"Thank you for your answer. Now for the other question..... Did you really kill your father?" When I asked this question, the white rings in Ellera''s eyes began to spin, and a slightly sour expression appeared on her face, but all of thissted only a second.
"Yes," she said, but this time there was no emotion in her expression. Neither anger, nor sadness, nor anything else. As if I had asked her if she wanted to drink coffee.
"Why did you kill him?" I asked mercilessly.
Ellera stared at me for a while and then looked at the winess in her hand before drinking it all at once. However, interestingly, after drinking the ss, her facial expression changed, and that emotionless look vanished. I thought she was resistant to alcohol, but it seemed like she had been lying about that. Ellera took a deep breath, and then her gaze drifted from my eyes to a vacant point.
"... I killed him because he was a bad person... ording to your terminology, we half-beasts or monster people have two powerful urges. Mating and admiration for the strong. Actually, these two urges exist in you humans too, but not as intense." Ellera said, and her face froze in the next moment, as if she had remembered a very painful memory.
"I had been the most talented in the tribe since the moment I was born, and that never changed. Because of this incredible potential of mine, I faced many challenges, and without exception, every man who approached me wanted to mate with me. The only one who protected me from those disgusting men of the tribe was my father, and I loved him very much since I was little.
Besides, my mother died when I was very young, so I had no other parent... My father was my hero. As a child, I felt like he was a strong shield that would protect me from everything. But as I grew older, everything changed... And of course, he changed too." Ellera''s voice trembled, her eyes still focused on the void.
"At first, I didn''t understand... why he started looking at me differently, why he began to act like the other men in the tribe. Then I realized that... he was a man, too. He was sumbing to the same disgusting urges. Despite being his own daughter, he wanted to mate with me, but of course, I rejected him."
Ellera''s voice turned into a muffled whisper, filled with pain and disgust. "I thought he was protecting me... But he kept me for himself. In that moment... I can''t forget what I saw in his eyes. But despite everything, our tribe had some strict rules, and one of them was the prohibition of incest.
So I thought I would be safe after all... But soon it became clear I was wrong... One day while hunting in the forest, he attacked me, and... I had to defend myself. At that moment, I truly realized how strong I was. I had been raised as a hunter for years, but I was using that strength against a human for the first time.
The darkness I saw in my father''s eyes was something irreversible. I understood that he was not the one to protect me, and that I had to take my life into my own hands."
Ellera took a deep breath, her eyes still locked on a point in the void. "I fought against him. I resisted. But he was strong too... Still, at some point, I realized that I could no longer escape, that no matter how far I ran, he wouldn''t let me go. So I delivered the final blow to him.
I killed him. When he fell to the ground, it felt like nothing was left inside me. As if something had broken inside me at that moment, something that would nevere back."
Ellera filled her ss again, but this time she didn''t drink. She continued, looking at the ss, "When I returned to the tribe, no one asked anything. Everyone was aware of something, but no one spoke. They reported my father''s death as a hunting ident. Everyone chose to remain silent. Even the tribe''s rules couldn''t override the truth.
Because those rules only protected the strong, just like they had protected my father."
Ellera lifted her gaze from the ss and turned back to me. There was pain, disgust, and a deep emptiness on her face. "I killed him because I had no other choice. But at that moment, I also understood that I had to live the rest of my life with this truth."She said and drank the wine from her goblet again in one go
"I''m sorry... I shouldn''t have asked that question."
Ellera filled her ss once more and drank it all in one gulp.... again. "It''s okay! Since you''ll be my partner from now on, I was going to tell you this myself anyway," she said, smiling, but this time her smile was wider, and it definitely suited her beautiful face. The weight of Ellera''s words echoed in the room, and the silence became suffocating.
Her eyes closed for a moment, then she took a deep breath and set her ss on the table. Her smile was broad, but I could sense the suppressed pain beneath that smile.
"I don''t want to ask a question that would disturb you further. So you can just tell me the most important things I should know about you. Maybe an important secret that no one knows?" I said, taking the wine bottle from Ellera. It seemed that alcohol was affecting her quite a bit.
"Hehehe, okay, Mr. Gentleman! I''m going to tell you my biggest secret," she said, standing up and approaching me. She sat on the chair next to me, but in the next moment, a bottle appeared in her hand. I was quite surprised to see that the wine bottle I had been holding, or rather the one that was supposed to be there, was no longer there.
