We had made it back to North Watch before noon and my interlude with the queens was brief, but getting everything sorted out took most of the rest of the day. In a way, the large influx of wolf refugees came as a relief because we were prepared for that, had no particular history with them and Minifrit’s careful framing of the matter had my people pleased to be in the position of extending charity from a position of strength. And the wolves made a nice, comfy buffer between the North Watch contingent and the few catfolk who’d been handpicked and carefully placed here to begin getting these groups accustomed to each other. Sneppit had quietly reported to me that there had been no incidents yet, but the air was crackling with tension.

I also found that in my absence, Sneppit had commandeered the Kzidnak structure closest to Maugro’s old offices and then commandeered Zeckl’s team to rapidly refit it into a kitchen, then moved Gannit and her staff down there. Consequently, though it took a bit longer to get food to the mess hall, dinner preparations were not stymied as they would have been by the practical realities of moving almost two hundred people and all their worldly belongings single-file through North Watch’s already overworked kitchen. Far from being miffed at Sneppit for going over my head, I felt relieved and validated in my choice of chief administrator.

Better than the other strong-willed woman in my life who had a habit of going over my head…

Of course, it was too much to hope that this would go entirely smoothly, but when a fight actually broke out I was surprised at the cause.

Rath Kadora and I were just returning to the mess hall; he had insisted on accompanying me down to inspect his people’s future quarters before letting them go there, and I had found this too reasonable to chide him for getting insistent with me. Said quarters were separate, as discussed, but Sneppit had managed to find places entirely within the central cavern of Fallencourt so the wolf tribe would be able to visit each other easily. Then he’d wanted to personally oversee everyone getting settled, while I moved back and forth, checking in with various groups and making myself more visible than useful. The nice thing about Sneppit’s effect on administration was that I was more of a figurehead now, but that was still an important job. Also, Junko was of course accompanying me and everybody liked her. Especially the wolf tribe, somewhat to my surprise. I had just met up with their chieftain returning from below when we heard yelling from the direction of the foyer.

Fortunately I pulled ahead as we stepped into the narrow passageway from the kitchen to the mess hall, so I was the first to emerge and see what was going on. Had Rath Kadora stepped out and seen his daughter under attack I don’t think his immediate reaction would have been productive.

“Don’t like it? Then do something about it. Go on, bitch, fucking try me!”

To my amazement, that was Sato. Ears flat back, teeth bared, pushing right into Drun Kadora’s personal space despite the fact that she loomed over him head and shoulders and was still carrying a spear. He really didn’t have the proper voice for impressive yelling; it kept cracking with emotion.

Drun Kadora’s restraint was frankly impressive. She eased back from him, slowly enough to avoid looking like she was retreating, her own ears lowered though her face was impressively calm.

“You’re pretty brave all of a sudden, now you’ve got a Dark Lord looking out for you,” she said.

“And what of it? What’re you gonna do about it, huh?”

He took another step forward, raising both hands in a position to shove her.

“Hey!” Aster barked, striding forward out of the crowd. “No fighting! Yell if you have to, Sato, but you keep your hands to yourself.”

“Me?!” He seemed to find this unfair.

A rumbling growl served as warning; I glanced back just in time to spot Rath Kadora start to stride past me with a thunderous expression.

“Don’t,” I ordered, quietly but firmly, putting out an arm in front of him.

He could have pushed right past—or in fact picked me up and thrown me with one hand—and I saw him think about it, but at least he stopped. For a second his competing instincts warred, the natural urge to defend his daughter conflicting with the knowledge that I was the apex predator here, and out of that stalemate his higher reasoning reasserted itself. Drun was not in any actual danger, after all, and Rath Kadora the seasoned tribal leader understood how to avoid escalating an already tense situation.

Also, Junko had bounded in front of him the instant she inferred that I wanted him to stop. Even somebody capable of forcing his way past a large dog will usually stop and think about it before trying.

Unfortunately, the byplay caught the attention of this drama’s protagonists, and Sato immediately swiveled on us.

“You.” He pointed one accusing finger, snarling in something very close to bloodlust. “There you are, you coward.”

At that, Junko and I both had to physically block Rath Kadora from surging forward, while Aster did the same to Drun, who took this far less gracefully than she had similar comments directed toward herself.

“You watch yourself, boy,” Rath Kadora snarled.

“Yeah? Why’s that? It’s true and you fucking know it.”

“Brat, I’ve fought and killed things you would drop dead from terror at the sight of!”

