Estas (エスタス, Esutasu) is a high elf from the Forest of No Return. He has a soft spot for Deedlit and leaves the forest in hopes of finding her in the human world. Upon finding Deedlit he learns she has adjusted herself to living among the humans and has fallen in love with Parn. Estas himself thinks rather lowly of humans, resulting in a bit of tension between the two.
Estas appears in two volumes of the manga series Deedlit’s Tale and in the novel of the same name.
Appearance[]
Estas has a common high elf appearance; an attractive man with long blond hair and long pointy ears. His eyes have a bluish colour. He has a tall, slender build.
Estas wears a long green cape and green hat. His clothing style, and green colour of clothing, is similar to that of Deedlit. He often wears an archer hat.
History[]
When the high elves say Deedlit was the only child born in a thousand years, Estas was that child born a thousand years earlier. While they were the youngest of their tribe, by time Deedlit was born, Estas was a mature, grown man. He has watched Deedlit grow up and has always been her friend, mentor, and constant companion. Because they are the closest in age, it was the hopes of their families that one day, they would wed. As Deedlit grew into a woman, he accepted the hopes of his family and slowly began to long process of falling in love. Elven love can take centuries to grow, so he never pushed for it. In time, he assumed, he and Deedlit would come together.
Estas ventured out into the human world when he was young, long before Deedlit’s birth, as many elves do to sate their curiosity. When he left home, he found the world under the control of the Kingdom of Kastuul. He saw the bloody conflicts of humans and all the worst parts of their nature. He was disgusted by them, and returned home to report his findings. The news he brought home only reminded the high elves of ignorance and selfishness of humans.
When Deedlit was one hundred and fifty-five, the two shared an experience that would change the course of Deedlit’s life. They caught a glimpse of a human trapped in the forest, and Estas quickly volunteered to exterminate the man to protect the forest. Meanwhile, Deedlit had gone exploring, and on the border of the Forest of No Return, she met a young hunter named Jord whose father had been lost to the forest fifteen years before. After meeting Jord, she learned that Estas had gone to kill the human they saw, who, incidentally, was Jord’s father. Deedlit followed Estas to the Realm of Sorcery where these humans wandered, and stopped him. She convinced Estas to spare his life, and they released him from the forest. Estas was shocked by her new found empathy with humans, and realized she needed to see the same things he had.
Shortly after their experience with Jord and his father, the forest elder felt something ominous in the future. She asked for a volunteer to leave the forest and investigate. Deedlit was quick to volunteer, though everyone expected Estas to take the mission. Estas however, supported Deedlit’s request, believing that it was in her best interest if she saw the reality of the human world.
Instead, Deedlit went out into the world and fell in love with the knight Parn.
Estas was sent to retrieve Deedlit from Zaxon in between the War of Heroes and Battle at Fire Dragon Mountain. He hoped to bring her back to the Forest of No Return where they could grow closer and maybe one day, marry. But Deedlit had her own plans. While in Zaxon, the village was dealing with Duke Raster’s army waiting to invade them. After much deliberation, the village finally rallied behind Parn to meet the army in the village of Hanam, which had already been razed. Parn proved himself to be the better suitor, and Estas realized he had lost the battle to take Deedlit home, and returned to the Forest of No Return.
Several years earlier, the spell on the Forest of No Return had been lifted, allowing the trapped humans to leave. Many had been trapped for hundreds, even thousands of years. One victim was the Kastuulian sorcerer Strall, who unleashed his hatred on the high elves. He summoned an evil fog that smothered the forest and sent Dragon’s Tooth Warriors into the forest. While Estas was battling these skeleton warriors, he met Parn and Deedlit again. Deedlit shocked him by summoning Salamander against the sorcerer, but together, they incapacitated the sorcerer and brought him to Talnora to be questioned.
The fog drained the lifeforce of plants and insects, slowly gaining power so that it would be able to absorb greater lifeforces. The high elves feared summoning the most powerful spirits to fight it, and according to Strall, the only way to destroy was with the most despised element, fire. They tried devise a way to destroy the fog without damaging their forest, but Deedlit stepped forward and offered to summon Phoenix, the Fire Queen that had been resurrected for the first time in five hundred years.
Her Phoenix summon destroyed the fog, and slightly damaged the forest, but caused no more damage than what would regrow. Deedlit revealed that she had seen the rebirth of Phoenix, and Estas was shocked to learn that a human had sacrificed herself in Ifrit’s embers to be reborn as the Phoenix. Then, the elves wanted to execute Strall for causing so much damage for their forest. Parn spoke on behalf of the sorcerer, and explained why he wanted revenge. The elves called revenge a human emotion, but Estas realized something. Their desire to execute him was out of revenge.
After this, Parn and Deedlit prepared to leave, and Estas realized he had a new respect for Parn, and even understood why Deedlit loved him. They parted ways again, and a few months later, the high elves decided to close the forest again. This wouldn’t be the last meeting between Estas, Deedlit and Parn.
A couple years later, after Deedlit and Parn had participated in slaying Shooting Star, they helped create the Free Army in Kanon. While leading refugees to safety, they felt their only option was to pass through the Forest of No Return. Deedlit knew it was dangerous, but she was determined to get Ento to drop the curse, just long enough for them to pass through. Leaving Parn and the humans behind, Deedlit entered Talnora. However, she wasn’t alone. One of the refugees was a half-elf girl named Leaf. Estas was the first to greet her, but he treated half-blood Leaf even worse than he had treated humans.
He was upset that Deedlit only came to convince them to lift the curse again, and this time, he was against her from the start. He insisted that she stay in the forest to regain some of her spiritual nature, but she only agreed to stay the night. Soon after her arrival, she attempted to make a new pact with Ento, and failed. After a long argument with the elder, Deedlit finally convinced them to drop the spell long enough to let the refugees through and she walked out of Estas’s life again.