At that moment, I realized that Ellera was far more skilled than I had thought.
As Ellera sat next to me, she filled her ss and, after sipping the wine, turned to me. "... You want to hear a secret that I''ve never told anyone before, right? .... But first, I want a promise that you won''t tell anyone," she said, leaning in closer.
"I promise I won''t tell anyone," I replied.
Ellera thought for a moment and then began to speak eagerly again. Yes, eagerly. I was seeing this side of her for the first time. "No way! The secret I''m going to tell you is very important! So you shouldn''t share a secret as big as mine," Ellera said.
Alcohol seemed to have affected her more than I had thought, and it felt like the lost child within her had emerged.
"Okay, fine. I promise I''ll tell you a secret that''s as valuable as yours," I said.
Ellera smiled at my words, but this time it was a full smile. It was a smile that revealed her pure white teeth and opened her full lips. "I... My secret. Hah, I have to say it all at once... I have the Light element!" Ellera said.
At first, I was quite surprised by what I heard, but then I began to make sense of many things. As this new information processed in my mind, my eyes widened, remembering some strange memories I had about Ellera, and my astonishment deepened.
"So that''s why I feel strange around you!"
When Ellera heard my sudden words, she was surprised. "What are you talking about?" she asked.
As Ellera looked at me in confusion, something inside me stirred. I had been waiting for the right moment to reveal this secret, but now everything was falling into ce.
"What do I mean?" I said with a slight smile, fixing my gaze on Ellera. "When I learned that you have the light element, some things started to make sense. Because... I have a secret, too. I have the dark element."
Ellera''s eyes widened, and her lips parted slightly. She looked at me in astonishment, as if struggling to believe what I had said. "Darkness?" she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "This... is a very rare element. No, this element is extremely rare and powerful among demons...
But how can a human possess this element?!" Ellera eximed in shock.
"The same goes for the light element; it is also an extremely rare element that only appears among elves... I suppose we are both exceedingly abnormal individuals who exist simultaneously," I could only manage to say.
Ellera''s astonishment was evident on her face. The white rings in her eyes began to spin once more, this time much faster. She set aside her wine ss and focused entirely on me. "Throughout history... it has never happened that light and dark elements appeared in both a human and a humanbeast, but now you''re telling me that they have manifested simultaneously?!" she eximed. "This is impossible!
How can it be?"
Ellera''s breath quickened, and her eyes grew wide. She ced her trembling hands on the table, as if trying to regain her bnce. "Is this... the work of a god?"
Maintaining my smile, I nodded. "Just because the probability is very low doesn''t make it impossible. Perhaps my existence or yours has triggered something. That''s why I might have felt such a strong connection with you, Ellera. Light and darkness... weplete and bnce each other.
This is not just a reflection of our elements; perhaps we represent an ancient bnce."
Ellera fixed her gaze on me, the shock in her eyes rippling across her face. Her breathing became heavier, as if she were trying to digest the weight of this new information. A moment of silence fell between us. Then Ellera took a deep breath and tilted her head slightly. She had a pensive expression on her face.
"So that''s why... you were constantly drawing me to you," she murmured. "It wasn''t just a physical attraction. Light and darkness always attract and repel each other. It''s difficult for them to exist together, but it''s not impossible. Like us..."
Ellera paused for a moment, as if contemting how to cope with this new reality. Then her gaze returned to me, this time filled with determination. "We can use this," she said, her voice clearer now. "Theing together of two elements like ours... is something that has never happened throughout history. Perhaps this is our fate.
To change something... maybe even change the world!"
Hearing these words stirred something within me. There was a truth in Ellera''s words, but where would this truth lead us? Light and darkness together... Was this a gift or a curse? What if everything turned upside down? After all, we do not know exactly how these elements work.
Would it be entirely urate to say that these two elements are like the two poles of a ma?
When Ellera''s eyes met mine again, a spark ignited between us. I felt the light within her resonate with the darkness echoing within me. "We don''t know exactly what we are," I whispered, "but perhaps together we can delve into the depths of this secret. When two extremese together... who knows what the oues will be?"
Ellera smiled, but this time there was strength and determination behind that smile. "Then," she said slowly, "let''s discover together what we will bring to this world, but for that, we will need to be closer to each other from now on, right?" she said with a slightly intoxicated smile.