My eyes wandered over the group - the four elves, who were more hooligans than the grand bardsingers and fantastical warriors that high elves were supposed to be. Drenched in blood and flesh and the discards of organs. My head tipped to the side, regarding them in a narrowing of my eyes. Slowly I moved my view from one to the other, from jaw drop to eyes wide, to shaking moron and I saw their potential in their eyes. Their confusion, and horror, their anxiety and fear. Fear at us, fear at her. Fear that what had happened to their thug leader might happen to them …

I let out a sigh as I thought about what my brother would do: end them all, swiftly and without thought. But I was not what he was. He was the personification of power, and I was the being of destruction, yet had the essential ability to know exactly who deserved that destruction. And today it was not these, drowning in their master's remains.

So I raised my hand, and the black void of energy bubbled from my palm. It rose, encircling my fist as the darkness awakened within me, calling out to be used, to damage. I sucked in my breath and chose the more solid-looking of the bunch, then let loose the energy. In a pulse like a bolt from a crossbow it fired at the man and hit him square in the chest. But instead it bursting through him it threw him back, slamming him into the table beyond, which cracked with a loud snap beneath him. He slumped down, his chest rising but not moving - out, but very much alive.

“They don't deserve death,” I said quietly, turning to her. “They'll learn from this.” Then I nodded at them, “go do something useful with your life, like learning to cook … or spinning wool to gold. Your leader is dead.”

“Or proper grammar, english or something other than the way you talk now,” the girl mumbled. The look of annoyance on her face, her plush lower lip pouting out.

I smiled slightly, recognising in her the desire for death than I had seen many times over my millennia. In souls of the dead, in my siblings, in my acquaintances. But also in myself. Slowly I breathed in, checking that the thug’s followers had no more potential to challenge us - they were not, they were busy getting their upset friend back to his feet. Then I smiled, drew myself up and eased out the last of the aches from my assault, and offered her a small, half-mocking bow.

“Shall we?” I gestured further down the street, where a quieter pub still went about their daily lives.