It was a dark and stormy night, which was so cliché, but for the night outside, it was an understatement.
The rain was coming down like a curtain, the clouds blocking out the sky and stars to the point where it was like the sun was coming up when the clouds parted.
It was, in a word, dreadful and, in two or more, fucking miserable.
And out in the rain, the citizens of my land, wet and afraid as the [Guards] and [Hunters] did their work and pushed away the invaders, survived, and here I was, inside, next to a fire.
I was still wet and dirty, a bath being drawn for me by a small host of servants, who were, in turn, also sopping wet from drawing water.
I wanted many things… There were too many things if I were honest, but they boiled down to two major things at the moment, and neither of them was what was happening right now.
I wanted my people safe, tucked inside where they couldn’t be further harmed now that the fires had passed.
And I wanted to be left alone to sulk a little because I had just fucked up in a way I could never forgive.
Neither could be true, of course, but for two very different reasons.
I could not make my people safe because of a lack of manpower; I could not tuck them away, for they would be needed soon, and I could not protect them in the future because of a lack of funds and skills. I couldn’t even grant the weary a dry place to rest… Not tonight.
For one, my subjects were out of the city; it had been the right call at the wrong time, but the fires had been too big to form bucket brigades and too widespread to just axe off and let burn. Coupled with the instigators running about, and it would be like ordering the men of New Moarn to their death.
So they fled, evacuating the men behind women and children to save as many lives as possible. That left them out in the cold, and many families were broken apart, but the vulnerable were mostly saved.
It left me both triumphant at my plan succeeding and also pained. I had likely gotten two thousand people killed tonight because of it. I probably saved twice that number, if not more, but that didn’t wash the blood from my pen strokes, my fingers stained with the ink of my fellow man.
It was a poisoned pill, a double-edged blade; it cut the more significant threat but also bloodied my hand.
The second was that they were unsafe and vulnerable. Fundamentally, the [Baron of Moarn], my ever-wise [Lord] Father, had been summoned to raise an army and had stripped the valley of its armed men to curry favor with the [Emperor].
I had only a garrison. A small one at that, and while the men were protecting here, I had also sent them out to check on the towns and villages east of here that could be struck.
Even with their best, I needed ten times their number to hold my territory, and that was an issue.
If I had but a handful of fortifications, watchtowers and the like, I could be assured that my people would be safe. Men could be mobilized to act as outriders against the newly found menace, and the remaining could hold chokes against a superior number of foes.
But I didn’t have walls.
I didn’t even have gates.
And I couldn’t stop this tragedy from happening again.
I had a few handfuls of belly button lint and a soaking wet, malnourished populace with about two resident [Stonemasons], no [Quarriers] and one headache of a [Druid].
Just one of those things made me drink, but all three gave me a mild fit of apoplexy.
Or perhaps that was my cold, numb body… Or my second issue.
I had been, to put it mildly, bundled inside like a sack of potatoes because I had passed out.
I had been riding high after the healing potion. It granted me a near-indescribable kind of vigor, as if I were a child all over again, with the energy to run everywhere and the spirit to say anything. It was all of that and so more.
It eased aches I didn’t know I had, granted me a kind of clarity as it pushed the clouds from my mind, and let me take in the world as if I had just had the best sleep of my life.
It had done that because it had literally healed my entire body. Every strain my body had undergone had been touched up. Every lost ounce of blood, every buildup of fascia and scar, every deposit of toxin, every subpart and fold of my mind, had been mended.
And then it had run its course, leaving me to pick up the authentic physical tab of mending a body like that. I had gone from striding around to face down in the dirt right before the start of a storm.
And I had been brought in with an unwanted guest in the collar of my shirt.
An unwanted guest that wouldn’t stop chattering at me in a nigh incomprehensible dialect, only parseable due to [Noble Tongue].
She, for I was sure that only a woman could hold so much ire in such a small form. She had used that ire to verbally torment me for about ten minutes straight, her high-pitched voice giving me a migraine as her little insectile wings buzzed harshly as a hornet, her black chiton plate giving her a knightly appearance, more than a bug, the fuzz of her form almost like fur trim.
