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I hate elves
Why do I get this stuck in my head when what I need to do is art?
And for the record, let me state that I really do hate elves and I'm not entirely happy about this. I wrote it down in (extremely) rough form to get it OUT of my HEAD, where it's been since 4:30 AM, when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, but stayed in that weird doze where you're not quite sure you're dreaming or not.
You know, I really hate elves. Not through any particular fault of theirs: I mean, I hate a lot of people for no particularly good reason. It's that you tend to get humans in areas without many elves who practically fetishize them and who wander about mooning over them and writing bad poetry, and far too many of them insist upon declaiming said poetry to me. Not that that sort of thing lasts long past their first encounter with an elf. There's just something wrong about the way they're put together: legs just that little bit too long, bones just that little bit too prominent, skin just that little bit too tight on the skull. Which, I need not say, is shaped just that little bit off. Each little bit isn't bad on its own, except maybe those ridiculous ears, but it all adds up to give a sense of ... wrong and you tend to either stare at them in horrified fascination, or avoid looking at them altogether. No wonder they don't hang around with humans much.
I do love watching the faces of those who discover that elf warriors in these parts crop their ears. I've heard that it's a rite of passage with deep sacred meaning, but I think it's because the ears won't fit under a helmet. Elves are way more practical than most humans give them credit for.
What does all this have to do with me? Well, it all goes back a long way. I live at this fairly big mountain temple because the monks claim I'm the seventy-third reincarnation of this minor deity in charge of certain windswept wastelands and, for whatever reason, goats.
Did I mention I hate goats, too?
Anyway, when I was eight a cadre of monks swept down upon the village I was born in and commanded that the villagers bring them all children born between such-and-such dates. I have a feeling that my parents, like many of the villagers who were hoping for the social cachet and more importantly money that came from being the parent of a deity, fudged on my birthdate a bit. No matter: I passed all the tests and was swept off to the temple to be dressed, educated, and treated with all the reverence due me. Which wasn't much, honestly. The incarnations of the thunder god and the goddess of spring were in residence too, and when the big shots are around, nobody has a whole lot of attention to spare for the goat goddess. Eh. Suits me fine. Except when goatherds show up on pilgrimage and I have to go mutter sacred words that no one really knows the meaning of over them and whatever goats they've brought, and feign interest in a litany of goat diseases I'm expected to cure or prevent. Somehow.
The goatherds aren't all that show up, though, and this is where it gets a bit weird. The various tribes of elves that live 'round these parts - what, you didn't think they were all one big, friendly nation, did you? These tribes have blood feuds with each other going back generations - share a lot of the pantheon that the humans worship, only with changes here and there. I'm... no, she's... well, pronouns are sort of hard here. The goddess is still a minor one in their view, but she's got a different sphere of influence for them, one I can't really explain because the concept doesn't translate well. The literal meaning is "wind from the northeast that cuts through your third soul" but has shades of meaning I don't really grasp, not having grown up an elf. She tends to be a favorite of long-time warriors, who show up to stare at me in silence for a while before they go to fight, but sometimes young women or men show up. I don't ask why, and they don't say. I gather their version of the goddess isn't particularly nice which may be why they don't mind that she seems to be resident in a human right now. They get a bit miffed at the goats, though.
And because this is the only place where you can reliably be assured of seeing an elf at some point, because they tend to stick to their side of the border otherwise, this is where all the elf-fanatics and their poetry end up. Honestly, I have no idea where the image of elves as beautiful, ethereal guardians of nature came from, because they're about as non-ethereal as you can get. Although elf-human kids do tend to grow up strangely beautiful. That is, when they grow up at all, as they tend to be attractively sickly.
Such is my life. Or was, until the day that one elf showed up and didn't leave. He was a warrior, as show by his cropped ears although I probably would have figured that out from the leather armor, scars, warrior's build and oh yes the huge sword. He didn't stare at me much, either, just sat down on the floor against the wall of the dingy hall where I'm exiled to meet the goats, and stayed there all day. Didn't say anything. Late in the afternoon, a monk came from the abbot's office and said a few words to him, whereupon the elf got up and followed him out. I finished up with the goats and went to the baths to scrub the smell out of my hair before dinner. The monk caught up with me after dinner, when I was carrying some books back to my room to read before the last light failed, and with a perfunctory obeisance, explained to me that this elf had somehow managed to get himself kicked out of his kin-group (another concept that really doesn't translate well) for something-or-other - which takes quite a lot of doing, let me tell you - and as some sort of penance had sworn himself to serve the goddess, and would I please put up with him for the sake of not causing a political mess.
I didn't quite grasp what "serve the goddess" was going to mean to me until the middle of the night, when I left my room to go to the privy and tripped over the elf, sleeping in the corridor outside my door, and banged my head on the opposite wall.
Great. A religious fanatic. Well, it makes a change from goats.
----
That's all I've got. No clue what happens next.
And for the record, let me state that I really do hate elves and I'm not entirely happy about this. I wrote it down in (extremely) rough form to get it OUT of my HEAD, where it's been since 4:30 AM, when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, but stayed in that weird doze where you're not quite sure you're dreaming or not.
You know, I really hate elves. Not through any particular fault of theirs: I mean, I hate a lot of people for no particularly good reason. It's that you tend to get humans in areas without many elves who practically fetishize them and who wander about mooning over them and writing bad poetry, and far too many of them insist upon declaiming said poetry to me. Not that that sort of thing lasts long past their first encounter with an elf. There's just something wrong about the way they're put together: legs just that little bit too long, bones just that little bit too prominent, skin just that little bit too tight on the skull. Which, I need not say, is shaped just that little bit off. Each little bit isn't bad on its own, except maybe those ridiculous ears, but it all adds up to give a sense of ... wrong and you tend to either stare at them in horrified fascination, or avoid looking at them altogether. No wonder they don't hang around with humans much.
