People gave the little girl holding baby Zander in her arms weird looks as she made her way to over to go see the elders. The thought had occurred to the girl that she might be able to hide Zander from the people of her race and not bothering asking the Elders' permission to keep the little baby. But she realized that it would be nearly impossible to keep people from knowing about Zander, they would find out anyway and rat the girl out to the elders. Better to get this over with as soon as possible. But what am I going to do if they saw no? She had promised Zander's mother that she was would look after him and no matter what she was going to keep that promise.
She walked over to the guard standing outside the elders' great hall where the elders had their conferences with their people.
The guard gave her an evil angry glare as she approached with the baby in hand. "What do you want?! And what is that?!"
"This baby is the reason I'm here. I need to talk to the elders about him."
The guard narrowed his eyes at the girl. "Stay there." He ordered before disappearing into the great hall.
The girl stood there patiently as Zander slept in her arms. The guard was gone for a very long time before he returned.
"Go in." He ordered pointing towards the door.
The girl nodded as she went through the door into the great hall. Inside the hall the elders sat in their panel of chairs that looked down whoever came to speak. They all stared at her with evil and suspicious glares. "What is that you want? What is that thing?" High Elder Deflin said with an emphases on the word thing.
"This is Zander, his mother asked as her dying wish for me to look after him."
"You? You are but a child."
"By our standards yes, but not by theirs. Though I might look like a child, I am an adult."
"And why must you look after this...this...child?"
"He's unique. Zander's mother was half golden dragon and half elf. His father was half monster and half ancient dragon."
"So he's a quarter of each?"
"Yes."
"Hmm... it would be dangerous to leave the boy with them. There is no telling what power he might posses. Fine then youth you may look after the boy."
"Thank you." The girl bowed to them and left with Zander.
All of the other elders crowded around the high elder with worried faces.
"High elder Deflin was that wise?"
"Yes I agree with Cavarn, elder Deflin. How is it that we haven't even decided to let the girl live and you've already given her permission to look at that baby?"
"Yes elder Deflin, how?"
"Silence! That boy, Zander may be a baby now but he will grow and he'll be quite powerful. The powers of all four of our most powerful rival races. We could learn a lot from Zander and he could be useful in other ways. As for the girl looking after him, that is no matter. Let her raise the boy it will keep her occupied. She'll eventually come to realize that if she wants no harm done to Zander than she'll have to obey us."
"Ah I see. We can use Zander as blackmail then?"
"Yes."
"But High Elder Deflin, she may have a mind of an adult, but she has a body of a child. How can she take care of a baby in that state?"
"Hmmm... that's a very good point. Very well then we'll take off the spell that's suppressing her growth."
All the other elders gasped in shock.
"High Elder Deflin! Are you sure that's wise? We don't know how much her power might increase if her body starts to grow."
"Remember we have our blackmail and if she becomes a bother, then we can just kill her." Deflin smiled as a collective malicious laughter broke out.
The little girl with Zander in her arms got chills running up and down her back.
"What's up with this young one?"
The little girl turned her head to look right and saw Maldrin staring at her.
"As a dying request a woman asked me to look after her son." She looked down at the little baby in her arms. Zander lazily opened his eyes and blinked confused by the all the darkness that surrounded him.
"He's no ordinary baby is he? Why I'd say he's part elf, monster and both dragons. Very interesting... You do realize that the elders will not let you do this, don't you?"
"I have already seen them, I am allowed."
Zander fully awake now was scared about being in the dark and started to cry very loudly. The girl shushed the baby wiping his tears away trying to get him to calm down.
"What? The pardoned it? How odd..."
"They probably have some ulterior motive I'd bet."
"I would assume so... What is the baby's name?"
"Zander."
"Ah the name of heroic Taei warrior that died saving his love from the our ancestors. Did you pick the name?"
"No his mother did. It's quite odd that she would pick a heroes name from a race long dead before her time."
"Well yes they were dead along time. We should know, our race was responsible for their destruction."
"Like many others. They just keep killing and destroying any race that is more powerful or close in power to their own."
"They? Don't you mean we?"
"No I do not. Though I was born into this race I am not one of them. I don't think you are either."
"You are right, but I can't stand up to them. I simply do not have enough power to."
"Even if you did they'd kill you before you learned how to use your power fully. Which is why I'm curious to why they haven't killed me yet."
"You shouldn't say things like that. But on a completely different note I should mention that you are going to have your hands full. Many people here will not take kindly to Zander because he's different. And even the mere fact that his name is Zander is going to cause you both problems."
"Don't worry we'll manage. If you excuse me, I need to see to some arrangements concerning Zander."
