Elsbeth: Homecoming Part 1.
This arc takes place before Chapter 36 and is fully canon.
It isn't required to understand the main story, but it expands Elsbeth's journey before she begins her adventures.
Think of it as watching an anime movie that fits between two story arcs.
This arc also experiments with a different narrative style,
using perspective shifts to create a more cinematic experience.
If you ever find the transitions confusing,
I would really appreciate your feedback so I can continue improving this style.
The day begins as it normally does in Elsbeth's village.
Frieda is drying damp clothes in the rear of their home. As she did so, she remembered Elsbeth helping her with her small hand. She wonders how Elsbeth is doing right now, if she is sleeping much and eating on time. These thoughts often cross her mind, but she knows her daughter is strong, so she dismisses them and hums a tune her mother taught her, a song about spring rains and harvest moons, to divert her mind from worrying about Elsbeth.
Heinrich works at the forge, his hammer striking iron with patient rhythm. Sparks fly, brief and bright, illuminating the sweat on his brow. He's mending a plow blade, a simple repair for a simple tool. The rhythm is steady. Unbroken.
Children run through the streets, their laughter echoing off the stone cottages. A game of tag weaves between laundry lines and vegetable gardens. A small boy trips, scrambles up, and keeps running. No one stops him. No one worries. This is a village where children can still be children.
Villagers gather in the square, discussing the coming harvest. The grain looks good this year. The rains came at the right time. The elder predicts the best yield in a decade. Someone mentions the price of flour in the city. They laugh. Easy laughter. The kind that comes from knowing each other's names and each other's stories.
Near the edge of the village, Roric helps repair a section of fence. His hands are calloused from years of work. Beside him, Wilhelm trains with the village guards, young men and women who carry spears they barely know how to use. He corrects a stance and adjusts a grip. His patience is endless. His pride in them is quiet but real.
The elder sits on a bench outside his cottage, watching it all. His eyes trace the familiar scene, the smoke rising from chimneys, the distant fields, the children's games, the laughter. He smiles, slow and knowing.
"How peaceful life has become," he murmurs, almost to himself. "I hope we have nothing to worry about."
The words hang in the air.
Not heavy. Not sad. Just... wistful.
The baker's bread. The blacksmith's fire. The children's laughter. The guards are learning to protect what they love. The elder's quiet contentment.
Frieda’s humming drifted through the yard, warm and familiar enough to hurt.
The empty chair at Frieda's table.
The unfinished blade on Heinrich's workbench.
The village moves on. It breathes. It lives. It holds the shape of her absence like a handprint pressed into soft clay.
The ache of someone gone.
The quiet hope that she'll come back.
***
Darkness settles over the village like a shroud.
The sun sinks behind the distant peaks, and the last light bleeds from the sky. Lanterns flicker to life in cottage windows. Doors bolt. The village exhales, settling into the familiar rhythm of night.
The appointed night guard, a young man named Dieter, makes his rounds along the outskirts. His spear is worn, his training incomplete, but his steps are steady. He knows this path. Every root, every stone, every shadow.
He hears movement.
He stops. Listens.
The wind rustles through the wheat. An owl calls from the tree line. Ordinary sounds. Familiar sounds.
But something is wrong.
The silence between the sounds is too deep. Too complete.
Dieter grips his spear tighter. He peers into the darkness beyond the fence. His heart beats faster, but he forces himself to stand his ground. He is the guard. This is his duty.
Then…
A blade flashes.
Silver in the moonlight. Swift. Precise.
Dieter falls. His spear clatters to the ground. His mouth opens, but no sound escapes. He was dead before his body hit the floor.
Figures emerge from the forest.
They move like shadows given form. Dark cloaks. Muffled steps. Eyes that gleam with hunger and desperation.
Bandits.
Dozens of them.
They pour from the tree line like a tide: thirty, forty, or more. They carry swords and axes and torches. They have been watching. Waiting. Starving. And the village is full of grain. Full of coin. Full of life, they are ready to take it.
One of them raises his hand.
A signal.
The attack begins.
The village bells ring.
The sound shatters the night, urgent, frantic, and desperate. It pulls people from their beds. It sends children crying into their mothers' arms. It brings Heinrich from his forge with a hammer in his hand. It wakes Wilhelm from a restless sleep.
Chaos begins.
Screaming. Fire. The clash of steel.
The peaceful village is gone. In its place, a nightmare.
The bandits move through the streets like wolves in a pen. They smash doors. They set roofs ablaze. They grab what they can carry and kill what they cannot.
Heinrich charges into the fray, swinging his hammer like a man possessed. He catches a bandit across the jaw. Another falls to his fist. But there are too many. There are always too many.
