“You’re Naomi?” asked Elise.

“That’s me,” she replied. “And you’re Elise. I heard him introducing you earlier.”

Elise was a bit taken aback by the complete irreverence of her speech and posture. Before her, all the other Drow had at least given her a polite greeting and a small bow, but Naomi hadn’t even bothered to look her in the eye yet. She was glancing all around with her one good eye, as if watching for an ambush. Elise found herself a little annoyed, but pushed the feeling aside. She was letting the Drow’s worship get to her head.

“I met some of the scouts,” said Elise. “In Dokkalfheimr.”

Naomi’s eye snapped to Elise.

“Marie and Claudia?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“How did they die?”

“King Hallbjorn tried to let them go,” Elise explained. “I was going to go with them. He wanted to negotiate for peace so the dwarves could dig to the surface. But we got ambushed on the way out.”

“I see,” said Naomi. “Did they die fighting?”

“Yes,” said Elise.

Marie hadn’t gotten much of a chance to do that, but Elise knew she would have if she could, and though she was willfully ignorant of the details, she was certain Claudia wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.

“Good,” said Naomi, nodding. “Better to die that way than from the poison. We tried to make it as painless as possible, but… Death is never painless, and it’s more honorable to die fighting than the other way.”

“Yeah…” said Elise, not sure how else to respond.

“So, the dwarves want peace, huh?” asked Naomi. “My girls were telling me that they were hearing rumors about some Fey living in the castle. I sent them in to check it out. Was that you?”

“Yes,” said Elise. “I was there for a month. I know Hallbjorn well enough to know he’s serious about peace. He wants to take the dwarves to the surface. If he could leave the cave and never return, he would.”

Elise tried to keep the pleading out of her voice, but failed miserably.

“Well, you don’t gotta convince me. The other drow? Maybe. But I’ve spent enough time around the dwarves to know how much they wanna get outta here. If you say they want peace so they can leave, I’m all for it. I’m sick of sending my girls out and never getting them back.”

“Really?” asked Elise.

“No, I actually hate them all and like hearing about how they die- Of course I’m serious!”

“No, I meant-!”

“Yeah, I know, I’m just messin’ with ya,” she said with a smirk. “So, you want peace. I guess the reason you’re talkin’ to me right now is because Emilia said ‘no’?”

“Yes,” said Elise.

“She’s a real piece of work, that one. Always pretending to be so nice and brainwashing everyone behind our backs.”

“Brainwashing?!” exclaimed Elise.

“Shhh, keep it down,” she hissed. “No one else knows. But I do. That’s why I live out here. Everyone says I’m crazy, but I know better than to live near the mother tree. She uses the Mother Tree to amplify her mana waves and sneak into our dreams and make us hate the dwarves.”

“She does?”

“Oh yeah,” said Naomi, nodding. “And the mushrooms we eat are part of it too. At night, when we’re all asleep, she goes out and sprinkles it with her wing dust. It makes our brains more malleable. More susceptible to suggestion. That’s why no one ever doubts her. That’s why I only eat meat from animals I kill myself. But I’ve been having nightmares lately, so I think she might have done something to them too. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had her dust on every living thing in here, getting into our bodies and ruining our minds.

“That’s why I never got these healed,” she continued, flexing her wooden limbs. “She said she could do it, but I don’t trust her. She said she could regrow them, and they’d be just like new, but would they really? New limbs created with fairy dust? I don’t think so. If I had accepted it, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I woke up one night to find my own arm strangling me.”

Elise had been interested in Naomi’s suspicions at first, but the longer the woman talked, the more she thought that Jean might have been right about her. She was weird. And a little crazy. No, more than just a little crazy. There was a glint in her one remaining eye, and something about the cadence of her speech reminded Elise of some internet personas she had seen online back on Earth, talking about how the government was testing chemical weapons on the entire country to make them more submissive.

Still, even so, Naomi’s words planted a seed of doubt in Elise. She hadn’t noticed anything odd about Emilia earlier, but maybe that’s what she wanted. Jean had said that Emilia was there even before the dwarves arrived. That meant she should know that the dwarves and drow weren’t always enemies, and she would know in more detail what had actually happened. That was, of course, assuming that Greta’s version of history was correct, and not something the dwarven historians of the past had concocted to make themselves seem less bad.

Now I sound like a conspiracy theorist, she thought.

“Have you seen her doing these things?” asked Elise, as inoffensively as possible.

“Not yet,” said Naomi. “Not yet, but I will. Mark my words, I will, and when I do, I’m going to expose her. I’ve been camping outside one of the farms every night waiting for her for the past month. I thought my stealth skills were pretty good, but she must have noticed, because she hasn’t shown up yet. Still, every night she doesn’t show is a night when that farm’s mushrooms are edible. I haven’t convinced my girls to fully stop eating the main produce, but I at least have gotten them to only eat what they get from there, instead of the stuff from the other farms.”

