If a black cat crosses your path, it was considered bad luck. If an elf crosses your path, you were considered bad luck.

It was an old saying everyone in Gilleran knew by heart. That was how much humans detested the sharp-eared beings. They were tabooed, just as cast out as the summoners, though not in the sense of law. They weren't outlawed; humans still needed them for their economy. But they were bad blood.

Tree blood. Forest nymphs. Nobodies. Freaks of nature.

Elves were a race reticent to the world outside of the High Greenland terrains. They were uncommon in Gilleran, probably because of the discrimination. Ty didn't understand the hatred, the feud going on between the two lands from how many years ago, but he remembered sitting across a fire as a child, listening though not entirely hearing.

'Elves are cunning and distrustful. Never let yourself fall in step with one, my dear boy, or you will find yourself with a knife in your back.'

But Hennessey was fair and pretty. She did not seem cunning and distrustful, nor was she holding a knife. Ty was, however, already snatching up the small blade from the bag the moment that realisation hit him like a charging bull. An elf!

'Stay back!'

'Woah!' She flinched and fell back. Her eyes were wide as saucers, her jaw dropped in surprise.

Ty's own hands were shaking, almost as hard as his voice was; his heart pounded still from the cougar's attack. The fear was irrational, he knew and he couldn't understand it. Vaguely, Ty recognised the girl that had saved him, thinly veiled by a layer of speculation cultured since youth. Yet, his hand tightened on his weapon and he didn't dare to move. Not in front of the elf.

'Calm down!' Hennessey breathed after a moment of standstill. Her hand was out, waving around like one would taming a brumby. Was he the wild one? 'It's dead. You're fine, I promise—'

'You're an elf!' He practically shouted; irrational, stupefied. Her words fell deaf on his ears. 'Stay away!'

Confusion flooded her face, and a second later exempted irritation. The elf quickly dragged her hood back up, and gone were the ears, along with a small slither of Ty's baffled trepidation. His knife lowered just by an inch.

'Y-you're —'

'An elf,' she snapped. 'I get it. Anything new?'

He blinked, speechless and slightly surprised; his opened jaw snapping shut when the elf got up from the bushes. 'What are you doing?'

'Well I'm not going to squat here the whole day now, am I?' she sighed. 'One of us has to clean up before some other predator comes around and aside from the obvious displayed hostility,' she hovered her hand over his general direction, 'I really don't think you're up for gutting an animal.'

Ty spluttered. 'Other predators?'

'Yeah. Spring is about and we're in the middle of a forest, right by a river. Unless you want to meet a full-grown hibernated bear out looking for food, we need to get packing. Soon.' She stopped a few feet short in front of him, raising an eyebrow when he scooted backwards in alarm. 'So can I take it without scaring you off?'

'What?'

'The cougar. I need to skin it before we go.'

He blinked again. 'We?'

At this point, the elf was getting agitated, and Ty himself was feeling like a halfwit; aware of the words – or the lack thereof – he was spouting. But he remained quiet, staring like that of a hawk as the girl wrenched out her arrow with a twist and a crack before lugging the poor cougar's corpse towards the campfire remnants at the center. She gestured at him, and it took a moment for him to realise she wanted the knife. For skinning. Him or the animal? He didn't dwell on it too much, choosing to trust that the elf won't see him come to harm, at least not after saving him. Twice.

He chucked it over and she caught it midair. Then, she brought her hands up to her nose, blade flat against her forehead and palms pressed together in a silent prayer. Her lips moved, but Ty couldn't catch anything. She finished with a hard stab of the knife into the animal's neck, and he watched intrigued as the elf worked her way to skinning the body. She was experienced.

Her movements were graceful, and every cut was surprisingly strong and swift. Ty knew he couldn't do it even if he tried. Maybe it was he who was weak. A city life selling wares wouldn't have benefited him physically. He thought of the water filter and wondered what kind of life Hennessey have led to have brought her here, in these parts of Gilleran.

'Can you walk?' she asked, her back to him still as she worked through the cougar. It allowed time for him to gather himself without scrutiny from the elf.

'Uh... yes.' His voice came off croaky and he cleared it.

'And what about the pain?'

'It's bearable.'

She nodded tersely and pursed her lips. Nothing more was said after that. Ty didn't know what else to do, his feelings for the elf was in limbo, and he wasn't even sure she wanted him around, judging by the look on her face. Feeling repentant, he decided to help by cleaning up, something to keep his hands occupied at least.

He was folding the bedroll from the corner when he saw the material underneath; course and tough. Papyrus. Ty instantly recognised it as the parchment he had snatched up, the only item of Alexi's bag he had saved back at the burial ground. Hennessey must have placed it beneath the bedroll after she found him. It was torn and crumpled, but not water-damaged. Because papyruses are waterproof, Tobias once said.

Ty's eyes widened and he grabbed the parchment, carefully unfolding it so that he could read the contents within. It was a map of Gilleran. At least, he thought it was. The water didn't damage the material but it did the ink. He recognised Havenridge, and vaguely some landmarks that surrounded it. Trees. Lakes. River. His eyes drew to the cluster of smudged ink smacked dap in the middle of the map, a few miles down from Havenridge, not too far from the river. There was not much he could make out, all except for the word Calum. It wasn't much to go on, but it was a lead. He could only guess Alexi's intentions, and it warmed him knowing that the man still had his best interests in mind, despite all that was happening. Despite what Tobias had said.

