The integration of the Aen Seidhe into the Republic was not the slow, quiet process Filavandrel had expected. Instead, it was a high-speed collision of two entirely different realities.
Within days of the President's decree, the refugees were divided into education streams. The children were sent to the Primary Academies, while the adults were enrolled in Vocational Integration Centers. But as the doors of these gleaming steel-and-glass institutions opened, the secret of the "indigenous humanoids" finally leaked to the public.
The discovery that the newcomers were, in literal terms, the "Elves" of ancient folklore hit the Terra Republic like a kinetic strike. For a people who for centuries believed only in the periodic table and the hard, unyielding laws of physics, the existence of a race that claimed to manipulate "Chaos" was the greatest scientific and social anomaly in the history of the new world.
In the high-security labs of the Duskwing Research Institute, Chief Scientist Phineas Johnson stared at the data feed. His instruments were detecting energy spikes that defied every known model.
"They call it magic," Phineas Johnson muttered to his team of physicists. "But we know better. 'Chaos' isn't a miracle; it's an undiscovered law. It is a localized atmospheric resonance—a physical reality of Terra 2 that we simply haven't cataloged in our equations yet. We will find the source. It is just another variable on an unfinished map."
But while the scientists were cold and calculated, the public was not.
The news had spread through the Inter-Planetary Link at light speed. Within the month, the quiet sectors of the Northern border were swarmed. Terra News Network vans and hovering press drones crowded the airspace, their reporters desperate for a single frame of an "Ancient One." The opportunity for such a scoop was something no news company would let pass.
When the first group of Elven adults stepped out of their barracks to attend their afternoon technical classes, they stopped in shock. A crowd of thousands of Terran civilians had gathered behind the security barriers.
"They're real!" a university student shouted, holding up a sleek, glowing smartphone. "Hey! Over here! Can I get a selfie?"
Filavandrel watched as a group of teens, dressed in fashionable synth-silk jackets, waved frantically. They weren't holding pitchforks or torches; they were holding digital cameras and gifts. They looked at the elves not with the sneer of a racist, but with the wide-eyed wonder of a society that had forgotten how to believe in the impossible. The adults were dying for a chance to see the literal elves with their own eyes, and the university students practically mobbed them for photos.
The Elven children had it even stranger. In the Academy playgrounds, they were constantly surrounded. Terran children, curious and playful, didn't treat them like "taints" or "vermin." They treated them like the most fascinating people in school, surrounding them with games and endless questions.
"Does your hair grow that fast naturally?" one human boy asked, poking at a young elf's braid. "Can you see in the dark? My teacher says you can live for hundreds of years. Is that true?"
The Aen Seidhe felt as though the world had turned topsy-turvy. In the south, they were shadows in the woods, hunted for their very existence. They had spent centuries being called "d'yaebl" and "vermin." Here, in the heart of a civilization that could move mountains with machines, they were not only welcomed with open arms—they were a sensation. The adults, the teens, and even the children wanted to know everything about them—their songs, their history, their very souls.
The humans of the South had never even bothered to learn the name of their race. The humans of the North were already writing doctoral theses on it and fighting for a chance to meet them.
"They do not hate us," the Elven Sage whispered, watching a group of Terran students teach an elven youth how to use a tablet. "They do not even fear us. They... they want to know us. They ask questions the humans of the south never even thought to ask."
"It is better than being burned," Filavandrel replied, though he felt the weight of a thousand eyes. "But we are no longer just refugees. We are a curiosity."
The "Light of the North" was no longer just a power grid; it was the flash of a thousand cameras, welcoming the Elder Blood into the age of the machine.
******
The silence of the Aen Seidhe was their final weapon.
Deep within the reinforced walls of the Guest House Complex, the Elven Sage who had first seen the "Light in the North" did not reach for a Terran terminal or a digital relay. Instead, she stood by a wide window overlooking the glowing spires of the Republic, her fingers tracing ancient patterns in the air. Drawing upon the "Chaos" that Phineas Johnson and his scientists were still struggling to categorize, she cast a powerful, traditional magical message.
It was a psychic resonance, a silver thread of thought that bypassed every Terran sensor and shot southward, echoing through the hidden valleys of the Blue Mountains and the shadowed corners of Dol Blathanna.
"The Iron Cradle is real. The North is not a grave, but a fortress. Come."
With the Republic's government officially agreeing to let the Aen Seidhe legally immigrate, the exodus began overnight. In the ghettos of the human cities and the hidden encampments in the wild, thousands of elves rose as one. They were systematic and cold in their departure. They packed what artworks and heirlooms they could carry—ancient tapestries, scrolls of the Elder Speech, and the delicate silver-work of their ancestors. What they could not take, they reduced to ash. They left nothing for the humans to scavenge; they left only scorched earth and empty, haunted houses.
The human kingdoms of the South largely ignored the disappearance. To the kings of Aedirn and Temeria, the vanishing of "vermin" into the frozen North was a blessing—a problem that had simply solved itself.
But the other Elder Races were not so blind.
In the mountain fastnesses of Mahakam, the Dwarves noticed the sudden, eerie silence of the elven scouts. In the workshops of the Gnomes, the supply of elven-made components stopped without warning.
"They didn't just hide," a dwarven captain growled as he looked out over an empty elven camp near the foothills. "They're gone. Clean. Not a footprint in the mud, not a scrap of bread in the fire."
The Gnomes, ever the pragmatists and engineers of the Elder Races, began their own investigation. They used their keen mechanical senses and tracking tools to follow the faint, lingering trail of the elven caravans. They found it suspicious that the trail didn't lead toward the deep forests, but straight toward the "Unclaimed" North—the land of white death and monsters.
Meanwhile, the Halflings, who lived in the rural fringes, began a secret logistics operation. Recognizing that their elven cousins were on a desperate journey, they began funneling supplies—dried meats, grain, and sturdy leather—to the dwarven and gnomic search parties.
"They're heading for the ice," a halfling elder whispered to a dwarven surveyor. "No one goes to the ice unless they've found a way to melt it. You find out what they've found, Master Dwarf. If there's a place where the sun doesn't set on our kind, we want to know."
As the mass of Aen Seidhe moved in a Great Migration toward the borders of the Terra Republic, the dwarves and gnomes pushed deeper into the unclaimed territory than they had in centuries. They were no longer just curious; they were suspicious. They followed the path of the elves, unaware that they were marching toward a wall of automated defense and a nation of humans who possessed no magic, but held the power of the stars in their hands.
Inside the Republic, President Jasmine Smith watched the satellite feeds. The infrared dots representing "unidentified humanoids" were growing from hundreds to tens of thousands.
"The neighbors are coming over," she remarked to Sergeant Silverback. "And it looks like they're bringing their friends."