Chapter Text
Velatha was born a servant, just like her mother, her mother's mother, and all of her ancestors for thousands of years. Elven society was traditionally divided into different castes, and Velatha belonged to the caste of servants, the Halfolk, who were once also called half-elves, but nowadays, at least in the region where she lived, no one would even think of seriously saying that about someone. such as Velatha. The term half-elf has long since become inappropriate or simply rude. The Halfolk were respected members of the society in which they lived, they were servants but not slaves.
At least not for thousands of years.
In the mythical and now distant dark ages of the past, the Halfolk were actual slaves, and as half-breeds, they were not even considered people by their pure-blood elven masters.
But any bitterness left the hearts of Velatha's ancestors long before her mother's mother's mother was born. The Halfolk were born, lived, worked, played, and passed alongside other castes in the same communities, and in recent centuries, even the lines between the castes themselves were beginning to blur.
Mixed inter-caste relationships were still a kind of taboo in the times of Velatha's grandmother, in the times of her mother, they were still rare, but when Velatha herself became the second wife of Lord Virion Umelar, representatives of both families celebrated together at their wedding.
The Lord's first wife, Lady Shalendra Umelar, was like a sister to Velatha's mother, the two women were raised together due to the fact that Velatha's family had been farmhands on the Shalendra's family farm for generations
Lord and Lady Umelar were considered a successful marriage in the commune, even though it had long been known that Shalendra suffered from infertility.
Therefore, it was Shalendra herself, out of love for her beloved, who encouraged him to take a second wife, or at least a concubine, thanks to which his line would survive.
However, Lord Virion himself loved his wife very much and was an extremely sensitive and emotional man, and it was very awkward for him to be with a woman for whom he simply did not feel love.
Lady Shalendra, being her mother's friend, was like an aunt to Velatha. The three women often talked, and over time, the idea of Velatha becoming Lord Umelar's second wife came quite naturally.
Velatha, who was sixteen years old at the time, took some time to get used to the idea of marrying the husband of her 'aunt Shalendra', whom she had previously seen as a rather good Lord 'uncle', but it was not difficult for the young woman to fall in love with such a handsome and, above all, a tender and sensitive elf like Virion.
It took Virion himself much longer to see the young girl whom, if anything, he had always treated more like the daughter he never had, as a woman with whom he could father children of his own.
But eventually, with considerable assistance from Lady Shalendra, Lord Virion allowed himself to fall in love with Velatha
They married, and Velatha became Mistress Umelar. Not Lady, because that title obviously belonged to the first wife, Shalendra, who, like Virion, was from the Landfolk caste. The Landfolk called themselves pure-blood elves a dozen or so generations ago, but today, at least in this part of the world, no one used such expressions. No single caste could be pure-blood elves because that would mean that someone wasn't, and that simply wasn't true; everyone was elves even though they came from different castes.
They were all people.
Only ancient legends spoke of terrible times when one elf considered another inferior to himself. Thousands of years ago, their people achieved incomprehensible power—magic no longer known in today's world. This power brought great miracles. But the price was terrible because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Elven High Mages opened the gates to other worlds, bringing from there many treasures...
And slaves...
To the mages possessing divine power, other races were nothing more than animals, whether they were truly beasts or sentient beings.
And when the High Mages discovered a world with a race of sentient elf-like creatures called humans, instead of treating them like kin, they treated them like prey.
The ancient elves, the 'pure-blood elves', hunted humans for fun. It is said that they murdered them in millions because the humans were very numerous. The ancient elves lusted after human women, kidnapped them in huge numbers, raped them, and made them slaves, but also experimented on them by breeding them with other beings. Legends say that it was through bestial experiments and the rapes of human women that races such as orcs, werewolves, goblins, gnolls, and many others were created. The human men fought fiercely even though they had no magic, there were still billions of them, and eventually, the High Mages were forced to close the passage to the human world. But before they did so, the ancient elves had spitefully doomed the human world by transporting it to the Realm of Hell itself.
Nowadays, not all elves even know this legend, but Velatha knew it because she belonged to the Halfolk caste, which was said to be descended from the children of human slaves and their elven masters. The humans were said to not have lived very long, so these 'half-elves' were later bred among themselves, but over the millennia, either through rapes or true love, their blood became increasingly mixed with pure elves. Initially, a symbol of the human world was burned into their bodies—a circle with a cross written inside. Over time, instead of burning, the symbol has been tattooed. Nowadays, when almost no one even remembered slavery, the Halfolk wore necklaces with this symbol, which was now just the symbol of their caste.