“There’s nothing like that on Dount,” Jadrin commented helpfully from the sidelines, where she was leaning against the edge of a table, chewing a piece of jerky. Fortunately, everyone ignored her.

“You know what a coward is, don’t you?” Sato retorted, taking a fearless step forward. “It means you won’t face things that scare you. Big man with an artifact, you’re not scared of fighting or hunting. You love that shit. But you were scared of arguing with that bitch shaman, so you didn’t. You were scared of looking weak in front of your tribe of fucking mongrels, so you didn’t. And you’re gonna fucking stand there and take it no matter what I say to you, because you’re scared of the Dark Lord. You fucking miserable little chickenshit coward.”

Rath Kadora actually hefted his spear. “I’m not going to tolerate—”

“Yes, you are.”

I kept my voice even and calm, but projected with a force that boomed off the walls. Everyone stopped, the chief warrior freezing mid-brandish to turn a wary look on me.

“As Aster said,” I continued, after maintaining the silence for a moment to lower the ambient energy in the room, “no fighting. Neither of you—none of you—is going to start throwing hands or I will personally put you down, and nobody wants to experience my method of doing that.”

Another graphic pause, to let them all vividly recall the spectacle of my Immolate.

“But as for words? You’ll take whatever Sato chooses to say to you, and you will listen politely, because he’s not wrong. What you allowed to happen to him for the sake of your own advantage was vile beyond description. And you’re gonna get your back up because he calls you names over it? Please. Man up, Kadora.”

I had turned toward him completely, risking leaving Sato out of my line of sight to maintain the full focus of my personality on Rath Kadora, which at that moment was the majority of what was keeping him under control. And oh, yes, he was mad. I could see it in the clenched, quivering line of every bulging muscle in his gigantic body. It was a terrifying spectacle to be this close to on a primal level, and had I been a hair less magical and heavily armed I might well have backed away from him. But I was the Dark Lord, and not only couldn’t afford to look weak, but did not need to.

Besides, there was more than anger here.

I could see it in the position of his ears, lowered to the sides. The way he couldn’t hold my gaze, or even glance in Sato’s direction. The shame. Sato was right, I was right, and Rath Kadora was a decent enough man to know it. Not decent enough to have taken a stand when it would have counted, but enough to bitterly regret his weakness.

Not unlike Rads, the goblin mining foreman. I could work with that.

“You need to offer amends to him,” I said in a calmer tone after letting him stew in it for a while. “I don’t know what could possibly begin to suffice—probably nothing, to be frank. And he’s certainly under no obligation to accept any overtures from you. But you need to make an honest, sincere attempt, Rath Kadora. You can do it because the Dark Lord commands it, if that helps you. But you should do it because this business is a stain on your honor, and if I’m right in my judgment of the kind of man you are, you will do whatever is needed to put that right.”

Slowly, he straightened back up from his braced stance, inhaling deeply and moving his spear back to upright position. After a second, Rath Kadora nodded at me, once, deeply.

“Hn. Make it a command if you wish, Dark Lord, but you are right. I thank you for the reminder. The boy…is owed. I must think on how to begin redressing this, must do it properly. For his own suffering, and also…” His ears twitched once, and he looked away again. “I was not chief warrior when his mother was cast out, but that was no less a disgrace. I am chief now, and the tribe’s shame is my shame. Hm. If I only knew where to start.”

I turned back to Sato, wary of his response to that last revelation, but fortunately it seemed the fireworks for the evening had subsided. Well, in one sense.

Sato was currently in the process of being gently ushered out of the mess hall by a pretty young woman who was halfway wrapped around him. At the doorway, Keffin paused, glancing back at me with a grin and a wink, and then tugged the wolf boy out into the hall.

Well. That was one way to handle that.

“Hummm,” Zui said from beside my waist, where I had not expected her to be. I only didn’t jump in surprise out of habituation; she’d been doing shit like that all week. Right now she was staring after the departing couple with a faint frown. “For some reason I’m a little uncomfortable about that.”

“Is it because Sato is in a highly emotional and vulnerable state, or because Keffin is at least somewhat fetishizing him due to his race?” Minifrit asked lazily, sashaying up to us and trailing a cloud of sweet-scented smoke from her lips as usual. “Or merely because he is just barely old enough for such things to begin with?”

“Well, it was just a vague, general sort of discomfiture, but thanks for the horrible specificity,” Zui grumbled, scowling at her.

Minifrit’s eyes crinkled in a smile even as her lips were fully pursed around her pipe. She blew smoke toward the ceiling before answering.

