Kiruya led the group to the edge of the city which was devoid of any elves. After looking around for a brief moment, Kiruya quickly went up to one of the trees. She put her hands on a certain spot and a magic circle appeared, unveiling a hatch of some kind.
"Alright everybody, this will be our new base." Kiruya opened the hatch, revealing the hollow insides of the tree which seemed to go quite deep.
"Are you sure we just drop down?" Shaman was a bit sceptical since she had Elanor in her hands.
"Oh don't worry, one of Freja's blood portals is there."
"If that's the case, hold on tight." Shaman trusted Kiruya, but still wanted to be prepared for the worst.
"Mhm." Elanor gripped onto Shaman's clothes a bit afraid where she was being taken.
Taking a small hop forward, Shaman dropped down into the hatch and just like Kiruya said, there was a blood portal waiting for her.
Going through the portal, Shaman and Elanor were transported to the middle of some room. The landing was rough and Shaman, not wanting to crush Elanor, used her own body to cushion the fall.
"Ow!" After landing Shaman looked around and saw they were in some kind of common room.
"Are we underground?" Elanor looked up and saw some tree roots coming from the ceiling panels.
"Wait, we should mov-." Shaman realised that they would be in the way of the others, but had no time left to move as Clara came through the portal.
"Ahhh!" Clara screamed as she saw Shaman and Elanor had not moved and was about to crash into them.
*Bang*
Landing on top of them with Elysia still on her back, a pile of bodies was beginning to stack up. Shaman, being at the bottom of the stack, felt her soul leaving her body as the weight from everyone was crushing her.
"P-please get… off." Elanor struggled to breathe and tried to push Clara off, but the added weight from Elysia made it impossible. However Elanor remembered she had access to her mana and so she started to conjure wind.
"I'm trying!" Clara wasn't able to push herself off without crushing Shaman even further or hurting Elysia.
That however, was no longer necessary as Elanor suddenly pushed them upwards with her wind, throwing Elysia and Clara into the air. As they went up into the air Elanor quickly moved out of the way by rolling.
While Clara was in the air Kiruya had already come through the portal, having no time to slow her fall before crashing into Clara.
Falling back down onto Shaman, this was the final straw, knocking her unconscious.
"What the hell is going on?" Kiruya was confused about what the hell just happened as she tried to push herself off of the 'floor'.
"Ah~." A moan came from Clara as Kiruya accidently grabbed her chest. Kiruya freaked out, falling back and rolling on the floor.
"Damn it." Hitting her head up against the wall, Kiruya then got up from the ground and was finally able to see what happened.
Shaman, Clara and Elysia were still stacked ontop of each other with Elanor lying on the floor close by.
'Maybe I should have waited a bit longer.' Knowing it was her call when to jump down the hatch, she just now figured Shaman couldn't move in time.
Clara, now being able to touch the ground, managed to get out from under Elysia, freeing herself from the stack.
"Next time let's not all jump in super quickly." Clara didn't want to go through that again as she was crushed and even violated in only a short amount of time.
Suddenly Silver who has yet to come through appeared, but anticipating such a mess he was able to quickly slide into the shadows.
"I knew it." Silver poked his head out of the shadows and saw the state of everyone.
"Yeah that's my bad." Kiruya awkwardly chuckled as Silver looked at her with a rather judgemental look.
"I-is Shaman okay?" Elanor looked over and saw that Shaman was knocked out. Elysia who had been asleep the whole time did not wake up, not even showing the slightest of reactions at any point.
"Ghe let me check." Clara crawled over and checked if she was still breathing.
"Yep she is fine." Clara let out a sigh of relief as getting crushed to death isn't the nicest way to die.
"Okay well I will just explain this place then." Kiruya didn't want to wait and she didn't mind explaining it again later.
"Yeah how the hell do you have a place like this." Clara looked around, spotting a kitchen, a sign by a door with a bath symbol and many other doors.
"This was built by Freja so she could teleport to each territory undetected, but they also act as a base." Kiruya walked up to one of the doors and pointed at one of the signs.
[Bedrooms]
"We will be staying here for a while seeing as it's dangerous outside, especially for Elanor. Also just so you know we are really deep underground so don't try digging unless you want the literal planet to crush you."
"I see, well we should probably get these two in their room." Clara got up from the ground and picked up Elysia while Kiruya took Shaman.
After placing them in their room, Kiruya offered to take Elanor, but she still wanted to talk about what happened to her.
Sitting on the couch Kiruya began to explain what had happened to Elanor as she only remembered the events just before she awakened.
"Ohhhh so I almost went on a rampage, but Shaman pulled me out of it." Putting the pieces together the small blank in her memory was filled.
"I have to say it took you a while to awaken your mana, do you know why that is?" Kiruya knew that for royalty the use of mana can awaken very early.
"Hmm, well ever since I was born my grandpa always refused to teach me because of my hair." Ostracised by her family because she was born different, Elanor's growth has been stunted.
"Tsk should have just killed him." Kiruya hated hearing how badly Elanor was treated, but it couldn't be helped.
"Haha don't worry, I know my brother Ren and father love me dearly. They were the only ones against it though."
"Wait, your mother agreed to it?" Kiruya picked up on how Elanor's mother wasn't mentioned and Kiruya was well aware she was still alive.
"Y-yeah about her, because my father married into the family he was more willing to change, but it seemed like my grandparents' teachings stuck with my mother." Elanor teared up a little, having to recall the painful truth, as it was hard to come to terms with her own mother turning against her.
"How come your father hasn't done anything?" Silver couldn't understand why the grandfather had so much power especially if Elanor's father would be much stronger by this point.
"That's because the grandfather is the reason why it's impossible to attack the city." Kiruya, knowing why it was impossible, explained to Silver how it worked.
"How though?"
"He is essentially the battery for the barrier around the city. So until he runs out of mana, which is still a few years away, they can't kill him. You might ask what will they do once he dies, but that's when the world tree takes over. Still, it can only last so long before it too needs to recover. This is the true role of the royal family. Once they grow old they take over that task, letting the world tree rest so that the forest doesn't fall apart." Kiruya tried to give a condensed explanation as there was more to how it worked, but it was not important to them at the moment.
"So one day Elanor would have to supply the tree with mana once she is old?" Silver started making sense of the situation, but still found it rather unfair.
"Yes, but because of her hair they consider her to be impure, hence why she was exiled." Kiruya clenched her fist just saying it, but that was the cruel reality.
Clara hearing the situation became a bit frustrated as well, as it sounded outrageous that just because of Elanor's hair she no longer was a part of the family.
"W-well it is true, our hair is the indicator of our mana so as soon as there was no sign of me going blonde I was deemed a failure." Elanor, remembering the words just before she was exiled, had no other choice but to believe this to be the case.
"How backwards are they?" Clara, who was royalty herself, found it ridiculous as mana was something that is drawn upon from the outside, not something you're born with.
"I know, but still no matter what I do I won't ever be accepted back."
"That isn't true, you have awakened your mana and now you just have to prove to them you don't need some hair colour." Clara believed that if Elanor was able to show she could use mana it would allow her to return.
"I-."
"It's worth a shot." Kiruya agreed with Clara. Hopefully, showing them how wrong they were would allow Elanor to go back to her family.
"T-thank you." Elanor, once again allowing herself to feel hope in her heart, was overcome by emotion and started crying once more.
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