Velatha herself wore this symbol around her neck, never taking it off, even when she offered her virginity to her Landfolk husband on their wedding night and when he made her a woman.
It was quite possible that thousands of years ago, Virion's ancestor had raped Velatha's ancestor. His ancestors might have been doing this to her ancestors for many generations.
It was said (though it could not be proven) that of all the modern castes, the Landfolk had changed the least visually over the centuries; on an intellectual level, Velatha knew that a man who looked like her husband could rape her ancestor. But when the woman was looking into her lover's blue eyes, she saw only tenderness and love. Virion was the kindest person she had ever met.
And when Virion planted his seed in her fertile womb, it was not a conquest; it was a union of love.
The first fruit of this union was their daughter, Ciliren, who was probably conceived during the wedding night. The girl was lucky to grow up surrounded by the love of the best father in the world and not one but two mothers, because, as was the custom of their people, the wives shared the care of the children, and Shalendra, being barren herself, was as thirsty for motherhood as a dry well of water.
It is said that in the distant past, when magic was still strong in their people, elves could live for thousands of years. Nowadays, people still hear about the Landfolk, who are over three or even four centuries old. When Velatha married her husband, she was seventeen and had been at the acceptable age for a girl to marry for at least a few years already. For boys, it was usually a bit later, but not due to biology but rather social norms; it was expected that the husband should not only be able to father children but also support them.
Virion Umelar obviously met both the age and material conditions. Taking Velath as his wife, Virion was over forty years old, so he was still a young but already beautifully developed man. He was also financially secure, he already supported one wife, and obviously was a Lord. In modern times, this title meant that Virion owned an estate and a villa and held the office of head of the local commune.
Even though Velath's daughter was the first child of Virion, who had already been married childlessly to Shalendra for almost twenty years, that didn't mean the man had to rush into having more children. As a Landfolk, Virion, in his forties, could expect to live for another two hundred years or so, during which he could father more children. His first wife Shalendra, also a Landfolk, was only thirty years old when her husband took Velath as his second wife. If a woman were not infertile, she would be able to bear children for at least another century.
As a Halfolk, even though she was much younger than both her husband and first wife, who was her own mother's contemporary, Velath still expected to die first. Halfolk did not live as long as the Landfolk, usually not exceeding the middle of the second century. Still, Velath did not have to rush into giving birth to more children, because, having given birth to a daughter at the age of less than eighteen, she could easily give birth to more children for almost another hundred years.
Therefore, their marital triangle decided to have another child only when their daughter Ciliren turned thirteen and in a year she could potentially get married and leave their home.
And this is how their second child was conceived.
When Velath gave birth to a baby boy, whom their marital triangle named Feno, their daughter Ciliren had already turned fourteen and talks began between the Umelars and nearby families to choose the best candidate for a husband for her
The world was getting better.
Until the humans arrived.
Time, which is a silent observer of all things good and bad and which sees every wickedness but also heals all wounds, ultimately conquers everyone and everything. With time, even gods pass away, and so do even the largest and most powerful empires. This was especially true for empires based on harm and violence. Over time, the ancient power of the Elven magicians began to crumble under the influence of internal strife, decadence, and pride. Along with the High Mages, knowledge of magic declined over time. Of course, the elven world continued to use magic, but it paled in comparison to the divine powers wielded by the High Mages thousands of years ago. Over the millennia, their world's magical barriers also weakened as knowledge of how to maintain them slowly collapsed. And so, time and time again, every few millennia, some gates opened, and creatures born from the delusional experiments of their ancestors migrated to their world. This is how orcs, gnols, werewolves, and many other beasts came into their world. Until one time, a few months ago, countless ships of creatures pulled from the very depths of hell—humans—arrived on the shores of their continent.
If rumors are to be believed, some of the human ships were made of metal, which seems unlikely, especially since, according to legends, humans did not know magic. However, the desire to exterminate the elven race drove the humans, despite their division into numerous independent tribes. As it soon turned out, while the previous arrivals from other worlds, like the orcs, were, like the elves themselves, separated by thousands of years from the times of the High Mages, the human men who jumped off the hundreds of ships hitting every coast of the continent were the same fathers, husbands, and brothers whose mothers, daughters, wives, or sisters were kidnapped and raped by ancient elven magicians. The old legends also turned out to be not so accurate about the fate of the human world: the Earth may have been destroyed or moved to hell, but its human inhabitants were stuck in a strange temporal stasis, just as their fleet was about to enter the elven world through the portal opened in their ocean. And when, after thousands of years of real time, the portal's gate fell, an armada of vengeful people fell on the modern inhabitants of the elven lands.