“Another! Please, miss, another!”

Lorelei didn’t know where the little street urchins came from, but there was a gaggle of them around her now, their hands tugging at her white cloak, their dusty faces looking up at her with gap-toothed smiles. She had thought that she would be allowed some solitude when she had found the courtyard of an abandoned wood mill, some peace and quiet from the daily bustle of Underwood so she could practice her archery. But no sooner than she had begun her training, children of just about all ages crept out of the woodwork, fascinated by her translucent bow. First they gaped in awe and clapped as she hit the stump on the other side of the yard with her blunt ice arrows, each projectile exploding in a myriad of crystals. But soon enough, children that they were, they wanted more of a show, and Lorelei was happy to oblige. It wasn’t because she particularly liked children – in fact she was rather indifferent towards them – but because she liked Underwood.

The town gave Letho and her a warm reception, despite the controversial past Letho had with the Rangers that claimed Underwood as their headquarters. There had been no shouts of accusation as they rode into town the day before the last, even though everyone clearly recognized the former Marshal. And there seemed to be no whispers behind their back either, for she had spent yesterday in the markets and received nothing but smiles and fair prices. Letho had warned her that things might not be as rosy as they seemed. There were bound to be people here that felt his departure from the Rangers at the peak of war was an unforgivable betrayal, a knife in the back of their cause, and he reckoned there were bound to be some that wanted to return the favor. But so far Lorelei found no trace of any ill intent towards the Ravenheart duo and enjoyed her exchanges with the local populace.

But it wasn’t just the people she was growing to like, but rather the town itself as well. Nestled in at the very heart of Concordia Forest, Underwood seemed like a place perfectly in tune with its surroundings. Most buildings were freshly built after the infamous Burning of Underwood, and their wooden walls still smelled of fresh tree sap. Mixed with the distinctive smell of dewy humus from the all-encompassing forest, it gave the whole place an organic and fresh scent which could scarcely be found anywhere else. Though it was architecturally rather mundane when compared to the stone-crafted majesty of cities such as Gisela or Radasanth, the simplicity was functional and honest rather than needlessly deceptive and ostentatious.

So enamored by this place, Lorelei had no qualms with offering the locals a bit of entertainment. The oldest amongst the gathered children – tyke in her early teens with pockmarks all over his cheeks – picked up a flat wood discus and tossed it in the air at the nod of her head. The teen sorceress followed the upwards trajectory, and when the piece of wood was about to reach the apogee of its trajectory, she released another ice arrow, setting the wood into a wild spin as it was ricocheted away.

Another round of claps ensued, this time accompanied by a number of much larger, sturdier hands. When she turned around, Lorelei could see that about a dozen grown men and women had gathered on the other side of the rickety fence, peering over it and watching her display. Another piece of wood went up, then another, her hands working in conjunction with her eyes as she summoned arrow after arrow and sent it flying. She missed a couple, but nobody seemed to mind. Only when exhaustion finally took her over and she found that she could summon no more arrows without being struck by a splitting headache did the children around her utter a sigh of disappointed. But when she turned to the gathered crowd and offered a theatrical bow, everyone rewarded her with another round of applause.

A few hands were still at the hem of her cloak, tugging this way and that, when a tall man detached himself from the crowd. “That’s enough, kids,” the stranger said as he approached. “Time to leave the miss alone and scram.”

They scattered readily enough as the man advanced towards them, and once Lorelei gave him a onceover, she understood why. Though he seemed only several years older than her, with barely enough sturdy light brown hairs on his chin to form a semblance of a beard, there was a Corone Rangers patch on the shoulder of his dark green jacket. His clear blue eyes regarded her closely once the little ones vacated the premises, and he offered her a smile to go along with his introduction.

“That was some shooting, miss. Quite a show,” he said, thumbs hooked at his leather belt. He offered a little bow as he stood before her. “I am Arten Greensbough, Junior Ranger.”

“Well met, Arten. I am Lor...”

“Lorelei Ravenheart, yes, I know. Everyone knows about the lovely daughter of the Red Marshal,” the ranger said, smile never leaving his lips. Though Lorelei was rather tall for her age, the young man before her was significantly taller, looking down at her with a look that brought a slight blush to her pale face. Not one to have a regular childhood with all its teenage charms and missteps, Lorelei was quite bewildered at how to respond to the compliment.

“Is...uh...Is there something I can help you with, Mister Greensbough?” she asked, dismissing her bow for the time being.

