Cain was long gone by the time Margret went out to look for him again. She’d been so focused on the werewolf issue that it had fled her mind that the incubus might be a far greater danger to the people of Harwall. But no matter which direction she looked, the demonic redhead was nowhere to be seen. Troubled but aware that there was little to do about it for now, Margret went back inside and got to work on other things. She’d handle the demon later.

Said demon was strolling through the busy marketplace. The caravan had disolved into tents and stalls all packed with wares of varying importance. One had its merchant hawking rope of twine and rougher cloth, perfect for cheap but sturdy clothing, or as crafting materials for tools like sieves. Another stall sold jam, a far less vital product of one’s daily survival but just as popular as the cloth stall for different reasons.

Cain marveled at the many kinds of items. The whispers were a quite hum that blended in with the chatter of the crowd. Pieces of information about human life were all around him. He was alone again too, so none could hold him back from exploring in peace. Rowan had gone back to his house to finish up the toy boat and some other project involving a skull and a candle. Art didn’t interest Cain so much. At least not yet. He had other things to catch up with before he went down that road.

Like why the humans used silver and iron to trade. The clink and clatter of the silvery coins had been a quiet discomfort at first, but the longer Cain stayed the more aware of it he became. He started paying more attention to how the coins changed hands. Little discs of metal that would burn him. None were as bad as the ones the priest had worn, but the sound they made still bothered the demon greatly. He also spotted a few brown ish coins and rarer yet, some golden ones. Those seemed to be of higher value, for what they bought came in either greater quantity or higher quality. Meanwhile the copper coins went for far less. Children traded them for wrapped sweets and candied fruit. The exact worth of each coin eluded Cain, but he assumed there was some kind of system in place. The voices were less than helpful in telling him numbers. Either the value had changed greatly from time to time, or the voices just couldn’t count that well. Either way Cain was not here to trade.

Traders and customers alike gravitated towards a certain building once their business at the stalls was finished. An inn from the looks of things, relatively whole after the guardian fight. The workers busily rebuilding a fallen wall and brushing fresh paint over filled holes might have been the reason behind that. Cain slunk inside with the milling crowd and soon found himself within a vast room. Vast yet terribly crowded.

The inn had two floors visible from the main room. A railing separated the walkway of the second floor from them open air above the bottom floor. A simple chandelier of wood and polished antlers lit up the place with a warm light. Tables of varying sizes occupied the bottom floor, some half enclosed by walls to create more private settings to the sides. A counter of oak ran from one wall to the other on one side of the room, with shelves upon shelves of bottles and barrels hugging the wall. There were a few openings in the counter of course, which staff used busily as they transported food and brew in exchange for coin and talk.

The arrival of the caravan had set the already busy town alight with activity and the inn reflected that in kind. Cain siddled over to a empty table near a wall while people milled about. None complained. The staff was too busy with their current tasks to see to him just yet, but Cain was perfectly content with just watching for now.

Tuning in on any one conversation at a time proved harder than he’d expected. The shoo and stim was a constant droning that tugged his attention back and forth like starved dogs with a piece of dried meat. Cain frowned as he pondered how to make things easier. He sent the faintest bit of his pheromones into the air and was pleased to see how parts of the crowd unconsciously drew closer. A smug little smirk crept across his face as he let some more of the herbal scent mix with the smells of the inn.

He was surprised to see one guy break off from the crowd. A man with a hood and a mask of dark cloth pulled up over his nose sat down at Cain’s table. The demon blinked, convinced that his pheromones hadn’t gone that strongly. He feared he’d attracted yet another werewolf for a moment, but the smiling face that appeared when the stranger pulled his mask down quickly brushed that thought aside. He was far too composed to be one of Rowan’s kind.

The stranger had more scars than Cain could count beneath that mask of his. Cain wondered if that was the reason he wore it in the first place. Wisps of light brown hair hung around his face where the hood couldn’t cover it all. Light blue eyes with an eerie intensity matched the smile on the stranger’s lips.

“Hello there, hope you don’t mind some company. You with the caravan?”

A bit surprised to find himself in a conversation, it took Cain a moment to respond. He noticed the stranger’s smile fading a tad. He tugged a bit at the hood. “Definetly haven’t met you before then. Hello, name’s Trevor. Local elfchild.”

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Trevor stuck out a hand while smiling politely. Cain blinked, then remembered that he was supposed to shake it. He felt like he’d offended the man somehow.

“Ah, sorry. I’m Cain. Local… You’re a what actually?”

This time it was Trevor’s time to blink in surprise.

“Elfchild?”

“What’s that?”

Trevor was staring now.