"Okay little one, but you take care of yourself. I just hope you aren't way over your head."
"So do I Maldrin, so do I." The little girl said softly to herself while walking forward.
Inside the little half room inside the girl's quarters the little girl placed Zander on a makeshift bed. She made sure to light the room up quite a bit so that Zander wouldn't be scared from the immense darkness.
"You know this is only temporary. I'll get you a proper room and bed. Heaven knows I can't have you sleep here forever. Not when you'll be growing so quickly."
Zander didn't make a sound in reply. A single tear just rolled down his small face. The girl frowned. It must be the monster part of him. Even though he's just a baby he knows what happened to his family. What am I going to do? She just stood there for a moment staring at him staring at her with tears rolling down his checks. Without even thinking she picked out Zander and hug him while his silent tears turned in to loud sobbing cries.
"It's okay to cry Zander. There's too much pain in this world to keep it all inside."
Eventually Zander stopped crying and went to sleep. Another thing that was strange about Zander was that he radiated magic. His aura was very powerful, so much that just holding him was enough to feed the girl for a day. Not that she fed off his aura intentionally, it was just something that she couldn't really control. But not that it bother Zander much. Whatever she took he replaced four fold. It's strange how he has this automatic replenishing magic aura. She shook her head while staring down at the little baby.
The little girl picked up a few pieces of paper and a quill with ink and started to write.
A few hours later the girl was distracted from her work when Zander woke up crying. Do baby's do nothing but cry all day? The girl shook her head and went over to little Zander. "What's wrong with you?" She picked up Zander and looked him over.
As soon as he saw the girl's face he smiled and hugged her.
The little girl raised her eyebrow. Is this baby normal? She went and sat down on a chair with him her arms. What time is it? She had gotten so lost in her writing that she had totally lost track of time. To find out what time it was she stepped out into the hallway and noticed that no one was there and everything was completely silent. I guess it's later then I thought. Hmm... and I'm tired too. She sighed wondering how she was going to be able to get Zander to fall asleep again so she could go to bed when she realized something. Zander whom had been no more then a few months old when he gone to sleep but now he looked to be at least a years old. I guess she wasn't kidding when she said he was going to grow quickly.
"Hey Zander are you sleepy right now?"
Zander just giggled and made a snorting sound.
"Come on Zander I'm tired I want to go to sleep." She pleaded to the little baby who just continued to make funny sounds. "What do you want me to sing you a song or something?!" She said sarcastically. But Zander then looked at her with interest. "Oh no way I'm not singing!"
Zander gave her a puppy dogface looking he was about to cry.
"Fine." She huffed and Zander giggled in delight. "But I hope you know I don't sing that well. Um what song should I sing?" She thought for a few moments and then started to sing. "Sleepy days and sleepy nights I've wondered what I'd done right...[1]" She started to sing.
A few moments later Zander was finally was sleeping soundly and the girl was finally able to go to sleep. And sleep she did once her face hit the pillow.
Her dreams were troubled as they normally were with many images of destruction and terror. People were dying and things were being destroyed and she was unable to stop any of it no matter how hard she tried. But then all of a sudden the dreamscape around her disappeared in a bright flash of immense pain. She felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside and on fire all at the same time. The girl tried to scream out in pain but her screams were silent.
But as quickly as the pain came it disappeared and the girl was able to get back to normal dreamless sleep.
When the girl awoke she surprised to see that she was no longer had the body of an eight or seven year old. She had aged in her sleep an now appeared to be at least three years older.
"Hi."
The girl looked up towards the voice and saw Zander who was now about two or three smiling at her. "Oh so you can talk now huh?"
Zander smiled and laughed.
"Well it looks like you are going to need some new clothes, and so am I." She picked up Zander and looked at the little guy in the face. "So Zander do you know what my name is?"
Zander frowned while trying to think very hard. He grunted impatiently wanting to say something but he couldn't.
"You don't, because I don't have a name. But I guess you're going to need a name to call me... Hmm... but what?" She chewed her bottom lip in thought. "I guess you could call me... Amie[2]."
"Ammy!"
"Yeah Amie. You can call me that... till I get a name."
Zander giggled happily.
"Okay Zander how about we get you some breakfast?"
"Food!" Zander cheered.
She took Zander with her to walk around the halls of her dark home. What am I going to find for him to eat in a place where the people only eat magic?
[1] -- Well I needed a song and I couldn't think of any from the top of my head so I made one up on the spot. It's only the beginning and maybe one of these days I'll finish it but oh well I'm not a songwriter.
[2] -- Ami(e)(es)(s) means "friend" in French. I figured it worked well with the story.