Her mind screeched in pain, swarming with thoughts she could not grasp, The migraine or, rather, something worse than one forming in her head was almost unbearable, causing the world to swirl in her already-blurred vision. The world on teetered on a non-existent edge, and she found herself in a mental sensation of swooning. Her dirk, longer than a dagger but shorter than a sword, was in the death grip of her left hand. The hilt’s pattern, however, was embedded into both her palms, and her knuckles were both rubbed white and raw. Memory rushed painfully back into her head, coming down like a slab of rock into her gut, worsening her head by leagues. The pain she endured nearly made her, an expert at concealing feelings, writhe in utter agony. She might’ve screamed—if she could. Nonetheless, she struggled against the pain, sidling up to stand, using her legs for support. A few times she had to sit do again or fall, the dizzy feeling was so overwhelming, but she soon got a hold of herself and managed to stand, if wavering slightly. She was a sad sight to behold; her black- green cape, which covered her short body almost completely, was tattered and ripped. The fabric was weak at the bottom, and wasn’t holding together well. But she felt like she had set out just a few hours ago. Then she remembered what had happened. A strange, almost insubstantial creature had attacked her, a wispy mass of gray filling a transparent shell with eyes and a mouth. And teeth. Very many, very sharp teeth. She had no doubt of what it was-- Vadirai. Although no one knew where they came from or how they did it, Vadirai had discovered a way to make Portals—or, at least, something like them. Portals were unsightly things, mangled and chaotic arches. To the untrained eye, they appeared as a tangle of branches and ramshackle moss, nothing more. Not all Portals were so unkempt; however, the ones formed by Vadirai typically were. Every Portal-- no matter what constructed it--displayed a Traveler’s mark. Portals served the purpose of moving people across large distances, maybe even worlds, or even time. As it stood, the topic was ignored as much as possible by the greater majority of Angorth’s population. Knowledge on Portals was limited, ever since the Travelers seemed to utterly disappear from Angorth.

But creatures of such force did not come easily through Portals. The great passages could be difficult to build— even the Vadirai’s sloppy ones—and required a great amount of energy. They did not come easily. There were people on Angorth, however few, who devoted themselves to traversing the lands and ridding the world of the threatening Portals. They did their job well; as long as the rest of the population was concerned, there hadn’t been a Portal in a very long time, and there was no danger. These people were there to make the Vadignrai’s job difficult. But this Portal.... This one was different. Its base was formed by two towering, dying tees, both of which had massive trunks that would take a long time to decay. It was orderly, especially for one made by Vadirai. It was, to sum up, unnatural. This could mean trouble, because powerful newcomers could flock Angorth easily, overwhelming it by sheer numbers, if not power. This Portal had to be eradicated, yet she had already tried everything in her knowledge, without success. The Master Portal, as she had dubbed it, must go. She stood pondering and concentrating on keeping her knees from buckling, as her cape and silver hair moved now and then with the breeze. The sleeved, floor-length cloak hid almost all of her--only her dirk and some hair remained visible, and that was only some of the time. But there was one thing that was not hidden any of the time, except for a partial covering, the one thing she could never completely hide—her eyes. They were pupil-less, unnatural silver eyes that seemed to glow in the dusk light, and pierced easily through the gloom. They even stayed the same when she shifted shape, always the only constant. They happened to be the reason she was banished by her kin, for they made it blatantly obvious that she was not pure Light or Elven, Tree, you wouldn’t see the brand from her exile on her wrist, for her left sleeve was purposely longer to cover it, but those eyes said it all. Whenever her family saw them, they seemed to coil back in disgust. It wasn’t the only reason for that, but was the most obvious, most blunt one. It showed that she was Shadow, a meld of Light and Dark. The elves in her birth clan were strict about bloodlines and race, and her bloodline was “corrupt,” mixed with something else. She did not know what, besides the fact that it was Dark, because she’d never known her father. He could be anyone, anywhere—she didn’t really care, anymore.

