It was an odd thing, returning to my hometown. One I'd only known for a few months before leaving with my master to become a mage.
My memories were fuzzy of the place, the last time I saw it, there was blood and fire in the air. All well-built stone and wooden houses and well-cared-for streets. Sunlight filtered through towering trees, leaving the capital in a warm golden glow.
The capital was the largest of nine settlements throughout the Golden Leaf territory. When we arrived in the clan territory, my father told me that there were just under a hundred thousand Golden Leaf elves living in the capital. I was unimpressed.
We had spent the majority of my life living in a hovel in Alredge, one of Desari's neighbouring city-states, with another half-elf family, begging for scraps and doing odd jobs for the occasional citizen that deigned look at us.
Alredge was massive compared to the Golden Leaf capital, yet now, the capital loomed large and imposing before me.