“I see,” said Elise. “And has that helped?”

“I think they’re coming around,” said Naomi. “They stopped protesting recently. I think I’m getting through to them.”

Elise suppressed a chuckle. “Maybe. Anyway, back to the topic at hand, how can we stop the conflict?”

“Right! Well, I can’t do shit right now. I’m basically one wrong move away from being replaced. If I start acting on my own, I definitely will be, and the next scout leader might not be as smart as me. So we gotta be smart about this. We need to convince Queen Salome to allow it.”

“How would we do that with Emilia there?”

“Emilia leaves the Mother tree once a month and is gone for three days. I have no idea where she goes– no one does– but she’s not here. If we talk to the queen during that time, I’m sure we can convince her. And in the meantime, we can start acting on our own. I can cancel all the ongoing missions while we negotiate. By the time that witch gets back, she’ll have no choice but to go along with it.”

“When does she leave?”

“Tomorrow morning. There will be a big ceremony thing where all the Drow bid her farewell and have a small feast. I used to enjoy it, before I realized the truth.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“And after that, we can talk to the queen?”

“Exactly,” said Naomi with a grin. “But we’ll have to-”

She tensed suddenly, and her gaze snapped upward, past Elise and into the wall behind her. Elise strained her ears, but couldn’t hear anything suspicious. She couldn’t sense anything with {Mana Sense} either. Naomi’s senses must have been much better than hers. Elise couldn’t see her level, so she had no idea how powerful she was. After almost a minute, Naomi relaxed and turned back to Elise.

“What was I saying again?” she asked.

“You were talking about when we talk to the queen, but what was-?”

“Oh, right!” said Naomi. “So basically, once a month, Emilia leaves the cave. No one knows where she goes, but she’s not here. We can use that week to convince the queen to pursue peace. We can also start acting on our own. I’ll cancel all the ongoing missions to minimize losses while we negotiate. By the time that witch gets back, she’ll have no choice but to go along with it.”

Naomi looked down at Elise with a prideful grin, but when she met Elise’s eyes, her expression slowly melted into something more grim.

“I repeated myself again, didn’t I?”

“Y-yes,” said Elise.

“Dammit!” she said, turning around and kicking the pile of leaves that seemed to be her bed. “That damn fairy witch! Her stupid dust! It’s in the air! We’re all breathing it in! It messes with our minds!” She turned back to Elise with a crazed look. “You! You’re with her, aren’t you? You’re going to report all this back to her as soon as you leave!”

“I’m not!” said Elise, backing up. “I swear! I just want to keep people from dying!”

“Liar!”

Naomi stepped toward Elise, and extended her wooden arm as roots grew out of it, grasping outward. Elise used {Dart} to get out of the hut, and found the other scouts rushing toward her.

“Shit!” said one of them, whose name Elise recalled was Nicole. “Lady Elise, stay back, we’ll take care of this!”

Naomi stepped out of the tent, the tendrils on her arm flailing about wildly, grabbing whatever they came into contact with. Some were grabbing at her own clothes, and a few were encroaching up her shoulder like giant infected veins.

“Commander Naomi!” shouted Nicole. “Calm down! You’ve lost control again!”

“Out of my way!” Naomi demanded. “I need to kill that thing!”

“No!” replied Nicole. “Take a deep breath. You’re doing exactly what she wants you to do right now.”

Naomi paused, and seemed to be contemplating something. After a few seconds, the wildness in her eye vanished, and the wooden tendrils on her arms stopped moving. She looked around her, an expression of horror growing on her face. When she made eye contact with Elise, she fell to her knees.

“Fuck,” she said. “I did it again. Dammit!”

“Commander Naomi, please try to stay calm.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m calm. I’m calm, dammit!”

“Commander Naomi, please take a deep breath.”

“I said I was calm!”

The vines on her arm started moving again.

“Do you remember what you told me last time this happened?”

Naomi paused again, and after a few seconds, she took a deep breath. Then she took another, and another. Her eye closed and her body relaxed, and her arm returned to its original state. After a full minute, she opened her eye again, and when she did, she seemed to age two decades, from middle-aged to borderline elderly. She looked exhausted and all the pride in her posture was gone.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” she said, looking at Elise. “It’s been happening more and more lately. Ever since I lost my eye, I’ve just been… I dunno how to describe it. But I’m back now. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Come back in, and we’ll finish our conversation.”

Elise took a hesitant step forward. She looked up at Nicole, who nodded.

“She’s fine now,” said Nicole. “This rarely happens, and once she’s done, she’s done. You’ll be safe. If you’d like, I can stick around though. I’m not quite as strong as the commander, but I can hold my own for long enough that you can get away.”

“It’s fine,” said Elise. “I’ll be fine alone.”