“Keffin is only pushy when it comes to acquiring clients, not when servicing them. In fact, she is quite adept at sussing out a man’s emotional needs and meeting them. One of my go-to girls when a customer would come in wracked with distress, needing to lose himself in a woman’s arms for a while. A good choice of companion for a young man who has just been through a traumatic experience. You needn’t worry, she will not push him to do anything. Odds are decent he will spend his evening crying on her lap until he falls asleep.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Well, I guess that’s…okay,” Zui muttered.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” I said. “Anyway…uh oh.”

I just couldn’t catch a damn break in this place. While I’d been distracted for seconds by Minifrit and Zui, Rath Kadora had stomped off somewhere and the next big public debacle had materialized right under my nose.

Velaven had just stepped up alongside Jadrin, which I could have warned her not to do had I had a moment to see this coming.

“Good evening. It is Miss Jadrin, I believe?”

Jadrin stared at her without expression for exactly three seconds. Then swallowed her half-chewed bite of jerky and plastered on a broad, welcoming smile which set off screaming alarms in my brain.

“So it is, Miss Velaven.”

Velaven smiled back, thinly, and folded down her hands in the traditional Fflyr gesture. In contrast to her normally smooth…everything, the motion was stiff and unpracticed, and reminded me starkly of her absolutely inexplicable performance in the conference room a few hours ago.

“I have observed you training the recruits. Your fighting skills are impressive.”

“Aren’t you sweet to notice.” Jadrin’s wide smile did not waver. I wanted to intervene—in fact, I probably ought to—but I was compulsively fascinated by the unfolding disaster.

“I have been assigned command of a special squadron by Lord Seiji himself,” Velaven continued, her own smile widening slightly, just enough to look a smidge more genuine. “If you are amenable, I would like to discuss making you a founding member. Your abilities would be a great asset, but I think there is still much I can teach you.”

I saw, from my peripheral vision, Zui slowly reach up to cover her face with both hands.

“Hey, yeah, that sounds interesting,” Jadrin said brightly. “I don’t mind doing you a favor. But since you brought it up, maybe you’d be willing to do something for me, as well?”

“Of course, I would be glad to hear you out,” Velaven replied with a courteous nod.

Jadrin beamed at her.

“Kill yourself.”

They smiled at each other in frozen silence for several seconds.

“Wanna borrow my knife?” Jadrin offered politely, whipping it out. I wasn’t the only one who tensed, but she spun the blade around in her grip, offering it to Velaven handle-first.

The dark elf glanced down at it, then returned her eyes to meet Jadrin’s.

“Tempting,” she said, without a trace if irony. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid that would be a poor use of the Dark Lord’s resources.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a good point,” Jadrin said, nodding seriously. “Can’t have that. Ah, well, sometimes things don’t work out. Guess you’ll just have to fuck off, then.”

She re-sheathed the knife, tore off another large chunk of jerky while maintaining direct eye contact with Velaven, and only then straightened up and turned, sauntering away.

Khadret eased up to Velaven from the other direction, murmuring a quiet explanation.

“She was sleeping with Sakin.”

“…ah. That is information I wish I’d had several minutes ago.”

“Sakin got killed in that catfolk raid you caused.”

“I remember who he was, thank you,” Velaven said to her, turning around and nodding politely. “Your timing is fortuitous, Khadret. As a matter of fact, I was going to ask—”

“Oh, so I’m your second pick?” Khadret didn’t put on a performance like Jadrin, she was just…unnervingly calm. That wasn’t something she was doing to Velaven in particular; it was usually hard to tell what she was thinking. “You think Jadrin’s a better prospect than me, is that it?”

“I merely happened to see her first,” Velaven assured her. “The need for an individual approach means I can only speak with one person at a time.”

“Smooth. You’re very smooth, princess. Not sure I like that about you.”

“It hasn’t been Princess for some time, I’m afraid.”

“Hasn’t been Queen for a while, either, way I understand it.”

Velaven’s second staring match in as many minutes was a bit less loaded, but not a lot more productive.

“True,” she said at last.

Khadret, to my surprised, nodded at her. “I’m a little busy at the moment. Field rotation and training sessions. The work suits me pretty well, I find. Tell you what, though, I’ll think about it.”

“I appreciate that.”

