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Log 2: Enter Emiri
“Miku!” Emiri called out in excitement.
“It’s good to see you again Emiri,” Miku responded back.
Emiri chuckled, “That’s funny. Last I checked, you were blind. You can’t see anything”.
“Apparently not blind enough to find this place over and over again, and to know when you’re here”.
Emiri smiled, “Well, I’m glad you can find your way here!” as she cocked her bow back and fired again. Another bullseye. Another split arrow.
“I think no matter how many times you hit it, you’re going to keep hitting the bullseye.”
“Can’t just slack off because I’m overly confident in my shooting skills,” replied Emiri.
“Well, you shouldn’t slack off then,” Miku said, as he smiled.
Miku looked up to the canopy of the forest, as he muttered, “ The forest is shedding its old leaves to grow new ones”.
Emiri looked up too, and saw the leaves cascade downward towards the forest floor. Wow, it’s so . . . beautiful, how they fall. As Emiri felt the leaves fall on her, and twirl through the air, she remembered the first time she went to the Isle of the Great Forest, how she met Miku, and how she discovered her skill with the bow . . .


3 years back, when Emiri was fourteen, she finally picked up the bow she had after not using it for 6 years. “I can’t believe Mother! And Father was in on it too! Are they that ashamed of me?” All these thoughts were swirling through her head as she fired an arrow, with a rope tied to it that was also tied to a column on the balcony, to the nearest tree she saw.
After that, she climbed across the rope. “It’s very difficult climbing across this upside-down,” Emiri grunted. But, it doesn’t matter. Right now, I just need to get away! And I don’t plan to come back!
After finally reaching the massive tree, she had struggled to climb down it. Once back on the ground, she ran deeper into the great forest.
Angry, frustrated, and hurt, Emiri kept running until she found a clear area that wasn’t so dense with trees. There was bench on one side of the area, and the opposite side had a several huge targets. This must be where elves used to practice their skill in using the bow and arrow. It looks abandon now.
Emiri tried her hand at shooting. The dead center is probably where I’m supposed to hit. She released her arrow.
“Wow! Dead center!” Emiri said, surprised that on her first try she hit the mark perfectly. She readied another arrow. I got very lucky on my first shot. There’s no way I can hit that a second time. Once more the arrow went flying through the air.
“No way! It hit the center again?!” exclaimed Emiri.
Still in disbelief, she fired yet another arrow. Emiri split her first arrow in half by her third arrow.
“What? How can this be? I never use this thing, and yet . . .”
“You have deadly accuracy,” came a voice.
Emiri turned wildly around, startled by the voice that came out of nowhere, her bow ready. And then, the man came out from under the trees into the cleared area.
“ Who are you?” Emiri yelled, aiming straight at him.
“I’m sorry, I must have startled you. My name is Miku. I come by here often. I didn’t realize there are elves that still use a bow. Out of all my life coming here, I never met anyone here. Perhaps maybe there are still rangers out there then,” he said, looking to towards the sky as he said this.
“What do you want? If you don’t leave, I’ll fire this arrow straight through your head!”
“Oh, are you pointing that arrow at me?” he asked.
“What, are you blind?”
“Actually, yes, I am,” he said in a matter-of-fact kind of tone.
When Emiri looked more closely, she realized he was telling the truth. His eyes were the lightest blue she has ever seen.
“As you can probably already tell from my blindness, I don’t fit in very well with all the other elves,” he continued, “ So I come here, where I can be alone. In separation, in solitude”.
Something in Miku’s words there reached out to Emiri and got to her. He . . . probably is . . . just like me. He . . . has trouble fitting in too. Emiri lowered her bow.
“I guess that makes the 2 of us,” she finally said.
“The 2 of us huh?”
Emiri sat down on the bench, and Miku walked over, like he had a good idea of where he was going.
“I’m different from other elves too. I don’t have that nice, long, silky, straight, brown, blonde, or green hair. My hair is all . . . dread-like, wavy, and purple. I don’t even look like a elf”.
“I can’t see, so it doesn’t matter to me. But I can tell, by how you sound, you must be very beautiful.”
“My parents even think I’m awful!” Emiri yelled angrily, “They hid me from the world! They pretended I didn’t exist! They hate me that much”!
“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for that,” Miku responded calmly,” Your parents love you still, they may just show it in different ways. But it’s still love, right? Perhaps they hid you from the world in order to protect you. You know how protective a parent can get for their child”?
“Well . . . I guess that could make sense when you put it that way. I am the Princess of the Elves”.
The man named Miku stumbled on this for a moment, as if he didn’t quite believe what Emiri was saying.
“So, there is a Princess of the Elves? How very interesting. So the King and Queen of the Elves hid their daughter from the world. Well then, that does make a lot of sense then huh? But what is the princess doing out here”?
“Well, I kind of . . . ran away. I don’t think it matters. According the world, I don’t exist”.
Miku looked up to the canopy of the forest and muttered, “ The trees are shedding their old leaves to grow new ones”.
“Huh?” Emiri looked up too.
Whoa, the leaves are falling. Emiri took out her bow and an arrow and fired at some of the falling leaves.
“What do you think you are doing?” asked Miku who sounded slightly shocked.
“Seeing if I really am so good that I can hit the leaves,” Emiri responded back, still concentrating on hitting the leaves.
“You’re not going to take in the beauty of it all? You have eyes that can see wonderfully, why don’t you take advantage of them”?
“Then what do you get out of this if you can’t see”?
“Because . . . it’s something not every elf gets a chance to see. This is a special phenomenon, one that many elves seem to skip, despite how beautiful it is. I may not be able to see, but I can tell from how the leaves fall on me how graceful they float down.”
As Emiri began to fire another arrow, she paused for a moment to see that his words were right. The way they twirl through the air, and gently float down to the ground
, and how it just looks like . . . they’re raining leaves.
It’s . . . beautiful.


