Me and the team of elves "kindly" dispatched by the council to assist me in playing house - because I wasn't fooling myself. They saw this as a way to keep me entertained. Anyway, we worked for a month to raise a working village. Sid Meier and Will Wright made it seem too easy for a generation. Even with a population of two dozens, accomodating individual needs is hard.

After the initial shock, the two species integrated very well. The women were very interested in getting a piece of lean elf meat after the trauma of the orcs faded away from their memories. Some even came to ask me if that was not forbidden and I had to call in the elves and lay down the law. They had Royal approval to F.U.C.K. (even though the acronym is wrong) anyone they wanted so long it was consensual. And trust me, they did.

That was another stigma I would fight against. Half-orcs were not a thing, but half-elves were. And the stigma was there, like the elves, in general, looked at the halfbreeds with contempt because they lived for only a few centuries. A normal elf's lifespan was five thousand years and they had a handful of means to extend that. Sariandi, for example, would die only of violent causes. That was one of the reasons I didn't blow up with her and become such "violent causes" myself. I didn't want to kill her and she would be around. In a way, she would live knowing I was around.

Probably it went the other way around. She knew I would come back and probably take revenge on her should she mess up with me too much. It was a balance we unconsciously agreed to. Sariandi was my best frenemy.

Yznera too. I have no doubt the Goddess told her children that unless I wished for the curse that made my maiden body barren lifted, there was nothing they could do. There would be no elf babies coming out of this belly. The Mother also knew I had a few ways to kill myself should I be pressed into "service". No doubt she also shared that with her children.

Velora didn't know who I truly was - or should I say who I once was - and I kept her in the dark for this whole month while I probed her for her "official" story. The wyvern, dragon-kin monsters with scorpion tails, stung her hand and she cut it off at the wrist to stop most of the venom from spreading.

"Why can't magic be used to regrow your hand?" I asked her one day when I managed to get the two of us alone. I was with her in my sitting room, having afternoon tea because princesses and cliches go hand in hand. I was expecting to be kidnapped any time now. Unless the cultists that killed me already filled that slot.

"Some of the venom stays in my flesh. I need to use healing magic or potions sometimes to keep it from spreading," her face was a bit flustered as she explained it to me.

"And is it painful?"

She made a wry smile, "I got a pain resistance Skill for my woes, Your Highness."

"Can I look at it?" I pointed at the stump, wrapped in bandages.

She shook her head.

"I'd rather not, Your Highness. Unless it is an order."

"Well, make it an official {Royal Order} then, ranger Velora. Lie down on that chaise lounge and give me unrestricted access to your arm."

She gulped and opened her mouth soundlessly. "I..."

"Will comply with my whims now. Your princess commands. Not a sound. Go."

She trembled but gave up. Lying on her back on the furniture I picked up as a banshee in that prison room, Velora put her arm on the wooden stool I brought out of my storage.

"Drink this," I offered her. "It will make you sleep. I don't want you to be in pain while I take a look at your arm. I might be able to help you."

"Yes, thank you, Your Highness."

She took the sleep potion I'd concocted and quaffed it. Velora soon fell asleep and I removed her bandages.

Purple veins and the stench of rotten flesh assaulted my nose. I conjured a scalpel with my soul-stuff and started to work. I cut her flesh and pumped my Skills to keep her from bleeding and the poison from spreading. For two hours I carefully excised all the damaged tissue and felt around for more poison. This part would be easier if I had just cut off the arm at the elbow or shoulder, but it would take more time to regenerate the whole hand. Making the minimal incisions possible and using {Heal Internal Damage} to immediately restore the flesh would save time in the long run.

I was shoving the cut bits of flesh in my storage. Maybe I should extract the venom to study it later. The potion I gave her was very strong. Velora would be out for almost a whole day if her Endurance was high enough. I would give her the antidote to wake her when I was finished.

Once I couldn't feel any more traces of the venom in her forearm, I moved upward, making small cuts to remove the droplets that ran up her veins in the arm and armpits. There was a lot in her armpit lymph node and that was probably the most painful one. There were still some bits of the sticky venom in her body but those were too few. Maybe I could find an agent to...

I never tried to do it with my pseudopods, did I?

I made cuts on her veins and inserted my pseudopods in her blood vessels. From there I guided them to find the bits of venom inside her body and used {Phagocitosis} on them. I felt Velora's white cells attacking me and ate them too. I didn't want her to make antibodies against me. I withdrew the pseudopods once I found no more signs of contamination. It was a weird feeling, sensing her from inside.

Then I focused on the new Skill I've trained with the women. {Tissue Regeneration} and {Soul Template Restoration} allowed me to grow new tissue and also to guide this tissue to take the shape it should have from her soul. It wouldn't help with wounds that were so deep or so ingrained that the soul changed but it wasn't the case for Velora.

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I kept pouring my SP on her body for a few hours. Night fell and I felt the effect of the moons empowering me. This made it a little easier to work on her. Faster but not so much. More like an increased efficiency as I was limited by my SP restoration rate in this long-term task.

The night went and I felt a bit sleepy. Regrowing all the little bones that made a person's hands was complex and demanding. I heard the birds singing outside, announcing a new morning by the time I was finished.

I wrapped Velora in a blanket, cleaned the mess I made, and went to sleep.

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I woke up with Velora screaming. I had barred my door from inside and the knights were banging on it to gain entry. What a mess. I shifted to my hybrid with black fur form and rushed to the room where Velora was at. She stared at me like she'd seen a ghost.

"Everything is fine, stand down!" I shouted at the door.

