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MaybeHuman also unfinished ^^; sorry
word count: 852
She stumbled. ‘tread lightly’ she thought, they were behind her now, the sounds of baying bloodhounds forced her onwards, on and on, all she wanted was to stop. She wasn’t aware of her destination anymore, she just had to keep moving, she had to find them, the golden eyes.
When she was but a hatchling, Elva had lived a simple life, it was hard, but it was simple. She was born in one of the few clans that populated the wyrmwood, to a thief father, and a mother she had never known, her father had always been strange, at least, that’s what she thought. He was a tad rude, a little loud, but oddly generous, at least to her. She had never known anything about her mother, she tried to ask her father once, but his eyes just glazed over, and he yelled at her. The next morning however, she woke up with a box on her nightstand, small and oaken, traced with intricate carvings of palaces and forests. The box was locked by a latch, small and golden, shut with an ancient looking padlock, long since rusted, but also strangely beautiful. The key was next to it, matched with the padlock in looks, but with a pleasant weight and a smooth feel.
She waited with bated breath as she opened the lock, a fizzy excitement bubbling in her chest as she wondered what could be inside. However, what was inside was beyond her wildest imagination. A jewelled crown sat inside the box, on a plush velvet cushion. The crown itself was gorgeous, pure gold with silver inlay, onyx, emerald, and sapphire were inset, twinkling darkly in the dim light of Elva’s room. A note was attached;
“My dearest Elva, I hope you will love this crown as I did. I wore it to long, and it destroyed me, but as my daughter, I hope you will surpass me in strength, and grow into the role as I never did. You are only half of me, so I cannot make you true royalty, but I can name you--- hence forth you are to be known as ‘sovereign of silver- above the Gladeveins’ Do good my love. Do me proud, although I will never meet you again, know I love you
-your mother”
Elva couldn’t believe it to be true, Sovereign of silver?!
Day, weeks, and even months went by, but Elva didn’t put on the crown, she would just stare at the symbol of a better life that she held in her hands in disbelief. Her father disagreed greatly with her decision to keep the crown rather than sell it off, but Elva didn’t care, it was all she would ever have of her mother, she wasn’t about to give it up for any amount of money. Even when their money wasted away, down from a hefty pile, to a few measly silvers, Elva refused to let go of the head piece, driving her father mad with how stubborn she was.
So that was how it happened. Turned onto the streets to fend for herself when funds grew too low, she was forced to learn the ways of thievery, like her father before her, the key; tread lightly. That was her mantra. The words that screamed through her head with every pocket picked, every item of food that suspiciously went missing, every coin filched from the rich aristocrats that flocked to the scarred wasteland in search of fame, glory, and credit for going somewhere ‘dangerous’ her home wasn’t dangerous in truth, just so long as you stuck to the paths and cities, and didn’t touch ‘mother’s cauldron’ not like an outsider could get close enough anyway.
So, she passed her days like this, a coin here, an eel there, life was okay. But it the day that all dragons feared was catching up on her, the day when hatchlings started to get curious, and she was. All Elva wanted was to see the world, she wanted to experience true sunlight upon her scales, not the weak and sickly mockery of heat that penetrated the ashen clouds of the abhorred lands she hailed from, she wanted to learn and know about her mother, the parent she had never known, born high enough to bestow a title upon her.
So, at the crack of dawn, she would be up, taking the unwary shopkeeps by surprise, one map at a time. She would memorise them carefully, until she could almost perfectly recite them, to the point where she could venture out into the world.
In her satchel she put her few belongings; a small pouch of food, a smaller pouch of a few maps, a compass, a change of clothes, and the oaken box containing her only valuable possession.
And off she went, travelling, learning, growing, meeting people she never thought she would, making enemies she never would have dreamed of. Across the places that she had visited; the cloudscape crags, the Greatwyrm’s Breach, the tempest spire, the whole world over, every land her presence had kissed, they had one name for her,
The Silver Wanderer
