Out amidst the swamp, a woman’s voice was humming a tune. It was an extremely eerie sound, considering the setting, all alto and echoing. The tune was regularly interrupted by the dull splash of oars catching the water.

Oolga sat in a simple wooden boat. Woodworking wasn’t a specialty of Babylon yet, but enough of Andorin’s platoons had died pathetically on the water that the orcs had managed to quietly retrieve a few vessels.

The Orc Lord’s mother was alone, and there was no light to see by at this time of night, but she had no fear of ambushes from her surroundings. The mayhem Orc burned with inner fire, and her eyes saw the world in more than just simple colors. Though cold-blooded, fish and crocodiles still stood out against the water to her heat-seeking gaze.

Rather than them, rather than humans, if anything made her worry, it was the cold black water itself, but she didn’t show it.

Oolga rowed across the quiet swamp and disembarked at the other end. She hopped off her boat and stepped closer to drag it up onto the mud where it wouldn’t wash away. Her bare feet sunk into wet soil, and a stinging pain barbed her red skin. Despite her insistence on appearing calm, the internal anxiety made flames involuntarily flicker to life in small patches across her person. The mud steamed against the lava-like heat under her skin.

She extricated herself from the mud and found dryer land to stand on. Facing away from the swamp, the harpies’ base could be seen peeking through the foliage. They had woven spherical nests out of sticks, grass, and mud. The largest one was closest to the ground, likely so that the land-bound humans could visit it.

Queen Titania had been fairly earnest about meeting the demands they had placed upon her so far, which included working alongside humans.

Thinking about the sky queen made Oolga’s lips curl into a smile. She brushed past the foliage and boldly approached the round nest. The sentries perched outside glared sharply and chirped a sound of warning but let her pass.

Oolga took a high step up through the circular entrance and smiled at the brooding figure perched on her throne, talons protectively combing what remained of her sky-blue feathers on the scarred side of her head.

“I’m back~”

“So we see,” Titania scowled. “We can only assume you’re here to impose more demands on us?”

“I never demanded anything,” Oolga chuckled. “It was only a suggestion.”

“A suggestion ending in ‘or else’,” Titania replied, unamused. “Why are you here?”

Oolga set a hand demurely upon her breast, “Today, I am a messenger for my beautiful daughter and lord. ‘We have your eggs. Surrender to me as slaves, or they enter the cook pot.’”

The queen’s attendants screeched furiously and scratched the nest floor with their talons, but the Queen herself managed to contain her acid to her glare. “A vile threat, but an impossible one. We had no eggs for you to steal.”

Oolga smiled sweetly, “Playing with semantics in front of an Orc? You “entrusted” your eggs to the nagas. I know. I learned years ago, after your species rose again when I had slaughtered all but you, in honor of your masterful begging. Now look at how merciful my daughter is? If you all show such pitiful faces, you can all live. I would never have been so generous.”

“So either we bow to your lord or we go extinct?” Titania rapped her talons against the arm of her wicker throne. “It’s too simple. We were already under your thumb, there was no need to drag our offspring into this. What more do you want?”

Oolga bobbed her head. “Smart bird. You do those blue feathers justice.” A toothy smile spread across her face, “Surrender to us in public, in front of Claymore’s army, in the middle of the battlefield. Demoralize them completely with your defeat and flaunt your subservience to the world.”

Titania raised a brow. “You want us to work more closely with the humans?”

“Put up with them somehow,” Oolga shrugged. “There’s no point to this show if it fails to entertain my daughter.” She turned toward the exit, “You’ll know the signal when you hear it. The better your performance, the better your treatment afterwards, alright?”

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As the mayhem Orc moved to leave, several attendants crept closer as if to box her in. Before the encirclement was complete, however, their Queen snapped a finger and a bolt of blue lightning scorched the floor in front of their clawed feet. The attendants looked at their Queen with confusion and desperation, but she answered them with a stony cold gaze.

Oolga smiled and left the nest, returning to where her boat was moored.

The sky queen was a clever woman; Oolga had faith that she could read between the lines and avoid repeating the same mistakes.

And the greatest mistake she had ever made was listening to her; accepting her “mercy” all those years ago.

***

“Broodmother, why?” one of Titania’s attendants pleaded. “We should have killed her.”

“Who am I?” Titania asked coldly.

“Y-you are the broodmother,” the attendant bowed, shaking at her extremities.

“I am the broodmother,” Titania nodded and cast her gaze over the other handmaidens.

“The broodmother is wise,” they bowed and said in unison.

Titania nodded, “And it is not only so when you agree with my judgment. But I will try to help you understand. Did you see any of our eggs on that Orc?”

“N-no…”

“So they are somewhere else. Perhaps another Orc is guarding them. What will that other orc do if his lord’s mother doesn’t return from our territory? When he thinks we have killed her, what would be his revenge?”

The objecting attendant’s eyes widened. “Eat the eggs!” she gasped.

The surrounding handmaidens all echoed her praise again, this time more sincerely.

“Broodmother, does that mean we will be slaves?” a handmaiden asked anxiously.

Titania closed her sky blue eyes for a moment, her talons stroking gently against the scars on one side of her head, where her hair and feathers grew back patchy and thin. “…No. We will not be.”

Her bird-brained lessers sighed, chirped, and cheered in joy, relieved that their queen had a plan to save them from that fate. They sang her praises.

“How? How, broodmother?”

“Will we steal our eggs back and fly away?”

“Will we kill those pigs and take our eggs by force?”

“Quiet with your guessing,” Titania sighed, shaking her head. Her handmaidens silenced themselves and returned to their usual positions: some guarding, some grooming her, all still perked their ears and glanced frequently at their queen.

Titania drummed her talons and planned.

She could not trust the flaming pig. It came years ago, massacred her people just for the thrill of it, tormented and burned her even when she had already surrendered. But after that, Titania thought all would be well. The eggs were safe, and she became their broodmother. She became wiser and her feathers turned blue. She naively thought the past was behind her, only for that pig to root it up in the present day.

Her pitiful past was used to blackmail her, she led her people into this terrible mess as a result, all while they sang her praises. In this supposedly false showing, still some of her children died. The guilt and grief had already been festering, now only for it to be revealed that their empty nest had been exploited by the orcs to find and steal their eggs.

Their species would never know peace under such creatures. If they became slaves, their fate would surely be worse than she could possibly imagine.

But if they were strong enough to fight back and win, the Sky Queen would have done so by now.

The flaming pig was a liar; Titania could judge her only by her actions, not her words. And she had come here and used something as precious as their eggs to request a public surrender from them. Was that surrender worth the weight of her species?

Perhaps so. The king of foul waters had proven to be far more competent at warcraft than any of them expected him to be. If the flaming pig wanted him demoralized, then he must be a threat to her and her lord.

Then, if I want freedom, I must do the opposite of what they want me to do. Titania concluded. I must empower the human king, not hinder him. I must somehow convince him to fight alongside me—sincerely this time.

She looked over her handmaidens. And I must prepare for the dirty tricks that liar will play using the truth.

“The pigs will tell lies about me,” Titania warned them. “All pigs are liars. Understand?”

“Yes, broodmother,” her handmaidens chirped.

The Queen nodded. “Good. Soon, we will work with the humans. To take back our eggs safely, we must hit as hard and fast as possible, and we can hit harder and faster with their help.”

“The broodmother is wise!” they sang.

Titania smiled bitterly. The moment their rebellion was known, their eggs would be lost. It was inevitable. But she could lay more eggs if they survived. She or another of their kind, just as long as at least one yet lived.