I do love watching the faces of those who discover that elf warriors in these parts crop their ears. I've heard that it's a rite of passage with deep sacred meaning, but I think it's because the ears won't fit under a helmet. Elves are way more practical than most humans give them credit for.
What does all this have to do with me? Well, it all goes back a long way. I live at this fairly big mountain temple because the monks claim I'm the seventy-third reincarnation of this minor deity in charge of certain windswept wastelands and, for whatever reason, goats.
Did I mention I hate goats, too?
Anyway, when I was eight a cadre of monks swept down upon the village I was born in and commanded that the villagers bring them all children born between such-and-such dates. I have a feeling that my parents, like many of the villagers who were hoping for the social cachet and more importantly money that came from being the parent of a deity, fudged on my birthdate a bit. No matter: I passed all the tests and was swept off to the temple to be dressed, educated, and treated with all the reverence due me. Which wasn't much, honestly. The incarnations of the thunder god and the goddess of spring were in residence too, and when the big shots are around, nobody has a whole lot of attention to spare for the goat goddess. Eh. Suits me fine. Except when goatherds show up on pilgrimage and I have to go mutter sacred words that no one really knows the meaning of over them and whatever goats they've brought, and feign interest in a litany of goat diseases I'm expected to cure or prevent. Somehow.
The goatherds aren't all that show up, though, and this is where it gets a bit weird. The various tribes of elves that live 'round these parts - what, you didn't think they were all one big, friendly nation, did you? These tribes have blood feuds with each other going back generations - share a lot of the pantheon that the humans worship, only with changes here and there. I'm... no, she's... well, pronouns are sort of hard here. The goddess is still a minor one in their view, but she's got a different sphere of influence for them, one I can't really explain because the concept doesn't translate well. The literal meaning is "wind from the northeast that cuts through your third soul" but has shades of meaning I don't really grasp, not having grown up an elf. She tends to be a favorite of long-time warriors, who show up to stare at me in silence for a while before they go to fight, but sometimes young women or men show up. I don't ask why, and they don't say. I gather their version of the goddess isn't particularly nice which may be why they don't mind that she seems to be resident in a human right now. They get a bit miffed at the goats, though.
And because this is the only place where you can reliably be assured of seeing an elf at some point, because they tend to stick to their side of the border otherwise, this is where all the elf-fanatics and their poetry end up. Honestly, I have no idea where the image of elves as beautiful, ethereal guardians of nature came from, because they're about as non-ethereal as you can get. Although elf-human kids do tend to grow up strangely beautiful. That is, when they grow up at all, as they tend to be attractively sickly.
Such is my life. Or was, until the day that one elf showed up and didn't leave. He was a warrior, as show by his cropped ears although I probably would have figured that out from the leather armor, scars, warrior's build and oh yes the huge sword. He didn't stare at me much, either, just sat down on the floor against the wall of the dingy hall where I'm exiled to meet the goats, and stayed there all day. Didn't say anything. Late in the afternoon, a monk came from the abbot's office and said a few words to him, whereupon the elf got up and followed him out. I finished up with the goats and went to the baths to scrub the smell out of my hair before dinner. The monk caught up with me after dinner, when I was carrying some books back to my room to read before the last light failed, and with a perfunctory obeisance, explained to me that this elf had somehow managed to get himself kicked out of his kin-group (another concept that really doesn't translate well) for something-or-other - which takes quite a lot of doing, let me tell you - and as some sort of penance had sworn himself to serve the goddess, and would I please put up with him for the sake of not causing a political mess.
I didn't quite grasp what "serve the goddess" was going to mean to me until the middle of the night, when I left my room to go to the privy and tripped over the elf, sleeping in the corridor outside my door, and banged my head on the opposite wall.
Great. A religious fanatic. Well, it makes a change from goats.
----
That's all I've got. No clue what happens next.
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(He's short for an elf, tall for a human, tanned skin just a little too on the gold-colored for comfort, long white hair with an odd sheen that doesn't quite look oily, but doesn't not look oily either, and weird eyes that insist on presenting themselves in my head as pure, featureless white which I think I'm getting from an RPG tie-in novel cover somewhere.)
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Maybe "serve the goddess" refers to his sense of what the goddess, not her current human container, wants? That could cause all sorts of plot complications. Or maybe "serve the goddess" means "do what her container wants rather than what she says she wants. Also complications!
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I think he's the stoically emo type. She's the cynic. Not that you couldn't tell that.
Must go to bed now.
This is probably why my brain has been jonesing for generic quest fantasy for a while. Either it wanted to do this, or it's doing this because I'm not giving it quest fantasy.
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and stare at it.no subject
* Well, mostly to annoy him.
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Your elves sound like a bit Pratchett's version, although his are actively malevolent. I especially liked the cropped ears; why has it become canon for elves to have pointy ears? It's absolutely universal, but why?
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As to elves and pointed ears. It is just one of those tropes, something to show they are not like us I guess.
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I love reading about elves that aren't all nature huffing ethereal beings of purity.
(And it makes me want to write more about my chubby, food critic elf.)
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I like the goat-goddess-girl! I want to hear more!
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(and now I know why I'm always sick, yet get told I look lovely--I'm half elf! ;) )
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Are you up on goat mythology?
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I hope you continue it. It's attracted me enough that I'd pay for the novel if it existed. In hardback.
Barbara