“You never seen one?” Cain shook his head. The voices were quietly whispering things back and forth, seemingly not too sure of what an elfchild was either.

“Never heard of them.” Trevor’s frown grew even more confused.

“How have you never heard of elfchildren?”

Cain realized that he might have made a mistake. Were elfchildren something common? Why didn’t the voices know? They knew something but… No, they couldn’t settle on one explanation. Useless. Cain noticed Trevor’s stare and felt that he couldn’t wait that long with answering. He hastily tried to come up with a good excuse.

“Erh.. Secluded life? Or maybe just bad luck. Actually, I might have heard the name just… never much detail. Guess I never paid enough attention.” He shrugged, which only made his answer feel more forced. Trevor kept staring. Cain tried not to squirm beneath it.

“But uh, tell me about it?” Cain let some more of his pheromones seep into the air to distract the man. A few other patrons absently turned their heads. Cain resisted the urge to swear.

“Right eh.. So you know of elves right?”

Flashes of pale, off-looking humans surrounded by gloom and earthen walls. Cain nodded. At least the voices knew of the elves. Trevor nodded.

“Good so, right. It’s been some time since I explained this. So the elves do war with nearly all of Katrina’s flock. Nasty bloodthirsty bastards. They’ve been losing for the past… is it hundred years now? I forget the exact number. Doesn’t matter tho. Elves pick fights, humans fight back.”

Cain nodded, listening intently. This was new information. Hearing it from one voice speaking coherently was also much easier to keep up with than the mess of whispers that usually explained things he needed to know.

“We’ve been pushing them back underground for a good long time now, which is probably killing the bastards. There’s something on the surface that they need to survive. They have a hard time sneaking around though, since you know, they don’t look human enough to hide. So they started taking children.”

Trevor paused with a serious look on his face. Cain mimicked it. Pleased by their shared seriousness over the subject, Trevor continued.

“Human children mostly. Orc ones are just too different. So they cut them up real bad all over, then they do the same thing to their own kids too. At the end of it they both look nearly the same and you can’t tell elf and human apart. Faces are too scarred and there’s too many bits missing from the places that set them apart to really tell.”

Trevor pushed his hood back enough to point at a scarred ear. The tip of it was missing, cut off years ago.

“Then they release both elf and human children back up onto the surface and they all spread out to do… whatever it is the elf ones are sent up to do. No one can hunt the elf ones down without also harming the human ones, and killing off our own next generation would cripple us far more than just leaving the elf kids be would.”

Trevor nodded grimly. Cain shared in the somber silence until his curiosity could no longer be kept quiet.

“So you could be an elf?” Trevor blinked then chuckled.

“I guess I could. You’ll have to take my word for it that I ain’t.” Trevor smiled, apparently not too bothered by the question. He was probably used to it by now.

“Do you remember it?” Cain asked.

“Remember what?”

“The elves.” Trevor’s smile faded but the genuine curiosity in Cain’s eyes made him relax.

“Not really. It was a good few years back now and it all happened at night. Being cut up all over isn’t really something you want to remember either. I still know some of the other elfkids but that’s about it. Life’s hard enough just being suspected of being an elf at a glance.” Trevor sighed.

“Does it happen often?”

“What does?”

“Being suspected of being an elf.” Trevor frowned in thought, then said.

“Not too much up here honestly. People have more pressing things to worry about. Course, all my neighbours lock their doors and windows more tightly than the rest of the place but what can you do?” Trevor chuckled merrily, as if the whole thing didn’t bother him at all. Cain wasn’t sure if he should snicker some too. It did sound… Bad? Unpleasant at least. Humans were strange.

Trevor eventually calmed down again. He was about to ask something when a large hand clasped his shoulder. The hooded man looked up, only to find a bald man staring right back down at him.

“We’re not done with the market yet.” The large stranger said. Trevor smiled apologetically.

“Just a break eh? Come meet my new friend. This is Cain. Cain, Shaun. He’s my partner in crime when it comes to hunting and- oi!”

Shaun offered Cain a half hearted wave while he dragged Trevor out of his chair.

“Nice meeting ya but Imma need the elf.”

“I just finished explaining to him that I’m not an elf.” Trevor argued as Shaun secured a grip on the back of his neck and turned to drag him off towards the exit. Cain heard them bicker and nag all the way there until the noise of their surroundings swallowed the rest of the sound up.

Bemused, Cain decided to attempt an age old tradition of his kin. An art perfected throughout the ages through trial and error and lots, lots, and lots of embarrassing or right out alarming discoveries:

Picking up guys at a bar. Cain would later find himself banned from this bar. At least for a week.