daughter,” she said, her voice anchoring the room.
“Obviously,” her father muttered. He leaned in closer to his wife, his voice dropping into a whisper. “Not like I had a choice anyway. You would’ve killed me if I disagreed.”
The smack to his arm was instantaneous. “You say that like it’s unreasonable.”
“It absolutely is,” he grumbled, though he couldn't quite catch the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Then, to Elara’s complete shock, he looked directly into the shadows of the doorway. He caught her eyes and offered a small, playful wink before turning back to his soup as if he hadn't just blown her cover.
“Tell her to stop lurking and come eat before it gets cold,” her mother sighed.
“You heard the terrifying woman,” her father called out lazily. “Get in here before she starts smothering you aggressively.”
Elara remembered stepping into the firelight, slowly, uncertainly, like a stray animal approaching a porch for the first time.
But no one looked at her as though she were cursed.
Her brother simply scooted sideways, making a space on the bench with a casual bump of his shoulder, while her youngest sister reached out sleepily, gripping the edge of Elara’s sleeve without even opening her eyes.
Her evenings had always been defined by three things: a crowded table, thin soup, and a leaking roof. Yet somehow, in that cramped house at the edge of a dying frontier, Elara had found the one thing she thought the demons had burned away with her homeland.
A place where she belonged.