Dear readers, tonight with us is an elderly tree elf recounting an adventure from his youth. He’s here to tell us about befriending a human, and their adventures that followed.

Can you tell the readers a bit about yourself?

Oh hi, I’m Rudi, I’m a tree elf, and I’m the author of Legend of Elberkhan. Yes, yes, I know you thought it was written by Yuxiao, but tell me, if it weren’t for me, how would she know the story? I was there. It was a long time ago, but I was THERE!

I am 777 years old. Now don’t look so shocked, that’s just rude! Ok, fine, I am pretty old, even for a tree elf. I still have my charm though, ahem… Anyway, as I grow older, I’ve been thinking more and more about the adventures from my younger years, of which one particularly stood out.

The story happened when I was 112, when I first met Aary. I remember every detail of it, as if it all happened yesterday. I was just a boy back then, like him… What are you laughing at! I was!

Apologies (putting on a straight face), so how did you two meet? I know it’s explained in the book, but can you briefly talk about it, without giving away too many details, for those who haven’t read the book yet?

Sure. I was just elfing around in the woods, you know, catching rabbits and other delicious treats. It was near my home tree hole, somewhere on the side slope of the Soulkeeper Mountain. Actually, it was not very far from the Castle of Elberkhan, but far enough away from the dangerous humans, or at least I thought it was. Well, not that I thought that all humans were dangerous. After all, my father was a human. But I always knew that some of them loved violence, they fought each other to obtain and keep things that they didn’t really need…

Sorry I’ve gotten a bit carried away now, haven’t I? Where was I? Yes, I was elfing around in the woods, minding my own business, and that boy snuck up on me! Caught me by surprise! He made me lose a very fat rabbit, I still haven’t forgiven him for that. I was scared out of my wits. I really thought he was going to eat me!

And what did you think about Aary when you first got to know him?

Well, he was kind, and brave, pretty eccentric, but nonetheless a good kid. Who can blame him for being a bit… strange, really, with all the terrible things he’d been through and all the suffering he had to endure almost constantly, all at such a young age. I don’t want to sound old, like I said I was just a boy myself, but I did have almost a hundred years on him.

Almost from the start I felt that he was hiding something from me, or maybe he was even hiding it from himself. I didn’t want to push him too much, you know, but personally I don’t believe that holding secrets is good for anyone.

Tell us a bit about the story of your book. Again, without spoiling it for the readers who haven’t read it.

Well, when I look back on my 777 years of life, that year was easily the most exciting one. Meeting Aary completely changed my life – from an ordinary tree elf whose only concern was the next meal, to what I am now, a well-respected advisor and the author of a book!

It was lifechanging for him too, meeting the most important girl in his life, having scary encounters with fearsome beasts that almost cost him his life, and discovering all those secrets about himself and the king… Oh, not to mention the big war at the end of the year. Phew, I’ve never seen anything like that before or since! Oops, am I giving too much away? Sorry! I got carried away again!

What was the scariest thing in your adventures?

If truth be told, I was always scared for Aary, not myself. While I was close by when it all happened, I was never really in danger myself. Aary was the one that always had me with my heart caught in my throat. He was already in a bad position with the king, and he just kept getting himself into more trouble.

Oh, but I did get close up to the Shadow Knights, way too close. They were definitely the worst! Still gives me the creeps just thinking about them… It was not even the dark magic that was the scariest thing about them, or their cruel military excellence. It’s their mind, how they would do anything… anything at all, to get what they wanted. And their black snake-like tongue! Ugh!

What is the worst thing about being a tree elf?

Well, I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been anything else! But I would say that the thing which annoys me the most is that a lot of the time humans treat you like a child. Even when I WAS a child, at the time of the story, I was 112 years old! I was old enough to be a grandfather to most of the humans I met, yet they treated me the same way they would a human toddler, just because I was small in size, and looked cute!

What is the best thing about it?

Oh, everything else! I don’t know what it’s like to be a human but I wouldn’t want to know! Humans have so much to worry about, their social status and responsibilities, their relationships with other humans, and their obsession with owning things they don’t need! They lock themselves in stone prisons to be away from nature, and build layers of walls around them. While a tree elf, on the other hand, only needs a tree hole and a full belly, to be the happiest elf in the world!

On top of that, we’re small, agile, stealthy, have better eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell, have our innate magical powers with trees, and a much longer lifespan. Although sometimes I wish I didn’t live for so long, because I mostly hang around with humans, and they have such short lives! Most of them don’t even live to be a hundred! You see them come and go, from little children to old and frail, which makes me quite sad. Now I can understand how my mother felt, what she must have gone through, when my father grew old and passed away…

What am I doing?! You asked me what the best thing about being a tree elf was, and I’m making myself all sad and emotional! That’s not a very strong endorsement is it? Can you scratch that bit?

Can you share a secret with us, which you’ve never told anyone else?

As I said I don’t like keeping secrets. But one thing that I’ve never told Aary about, is something that happened in my earlier tree-dwelling days, years and years before he was born.

Once, I saw this human kid, dirty and bony, apparently starving and freezing, sleeping in a pile of leaves. He had a few pieces of squirrel bones near him, all chewed completely clean, stripped of every last bit of meat. I felt pity for the kid, and the sight of him reminded me of when I was first out by myself in the woods. I left some of my leftover pheasant from my previous meal at his side, and used a branch to wake him up as I hid myself inside a tree. Even though I thought he probably wouldn’t survive the next winter, the look on his face when he saw and feasted on the pheasant was completely worth it. It was only years later, when I saw the familiar face again, this time mature, but lifeless, that I realized who that kid was. It had always been one of my deepest regrets that I didn’t get to meet him officially.

Yuxiao was born and raised in Beijing and currently living in Sydney. Holding a Doctor of Philosophy degree in acoustics, Yuxiao is an engineer in architectural acoustics during the day designing world-class concert halls. At night, she is an artist, musician, adventurer, and writer. Her debut YA fantasy novel, Legend of Elberkhan, was originally published in China in 2012. The English version was translated by the author herself and edited by Dr. Bethe Schoenfeld.

You can find Rudi on the pages of Legend of Elberkhan.

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