“Arten, please. And I hope so. See, Lorelei...May I call you Lorelei?” he asked, and continued before she even nodded in approval. “I’ve been told that despite my obvious qualities as a Ranger, I lack a bit in the archery compartment. And seeing as you are so masterful at the art, I was hoping for a few pointers.”

She was temporarily taken aback by the request. One of the Rangers, even a junior one, asking little old her for pointers? It took her a couple of moments of awkward silence to come up with a response.

“I, uh, I don’t think I can help you, Mist... Arten,” Lorelei finally managed.

“Is that so?” he asked, not masking his disappointment.

“Yes. What I do is as much sorcery as archery. I just point and shoot,” she said, summoning her bow again and pulling it back in demonstration. “There is no tension on the string, no form necessary to fire. In a way it’s much simpler than actual archery.”

She was selling herself a bit short there; it took significant mental focus to summon both the bow and the elemental arrows and then making them hit their mark. But Lorelei didn’t feel like Arten would be particularly interested in the way her magic operated. She whisked the bow away with another thought.

“Ah, well, that’s a shame then. Guess I’m stuck with that hardass, captain Tariel. Elves!” he said with a sigh of exasperation. “They certainly know their stuff, but boy do they go on about it.” He chuckled and Lorelei found it irresistible not to join in. She had gotten to know a couple of elves on her journeys and they did have a tendency to chew your ear off if you were not doing something the way they felt was right.

“Well, I wish you luck with that, Arten. Now, I think I should bid...”

He cut in before she managed to say her farewells: “Say, how busy are you right now? I’m having a bit of a get together with some friends out on the eaves of Underwood. We do some hunting, and if one of actually makes a kill, we light a little fire and do a spit roast.”

“I, uh, I’m not sure...” Again he got the teen sorceress on her back foot. At fifteen years of age, thirteen of which she had spent in a monastery, Lorelei Ravenheart had never been asked out by a boy. She could feel the heat fill her face to the point that she felt the tip of her ears were burning.

“Come on. It’ll be fun,” he said, then bent closer to her and added in a conspirational half-whisper: “And to tell you the truth, we need someone who can actually shoot. Last three times we went hunting, we wound up frying some sausages from the market.”

Lorelei wasn’t quite certain how to deal with this. In the years she had spent on the road, searching for her father, the teen had faced just about anything from roadside bandits to actual monsters. And all of those were easier to deal with than this young man’s invitation. She thought about her father’s warning to be wary of anything and everything, but after the days spent in Underwood, she was certain his caution was unwarranted. And she thought about asking him about this little escapade, but remembered that Letho would be indisposed for most of the day as he talked with Edward Stormcrow and the rest of the leadership of the Corone Rangers. She also thought about running away and never think about the fact that there was a young man here who wanted her company. But ultimately, she was a Revenheart, and the consensus was that they were made of sterner stuff.

“Very well,” she finally managed.

“Yeah?” Arten said, his smile widening. “Excellent. Just marvelous.”

“But I need to be back by nightfall.”

“Of course, of course. So let us away!”

They walked through the streets of Underwood at a leisurely pace with the gentle autumn sun shining down on them from amidst the white fluff of the clouds, with Arten doing most of the talking. The young man seemed to be an inexhaustible source of quips and anecdotes, always with a story about this particular place or that particular person. There was little doubt that he was local, and by the time they left the bustle of the town center behind and entered the ruins of what Arten dubbed “Old Underwood”, Lorelei was certain that she had made the right decision. Friends were a scarce commodity in the life of the young sorceress, and she had a feeling that this ranger might grow to be one. There was a refreshing lack of concern in everything he did, as if there was very little that actually bothered him, as if life was a raging river he alone was able to bridge with ease.

Even when they left the reconstructed town behind and the smell of soot overruled the freshness of the forest as they entered the charred remains of the old Underwood, his spirits didn’t seem to falter overmuch. “They say fire actually rained from the sky on the day this part of town was burned. Can you imagine that? Fire from the sky?!” Arten said as they made their way down one of the streets that weaved between the black skeletons of former buildings. “What sight it must’ve been.”

Lorelei wasn’t quite as fascinated as her companion by a possibility of a rain made of fire. Looking at the remains that surrounded them, she could imagine the fires coming down well enough, just as she was able to imagine the people trapped in all those wooden buildings as the world was swallowed by flames around them. There was nothing fascinating about that.

There was one thing, though, that Lorelei didn’t have to imagine, something that she would’ve been aware of if she had not be enraptured by her verbose companion. With the ruins all around them, the two of them were quite alone in the part of Underwood that seemed to be left as a sort of a monument to the strife against the Empire, a reminder of the destruction they had caused and the damage they had done to Underwood.