Wilhelm grabs a fallen guard's sword. He fights beside the villagers he trained with, those who remember their lessons, who stand their ground even as their hands shake. He cuts down one bandit. Then another. But his eyes search the chaos. His heart pounds with a name he cannot speak.
Elsbeth.
Where is she when they need her most?
But she is not here. She is far away. In the Spire. Learning to balance forces she barely understands.
The elder stands in the square, watching it all. His hand trembles. His face is pale in the firelight.
"How quickly peace ends," he whispers.
The flames rise higher.
The night is young.
And the horror has only just begun.
Inside her home, Frieda presses her back against the wall. Outside, the screams continue. The flames cast dancing shadows through the window, orange and red and hungry.
She can hear Heinrich's roar somewhere in the chaos. She can hear the clash of steel. She can hear the village she has known her entire life tearing itself apart.
And she knows.
Deep in her bones, with a certainty that settles like ice in her chest, Frieda knows the village cannot survive.
Not like this. Not against so many. She closes her eyes. Her breath comes fast and shallow. Her hands tremble.
Then…
She remembers.
Not a name. Not a face. A memory.
Frieda opens her eyes.
She knows what she must do.
She finds the paper the fairy king has given them if they want to send a letter to Elsbeth. Old parchment, yellowed with age, saved for important matters. She finds a quill and dried ink.
But there is no magical ink. No enchanted parchment. Nothing that could carry a message across realms.
Frieda does not hesitate.
She pricks her finger on the quill's tip. A bead of blood wells up, dark and red. She watches it for a moment.
Then she uses the blood to write.
Every word carries the desperation of a mother asking her daughter to come home.
My dearest Elsbeth,
The village is burning. The bandits came at night, dozens of them, armed and merciless. We are holding, but we cannot hold forever. Your father fights in the square. Wilhelm leads the guards. But we are outnumbered. We are afraid.
I know you have become something more than I can understand. I know the Fairy King is teaching you things I will never grasp. But I am still your mother. And I am asking you, begging you, to come home.
Please.
Come home before it is too late.
With all my love,
Your Mother
She writes with her own blood. Her own life. Her own love poured onto the page.
When she finishes, the letter is stained. Imperfect. Trembling.
But it is true.
She folds it gently. She presses it up against her chest. She closes her eyes.
She thought about Elsbeth; the Fairy King had told her that when she wanted to write a letter, she had to think about who she wanted to send it to.
She has already done this.
But she has done everything she can.
She places the letter on the windowsill. Opens the latch.
And lets the night air take it…
---***---
…the letter lifts from Frieda's windowsill, caught by a wind that seems to know exactly where it needs to go.
It rises above the burning village. Above the screaming. Above the clash of steel and the crackling of flames. For a moment, it hovers, as if saying goodbye to the chaos below.
Then it flies.
Through forests it travels, weaving between ancient oaks whose branches reach like grasping fingers. The parchment brushes against leaves. It catches on thorns and tears slightly but never stops. The wind carries it onward, relentless.
Across mountains. The letter rises higher than eagles dare to fly. Snow-capped peaks pass beneath it. The air grows thin, but the letter does not slow. It has purpose. It has a destination.
Above rivers it glides, watching silver waters wind through valleys. The reflection of moonlight dances on the surface below. The letter sees it all and remembers none of it. It is a messenger. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Then…
Reality begins to shimmer.
The colors change. The air thickens. The world around the letter shifts and bends, folding in ways that should be impossible. The sky bleeds into lavender and gold. The trees grow taller, their bark glowing faintly with inner light.
The letter crosses into the Fairy Realm.
It travels through meadows of phosphorescent flowers. Past streams that flow upward instead of down. Through forests where the shadows move with quiet intention.
And finally…
It reaches the Spire.
The letter drifts through crystalline walls. Passes through corridors that twist in impossible geometries. It does not knock. It does not announce itself. It simply arrives.
The Fairy King's hand extends. The letter settles into his palm.
He quietly reads it.
His star-dusted eyes move across the blood-stained words. His expression does not change, but something shifts in the depth of his gaze. A flicker. A recognition.
He does not hesitate.
He folds the letter carefully. Tucks it into his robes. And walks toward the practice chamber.
Toward Elsbeth…
---***---
...I look up as footsteps approach, the Fairy King enters.
He moves differently than usual. His steps are measured. His eyes hold something I have never seen before. My heart, for reasons I do not yet understand, begins to race.
He walks toward me. Slowly. Deliberately.
He does not speak.
He simply holds out his hand.
And in it…
A letter.
Blood-stained. Trembling. Folded with familiar care.