“I just can’t believe. Of all the people . . . my mother was taken”. Tricia cried out all of her tears to the still air in Citelta until she had no tears left.
The vast city appears to look grimmer, and grimmer every day, every passing time another person vanished. But why? Why my mother?
“Tricia,” a voice came.
Tricia turned to see her father coming out onto the balcony.
“Are you going to be alright”?
“Father, how can I be? Mother’s gone, and we don’t know what’s happening to her now! We don’t know who even took her, or for what reasons!” Tricia shrieked through her tears.
Her father had a sad look on his face, and went over and sat with Tricia.
“I know this is very hard on you, and it is for me too. I never expected Heather to disappear either. But we got to stay strong, through all these tough times! It’s what Heather would’ve wanted”.
Tricia looked up at her father to see he was smiling with encouragement.
Alright. Optimism. That’s the key. Got to think positive! And soon Tricia too was smiling.
“You’re right, Mother would’ve wanted us to be strong! Through even the toughest times!” Tricia said as she leapt of the balcony’s edge toward the door, ready to go back inside.
“Oh, Tricia, good news! I got a huge bonus today at work”!
“Really Father? How big, if you don’t mind me asking”.
“Well, let’s just say enough to get us through this time”.
“Really? That’s great”!
“I can get you that new game console you wanted”.
“Wow, would you really do that”?
“Anything for my special girl”.


Emiri was now lying on the ground with Miku, looking up as all the falling leaves spun through the air, just like she did the day she met him. And after the leaves stopped falling, he told me to go back to the palace, to my mother and father who probably were worrying about me. Since I wanted to see him again so badly, we promised to meet everyday if possible, same place, and same time. It’s gone on for quite some time now. Talk about commitment.
Emiri’s memories continued swirled about through her head, just like the leaves swirling through the air.
“Miku, could you remind me again on how you can know that the trees are shedding leaves before anyone else, and how you seem to know exactly where you’re going, despite the fact that you are blind”?
“Well,” Miku began, “ When you lose one of your senses, your other ones get more intense, sharper. There is a special trait among few elves that have a sixth sense so to speak. It is an ability that allows you to know of your surroundings, see everything, a feeling of presence. We elves originated this ability because we are so in tune with the trees and nature. We have to be able to feel their presence and their current state. That’s why I know of where I’m going so well, and how I know when you are here. It’s also the reason the trees grow well here”.
“Wow, does it take a lot of training to have that sixth sense?” asked Emiri.
“Yes, quite often it does. Some very intense training for many. How ever, to some elves, it comes naturally”.
“Did it come naturally to you?”
“More or less. Not as intense as it would have been”.
“Wow,” Emiri replied in awe, as they laid in silence as the rest of the leaves fell, until the trees were done shedding.
“Well, I guess I better get going,” Emiri said getting up.
“Alright, same time tomorrow I presume?”
“Same time and place Miku!” Emiri called back, running out of the area, “Bye”!
“Bye!” Miku called, as she ran out of the area.
Then Miku stopped and stood very still. He felt the tiniest tremor running through the ground he was standing on now. And he felt faintly others, far away from where he was, approaching fast across the isles, but they didn’t appear to be elves.
“Who are they”?


Emiri was running out of the forest, getting closer and closer to the edge of the Isle of the Great Forest nearest to the palace.
Oh great, I have to have that dinner party with some other suitor my parents picked out for me. Boy, he’s going to be disappointed when he sees me. Well, at least it’ll be more bearable now that I got to hang out with Miku. He always puts me in a good mood. Always comforts me, gives me advice. He’s just . . . amazing. And he doesn’t care about how I look. He understands me more than anybody else.
If I got to pick a suitor, it would be you, Miku.


***
Emiri finally reach the edge of the isle nearest to the palace. Reluctantly, she climbed back up the tree, until she was at the level where her arrow hit the tree. She looked back out at the forest, and sighed. If only I could stay here just a little longer.
Before she could climb across the rope, she felt a huge tremor, and a loud rumbling noise followed it. It shook the tree, as she struggled to maintain balance to keep from falling off.
“What was that?” she said, as she saw strange people far off on other isles, all in black, approaching fast.