Finally after what felt like a lifetime, we landed. Or to put it more accurately, I found myself crashing through increasingly thick and firm branches until finally I reached branches that were so thick that I stopped smashing through them and instead bounced from branch to branch to branch to the ground below.

I looked this way and that, searching for my mother. My heart started to thump; my breath started to quicken; she was nowhere to be seen. I felt a snake wind itself around my neck and opened my mouth to shriek.

“Shh…” The snake was an arm, pulling me close. I looked up into a beautiful face - a beautiful face of an elf. I leapt back - away from this villain. Turning, I stumbled through the undergrowth, tripping over a root. Crashing to the floor, I stumbled in terror on my hands and knees. Unperturbed, the elf slowly advanced on me. It raised its hands – about to curse me from one life to the next. Without thinking, I raised my hands and screamed.

I didn’t know that it was coming. I didn’t even feel the light coming; it must have come from within me although it had happened so quickly that I didn’t know it at the time. The light began by emanating from my torso and sparks raced down my arms to my hands, where the sparks joined together into crackling orbs of light – into two crackling orbs of power. Not knowing what to do, I threw my arms at the elf. Time seemed to slow down as the orbs soared through the space between us. The elf’s face contorted into a grimace of pain as the light crashed into its hands – forcing the elf backwards. First one step, then another – the elf forced to retreat as the light advanced upon it. Grimacing, the elf took another step back pushing desperately at the light. Then to my horror, I saw the two orbs of light slowly start to shrink; they had been the size of my head when I had cast them at the elf. They had shrunk to the size of a melon; they shrunk to the size of an apple; they shrunk to the size of a pea. And then, they disappeared.

Desperate, I tried to summon the light to protect me once more but it was no use. The elf’s face – serenely beautiful once again – advanced, still holding her hands aloft – threateningly. “I mean you no harm, goblin.” Her voice was soft and I was taken back to the night in Hafen, when the elf had ordered us to stop on the gangway. This elf’s voice was different – softer and warmer – but I knew my enemy. I gritted my teeth, determined not to be brought under the elf’s control. “I mean you no harm,” the elf repeated.

She sounded so reasonable, so kind, surely I could believe her. I bit down hard on my tongue. The bitter taste of blood filled my mouth. I knew she was my enemy. I turned and stumbled away again. Tripping over another root, I fell again. The elf was standing over me.

“If I wanted to hurt you,” the elf said sadly, “you would be powerless to stop me.”

A cool feeling of dread rose up from the pit of my stomach and filled me from my knotted hair to my knobbly toes. There was no point of fighting. I couldn’t beat an elf and she was right – there was nothing I could do. I fell back – sprawling out on the floor.

To my surprise, the elf turned and pulled a large leaf from a tree and passed it to me.

“Suck on this.”

“What?”

“Suck on it,” The elf repeated, “You are dehydrated. You are thirsty. You need water”

Not entirely convinced, I did as she said and sucked on the leaf. It was glorious! A strange sweet liquid seemed to burst from the leaf into my mouth. I sucked and sucked until the leaf shrivelled into a wilted rag. Greedily, I went to crawl to the tree to tear another leaf but the elf’s hand held me down with a surprising vice-like grip.

“No more or you’ll be sick. Rest now, we’ll be on the way soon. It’s not safe for us to stay here for too long. Elves will be looking for us.”

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