I stood at the chest with trembling hands, itching to open it yet frightened of what I would feel once I saw what was inside.

The house echoed empty, a whisper of what had once been a family home consisting of me, my brother and my parents. My parents had died one year after Madara in a bad case of crystalloid sickness, that caused pandemics once every twenty years or so. Microscopic needles shaved off of the living crystals of the south travelled by the wind and spread over the world, penetrating the skin of humans to clog up the bloodstream in those who were unlucky. My parents were. I wasn't. Or maybe, they had been the lucky ones to die, and I was unlucky to be alive in a world where there was only me.

The chest was at the end of my bed, and was made of dark red cherry wood with carved roses. I had inherited the chest from my mother. She had passed it on to me on my eighth birthday, seeing I had been so fascinated by it. As a child, I had enjoyed pulling my fingers along the carved wood immensely, along the expertly made roses that looked like they would be as soft as actual petals when you touched them.

"It's elven-made", my mother said one day when I was nine, when she came into my room and found me caressing the wood as I so often did. "It's different, the touch of an elf. It's not like touching another human." She came into my room, sitting down next to me. Madara poked his head round the corner of the door, not wanting to be left out. "An elf's touch is like the water at the end of a waterfall; bubbly, full of life. And that touch is enforced in everything they make." She looked over at the chest. "Like that chest. That's why you enjoy touching it so much."

I looked over at the chest. I had no idea how my mother knew so much about elves, but I saw the chest with new eyes.  

"And that's why the elves prefer human-made swords. They don't have that addictive touch to them that can be a distraction in battle. That's why they like Gedallion's swords so much."

Madara, who was almost an adult in my eyes, frowned.

"Why do the elves hate us so much if they use our things?"

My mother looked at him in the doorway. If she was surprised he'd been eavesdropping, she didn't show it. Instead, she patted the carpet next to her for Madara to come sit with us. He did, and she put a protective arm around him. He let her, which was rare as he was fourteen and liked to pretend he was very independent.

"Elves aren't evil creatures. They're proud, and stern, and cold, but not evil. Quite the opposite, actually; they're capable of great love, and would do anything for their family and those they hold dear. They haven't put us in poverty because they are evil. They have put us in poverty because they don't know any better."

"But I thought elves were really smart!" I protested.

"They are, but they are also trained from an early age to not attach themselves to the feelings towards those who aren't close to them. They have broadened their perspective to include at least all elves in the benefits to prevent war among themselves. But when it comes to humans, the risk of war is so low that they deem it worth putting us in poverty to increase their own living standards."

These were very big words for a nine-year-old.

"I don't understand", I said.

"Why don't you kill a rabbit when you see it, Izuna?" my mother asked.

"Because it would hurt it!" I burst out.

"Exactly. You have the capacity to imagine how that rabbit would suffer. However, imagine that ability had been suppressed."

"I would still not hurt it because I would still understand it's wrong!"

"Yes, but would you willingly give it of your own rabbit's food, whom you loved?" I thought for a bit. "That's the case with elves. They lack neither kindness nor heart. But when it comes to humans, they're trained from an early age not to feel anything."

"Not anything?"

"Not anything."

Now, eight years later, I stood before the same chest. I hadn't opened it since that day when I was ten. When I came back from the alley where the king had almost killed me, still trembling, Gedallion had gifted me the sword I'd used. The steel was shimmering like silver. The amethyst was ginormous; Gedallion told me it had been gifted to her by the giant crystals of the South when she was there travelling. The carved pattern was shallow and incredibly neat. All in all, it was Gedallion's most expensive sword, costing more than all other swords she had in her stand at that moment put together.

"But I don't want it", I said, already disgusted by my skill because it had caused my brother's death.

"You have no choice. It's a sword with a crystal made by the South crystals. And it has chosen you."

"But I don't want it", I repeated.

"You have no choice", Gedallion repeated back, holding the sword towards me.

I had felt then how everything caught up to me. My palms broke out in a cold sweat, and my heart ached. I slowly backed away.

Then, I turned and ran.

I ran past the blood-covered town square, past people who screamed my name, trying to make me stop. I ran past Gedallion's stand of swords, refusing to look at them. I ran past the place where Madara had been killed, on the path where the king and his captains had entered. All the way to my empty home, I ran and ran, trying not to think about how I would explain everything to my parents once they came home. I flung the unlocked door open, closed it behind me, and locked it for the first time in my life; in our village, everyone kept their doors unlocked. I hid my face in my hands, allowed myself to slide down to the floor.

There, I burst out crying.

I cried of shame over what I had done. I cried in frustration over being so good with a sword. I cried of anger with Gedallion, who had tried to force the weapon that had caused Madara's death, at least second-hand, onto me. And I cried of sadness. Of sadness for having lost the person that meant the most to me.

I went to bed that night, before my parents came home so I didn't have to hear their crying, because they would most certainly have gotten the news by the villagers by then. I fell into a restless sleep, unable to remember my dreams.

When I woke up the next morning, my palms were full of severe burns.