Often she would remember how she had helped them during the Winter of Desperation, as it was now called among her--no, not her, but those--people, and received accusations rather than gratitude or, even, indifference. Even more often, she would re-live the distant, unworldly experience of being branded. It had been snowing, and the people had gathered, every last villager. They had been coughing and sneezing and suffering, but they’d come out. They’d come to see the end of what they thought caused their misery, the one who did not suffer with them, the only one who remained healthy. She would always remember how the flaming brand, the only red thing in that winter of white, came down so slowly, the anticipation almost killing her, how she was kneeled over with her hands frozen to the icy ground, waiting, watching with widened eyes of fear. Until it met, and she felt again. The rip of her hands from the courtyard stones they’d been frozen to. The pain, making her writhe on the floor. Her tears freezing on her flesh. And the burning. Always, she would remember the burning. The branding had formed a scar on her left wrist. It was permanent. If she ever returned to her birth town, they’d take out a certain apparatus, and use the scar as a guide to—

Shaking her head to both scold herself silently and rid her of the memory, the particularly short half-elf began to walk and ponder morn. She got her bearings, and realized she wasn’t too for away from where shed started out a day ago. The sun was beginning to set, and dusk would be upon Saranoth soon. She figured that she should get moving, and that she wasn’t too for from Everein’s humble’ home in the forest, just southwest from the plateau she was on. This would not be a social visit, although she hadn’t seen Everein for many yearn. Neft was not going just to see her old mentor--she was going to get help from him. Soon after the Elves had banished Neft, Everein had found her living with a pack of wolves. She’d forsaken human comfort, and had set herself to living the life-and-death struggle of the wild. Neft had been going longer and longer without shifting back to human form. If Everein hadn’t found her, she would never have shifted back, would never be human again. With considerable effort, he’d taken her away from her adopted pack, and taught her how to be human again. He’d taught her about Portals, and how to seal them, destroying the Portal and sending anything that had come through it back. He’d trained her to use her shadow senses better than she already had, to sort out the signals almost unconsciously. Slowly, he’d tried to imprint on her was to learn to trust again, with only partial success. After many years in Everein’s care, she at least trusted him--even if she wouldn’t trust anyone else.

Once she’d become educated enough by Everein’s standards, he let Neft into the world with his blessing. Now Neft would return to him, for Ever was the only person she knew who could at east help her deal with the Portal. Everein was a genius, a brilliant man, and Portals were one of many subjects which he studied in-depth. He wasn’t just interested in closing them, he was interested how they were made, and why--but that knowledge also helped to destroy the gateways. Yes, if anyone could help her, Everein could.

Using the sun as her compass, she shot off for his little Glen. For home. It was actually a considerable distance away by foot, but Neft could easily compensate. Without hesitation, in the blink of an eye, Neft began to change. She became smaller, while out of her tailbone burst a muscle-on-bone structure, that moved all around as she loosened up. Her eyes narrowed, while her head rounded out and her mouth moved out, forming a pointed beak. Her legs shortened radically, while her toes lengthened and bent, her toenails graying and curving to become claws. Her arms bent in, while her fingers elongated to many times their usual length. Moving too quickly to appear as the strange creature she was at this stage, feathers formed, growing out from hair follicles and covering her in a mottled red-blown pattern. Neft was no longer half-elf--she wasn’t even humanoid; she was a falcon. In Angorth’s world of magic and intrigue, Neft had the ability to shape-shift. Like shadows cast by the revolving sun as different shapes when shed on the ground, Neft could change her body’s form. Wings that were all-too-recently arms pumped up and down to warm up before flight. Her tail moved up and down, the feathers rustling against each other. She leapt into the breeze, was rather inconveniently barreling into her. It was a complication she’d have to deal with.

As she approached Glen Talae, her spine began to tingle very little, but not nearly enough to concern her. That tingling was how her shadow-senses signaled someone, or something, was there. Shadow-senses, the only other ability she had picked up the life “signals” of any animals within a certain distance from Neft. Often, they could become maddening, as she would he barraged with signals from the myriad of people in towns, or squirrels, birds, rats, and other such beings in the area. After her first alarming experiences with them as a young elf, she discovered that she could sort out the signals in her mind separating sentient beings from others. She became accustomed to this procedure and, after training under Everein, could now perform the task constantly and without much thought, distraction, or effort. Her eyes sliced through the twilight just after the sun sinks below the horizon and its rays still reach over it. Although she was usually comfortable during this time of her element, she was anxious. As she looked down, she suddenly saw a horde of Vadirai surrounding the hut by the shore of a small lake. This was, without a doubt, Everein’s house. But why hadn’t she sensed them? This many creatures should’ve given her relentless throbbing or worse in her head. And why would they go for him?

The same reason I have, she thought to herself, his extensive knowledge. Apparently, whoever’s behind this knows of his knowledge. Whoever’s behind this knows he might figure out how to collapse the Master Portal. And that could ruin them.

She began to descend, shifting into her true form as she reached the ground. At the hut’s doorstop, she knocked harshly, urgently, but no answer came, She rolled her eyes, made a gesture, and grabbed the doorknob. The latch clicked and she burst into the house.