Arthal finally lay his head to the pillow and rested, his room silent. He felt as if he was back home, relaxing in his tree house. Strumming on his harp as he watched the priestesses care for the world tree, his life had been simple yet now he was expected to be strong, yes he had been taught and even traveled to other worlds before. His teacher had fought in that first great battle that buried the temple. Yet now he was without guidance and he was leading them, what he knew came from his heart and his head. He just had to hope it would be enough to protect his home, the war could not reach Elf Burrow, he wouldn't let it.

He finally drifted off to sleep when he could have sworn he heard the sound of rain. He was dreaming, bowed before his master the rain hammered outside against the dojo. He master summoned his blade and Arthal summoned his, his master spoke in a quiet voice but one that commanded respect. "I will try to his the target dummies behind you, your goal is simply, stop me." With that the old Elf charged.

Arthal and his blade met Arthal shoved him back the to the other side of the room. "Come on old man! I thought you Thon Sho, not Thon Slow!" Laughed the young apprentice, as he was suddenly froze in place Thon walked over smacking each dummies head into him. 

"You failed boy, now clean the dojo and start again." They practice that fight for five years before Arthal won his first match. Not by defeating his master but stalling him while he moved the dummies outside of the dojo where his master couldn't get to them. He felt so proud in that, he treated himself to trip to the World Tree, the source of the forests and food for all Elves. Their he gathered fruit and and bathed in pools, even attending a cutting ceremony for newly weds. He missed it, he the days when he was in hundreds, barely more then a child with Thon teaching him and training him. 

The dream fell away and the World Tree moved farther and farther away, the safety of its branches the warmth on the sun glittered through its leaves leaving him. He stood up two keyblades in his and hands and turned around slowly, he was back to somewhere he didn't remember, Thon remembered it though. Fire burned around him, a village under attack? By who, he froze when he locked into house and saw something terrifying, Orcs. Orcs had raided and attacked Elves years ago, at the time of Arthal's birth they had been wiped out however. He saw the Knights of the World Tree, the order Thon had founded to train warriors who could fight anywhere any time with magic and blade.

As things happened around him he could only watch, the knights fighting and cutting down Orc raiders. Yet after the Orcs ran they chased, it he saw Thon upon a hill looking out in horror as the Orcs homeland blazed and burned Knight of the World Tree cutting them down. He saw happening again and again, the Orcs attacked and the Knights responded with something even more brutal. 

Then it happened, Thon helped the Orcs. He thought to save their race from genocide at the hands of the knights he had formed. Yet when the last battle between Orcs and Elves ended, every Knight lay dead as well as every Orc. Thon returned home, in the years to come he would take one apprentice, Arthal. Naming him the last Knight of World Tree, Arthal thought he would be a hero, now he knew a truth. The people he had so long revered were monsters as much as the Orcs were, he would not be them. He would not commit genocide even if it was for the greater good.