"Your Highness. We heard screams," a knight stated the obvious. They kept forcing the door.

"Everything is under control. {Royal Order}! Stand down. Bang that door again and I'll feed you orc guts."

"As you command, Your Highness," he answered.

I turned to face my patient. "Hi, Velora. How are you feeling?"

"Lily? Princess? My arm? My hand? My hand!" She went from confused to hysterical.

"Yes, yes, yes. Yes to all your questions. I healed your hand. How's it feeling? Don't force it."

I approached her and rubbed my cheeks on hers. "Lily? You're back?"

"I just told you, silly," I cooed as I pulled her into a hug. "And it seems I'm your princess this time."

"How?" She asked in utter confusion.

"Lie down," I pushed her back on the chaise lounge. "I'll explain everything to you."

And so I did. We spent an hour talking and giving her time to process the news. Finally, Velora got her bearings back. I also healed her hand a bit more.

"I hated the council for sending a child to war," she confessed. "It took me a long time to make peace with the fact you were gone."

"I always told you I'd be back," I smiled.

"What is the council thinking? They can't treat our Princess like this! Not after all you've done for us. We would've won that war, but thousands of elves would've died. Thanks to your, Lily's sacrifice, we lost a mere few dozen."

"I don't know, Velora. Tell me, what does the Royal family have to do with the Forest's welfare?"

She widened her eyes then shut her mouth. After a minute of silence, she spoke, "They didn't tell you that either."

"No. They didn't."

Velora was clearly troubled. I shook my head and she paused to think then said, "Then it is not my place to do so. I'm sorry, Li... how should I call you?"

"Alloralla. Lily. Old Soul. Whichever you feel is appropriate. Just don't be formal with me when we are alone."

"That I can do. Alloralla it is then."

We talked for a while and Velora told me the latest gossip around Fulgen when she spotted my latest project. "What is that? A doll? A training dummy?"

It was an androgynous figure, roughly humanoid made of my silk. I would need a few more weeks to finish it, and then I'd set the orc chieftain's soul to inhabit it. I still hadn't told anyone that and wouldn't start with Velora. She already had too much to think about.

But what she said was true. I was the heir to the throne. Why weren't they teaching me the rich lore and customs of the Fulgen elves? True, it's been just a few months and these people counted time in centuries. I still felt hurt. Trapped.

"Maybe we should go grab something to eat," She suggested.

"Yes, let's."

We left the room and the knights didn't spare a glance at us. I wasn't hungry and wouldn't feel the need for sustenance for a few months. I drained the life of the orc chieftain. That was worrisome. My {Magic Eater} perk would be at its lowest until I got rid of the stolen energy. I could eat and had to otherwise people would start to worry.

Halfway through breakfast, Nenandil got agitated.

She grinned metaphysically from inside my soul.

Maybe my ass. I didn't get a grandmaster's Skill in furtivity for nothing. I knew I could slip and get out in the world anytime, but I couldn't leave my friends behind.

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I tried but they stonewalled me at every corner. All the elves they sent here were in the council's pockets. But I had one last card to play.

"I am bound by an old covenant with the elder lake fairy that inhabits the underground. The time has come for me to renew that covenant. I am pretty sure our druids know who keeps the aquifer underneath Fulgen pure."

That made the magicians sent by the council take a step back. They didn't have a ready answer for that, so I pressed further. "But if you want to jeopardize it, fine. It's on your head."

"Do you have proof of that covenant?" One of them tried.

Nenandil commented. I was sure that if she knew what that was she'd be making popcorn crunching sounds right now inside my soul.

She imagined herself making the finger guns at me.

"Want proof? Fine. Nenandil!"

The water fairy burst from my chest with a shower of cold droplets and mist.

I giggled mentally.

"Bite me," She blew a raspberry at the council guard dogs. "Who dares deny me my due?" She said with ominous tones.

Elves have a deep respect for the natural world and believe that fairies are its messengers and stewards. An elf would never willingly harm a fairy and most probably would put themselves in harm's way to protect them. Even that misguided magister Sundamar was acting on that feeling when he kidnapped the fairies. He wanted to keep them safe but the world had other plans.

"We didn't know. The council didn't tell us anything."

"Me and my bonded companion," Nenandil said. "Are going to the underground visit my mother. Right now. If you want to tell the council, fine. We're gone."

She sat on my shoulder and I walked out of the meeting room. "{Royal Order}," I said by the door. "Send word to the council. Keep the development and farming projects going. I'll be back when I can."

Following Nenandil's directions, I found the underground access a league outside the border forest, where the environment shifted into lightly forested rolling hills. We were on the high ground and I could see that the terrain below had lots of places for monsters to make lairs.

The hike down the tunnels was immemorable. There were a few monster lairs but these proved no threat to us. I passed through some goblin checkpoints but they were abandoned. Most traps were even disarmed by previous passersby or just jammed shut by rust or grime.

"Mother's seat of power is just ahead," Nenandil said, excited.

"What happened to the goblins?" I mused.

"Don't care. Hurry up!"

We walked down the tunnel and I heard the sound of water sloshing echoing in a large chamber. A bend in the tunnel and we saw a marvelous sight. The cavern where the lake and goblin village existed centuries ago had flooded. Some crystals in the stalactites were imbued with magic somehow, and they shone a quiet blue light. I could see the entire lake now. And some forms swimming in the water.

Nenandil wasted no time. She sent forth a pulse of magic and I knew the message.

"Mother, I'm home!"

That's when a hundred goblin heads popped out of the water. The goblin village hadn't disappeared. The goblins had evolved to become aquatic.