The Sylvan Fay

The great mana surge that overtook all of Earthland kept procuring more and more disastrous events the likes of which Atani had never seen... or at least from what she could remember that is.

The remnants of the attack on Sieghart left an eerie feeling of déjà vu within the elf. The deep crimson stains on the streets looked all too familiar. The anguished screams of injured civilians echoing off stone buildings were indelibly etched into her mind from some Asteran oblivion. She didn't know what she did last time something like this happened, but she couldn't help but be filled with some lingering sense of helplessness. Gods, what kind of person was she all those years ago to look upon this disaster and be unable to do anything? She didn't know. And that was frightening.

Whatever the case, she wasn't going to let herself repeat her past mistakes. Deciding to put her skills as a healer to use, the elf set out to search for survivors that hadn't made it to the clinics yet.

She hurried to the first sign of a body trapped beneath the rubble she saw. But bending down to check their pulse... dead. The next, a Wood Elf girl who couldn't be much older than herself. Her lifeless eyes stared up at the gray skies above. "No i Linea na le," she murmured before gently closing the girl's eyes. Though she wished to give one of her kind the proper burial so that they may be one with Arda once more, the living came first.


Time passed. In the interim, she had given her aid to others in passing, all of who were in stable condition. It seemed that people had done a good job at taking care of the critically injured thus far. Atani herself was just about to wrap up and return to one of the clinics to provide further aid when she saw one body she hadn't yet checked. It was trapped beneath a collapsed building. He had almost gotten out, but not before everything came falling down around him. From looks alone, she would have guessed he was dead: pale faced, blood spattered, bottom half of the body trapped beneath a support beam. But his pulse, though faint, said he was alive. Hardly believing it herself, she put an ear to his chest and sure enough, there were shallow breaths coming from the unconscious body.

"This one's alive!" she called to anyone who might have been around... but alive for how long? Bending close to the ground, Atani peered beneath the rubble. The beam was the only thing restricting blood flow to his upper half, providing a weak but viable supply to his heart and brain. In most cases, these people didn't survive. Not once pressure was removed from their wound. But with her healing magic, there was still a chance.

The elf stood back up and took a deep breath. She could do this so long as she acted fast. Crouching down, she took hold of the wooden beam and heaved. But nothing. She tried again from a different angle. Still nothing. Either it was stuck or she just simply wasn't strong enough to move it on her own. From the state this man was in though, he didn't have the time for her to leave and get help. Something had to be done now.

The Sylvan Fay

In the midst her struggle to free the man trapped beneath the rubble, Atani heard a voice call out in the near distance:

"Aye! I need two of you to come help Lady Atani!"

... Lady Atani? She momentarily stopped what she was doing and looked in the direction of the man who called. Coming her way was a tall man with short dark hair and two others at his side. She believed she had seen him before around Sieghart from the past day or two, though she had not yet spoken to him. Despite this, he still knew who she was.

The men, clearly far stronger than she, lifted the fallen beam with ease. With the pressure released, blood gushed from wounds along the injured's legs and torso. Moving him only caused more pools of crimson to spill. It dripped on her hands, stained her clothes, and smeared along the stony ground. Once he was free, it only took the elf a brief moment to scan the body and identify the most life threatening injuries. She hovered her hands over his midriff and cast a spell. A green aura emanated from her hands. The sweet smell of wildflowers-- courtesy of the nature element-- dulled the metallic stench of blood as her hands worked their magic. Once the nearly lethal wound was fully closed, she paused her spell to work on the man's leg. A discolored bump along his shin indicated a nasty fracture that almost broke through the skin. 'Thank the gods he's already passed out,' she thought to herself before forcefully aligning the bone back into place. The fracture reduced with an audible CRACK, and then she followed it up with another healing spell. Conjuring a makeshift splint made of vines, she finished up her job.

"He's stable now," the floramancer reported. "He needs to be transported back to receive additional treatment. Unfortunately we won't know the extent of all his injuries until he wakes up." Hopefully one of the men had grabbed a stretcher, because this fellow wasn't going to be waking up and walking it off anytime soon.

With the major stressor now out of the way, Atani breathed out and looked at her clothes. If the other patients she dealt with hadn't dirtied them enough, they were certainly soiled now. Using some water magic to wash the blood of her hands, she returned her attention to the man who had come to her aid. "And to whom do I owe my thanks?"

The Sylvan Fay

Atani thanked the men who brought her some water and watched as they carried the patient away to the nearest on-site clinic. Returning her attention back to the stranger who led the assist, she hoped to properly thank him by learning his name just as he knew hers. While she waited for an answer, the elf took a swig from her waterskin-- the first drop of liquid in what felt like hours-- and nearly choked when the man said his name was Khalfani. She closed its cap and coughed into her elbow.

"Khalfani. As in Commander Khalfani." Of course coming to Sieghart, she knew who led Paradise Dawn, but she hadn't put a face to the name until now. She had imagined this Defender of the North would be far older, but the man in front of her couldn't have been more than twenty. "My apologies, I didn't realize. I have heard a fair bit of you as well. What you're doing here in the North-- it's very noble. It's hard to believe that it was hit with such travesty all of a sudden..."

Those creatures... They were almost human looking. Titans, they were called. In all of her studies, she had never come across such towering beasts save for things of mere legends. She wouldn't have believed of their existence if she hadn't seen them for herself.

They were monsters.



"Would you come with me back to triage? I should get cleaned up before helping others." Though her clothes had gotten stained with blood and fluids of all sorts that day, the last patient really did them in; it would be unsanitary to heal others with an unknown amount of pathogens trapped in her threads. She nodded her head to the path down the street and began her walk.

"I apologize in advance as you've probably had to address this already, but do you know where in the name of the gods these 'Titans' came from? Nothing I've ever read has even mentioned such creatures before."

Giants, now they were one thing. There were numerous words for them in her language: ulunn, noroth, hanaco, norsa. The ancients called them nahúa, nauva, ulban, ork. Each term held its own unique meaning, but they nonetheless described 'titans' of sorts. And then there were those from Sevese and Icebergian legends. But none of them, none of them, possessed the same traits these mindless man-eaters did.