I've learnt a lot from this site, and have decided to resurrect my first story. I've made a lot of changes- I hope it works out better.

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Steam rose from the cauldron as a mixture of chopped carrots and potatoes were tipped in. The woman responsible stood, wiping her callused hands on the apron she tied around her waist. It was more a strip of course cotton, but it did its job well enough. The woman was not old, but wrinkles spanned from her eyes as she glanced into the morning light, pouring in the open window. Elise was glad of the window, the only source of light in the small one-room cottage. The room was plain, but Elise had tried her best to make a home for her family. The ground was merely packed earth, which Elise spread with fresh rushes each day in an attempt to make the cottage more comfortable. Spices were lined up near the fire, securely stored in small clay pots. These were one luxury Elise let herself indulge in, which she used in almost all of her cooking. A few ornaments graced the room, including Elise’s wedding present from her husband, an emerald set in delicate silver, still sitting safely in its case of velvet. Elise glanced around her home and thought wistfully of the cozy wooden house of her childhood. At least our home is of stone, Elise mused. She had known of worse, in her past.

A noise from behind snapped Elise out of her thoughts, and she turned to see her teenage daughter step through the door. Dressed in soft, hand-sewn leather over a course cotton blouse, her hair falling out of her messy ponytail, holding three blood-soaked hares, Tamia was a picture of chaotic triumph. Grinning ear from ear, Tamia lay the hares on the rough table by the door, made for such purposes. Elise studied her daughter with a mixture of affection and exasperation. She was a pretty girl, slender and wiry with bright, sparkling green eyes and straight straw-blonde hair. In spite of her sixteen summers, an age Elise was sure Tamia should have started caring for herself and her beauty, Tamia insisted on wearing boyish garb and running through the surrounding woods like a wild thing. Which is not entirely false, Elise admitted silently.

Tamia spread her arms, showing off to her mother her blood-stained front. “Will you not give me a welcoming hug, mother?”

Elise shook her head in mock exasperation. “Did I not teach you not to roll in the spot you made your kills? How did you get so messy?”

Tamia shrugged, widening her eyes in innocence. “But ma, I got you your supper!”

Elise laughed out loud, a rich, hearty sound. “You didn’t get that cheek from me. I always said you took after your father.”

Tamia’s expression darkened, and she shifted uncomfortably. “Ma, where is father? He was supposed to be back from the gathering a moon ago. You know it isn’t safe for his kind anymore, even in these parts.”

Elise’s shoulder’s tensed at Tamia’s words, and she shook her head in one stiff movement. “You will not speak so, Tamia! He will be back. You will see.”

Tamia turned away, her mouth turned down slightly. She took a knife from the shelf, moving to skin the hares. She paused to think for a moment, staring blankly at the knife in her hand, before starting to speak. “But Ma, you know they don’t like Elv-“

“Quiet!” Elise cut in, her brown eyes blazing. “He will be back.” She hissed, desperation to believe her own words lending a hard edge to her voice. Tamia looked up, shocked, before turning back to her work silently, cowed by her mother’s outburst.

Elise turned away, close to tears. Tamia was right, she knew. Humans and elves just didn’t get along. When Elise had fell in love with an elvish lad, she had been disowned, not only by her family, but by humankind. Who knows what had happened to her Je’al on the long journey home from his gathering to the south.

Elise closed her eyes tight against the thought, seeking to drive it away. Fear, unacknowledged, was curling like dark tendrils around her heart. Ever since her love had left, Elise had dreamt of the day he would return to her door, hug her in a tight embrace, and not leave again until the next gathering. But as the time passed, and Je’al did not return, Elise had began to worry, images of her husband dead on the road haunted her dreams, visions of him burning on one of the temple fires as a demon preyed on her conscious mind.

Elise glanced at her adored daughter, and frowned. Tamia bore the mark of her father’s blood, her ears upswept and delicately pointed, her cheekbones high, and her eyes a startling green, which could turn from bright with laughter to cold as sea-ice in no time at all. How much danger would she be in, in the wider world?

Elise had set up her home in an isolated area, surrounded by forests yet close to a trading village. The village, while not accepting of the strange family, grudgingly sold them the goods they needed. The young people of the village watched Tamia with mixed expressions of awe, terror and disgust on the few trips she had made with her mother. Elise was aware Tamia was lonely, but couldn’t see it in Tamia’s confident movements as she flicked out her kill’s innards with ease. Tamia had learned to hide her feelings with the ease of her father’s race. Elise sighed. Her daughter was so…inhuman, at times. She was still studying her when Tamia looked up from her work, catching her parent’s expression.

“Mum..?” Tamia questioned, a look of puzzled concern flashing across her delicate features. Elise smiled and hugged her daughter, blood-stained front and all. “Never you mind, love. Everything’s fine.” Elise felt Tamia put her arms around her, and secretly wondered if it would always be fine for her daughter.