After making sure the map was tucked snug inside his pocket, he finished tying up the bedroll. It didn't hit him until then that Hennessey had given him her only sleeping articles, for there was none other around. Guilt reared its ugly head like a that of a diamondback, and he turned back to the elf busy sectioning the meat.

'You uh, want me to take down the filter?' he asked, unsure.

She paused. 'Just be careful with it.'

Luckily, the jar wasn't too heavy, even with the rocks inside. Ty had no problem lugging it. He dropped it by Hennessey's fur bag, along with the bedroll, and waited for her to wrap the meats in leaves she fished from her pockets.

'The nearest town is a day's walk away. I'll drop you off there and we'll go our separate ways,' she said, her voice clipped. 'It'd be best if you have one of your human healers to check on my stitching. Just in case.'

Her tone sent a wave of shame over him, and an apology was readied at the tip of his tongue. 'I just want to—'

'You should take the small coin pouch in my bag.'

He stopped, confused. 'Sorry. What?'

Hennessey sighed, annoyed. 'It just looks like you need the money more than I do. And last I checked, human medicines are expensive.'

The generosity took him by surprise. She was still being nice, even after how he had acted. Ty suddenly felt the need to remedy his actions.

'No, it's fine! I don't need the money; I trust your stitching skills.' He offered a small smile that was ignored. He tried again. 'But thank you, that's very generous.'

She didn't respond, though her posture loosened just the slightest.

'And I also wanted to apologise for how I acted. It was... rude.'

Hennessey didn't show she was listening as the meats were packed away. Ty thought their conversation had come to an end, and was turning to look for something else to do when the elf finally spoke up. He would've missed it had her voice been smaller. Her cheeks were slightly tinted as she threw him a perplexed look, the anger from before deadened.

'It's fine.' She paused as if contemplating what to say next. She shook her head. 'Don't worry about it. I've met worse. At least you didn't try to cut my ears off and sell it into the black market.'

Ty didn't know how to respond to that and chose a solemn hum instead. After a beat of silence, the both of them turned to work on burying the last of the fire. He then nodded to the provisions all packed away.

'You prayed for the cougar. Is that something elves' do?'

He tried not to stare; keeping his eyes on the work, but he had a feeling the elf had frowned upon the question, as if it had been a stupid one. And maybe it was.

'Yes. All lives are precious. And, naturally, killing goes against what we stand for. So when something unfortunate happens, praying is the least we can do. We believe it's our way to offer their souls a safe passage into the spirit world, or out of the underworld. It's also a sign of respect.'

It was a solicitous belief that didn't tally with what humans saw in elves. Ty faltered, once again tongue-tied by Hennessey's tendered personality and response. Now that his nerves had simmered down, Ty realised the more he got to know the elf, the less she was like the 'sharp-eared beings' Gilleran often rumoured about.

'That's a good belief,' he managed a smile. 'I like it. We bury the people who passed, it's our way of bidding farewell, but sadly, we don't do much for the animals that were killed.'

Hennessey made a face, though she refrained from saying anything insulting. 'My family has to do that for the people in our tribes too. Kind of. We bless them with the seeds of the forest. It's part of our sacrament and our duty as resurrectors to make sure the deceased receive proper valedictions before they're sent back into the earth.'

Interest reared, along with bewilderment. Resurrectors? Ty squinted his eyes, though nodded along to be polite.

He had no idea what she meant. His vocabulary was not very broad, but he knew the basic description of the word resurrection. And it wasn't possible. Yet, Hennessey turned to him with that look in her eyes; an eyebrow raised, as if gauging the disbelief on his face, as if curbing his incredulity. It was a face he'd seen often enough during the early morning hours back in Havenridge, when Tobias used to drag him into his workshop to introduce one of his newest creations. Charge-fueled alarm clocks. Machines that clean the ground. Mechanical pencils that light up in the dark. Impossible, Ty would say. Tobias would look at him with that exact same expression, Yeah? Well did I stutter?

And he'd never find the right words to come to mind. A throat cleared. The silence had drawn too long.

'Sorry!' he jumped, embarrassed. 'It's just, uh, my first time hearing about... resurrectors.'

Even as he said it, the word roiling around his tongue like sour candy, he couldn't find it in himself to believe her. And Hennessey – observant – could tell.

'I'm not lying! I thought everyone knew, resurrectors are practically royal—' she cut herself off and scoffed indignantly, crossing her arms as she got up. Ty stood as well, slinging the bedroll and the filter jar over his shoulder. He winced at the dull throb, but it was better than carrying the bag, which was heavier. They were prepared to leave when she finally spoke again, and it was short and kept to the point. 'Resurrectors are descendants.'

Suddenly, it all made sense; like a freak wave washing over him, like pieces of a puzzle snapping into place. The dwarven earth benders that built the city walls. The summoners' ability to bring forth creatures from another world. His power to turn back time. Resurrectors are descendants.

He's a descendant.