An Elf is a forest fairy, chosen and blessed by the World Tree. They are mystical beings who climb trees as nimbly as monkeys, commune with the flora and fauna of the earth, and wield elemental creatures known as spirits—beings born from the same World Tree that forms the great branches of their home.

They are the guardians of the World Tree, those who uphold its will.

Elena recalled a past she wished to forget. She remembered her father, the chieftain of the Elf village. She remembered the words he used to say. Her father, who always told her to carve his words deep into her heart and to live with the pride and dignity of being born an Elf.

Her father told her:

Elves are different from other demi-humans.

They are superior in every way.

Superior to the beast-folk, those brutes who cannot even control their own primal natures.

Superior to the Half-Demons, the outcasts wandering the earth, abandoned by both good and evil.

Superior to the hammer-striking Dwarves, and obviously far above the Dragons with their immense power, the celestial beings, or the Humans who simply swarm in mindless numbers.

“There is no race superior to us Elves.”

These were the words her father, the chieftain, spoke every day. As if trying to brainwash a child who was practically a newborn by Elven standards, he would grab her shoulders and instill his firm ideology into her. Or rather, he tried to inject her with the wretched ideology held by all who called themselves Elves.

To defy this was to not be an Elf at all. If one was born an Elf—and specifically the daughter of the chieftain—it was a worldview one must naturally possess to eventually become the Queen of Elves.

The young Elena, who could barely even speak properly yet, could not understand her father’s words. She had no idea what he was talking about. While she just wanted to run outside and play with her friends, her father would block her path only to tell her how “great” Elves were.

Elena would only tilt her head in confusion. Out of everything her father said, the only word the young Elena could understand was “Human.” Even then, her only context was overhearing her parents gossiping and speaking ill of humans while holding teacups in the palace.

She could not grasp her father’s guidance. Elena could not understand her father.

And the feeling was mutual.

And so, she was abandoned….

Her father visited Elena periodically. He exerted every effort to cram their ugly ideologies into her head. But whether a year passed or ten, Elena could not understand his thoughts.

She didn’t want to understand.

Elena always harbored doubts. Why was it said that only Elves were the smartest? Why must only Elves stand at the pinnacle of all things? Elena knew. Over the decades, she hadn’t seen much… but still, she had seen and heard things.

The friends of the forest had taught her. They taught her what freedom in the outside world was. Elena listened to the stories of the flowers. Whenever the trees swayed, she would approach them and reach out her hand. When it rained, she embraced the droplets rather than seeking cover.

Elena could hear them.

And she could realize: the place she stayed was no different from a birdcage.

The stories the world told her only served to make the circumstances of a young girl named Elena seem utterly pathetic.

Another year passed, then ten. By human standards, she would be past middle age, but by Elven standards, the time Elena had lived was but a fleeting moment. Enough time had passed for a curious and cheerful child to enter the fringes of adolescence. To a human, she was still a child who needed a parent’s care, but Elena now possessed the appearance of a teenager.

However, her appearance didn’t matter. What mattered was that, as the chieftain’s daughter, Elena was ready to come of age. She had become an adult. Taking this as a turning point, she made up her mind to release the doubts she had buried in her heart to her father.

With a bright smile, Elena poured out her heart, telling him of the world and the stories the things of the earth had taught her. She tried her best to ignore her father’s gaze as he looked down at her with apparent loathing. Even as a small Elf, she had known for a long time that her father did not look upon her kindly.

Still, Elena—the small Elf—used her hands to draw constellations, people, and various plants and animals—things that did not exist in the forests where Elves lived.

Horses with two humps (camels), donkeys with snow-white fur or ink-black coats like muddy water, giant cats with golden manes.

A desert where the entire forest was covered in sand, and the clean water held in a massive pool (oasis) that was the only thing to quench the thirst of the people there.

A lake filled with salt water, and tadpoles with… fins? that were born only there.

And the giant blue “tadpoles” that ate those smaller ones—and supposedly even ate humans sometimes…

The young Elf didn’t want her dreams to come true. She knew that if she disappeared, chaos would ensue. She was aware of that much. She hadn’t chosen her parents, but what could she do? she was born the chieftain’s daughter.

She could act.

She could try to be the “good daughter,” the “perfect daughter,” the daughter who didn’t embarrass her father—and she would have done it if asked. Believing the words of a father trying to inject unwanted ideologies and acting like an obedient toy was no problem for her.

Why? Because she was born that way. She was born to parents who wanted that.

Elena knew how deep and dark her father’s ulterior motives and his hatred for the outside world were.

So, just once, she wanted to act like a child.

She didn’t want to be told to leave and chase her dreams.

She didn’t need to be told she didn’t have to believe his ideology.

She just wanted her father to acknowledge her dream, even if only once.

She wanted the chieftain—the leader of the Elves and her father—to acknowledge this dream of hers, a dream that was more unrealistic than a fairy tale about a hero saving the world the moment she was born an Elf.

Even if he frowned, even if he glared at her as if looking at disgusting vomit, she wanted a father who would sigh and pat her head. Or a father who would just say “do your best.” Or at the very least, a father who would turn around in silence and walk back to his place.

She wanted to be the doll her father desired, keeping her hope from shattering and preserving the memory of being acknowledged by her one and only parent—even if it was for a dream that could never be realized—so that her eyes, which shone like the Milky Way, would not go cold.

And that dream of Elena’s…

Slap!

…collapsed in a single instant.

Her father had always been indifferent to her. He would kick her out if she asked about something she didn’t know. He wouldn’t even spare a glance at the antics of his young daughter who smiled at him.

The Elf Chieftain’s love and affection, which had grown cold long ago, only sparked with light when his daughter acted as his doll—silently following and executing his orders.

He was a perfectionist. Yet, he wasn’t the type of “bad father” who swung his fists at his child and wife. No, if anything, he was a type of trash—a disgrace to Elves—that was far worse than a simple physically abusive father.

To the Elf who wanted him to look at her for just one moment, he struck the cheek of the affection-starved young girl.

It was because she was not becoming the version of herself he desired.

Because what she said was the exact opposite of the image the chieftain had for her.

The chieftain beat his daughter. He pinned her to the floor after her mind had gone numb from the slap and beat her severely. Her beautiful, princess-like white skin was bruised and stained red. As if venting all the ill-will he had accumulated over a lifetime onto his daughter, he struck and trampled the young girl with his fists.

Had other Elves passing through the forest not intervened, Elena’s body and soul would have completely crumbled that day.

Perhaps she had already broken, but the Elena of that time might have been in denial.

While clutching her father—the chieftain who was trying to beat the “filth” he had created to death—Elena felt an evil more sinister and disgusting than a demon. She doubted if the man before her was truly her father. He had always been grim, but the father she saw now was… a monster with a cold, mechanical heart? No, he looked like something even more repulsive.

If her father saw her as filth, from that moment on, she saw her father as a monstrosity.

To the father and daughter, they were family tied by the bonds of heaven, but at the same time, they were each other’s greatest failures.

By the time the father and the other Elves had disappeared from Elena’s sight, she brushed herself off and stood up.

Elena sat with her legs tucked in.

For some reason, her body felt as if it were perpetually tilting.

She burst into tears. Even then, she stifled her breath, fearing her father might hear her as he walked away. She covered her mouth with her hands and sobbed. She buried her face into her tattered, scraped legs and wept endlessly.

Still, fearing that the keen-eared Elves—especially her father, the one with the best hearing among them—might hear, she could only groan with a sound like metal scraping.

Wishing that no one would hear her, yet hoping for salvation from the stars to find her, she sat there and cried in bated breath for a very long time.