She would look the part of a fearsome knight indeed if she were more than a handspan tall.
A part of me wanted nothing more than to toss her out, but considering she had helped during my pathetic excuse for a fight earlier, I had let her stay in my presence,
At first, she had complained quite verbosely on the state of things, though that was before she had gotten it in her head to complain at me, which had brought me to slip up and her to realize I could… in a matter of speaking, understand her.
Which had gotten her to bug me for seven minutes of unending torment as I pretended I couldn’t understand the insect thing.
I finally broke and asked her to please leave me be, but the resulting three minutes were so agonizing I regretted it more than getting my chest smashed in.
At least I could take a healing potion for blunt-force trauma.
She nattered and nattered and nattered, finishing the tirade with, “And after all of that, what do you have to say, you imbecile!”
“I’m wondering why I let an irascible creature like you remain in my presence,” I told her, my skills letting me hold a neutral demeanor despite wanting nothing more than to massage my temples.
“Because you are in charge of this territory, and as a tax-paying noble, I have a right to air my grievances with you. Twas part of the pact our people forged,” she sniped.
“I doubt that very much; last I checked, I don’t have… whatever you are on the census, less so than listed as taxed, and just because you’re a noble does not mean you get to chew me out. You must be landed nobility, and last I checked, you hold no land.” I told her, trying to appeal to her reason via law.
I should have known it wouldn’t work; she was a woman, and I had never been good with women.
She stared at me for a moment, her tiny face that was more like a sculpted helm face plate, held in an open mouth shock before she said, “I ought to stab you for such an insult,” her voice quiet rage. “We Sprites have paid your tax every year. My queen has seen to it! We have paid for generations for our plot and defence, and you dare to question such a thing? I have never met such a feckless creature as you. You’ve not even half the spine of your spineless sister and twice the carelessness of your brother!”
I tightened my teeth and spat, “Your irreverence becomes you. Speak, I’ll be on them again, and I’ll squash you like the insect you are. You have no right to speak I’ll of them.”
“Perhaps not your brother, but I’ve more right to speak on you’re sister than you do. I serve both her and her bumpkin, you-” She started before I slapped out at her.
It was like swatting a fly, though, unlike a fly, she had skills, and with a muttered, “[Aerial Dash],” she flew free.
And then, she flew up to my face and kicked me in the nose.
“Agh,” I said, not expecting it. I flinched from it, more from the sudden percussion than from pain.
“Don’t you swat at me again, you perturbed whelp,” she said, her voice a promise of ten times her weight in barely constrained violence. “You do yourself a second disservice in the same night. Try to get it out of your head that you understand your sister so you don’t do yourself a third.”
“Oh,” I said, my face flushing through my skill, eyes crossed at the little black-and-white form of the sprite thing. “Do tell, where I’ve done myself a disservice tonight? Was it in my poorly picked fight? In my plans? Do tell where I’ve failed myself.”
I could have asked about Annabeth, but that wouldn’t go anywhere. Anna was simple when it came to secrets, and I honestly doubt she had much interest.
“Ye, have failed yourself by lacking the spirit to seek help. You pretended to be something that ye aren’t, and others paid your price. Your place is in an office, not a battlefield, no matter your skill with the blade.”
“I had plenty of aid from my guards,” I shot back at the tiny armored form.
“Aye, and what did that give you? A few bodies to add to the pile. Instead of accepting your sister's help or keeping it contained until backup came, you rushed in to seek worthless glory and got them killed. Twas a fucking shame to get those men killed, and twice as worse because the weapon that killed em’ was pride, instead of honour.”
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Her words were vicious, brutal and unkind. But that was because they were the truth and nothing but the truth.
It was the truth, and it hurt to hear because it was the truth. The truth didn’t care about my best intentions, facts did not care about my feelings, and the brutal calculus of life was always cruel and terrible in equal measure.
There were no correct answers, only wrong ones, but that didn’t mean each answer was equally valid.