“If you're sure,” said Nicole, shrugging. “I’ll be right out here if you need me though.”

“Thank you.”

Back inside the hut, Naomi sat down on her bed and laid down. Her breath was shallow, and her expression was grim, and her wooden limbs were as stiff as– well, wood. Elise couldn't sense any mana around her at all anymore, meaning that her extra limbs were nothing more than mundane prosthetics at the moment. She knew that Naomi could start using her mana again at any second and they would turn functional again, but it put her at least a little at ease.

“So I already told you about Emilia leaving once a month, right?” she asked.

“Right,” confirmed Elise.

“Did I get any further than that?”

“You said she was leaving tomorrow morning and that there would be a ceremony. After that, we can talk to the queen. You started to say something else, but then you stopped.”

“Okay. I think I know what I was about to say. I can’t just go meet with the queen without an appointment. You can, though, so you’ll have to go in on your own and ask the queen to summon me.”

“That sounds easy enough,” said Elise. “Do I just ask her to summon you to the middle of the Mother Tree?”

“No, you’ll need a valid reason. Probably. I guess you could just tell her to do it, but she wouldn’t like it. It’s better to convince her. Tell her that I have reports from my girls that align with what you’ve said. The dwarves have been talking about going to the surface a lot lately. Something about a Rune of Fate. Anyway, just tell her that, and she’ll probably want to hear from me directly.”

“Got it,” said Elise. “Is there anything else I should know?”

“I don’t think so,” said Naomi. “Oh wait. One thing: don’t tell anyone else what we talked about here.”

“Obviously,” said Elise.

Naomi nodded. “Especially not Jean. He’s a chatterbox. He’ll tell everyone who will listen, and we don’t want everyone knowing we’re trying to go behind Emilia’s back to do this.”

“Right. By the way, is Jean also…?”

“Him?” Naomi scoffed. “No way. He’s barely four years old. He might be smarter than the average four year old, but he’s still only four. He’s harmless. He just does whatever Emilia tells him to do, and she doesn’t trust him enough to tell him to do anything important. You can’t trust him with information, but you can trust him not to do anything to you.”

Elise nodded, glad that her suspicions were confirmed. He hated dwarves, but after flying around the caverns with him for half a day, she found it hard to truly hate him. He was just a kid, and one with a traumatic experience involving dwarves. His feelings made sense. And in the case that Emilia really was brainwashing the Drow, she was happy that he wasn’t involved in that.

“I should get some rest,” said Naomi. “I haven’t been sleeping well. I think that’s why I lost it.”

“I’ll let you rest then,” said Elise. “Thank you for your time.”

“Don’t mention it. I’ve been looking to pull one over on Emilia for a while. If I can do that, and keep all my girls safe, I’ll do anything.”

“I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t fail.”

“So will I.”

“Have a good rest.”

“Thank you.”

Elise left the hut to find Nicole waiting for her, leaning against a wooden spear with a tip made of what looked like a Omnivorous Cyclops Cow horn. Her expression was blank, but in the twenty minutes Elise had known her, she had never seen it any other way. Even when Naomi lost control, she still looked calm and collected.

“How much did you hear?” asked Elise.

“I’ve been listening from the start,” said Nicole.

“And you’re fine with the plan?”

“Maria and Claudia were my squadmates,” she said. “I saw them get captured. I had to collapse the escape tunnel, knowing it would trap them in the city. They were sixth and seventh squadmates that I’ve had die on me. They were my friends.” She frowned almost imperceptibly. “I don’t want to lose any more friends. I hate dwarves as much as the next drow, but I’ve been around them enough to know that you’re telling the truth. For the past month, ever since you showed up, going to the surface is practically all they ever talk about.”

“So you’ll help us?”

“If it saves the lives of more scouts? Absolutely. Just say the word, and I’ll come running.”

“Thank you,” said Elise.

“No problem. Need an escort back?”

“No, I know the way.”

“Well, it was nice meeting you,” said Nicole. “I guess I’ll be seeing you around from now on.”

“I guess so,” said Elise. “It was nice meeting you too. I’ll see you tomorrow maybe.”

“Maybe,” agreed Nicole.

Elise flew back to the Mother Tree. The light from the fruits above was starting to wane, darkening the cavern, and when she returned, many of the Drow had climbed into the alcoves in the tree. Most were still awake and talking to each other, but some were in bed and already asleep.

Jean flew up to greet Elise when she returned. He apologized and said that he wanted to show her around more, but Emilia had said it was too late, and any more would have to wait for the next day. Elise didn’t mind at all. It had been a long and stressful day, and she wanted to reach the next day as soon as possible.

She flew up high on the tree, past the last alcove containing any Drow until she found one she liked the look of. She couldn’t tell if it was the same one she had hid in earlier that day, but it was close enough, and she held no great attachment for that one.

She fell asleep almost as soon as she closed her eyes.