My death.

So my fellow shadow guards want to know the gorey details of my death. I understand that they want to know everything about me all at once but to my mind this curiosity seems perhaps a bit morbid, and better questions could perhaps be asked be about details of my life. I always dwell on the positive and look forward not backwards.

In this case, however, I know that these are just two sides of the same coin. Explaining how I died and how I lived can be achieved in one tale. You see, my beliefs, my attitude, my hopes and dreams and everything that I had done in my life were the reason I died on that fated day. But I will get ahead of myself and get to the end without telling the tale.

From my first awareness I knew I was different from everyone around me, even my mother. For a start I had no father. My mother missed him so much that she treasured me and I felt the danger of being smothered by her over protectiveness. As I grew older I wanted to test my independence and I was torn between worrying her by being - as she saw it - reckless and impulsive, and my own worries of missing out on the wide world and all the things I was so curious about. Then of course as I started to mix with other Murmils I realised that I looked very different from them, I was so much smaller and daintier, and my eyes had an elven cast to them.

Because of these differences, and murmlings being murmlings, I was teased and called names constantly by the others. From birth I had a great abhorrence for physical violence but I found that it really wasn't necessary. I had a quick wit, a keen sense of humour and my ability to sense others emotions, I was able to defuse most tense situations with a smile and a joke - sometimes at my own expense. I walked through life with a twinkle in my eye and a smile on my face and this won me many friends and of course male admirers.

I seriously believed that there were no truly evil beings in the world, that anyone could be helped towards the good and the light. This was the strongest belief I held dear and nothing could shake this from me - until of course the day I died. But again I'm in danger of telling the end of the tale without telling the middle.

One day shortly after my Usang, I was walking in the forest collecting plants and wood with Sasha and heard a wolf whimpering and rough laughter. I told Sasha to watch and wait and I moved closer to the laughter. I saw four human boys throwing stones and laughing at a wolf cub who they had cornered in a cave where he had been sleeping. The ring leader I recognised as a boy called Malazano. He had been hanging around outside Caberton gates for a few weeks teasing the young murmling girls. I had tried to talk to him to understand what his problem was with us and maybe make him see how he was hurting the youngsters but to no avail.

I shouted his name and asked him what he was doing, although of course I could see exactly what they were doing. They all looked over at me with Sasha by my side. Malanzano's friends looked scared and embarassed and shuffled their feet like they wanted to run away but I could see that they were more afraid of what the bully would do to them later if they did.

I grabbed my collecting sack from Sasha's back and ran over and put myself between Malanzano and the mouth of the cave to stop him hitting the poor wolf cub. The bully then turned his attentions to me. My elven agility made a mockery of every attempt he made to hit me as I danced around him tapping him on the head, making him spin and lose his balance trying to keep track of where I was. The other three boys could not contain their laughter which of course made the bully even more angry. I decided to take pity on him and sprung over his head landing behind him and at the same time pulling the sack over his head tying a knot at his feet. The other 3 took this distraction as time to run off in all directions. Sasha wanted to give chase but I felt that we had the real bad apple and with him gone the others would have a chance at a good life.

Now we had an injured wolf cub and a very large heavy beast in a sack to take back to Caberton. Together we made it and after delivering the cub to the healers we took the struggling sack to the elders to deal with. Even at that stage I thought that our elders would talk to his elders who would talk to his parents who would then talk to him and Malanzano may yet make a valuable member of his society one day. How wrong I was.

Many seasons passed and the seventh day of Moroven 2169 came and events unfolded as told in my tale, however, what the tale does not tell is that with the orcs attacking Duke Vermillion Dantron, his wife, Merlani, and his servants was a human male called Malazano. As Sasha and I fought the last of the orcs, I heard a cruel cry of satisfaction as at the same time I felt the dagger in my back. The last sound I heard after Sasha's cry of despair was the same cruel laughter I had heard that day in the forest when I rescued the wolf cub.

My body died on that day and along with it my conviction that there was no inherently evil creatures in the world. I understood at last the truth that for some, there was no redemption, not because they were incapable of redemption but because they were incapable of wanting to be redeemed. The choice is for each to make for themselves and I now understand that some choose evil.

To clear the world of evil and to protect Mother Terees is now my mission in each and every life for as long as Mother Terees chooses. I also know that I have a nemesis of my own to deal with before he endangers the Shadow Guard.