Khadret clapped her on the shoulder, by which Velaven seemed absolutely flabbergasted, then turned and strolled off in the opposite direction from the way Jadrin had gone, leaving the dark elf standing there alone in the mess hall as it emptied out. Dinner was over, the drama seemed to have abated, and she was left taking in the fact that everyone still present was keeping a wide perimeter around her, like a school of fish avoiding a passing shark.

“This is just painful to watch,” Zui muttered. Shaking her head, she turned and departed the room herself.

“Right, well, anyway,” I sighed. “Damn it, now I’ve forgotten what I was doing next.”

“You were resting,” Minifrit stated.

“Look, on a day like today—”

“You need to rest.” She put on her most implacable expression, jabbing the stem of her pipe at me. “Everything is under control, Lord Seiji. You have competent people organizing your affairs, and I’m not even the only one anymore. Yes, this is all fraught, but it is proceeding as smoothly as can be hoped, and all of it is supervised. In another day and change, you will have to deal with a fresh handful of hassles in Gwyllthean and you had better not show up exhausted.”

She puffed smoke at me for emphasis, and I waved it away, scowling. “Do you have to do that where we eat?”

“Dinner is over,” she said with the smug smile of someone who had just won the argument.

“Look, fine, I get it, okay? But it’s still way early, and I’m too keyed up to sleep anyway. I might as well go check on—”

“If you are determined to pursue some already established project,” she said smoothly, sidling up next to me and entwining my arm in her own, “I have a better idea. There’s another you have been neglecting, anyway.”

“What? No I haven’t. I’m on top of—”

----------------------------------------

An hour later, my arms finally gave out. It wasn’t the exertion, I was in the best shape of my life, but just… I couldn’t remember ever having felt so relaxed in my life. It had been far, far too long.

At last I had the presence of mind and remaining stamina not to just collapse on top of her, managing to lower myself more gently to rest upon the warm, delectably soft shape of the woman beneath me on my bed.

Minifrit adjusted her grip around me, keeping me tightly embraced as I rested my face in the crook of her neck, feeling her labored breathing as I slowly regained my own. One of her hands slid up to cradle the back of my head, fingers twining into my sweat-damp hair. Slowly, her legs relaxed, though she made no move to dislodge me from between them, just twining them more gently through mine.

Now this… I had needed this, more than I’d realized—which was saying something because it certainly wasn’t like I didn’t know I had needed it. More important, I’d been able to do it. All of it, from start to finish, for the first time since coming to this absurd hell world. Not a single flashback the whole time.

We didn’t rush the afterglow; you don’t spoil a good thing. It was a few minutes, not until after our breathing had steadied, before Minifrit chuckled throatily right under my cheek and caressed the back of my neck.

“Congratulations, my lord.”

“Mmm.” I nuzzled playfully at her throat. “You too.”

She lightly flicked my forehead with a fingertip.

“Ow. So violent.”

“Crybaby.”

“All teasing aside…wow. Just, wow, Min.” Still somewhat laboriously, though with my strength a bit recovered, I lifted myself up on both arms so I could look down at her face. “You know, you’re actually sort of good at that.”

“And you…” Gently, she ran her hand over my cheek, smirking up at me in utterly smug self-satisfaction. “…are teachable. Don’t worry, I’m not done working on you yet.”

I flicked her forehead, prompting an even wider smirk.

“Ooh, you brute. Just wait’ll I tell everyone the Dark Lord abuses his mistress.”

“Typical. I ended up in the one Dark Crusade where that would actually hurt my reputation.”

She laughed, twined her arms around her neck, and pulled herself upward to kiss me. I was no longer surprised by her upper body strength, but I remained impressed.

“Really, though,” I said when I could. “This is… Just for the record, Min, you are absolutely welcome in my bed for the foreseeable. But I don’t want to make this seems like an obligation. You’ve already helped—”

She kissed me a lot more firmly this time, actually managing to push herself more upright and me along with her without ever dislodging her lips from mine. That really didn’t seem like it should’ve worked, but Minifrit was adept at maneuvers like this. She was adept at a lot of maneuvers, including quite a few that would never have occurred to me. We ended up kneeling upright, wrapped around each other, before she let me breathe again.

“This is not a moment for you to be all responsible,” she finally lectured, rubbing the tip of her nose against mine. “I know you’re not going to make me do anything. You know I’m here voluntarily. We both know what this is, and the point is for you to stop being the big commanding Dark Lord for a little while. You may be as tightly wound as the next three most tense men I’ve ever known, Seiji, but if you can’t manage to relax a little while enjoying the attentions of your lover, I’m going to start taking it personally.”