“It must be elementary for you to spout that; who are you to judge me? Where are your stakes? Where are your mistakes?” I not quite shouted at her, my heart beat speeding, blood flushing my face a shade of pink in a warm bloom of embarrassment, and my ears a rageful hot red.
“Oh, it is. I made a similar mistake myself not so long ago. Lucky you, you didn’t get your family killed in your idiocy.”
She said it like she had instead said, ‘Lucky you didn’t break an egg.’ It was the most heartless thing I had ever heard—the most inhuman, but also not.
Because it was obvious to me that I wasn’t meant like that.
People were all too quick to judge a person, but I knew well that it was the lesser person not to put themselves in the others' boots before judging them on something as light as a word.
Especially something as heavy as that, because she hadn’t said, ‘I don’t care that I got my family killed,’ but, ‘consider yourself lucky.’ That spoke volumes on its own.
Maybe I was trying to read her the wrong way, but she was surprisingly straightforward; she had been chewing me out on mistakes but not blustering nor making mountains out of molehills. There was no guile, no guise of being better than, no punching down.
She had said what she meant instead of doing what I was used to with most; there was no false pretense, and there was no guard. It was like a [Man at Arms] wielding only a sword, walking around a killing field without armor, flamboyantly shouting, ‘Come at me then.’
She was that but dressed in black. Dressed for mourning. Detached from the warmth of any internal kindness,
I looked at her, licking my dry lips as I looked through her. I let myself ponder for a moment what she had said. I evaluated her words, not as I would pry to get me to do something, but as I would a piece of genuine advice.
It was hard to accept.
Anna always wanted me to do something, as did my Mother and Father. Strause always had something up his sleeve, even if it was for my own good, it was manipulation, and manipulation was what I was used to.
Gunther…
Well, Gunther was always in it for themself; he was upfront about it. When you wanted to know why he wanted you to do something, it was always, ‘What about this gives Gunther money?’ It was less manipulative; he was telling you something that would help you and him at the same time without needing to say the second part.
That was about it, though.
It was Gunther and only Gunther.
That struck me as terribly sad, having one person I felt I could have an open conversation with, but the person was a [Merchant] who was more interested in evaluating goods and services over the general conversation.
“Perhaps…” I said, my voice conflicted.
“Perhaps what, ye daft—” she said, but I had bigger lungs, so I could talk over her.
“Perhaps I should not throw you out with the rubbish,” I said, my skills helping me say it in a way that sounded less conflicted, but for the sigh of breath I let out at the end of it. Focusing on her tiny form, I decided I needed a second approach. “I am sorry for your loss. You said you were a noble? I… I’ve let my circumstances cloud my manners- Acho.”
I spasmed as I sneezed, turning my head away from the small form. My nose had started to tingle, like when the plants were in bloom.
I sniffed but managed to say, “Someone seems to be talking about me.” Before taking a moment to recover before, I inhaled and apologized. “My apologies, Lady. I’ve been both rude and dismissive from the start of this, and I’ve stuck my boot in my mouth. May I… Start this conversation over?”
She stared at me, unspeaking as my nose kept tingling. She just stared, and it kind of freaked me out.
I sighed, “I understand if I’ve insulted you. If you won’t pardon me, I can understand that. I will endeavor to make up for this… and I won’t hold your actions against me during your time of mourning. Um, lady...” I told her, petering out.
I had run into a snag of my own making.
I had shouted at, swatted at, and argued with someone who I didn’t even know the name of.
I figured that I would fail at the most basic of pleasantries and cause grief with a noble I had never met but would no doubt continue to see everywhere after today. Thus, I would have destroyed their first impression of me, spoiling any and all further relations with them for the rest of my life and making an enemy that I would never be able to get away from and would never let me live it down.
That was exactly why I didn’t like talking to people.
I got a common enough feeling, the feeling of queasy anxiety; though it was so familiar, I was able to simply let my skill deal with it. The flip flop of my heart, the spike of fear, the situation one that had played out ten thousand times in my head, running over it again and again, every day, until the track was well worn as a road and the cart ruts were twice as deep.
