Faded Scars

I know my appearence makes people uncomfortable...my existence is unsettling for people. They stare at me with thousands of questions brimming in their eyes, yet the truth is...the truth is I have just as many questions as they do. 

Everyone is constantly questioning who they are as a person. We question our motives and our responsibilities. We question whether we have made the right choices and whether we know where our life is going. I won't pretend that I am special...I am just like everyone else, I want the answers to all these questions and more. Yet, unlike most people they have context...they have memories and have the power to recall actions and learn from their mistakes. I do not have this priviledge...and I am not sure if I ever will again, not in the years prior to my 25th birthday at any rate. 

Three months ago I was found unconscious and covered in blood, barely breathing and only dressed in a faded and torn old royal military kit from the Southern Elves...the Southern Elvish royal army had been disbanded for over 300 years which only further added to the confusion of my origin.

Three months, hundreds of interviews and interrogations, hours of therapy and seemingly endless amounts of medical tests later and I was still no closer to knowing who I was or where I was going. As a ward of the Eastern Elves ruling court, my daily routine mainly involved doing whatever they asked of me. After I had properly recovered in hospital and the tests to determine my origin had begun, we...being myself and the Eastern Elves royal family, had discovered that I was both an incredibly gifted sorcerer and soldier. 

My abilities in these fields had enabled me to become one of the teachers...or well teaching assistants for the Eastern Elves Royal Army. I was incredibly grateful for this opportunity, these people had taken me in and trusted me...despite my unknown yet obviously turbnulent past if my physical appearence was anything to go by. 

Elves as a race looked very similar and had various common traits. Light blue spotless skin, pale grey eyes and long silvery hair were the norm amongst my peoples which made my appearence even the more pecuilar. According to Elvish's top physicians...my brilliant golden eyes, pastel turquoise hair and bronze skin that shone almost metallic in the sunlight were signs of a magical overload. Eg. I was powerful enough, at least magically...to overload my system and actually saturate myself with my own magic at an intense enough level to actually change my DNA.

On top of this, the myriad of pale scars patterning my body that refused to heal through any form of magic meant that they had been inflicted by an extremely potent magical weapon. A weapon that should have killed me based upon the fact that I was incredibly powerful yet I couldn't even heal these scars nor protect myself from whatever had inflicted them.

So here I was... a 25 year old intensely powerful female Elf sporting vivid golden eyes, pastel colourful hair, bronze metallic skin and covered in a variety of nasty pale and ridged scars. As much as I wanted to know about my past...at the same time I didn't. I knew the nature of my past...I knew it was not good, yet I didn't know specific events. Was this for the best? Did I actually want to know the events and actions behind my odd looking appearence and obvious trauma?

For the moment, I was perfectly happy with the life I was living. Sure, I didn't know who I was...but I was becoming who I was. I had chosen the name Ausra for it's meaning...rebirth. It was fitting, I had been reborn. Sure, I obviously had experienced a traumatic and difficult past...yet that was behind me, for now anyways. 

I was a powerful sorcerer, a talented solider and fighter...yet the most important thing was that I was making a positive difference to the world. I was in charge of training young Elvish magicians and soldiers and aiding them in achieving their full potential...I could not think of a better way to spend my time. 

Sometimes when I lay in bed at night I felt a little lost ...like a piece of myself was missing. I craved my freedom, yet at the same time I know it would take a long time to earn it back. I was in debt to the Eastern Elves Royal family...a debt that would take years to pay off. Not only had they rescused a young unknown elf from certain death, but they had nursed her back to health and invited me into their own Kingdom despite my obviously traumatic past and my...interesting abilities.

I knew I was a security risk...quite a major security risk at that, which was what made it all the more amazing that they had brought me into the inner sanctums of their Kingdom and aided in my recovery. Sure they were going to utilise me as much as I could...especially because I was basically an investment to them now. Although they were too kind to admit it , I know I was pretty much stuck with the Eastern Elves for as long as they find me useful. It sounded harsh, but I wasn't too fussed by this. 

I knew I had a debt to pay...and this situation I was in wasn't actually unpleasent. I had free housing, food and medical care through being apart of the Royal Army. I had a new life's purpose and a meaningful way to spend my time. The only thing nagging at me...the only obvious thing anyway was me questioning whether or not my mysterious past was going to catch up to me? Would I recognise anything or anyone from it if they came to find me...I didn't know?

So far it had been just over 3 months and nothing had caught up to me yet. The royal publisicts had been meticulously scanning the whole Kingdom for any chatter that could be related to me at all...anything even somewhat related to someone of my description, yet nothing had come up.

All that was left for me to do was to embrace my new life and hope that the faded scars covering my body wouldn't come back to haunt me.