Chapter Text
We meet Aaravos on our fist day in the late evening. The sky outside is already dark, so the elf’s study room is lit by a number of candles on the walls and on the three desks that take up the far end of the room underneath a large window. In front of the middle desk, we find the Startouchelf. There is a luxurious chair behind him, but he isn’t sitting on it. He stands, his hands with the four delicate fingers propped on both sides of a heavy book. It looks old, the writing faded but elegant, and it speaks of magic. Old and complicated magic. Very complicated.
With a look of high concentration, Aaravos waves a hand and the page turns in a soft breeze that also catches a strand of the elf’s long white hair and playfully twirls it. Absentmindedly, he pushes it out of the way and leans in closer.
He has spent all day trying to figure out this ritual. Years ago he had found mention of a human mage, who used dark magic to recreate the shadow form of the Moonshadowelves. He hadn’t given it much attention at first. He has no need to sneak, he is powerful enough to go wherever he pleases and if a situation does call for some discretion he has his own ways of being invisible. Also, he is stuck here, rendering the whole thing totally useless anyway.
But one has to keep oneself occupied and learning new things that should be impossible are exactly the kind of distraction he needs. That in doing so he also takes the specialness from the Moonshadowelves is an added layer of fun.
Or, it would be, but the ritual had proven itself quite useless so far.
With his other hand, he flips the page back. The words start to blur before his eyes. Annoyed he decides to call it a day. After all, it’s not as though he is in any hurry. As far as he knows, he has eternity to figure this out.
With a wave he calls all candle flames to him and in the flickering light of his fist full of fire he leaves the room and closes the door.
The corridor we are now in is beautifully decorated. It has a high ceiling with ornate plastering, soft carpets of a deep purple colour and large windows that, in daytime, show a magnificent view of the gardens, but at the moment the darkness outside is only parted by the soft glow of some moon-moths and fireflies.
Aaravos doesn’t even spare them a glance. Outside isn’t the outside. It is just the gardens that get less and less solid the further you go until they fully dissolve and you float in utter darkness. Aaravos had tried to go through the darkness, of course. He had tried a number of times at different edges of the land. He had walked for hours, sometimes he flew, he had used every magic he knew to keep him moving, keep him on a straight path. But it had taken him nowhere and the moment he turned around he was back at the edge of the land where the ground started to become solid again and there were insects, light and life. He doesn’t understand how this magic works and he hates it almost as much for that as for keeping him locked up.
The elf rounds a corner and follows the corridor to a flight of stairs at the end. One hand on the delicate hand rail, one still holding the flames, he ascends to the second floor. The corridor up here is furnished in lighter tones, white and lavender, to the left more large windows.
Aaravos opens a door to the right and enters. He thrusts out his hand and the flames shoot through the darkness, igniting the logs in a large oven. Soon, the room is filled with friendly bright light and the crackling sound of a warm fire. We can see a clean, tiled floor, shelves and cupboards in warm browns that fill the sides of the room organically, a stove above the oven and a sink with an elegant pump. Aaravos opens some shelves and drawers and gets out a plate of thin china and some fruits that are obviously of Xadian origin. He fills a crystal glass with water from the sink, adds some moonberry juice, then sits down at a wooden table and starts eating.
It is a monotone ordeal, three times a day, every day, for years, decades. Always the same room, the same food. His lands provide him with everything he needs, drawing sunlight, rain and minerals from the place his estate used to be at, but he only has the plants he had grown there when he was imprisoned. Luckily they were a lot, as he had used them for experiments on Dark Magic, but after years of the same fruit and vegetables he would kill for some bread, eggs or milk.
He finishes his meal and gives the plate a quick rinse, then calls the flames to his fist once more with one sweeping motion and moves on to the bathroom in the adjacent room for his evening routine. Afterwards he moves one room further down to a large bedroom. We can see a desk littered with notes and quills, a large wardrobe made of dark wood and a small mirror above a dressing table. The floor is covered by a fluffy blue carpet and at the far end of the room we see a wooden bedframe with a large, soft mattress. The bed is covered by a dark blue canopy sprinkled with stars and pillows and blanket are of the same fabric.
Aaravos extinguishes the flames in his hand, turning the room into darkness with only the soft glow of the fireflies outside the window and the stars on his bedding providing some light.
We leave Aaravos as he slowly drifts to sleep under his fake night sky with nothing but his dreams to keep him company.