“Hmm? Sorry, that sounded important, but I zoned out. It’s just that these boobs feel really nice in this position.”

“Of course, I brought my best pair. Nothing but the finest for my lord.” She had squirmed all the way into my lap now, straddling me. “As for the future… With all due modesty, I don’t see you getting bored of me any time soon. I plan to stick around until you find an actual, more meaningful romance, just as I told you when we began all this. And frankly, I’ll probably notice that’s coming before you do. So relax, Seiji. Just let me take care of you.”

“Mm. Not that my prospects are good. Y’know, for being a Dark Lord surrounded by prostitutes…”

“Well,” she said very solemnly, “I seem to recall I did specifically suggest a dark elf princess. And oh, look, you actually went and found one!”

“Ugh.” I grimaced, turning my face away. “Don’t even get me started on that bundle of havoc. You know, she actually tried to hit on me tonight?”

“Well, of course she did,” Minifrit said, as if this were entirely obvious.

“You weren’t there, it was a debacle. She did this… I don’t even know how to describe it. I don’t know how somebody so composed could fuck up simple flirting that badly. It was like watching a cuckoo clock try to pole dance.”

“That is a very helpful description, because I definitely know what both of those things are.”

“Hummm. Now that you mention it…” Grinning, I started to ease her back down to the blankets. “I bet if I installed a pole and described the basics, you’d figure it out pretty…”

I could actually see her trying it, too. Composed and borderline domineering as she was in public, Minifrit had shown herself willing to express a softer side with me, downright eager to yield to my…personal requests. Professional that she was, she managed to be as pliable as a kitten without relinquishing any of her poise and self-assurance. I could definitely get her spinning around a—

I couldn’t breathe.

The stink in the air, of the canals, of blood and vomit and human shit, and nothing before me but the next person who needed my help. And if I got to her in time, the next after that, and so on, until I came to the one I hadn’t been fast enough to save. There were always more, always someone I was too late to reach. Always glassy eyes accusing me in death—

I was on the floor, somehow, on my knees, gasping for breath. Minifrit had a death grip around my upper body, keeping my arms pinned to my sides where they couldn’t… I’d bloodied my knuckles against the floor. I could see the red droplets on the akorthist panels where I’d clawed at them.

“Shh, shh, you’re right here with me. You are here, not there. All that is over. Breathe, Seiji. In. Out. One at a time. There we are, there we are. You’re okay.”

She leaned her forehead against my temple, relaxing her grip slightly now that I’d gone still. For the second time very recently I let myself loosen up in her arms, slowly getting my breath back. It was a lot less gratifying this time.

The noise that rose in my throat was half growl and half unreleased yell, seasoned with more of a whine than I wanted to admit.

“Fuck. Fuck. God dammit. I thought… Come on, we just finished— This is supposed to be over.”

“Hey, don’t do that,” she soothed, stroking my hair. “It’s all right. We already went over it, you know this kind of thing doesn’t work that way. It’s a process, not a cure. It will continue getting better. It may never go away entirely, Seiji. But you’ve come so far. Tonight was an enormous step forward—an absolute victory. Don’t discount that just because it wasn’t perfect. It’s not any less big a step because it wasn’t the last one.”

Breathing a bit more evenly now, I raised my head to look at her. Minifrit was always a pretty woman, but having her curly black hair cascading loose around her really was stunning. At the moment, though, half of her face was reddened and just beginning to swell, where someone had clobbered her good.

“Oh, shit, Min. Heal! I’m so sorry—”

She placed one finger on my lips, smiling. “Shush. You had best remember to give me credit, Lord Seiji, I knew very well what I was signing up for. Heal yourself too, don’t forget.”

“Ah…right.” Heal. Hands aside, I had skinned a shin tumbling off the bed and it was starting to feel like I’d broken my big toe. Man, it was nice having that spell. How did anybody get through flashbacks without it?

Minifrit rose smoothly, pulling me up in that gentle yet inexorable way she had. “That’s about enough roughhousing, I believe. Come back to bed.”

“I, uh… I don’t think I’m up for any more—”

“Yes, I figured,” she said with a wry little smile, leaning in to give me a quick kiss. “There are a lot of things two people can do on a bed, you know. You should lie down, let the tension fade, and try to sleep. It’s big enough to avoid the wet patch. After all that, I think you deserve to be held all night. If you’d like?”

Come on, you’re not supposed to just ask that. A man has his pride, I can’t just… I mean, how could I say out loud that…

“…yes, please.”