Lora was a duende lord who would often disguise herself as a mortal woman so that she could mingle with mortals. It had been almost half a century since Ar-Bathal had decreed the separation of the duende from men, and among the younger lords – those who had ascended their titles after the decree – there was a great deal of dissatisfaction.
The company of men was considered invigorating by most duende and the enforced separation was a difficult thing to bear. Lora was one of these lords. And yet, she was also the daughter of Arda, one of the heroes of her race. Bearing such an illustrious name, Lora felt the burden of leadership acutely and so did everything she can to appear faithful to Ar-Bathal’s decree, while occasionally violating it.
To do this, she was greatly aided by oropel – her gift for making people see what she wanted them to see or, on occasion, what they wanted to see. Just like today, when she wanted people to see her, not as a duende but as an ordinary high caste woman out for an early morning stroll along the cliff fronting the sea where some of villagers had set up a kind of market place.
As she was examining some of the fruit being sold, she heard a voice behind her exclaiming. “What is that?”
She turned around and saw, over the water, what looked like very low clouds rolling in from the mist. Quickly, a crowd gathered and stared as the strange cloud came ever closer. Even with the fog roiling all about, it wasn’t difficult to see that what people were saying was a cloud was actually something else – a cloth billowing from the wind. Sails were not alien to the people or the duende, but the sheer size of the “clouds” was enough to cause confusion.
Lora squinted at the great sails and, through the fog, caught glimpses of the wooden ship underneath, and men walking around with long swords strapped to their waists and their torsos seemingly encased in some shiny metal. With her keen duende eyes, Lora saw that the men looked gaunt and hungry, and this made her inexplicably fearful.
While the people around her were chattering excitedly, Lora slipped away and as soon as she could safely do so, discarded the oropel and ran as fast as she could down to the beach. From there, she watched as the ship made anchor. For a long time, it just stood there, gently bobbing in the water. From her vantage point onshore, Lora counted the men who who came to the deck rail and peered into the fog.
Lora was starting to get drowsy when a sudden flurry of activity aboard the ship caught her attention. They were lowering a boat!
In the boat were three men. Two of them had shiny metal plates around their chests, and a third wore a brown robe that, even from a distance, looked scratchy and uncomfortable. As she was watching the new arrivals, movement from the shore drew Lora’s attention and she she saw a lone outrigger canoe striking out towards the ship. Onboard the canoe, she could make out the unmistakable form of warriors, with their shields and long spears, held at the ready.
In utter fascination, she watched as the two small vessels approached each other. Then, when the two were separated by no more than two boat lengths, the warriors raised their spears in traditional greeting. The men on the other boat, however, clearly misinterpreted the act as a hostile one and after some scrambling, Lora saw a puff of grayish white smoke erupting around one of the men. On the canoe, one of the warriors suddenly collapsed in a red mist and fell over the side. A second later, a loud cracking sound reached Lora’s ears, sending her jumping up in surprise.
Suddenly fearful, Lora ran back into the forest just beyond the beach. She had to tell someone.