Chapter 445: Chapter 429 – Learning New Perspectives

“I must admit, it was a bit jarring when I got past my first century, then again after my second. I guess some part of my thinking remained too human, too attached to the idea that people live for around a century and little more. Once I started to really come to terms with my immortality, I started to ask others about their perspective on the passing of time.

 

This was one matter where Grandpa Aarin was unfortunately of little help. He was already so ancient by then that his point of view was already on a whole different plane compared to even the long-lived elves who sometimes live a thousand years or more. It was from those elves that I first received some wisdom on how to approach a life that goes on for eternity.

 

Nowadays, I simply live my life to the fullest, choosing to enjoy everything I experience as best I can. Just because we live a long time, some tend to expect us immortals to be stubborn and set in our ways. If anything, I would say that most of my fellow older unliving are some of the most open-minded people out there.” - Aideen deVreys, the Silver Maiden, circa 671 FP.

“So you actually fought against Miss Aideen before?” asked Celia with some wonderment to a small group of elves. While it was difficult to tell the age of an elf still in their prime, most elven cultures had some habits that made telling their general range of age easier. In the Forest of Shadows, that was done by making small braids with one’s hair that was tucked behind the ear, one braid for every century.

 

It was a habit Aideen adopted for her own use as well, as Celia recalled how when she had time to do it, Aideen always fashioned her hair with a pair of small braids behind her ears, and that she added a third braid to that shortly before they traveled to Ur-Teros. Celia also noted that all the elves before her had either four or five braids behind their ears.

 

That meant that they were youths in their first to third centuries during the last major raid that the elves took part in, the disastrous failure when they raided the Lichdom and Vitalica around two and a half centuries ago. It was the disastrous failure of that raid that caused the collapse of the adherence to old traditions in the forest, and allowed those who sought new and different ways of life to come to the front instead.

 

Then the plague that happened half a century after the raid placed the last nail on the coffin of the old traditions.

 

“Not against her personally, no, just on the opposing side,” clarified one of the elves, a younger female in her fourth century. “I don’t think anyone who did that returned alive. They either died by her hand, or got caught in the sweeps that followed our escape. It was a situation where neither side could afford or have any desire to show mercy, so it was expected. We were decimated that day, and then more died in the following years to the Empire’s men and the plague that followed.”

 

“Honestly, the change is for the better, by far. If makes me feel ashamed how ignorant we used to be when we were young, treating others like they were beneath us, just prey to be hunted, and never even thinking of trying to learn from them, because it was seen as signs of weakness,” admitted another of the elves, that one a male in his fifth century. “All it took was the near-decimation of our people to open our eyes, after a disastrous defeat in an attempt to relive the glories of the past.”

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“Good riddance,” commented the first female elf. “We do keep the old traditions alive in our notes. We taught them to our children as well. They made for good examples of how things could be when we got far too intoxicated in our own hubris, we feel,” she added with a shake of her head. “It’s been centuries since then. Nowadays most of the old codgers who were still set in their old ways have passed on, so I hope the future our young ones can build for our people will be a better and brighter one compared to the time we were raised in.”

 

“Hear, hear! I’ll drink to that!” said another in affirmation as he lifted his cup, full of some local alcohol made from fermented fruits, and proposed a cheerful toast for everyone.

 

From them, Celia learned that unlike humans, the elves rarely hold grudges for long periods of time, at least amongst themselves, though nowadays they also included the people who they lived amongst into that number. Their long lives meant that they generally take a longer view on things, rather than focusing on the short term.

 

It was such a view that prompted them to offer themselves as vassals to the Lichdom. They realized that back then that if the Empire kept its aggression up, within a century or two there probably wouldn’t be any elf left in the forest, notwithstanding the plague. The decision to swallow a bitter pill in the short term and pay their obeisance to the Bone Lord resulted in longer term safety and development for their people.

 

It was a price worth paying, from their perspective. What good were traditions if all it got them was hatred and the death of their own people? Things that had outlived its usefulness should be changed to fit the situation, a new way of life to fit a new age, as their own history suggested. After all, some elven legends stated that the previous way of life the elves lived was not the original either, that they used to be more of a society of hunter-gatherers that mostly gave way to others.

 

It was only when others pushed them too often, too far, that they responded with savagery and brutality, leading to the way of life they previously lived, one that made them into feared bogeymen for the people who lived in their vicinity. Just as they had adapted to suit the situation in the past, they did so again in the present. 

 

As long as their descendants could life a better life than their own, what more could they ask for?

 

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