A/N: Don’t ask where the hell this story came from. Just… don’t ask.

Okay, fine, I’ll tell you. This is a product of too much Coca-Cola, too much Lord of the Rings, too much Twilight, too much Notebook, and too much damn COCA-COLA. So, if you like all the aforementioned books/movies, I hope you will enjoy this baby I’ve been brewing inspired by them.

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Prologue

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Winter, of the Fifteen Thousand Thirty-Eighth Year

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Night had fallen early, as it did in the snowy season. Ice made the ground white, so that the moon would reflect on it and resemble day. Shadows flickered through the trees, but one was light among them, his silver clothing making him glow in the dark night like a firefly. His weapons at the ready, he ran top speed through the trees, keeping his eyes peeled for one like him. One clothed in light, with pointed ears.

“Ophelia!” he called out, and the shadows started to snicker and laugh at his desperation.

“We will take you to her,” one promised, coming out of the shadows to stand before him. The blonde clothed in silver was able to look his enemy in the eyes. Those eyes matched the black hair on his head, a pair of eyes he would not easily forget. “If you give me your weapons.”

The blonde quickly handed over his arrows, and the black-haired boy led him through the trees to their captive, a female, bound to a tree. His love, once so strong and full of a soldier’s fighting spirit, appeared defeated and meek.

“Release her, I beg of thee,” the blonde pleaded, falling to his knees in despair of the sight.

“An Elf?” the young enemy leader came close. “Beg one of us? I am wholly surprised. How vast your love must be, to sacrifice your dignity for her freedom. I shall tell you what…”

The leader stepped onward, setting the Elf’s weapons on the ground.

“Take up your weapons and defend your wife, and we shall see what the fates decide.”

Suspicious of the offer, the blonde Elf slowly stepped forward to claim his weapons. His eyes were on his enemy, waiting for a trick, some inevitable betrayal, but none came. With a swift motion, he made a snatch at his weapons like a snake, only to find a human trap under the weapons and leaves, clamping it’s metal teeth into his arm and very nearly snapping it off. He yelled in pain as he felt his bones break. The enemies around him laughed in delight of his torment, the leader freely attacking his wife without any more hesitation.

“NO!” the Elf cried in dismay, watching the enemy sink his teeth into her neck and ripping at her throat so that her screams were silenced. The Elf yelled and shouted and cried with anguish, the steel scraping against his bones when he tried to free his arm. He tried to slash with his knife at the chain holding him to a tree, but the links held firm. Tears poured freely as the Elf watched his beloved sucked dry of her blood, and taken away to cook whatever was left of her body.

Purposely trailing behind, the young enemy leader looked back at the Elf on the ground, broken and tortured beyond compare. He let the Elf see him lick his lips and smile.

A smile, a dare for vengeance. One not soon forgotten.

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Chapter 1

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Spring, of the Two Thousand Eighth Year

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It all started with the color green. A very light green, the color of untainted jade in it’s most beautiful form. Green is everywhere, in trees, in grass, and sometimes eyes. In recent times, the terms ‘going green’ had become so overused its effect on people was starting to become desensitized.

Elena Yang was about the farthest example of a tree-hugger there was. It wasn’t that helping the environment was something she was against, it was just something she wouldn’t stop to consider before throwing a piece of trash over her shoulder or when she filled up her H2 at the gas pump, which was quite often when one had 12 miles to the gallon. She was the person who left cigarette butts in gutters and empty soda cans on local beaches. She was the person who carved the initials of her and her boyfriend into a centuries-old tree. She was the person who could care less about conserving water and energy. She was only concerned with conserving what was left of herself.

“You can’t sit around all day,” her slave-driver of a father would say. “When are you going to get married?”

Though her father’s intentions were meant well, he only served to annoy Elena further, until she was sick of people altogether. This became a problem at her job as a waitress at a small roadside diner. One older couple had been impatient and demanding their entire meal, slowly pushing Elena over the edge of her self-control.

“Excuse me?” the gray-haired man asked. “My soup is cold.”

“That’s nice,” Elena muttered, pretending she didn’t hear her.

“Ma’am?” the man flagged Elena down to where she couldn’t avoid her any longer. “Can you take my soup and get it remade? And another round of coffee, while you’re at it.”

He then proceeded to pinch her butt discreetly and wink like it was their little secret. Huffing in contempt, Elena ripped off her apron and threw it on the table.

“Oh, get it your damn self,” Elena replied, then simply walked out. She picked up her severance check the next day.

See, Elena had just found out that her grandfather, whom she was quite fond of, had passed away. Then, to top it off, her father had just informed her that Ken Lee had asked for her hand in marriage and he had approved. The only problem, Ken had never even been on a date with her. She had always turned him down.

It wasn’t like Elena didn’t know her intended well: he was the son of their old family friends. And he was handsome, Asian like her, a vastly wealthy CEO of a major lumber company, and he loved Elena very much. If she married him, her entire family would be rich too, which is why her father had worked so hard to arrange the match. Elena wouldn’t need to wait on another table again in her life, and her family could have every luxury imaginable.

It was fortunate for them, then, to have had a daughter. Or, at least that’s what her father had told her. Maybe it was her jet-black hair that ran dead and flat on her head that Ken found appealing. Or maybe her ghostly white skin that looked almost sickly gray, even in summer. Or perhaps her cesspool brown eyes, or her many pounds overweight, or the oddly placed freckles scattered over random parts of her body, or even some strange quirk to her personality. Whatever it was, it had certainly caught the eyes of boy-next-door Ken for their entire life. To top it off, her father was threatening to disown her if she didn’t go through with marrying him. Apparently parental betrothing still lived on to this day.

Somewhere along the lines of crawling inside of herself, Elena had decided that the painting was a great use of her time. Any moment she didn’t have to think about anything enough to feel sorry for herself was a tolerable moment. Chocolate also became a wonderful way to consume her feelings.

Then something happened. Her mother stepped in. She told Elena to take a vacation to think it over. She gave her directions to a house in rural England, where her recently deceased grandfather had once lived. Her father had inherited the house and didn’t possess the time to see if it was worth anything. It seemed a convenient excuse to get away and postpone her final decision on the marriage. Thus, Elena took the whole of her meager savings and went on the first plane to Europe, only hoping her future would seem more clear to her in foreign lands.

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Please review.
Signed,
--RedRogue55