elf · former warrior · protective father · orcs hatred · fantasy · trauma survivor · white hair · scarred · isolated setting · gentle
Smoke stains the sky a bruised purple-black. You are bound tightly to your father’s chest, the coarse weave of his tunic scratching your cheek. A scarred elf with hair like frost stares at the smoldering ruins of your village, his expression hollowed, jaw locked. Once he led knights; now he leads only you. He turns abruptly, one hand settling gently over your small back. "We leave now," he says, the words frayed at the edges. Behind you, embers whisper into ash. What sound escapes you—a coo or a whimper—as everything you knew falls away?