Main OC: Maeralya Daeydark
Sid OC: Unnamed witch, Folmon Origella

It was freezing. A storm had just passed over the snow-covered mountain. Bandits had invaded the small village, and Maeralya's parents had been at the wrong end of their swords.

The elven women stood in the graveyard at the bottom of the mountain, staring down at the new graves and the two headstones that had been waiting for years to be used. After a moment of standing in silence, she glanced up at the distant lights of the village on the side of the mountain, and her gaze slowly moved up to the castle sitting at the top.

The castle had been empty for years. They had no king or queen. The kingdom had been in a mix of chaos ever since their last king and his family had been slaughtered in their sleep, every last member of his bloodline murdered so that the throne would stay empty and the thieves, killers, and bandits could do whatever they pleased without being chased by the king and his laws.

Maeralya sighed, her breath leaving her in clouds, and walked away from the graves. Instead of going back to her home in the village, she started to go in the opposite direction. She had no plan for where she was going, but she knew she just wanted to get away for a while. The fresh memory of her parents' death, though their time would have come naturally soon, was too much to go back to.

The blue-skinned elf hiked for hours, and the cold had only just started to get to her. Being a snow-elf, she was born to withstand these low temperatures.

She continued her hike until she happened upon a small shack on the opposite side of the mountain that she'd started. Curious, she walked up to the door. Maeralya had intended to knock, but the door was slightly opened already, so she gave it a gentle push and peered inside.

The inside of the shack was fairly clean and a lot nicer than the outside. There was a single bed in one corner and a dresser in the other, with a small and circular table at the center of the room, matched with one chair. On the table sat a few plants and a bowl. The boards of the shack looked worn down, with holes in most of them and a few patches of snow on top from getting stuck to the bottom of someone's shoes.

Maeralya stepped back from the door and looked around to see if anyone was nearby. Not seeing anyone, she took a short walk around the shack to check behind it, but she still did not see anyone, until she began to leave, that is.

"What are you doing sneaking around my home?" the woman standing in front of her questioned. She was human, which was an odd thing to see in this area, and had obviously aged much for one. The woman was standing a little hunched over, leaning on the staff in her hand for support.

"I wasn't- where did you get that staff?" she asked her. She'd recognized the staff. It was made of a lighter colored wood and at the top a large blue crystal was attached. The staff was supposed to belong to whoever sat on the throne, and it had gone missing the night the king was killed.

"That is none of your concern!" the old woman hissed, but she could see that Maeralya already knew the answer to her question. The old woman had dealt with people knowing before, so she already had a plan to rid of Maeralya as well.

Before the elf could speak another word, the woman swung her staff with a short chant and froze Maeralya in ice like a statue where she stood. The only difference between her and the others the old woman had frozen, was that the staff had frozen with her.

Maeralya sat frozen in that ice for years. It had placed her in a state similar to a coma, she felt no time pass and she was not breathing but she was alive and could hear everything happening around her, though that usually wasn't much. Many people who passed by the now abandoned shack thought she was just a statue, but the few who felt the magic containing her could not unfreeze her no matter what they tried. Eventually, though it is unknown after how long, the ice melted away on its own.

Maeralya sank to her knees as she gasped for air, the staff dropping in front of her as she stared at the ground. It had felt like that first day frozen had never passed, but based on all the noises she'd heard she knew it had been much longer than just a few hours, she just didn't know how long.

Once she had regained her composure, she slowly stood and looked around. All she saw was the shack, which now looked even worse than before due to missing half of its structure and being covered in snow, and just a lot of snow.

She wanted to know how long she'd been frozen for, so she picked up the staff that the witch had given up on melting out of the ice, and started walking in the direction she remembered coming from in order to find her village. Her legs had started to ache at just a few steps, being frozen for so long really didn't sit well with her muscles, but she pressed on until she walked into the village.

She didn't recognize of the faces she saw while walking through the village. It must have been at least a century if she saw no one familiar in the area. She decided to stop at one of the homes though, and knocked on the door of the one she knew almost as well as she knew her own.

A younger female elf answered the door. Not who she had been hoping for.

"Can I help you?" the girl asked.

"Oh...is Folmon still around?"

"He is. Come in," she answered as she stepped aside.

Maeralya gave a small nod of thanks as she stepped into the house. It only had three rooms and, before the other elf could say anything else, she walked over and into the room on the left, knowing already that it was Folmon's.

The elderly and sickly elf looked up from his bed to see her, and his eyes seemed to widen slightly. "Maeralya?" he questioned quietly, "...y-you're back?"

"Folmon," she whispered as she stepped over and knelt beside his bed, "...how...how long has it been?"

"Y-you left...f-for...for almost...a century," he managed out, "How...how are you still..."

"I was frozen, Folmon," she told him, "I left after the funeral, I only meant to be gone for a few hours...I'm so sorry, Folmon."