Another Reunion

"I am so sorry! I did not know it was you all those years. Even so, I still should have freed you. Forgive me," the words ran from Gandr's mouth like water from a fountain. They would have kept coming had not his mother silenced him by covering his lips with her delicate fingers.

"I am here now. You are here now. That is what matters. We will not dwell on what should have been. The future will be our focus. We cannot let the past define us." Bukuri's words were salve to the halfling's aching heart. The emotional wound, which had been carrying for too long, could finally begin to heal.

Gandr stood and kissed his mother on the cheek. She smiled, stepped back and used her wind magic to brush away the halfling's disguise. Under the gnomic facade, which looked mostly human, was the true form of the halfling.

His ears were somewhere between rounded and pointy, as if something they were only half finished either direction. His skin was not the pasty paleness of the gnomes or the gold of the