I take it with hands that suddenly feel too heavy. My fingers fumble with the edges. I do not understand why I am afraid. I do not understand why my throat is closing.
I unfold it.
I read.
My dearest Elsbeth...
The words blur. I blink. I read again.
The village is burning...
My heart stops.
Bandits...
No.
Your father fights in the square...
Wilhelm leads the guards...
I am begging you...
Come home...
Before it is too late...
I recognize Mother's handwriting.
I recognize the shake in her letters. The desperation pressed into every stroke. The blood.
Her blood.
My mother's blood.
The letter trembles in my hands. My vision swims. My chest tightens until I cannot breathe.
Bandits. Village. Father. Mother, Wilhelm.
Home.
I look up at the Fairy King. My lips part. No sound comes out. Then…
"I have to go."
The words tear from me. Raw. Unstoppable.
The Fairy King does not try to stop me. He does not tell me to wait. He does not explain why I should think before I act.
He already expected this.
His hand opens. In his palm rests a simple ring, unadorned, silver, almost ordinary. But I feel its weight even before I touch it.
"Once worn," he says, his voice calm but carrying a gravity that cuts through my panic, "this ring will suppress your elemental signature. Elemental beings. They will not sense you while you travel. They will not track you. They will not find you."
He places it in my hand.
It is protection.
Not power.
"Thank you," I manage. The words are barely a whisper.
He nods.
He opens the portal.
Light spills through the crystalline air. The edges of reality fold and separate, revealing a threshold that leads…
Home.
I do not think.
I do not hesitate.
I step forward.
The instant I cross the portal…
---***---
…the battle is already underway.
Homes burn. Flames claw at the sky, devouring roofs and walls with hungry persistence. The smoke is thick, choking, a black veil that blots out the stars. The smell of ash and blood hangs heavy in the air.
Villagers flee. Mothers carry children. The elderly stumble toward the tree line, hoping the darkness will hide them. Some do not make it.
Wilhelm leads the remaining defenders in the village square. His sword is bloodied. His breath comes in ragged gasps. Behind him, the guards he trained with, boys and girls barely old enough to fight, stand their ground despite their terror.
Despite being heavily outnumbered.
The bandits press forward. Their numbers seem endless. They laugh as they swing their blades. They have the confidence of wolves who know the sheep have no shepherd.
One by one, the defenders fall.
A young guard, the girl who always smiled when Wilhelm corrected her stance, drops to her knees. She does not rise.
Another. The boy who could never quite hold his spear right. He falls beside his sister.
Wilhelm fights on. His movements are slowing. His arms burn. His vision blurs with sweat and smoke.
But he does not stop.
Wilhelm blocks one strike. Steel clashes against steel. The impact jars his arm.
Another. He deflects it, barely.
Another. The blade grazes his shoulder. He feels the sting but does not flinch.
His sword is knocked away.
It spins through the air. Clatters to the ground several feet behind him.
Wilhelm stands empty-handed. His chest heaves. His eyes meet the bandit's.
The bandit raises his blade.
Time slows.
His face is calm. Resigned. He has done everything he could. He has protected his home as long as he has been able. He has no regrets.
The sword swings toward him.
"I'm sorry, Elsbeth... We couldn't protect our home."
At the final instant…
Clang.
A doll intercepts the attack.
The blade stops mid-swing, caught against something small and unexpected. The bandit's eyes widen. His momentum falters.
Everyone freezes.
The doll, the same doll Elsbeth carried, stands between Wilhelm and the bandit. Its button eyes gleam in the firelight. Its arms are outstretched, as if it had thrown itself in front of the blade.
The bandits hesitate.
They do not understand what they are seeing. A doll? A child's toy? How did it move? How did it block a sword?
For one breathless moment, the battlefield is silent.
Then…
A shadow falls across the battlefield.
The bandits look up.
The villagers look up.
Wilhelm looks up.
High above the village…
Elsbeth descends from the sky.
Her form is silhouetted against the moon. Her robes flow behind her like wings. Her hair catches the wind. The G-Pen glows in her hand, a single point of light in the darkness.
Years ago, the Fairy King descended from the heavens to save a frightened little girl.
Tonight...
That little girl descended to save her home.
She lands before the villagers.
Her feet touch the scorched earth. The flames seem to dim in her presence. The smoke curls away from her as if afraid to touch her skin.
The bandits stare in stunned silence.
She is young. She is small. She is one girl against dozens.
But her eyes…
Her eyes burn with something that makes the bandits' blood run cold.
She looks at the village. At the burning homes. At the fallen guards. At Wilhelm, wounded but alive, staring at her with disbelief.
Then she looks at the bandits.
And the battle pauses.
Because for just one moment…
They are not sure they are the hunters anymore.
