And thus the life of the first elf came to an end.
Alex sighed and switched off the Lord of the Rings soundtrack playing in his headphones.
Brother died at the ripe old age of ninety‑three. He had lived a long life, and yet from Alex's point of view, only a few days had passed. Still, it was enough to make him sad. After all, people grow attached to characters in movies that last only a couple of hours.
There were times when Brother had been on the brink of death, keeping Alex on edge. For instance, when the elf tried to cross a frozen lake and fell beneath the ice. Sister barely managed to pull him out and nearly fell in herself. (After that, she amusingly forbade her brother from venturing beyond the island, blocking his way by spreading her arms wide, as if to say: "No, you can't go there.")
It was a miracle that Brother and Sister survived their first winter. They would likely have frozen to death had Alex not made elves stronger and more resilient than humans. At one point, he even thought that he had made a mistake by placing his first creations in such a cold place.
Eventually, however, he concluded that he had made the right choice. By the second winter, the elves were already preparing supplies. They learned to dig burrows and store food; they mastered fire and, understanding its benefits, kept a flame going all the time.
Technological progress advanced rapidly, driven entirely by necessity.
After all, there is no need to invent anything when you live in warmth and comfort.
While Alex pondered all this, the elven tribe, grownups and children, had gathered around their fallen ancestor. Alex slowed time and studied them closely. What would they do with the dead man? Leave him to rot? Or bury him? Every culture has its own traditional funeral. What would the elves come up with? Alex was already choosing suitable music for the ceremony when his phone nearly slipped from his hands.
Right before his eyes, the elves, both large and small, women and men, bent over the dead man and sank their teeth into his flesh. They began to tear it apart and gnaw at it. The adults passed pieces of meat to the children, whose teeth were still weak, as they smeared their lips with red blood.
Alex watched all of this with a mixture of horror and fascination. When the elves had eaten their fill, they carefully and methodically stripped the remaining flesh. They wrapped it in leaves and carried it into their cellar where they stored their winter supplies.
Slowly, Alex came to his senses and realized what he had just witnessed.
Truly, every society has its own way of honoring the dead.
Some burn them, others bury them, or leave them to the birds, or cast them into the sea… or eat them. After all, it is a waste to leave precious meat when winter is near.
Culture is shaped by everything that surrounds it. The fear of cold and hunger, engraved by many winters into elven society, made them eager to preserve all available resources. This behavior was natural, even logical, though Alex still felt uneasy watching children run along the beach and waving the bones of their great-grandfather.
After taking all of that in, he once again sped up time and made the silver plate display the exact population of the elves:
[32 individuals]
Then he opened a two-dimensional map of the continent, showing the distribution of their race. At the moment, all elves lived on a single island. That, however, was about to change.
Thirty years after the death of the first Na, the population had tripled, reaching the point when the island could no longer provide enough food for the tribe.
An almost palpable unrest spread among the elves as the cold winds arrived once again. Their supply burrows were barely half-full. It simply wasn't enough to feed everyone. After all, even the previous winter had some of them dying to hunger.
For many days, the current Na (the third one) struggled to find a solution. At last, on a bright and sunny day, he summoned his son and pointed toward the distant green shore beyond the island's edge. The young elf walked to the beach and paused at the water's edge. Soon, at least thirty of his kin gathered around him, gazing warily at his tall, muscular back.
The elf took a deep breath, waded into the forbidden waters, and began to swim.
An hour passed, then two. The other elves waited anxiously for his return. At last, one of them cried out, pointing to his figure on the far shore. Ten minutes later, he emerged from the water, a bright smile on his lips and the carcass of a large hare that he had brought from the other side in his hand.
A few years later, the elves learned to build rafts. Soon after, they realized there was no need to cling to the old island. By then, their population was nearing several hundred, and space had grown scarce. More and more often, they stayed on the opposite shore even after the hunt.
Thus began the first great division of the elven tribe…