My stomach gurgled, the only noise besides the buzzing of her wings as she pulled away from me. Her eyes were dark as pitch and unsettling as she stared at me.
She twitched, and I figured she would cry or sob or something, but she just twitched.
She twitched and twitched until she had a full-out conniption, her arms shaking in little jerks and spits. She let out a tiny high-pitched noise, so high I could just hear it before her face came open, hinging up like a helmet for a moment.
The inhale came in and out came, not a shout, not a cry, not even a little sob.
She said, “You can take your pity and shove it. I’m not a little girl, you bow-legged-chattering-foulmouthed-inbred-cultureless-leech. I came here to get your answer to your family’s failure to provide my people with our due service on what little remains of my honour. I don’t want your pity, and I certainly don’t want you to ‘make it up to me,’ this isn’t about me.”
Her anger wasn’t unexpected either; she had been angry at me plenty, but her reason for the anger was.
The shock of it was enough to be knocked around, my mind thrown off a metaphorical cliff. Selflessness born out of a feeling of failure.
I said, without skill or thought, “It's manners and propriety, not pity. Instead of cracking an axle, you should just tell me. It’s not like you have any features on your face to read.”
It was a stupid thing to say, but the idea that my apology had been over her state instead of my fuck up was just that jarring to me.
This was not in the simulations; it was off the reservation. No, not just off the reservation. This path had led up a hill, and I had fallen into a ditch, down the hill, and then into a convenient crevice in the road of my expectations.
It occurred to me that I had never considered haughty or spirited bug women in the equation. It wasn’t like I could have, but it had just occurred to me that I hadn’t. Really, I should have expected this.
I needed to add inch-high bug women to my simulations now.
I was drawn from my thoughts by her calling back, though less hostile, “Oi, are you paying attention?”
She had given a normal series of words.
“I can do this,” I thought, “Surely I can converse like a functional human being for a few seconds.”
Silently, I pulled on an old crutch, a skill that got more use than I would ever want it to get. It was a skill that should have been a waste but had never failed me.
[Find Words]
And oh boy, did I find them.
“I was just thinking that I don’t actually remember your people in any reports. You said you were Sprites? I also don’t know your name, though it would be rude to ask before I gave my own. My name is Clause Mynes, Son and heir of the baron of Moarn, future Baron, and his current regent while he is off on campaign. May I know your name, lady Sprite?”
Gods above it was just too good. It always worked like a charm.
Perfect for when you had your foot in your mouth… or, in my case, when your heart stopped.
It was my greatest and only ace in the hole.
“Indeed, you finally seem to have your head on straight. Good to see from my bondsmans brother isn’t a stain on her honour,” she told me, “My name is Selliban Citritan Titania, but you may call me Selliban.”
We went from there.
Selliban frequently mentioned honor and of how little she had, her words making me self-conscious about my failing. After all, If someone acting selflessly for her people was honor-less, how bad was I? Regardless of the answer, she managed to not tear me down with her constant comparisons to quite a vibrant amount of things. we talked and slowly resolved many questions while the bath heated up in the next room.
For one, the reason for the lack of census data was because of the fluctuation of their population. They died frequently from ‘honour’ in the line of duty. As funny sounding as her pronunciation, it was obvious that they just picked fights they couldn’t win and got themselves killed. It was a miracle that they still existed, but there was no real reason to get a head count if the colony just kept changing on a weekly basis.
Second, why were there no recorded taxes from them? They didn’t pay in coins. They didn’t have any. They lived in some kind of fanciful family feudalist colony, where everyone just kind of shared what they needed, and their people gave specific goods each year to us, namely honey and fine thread.
I had never wondered why we always had honey and the fine thread for embellishments. We had simply had them.
At least that family mystery was solved.
She even debriefed me before she left, though she demanded I aid her people for the answer, and I obliged.
I resolved to add her village to the map, and I would need to visit to ask questions of them. Before taking a hop in the tub, leaving my wet clothes to the servants.
It was good or slightly better in the bath, and not only because the warmth of the water helped soothe me.
For one, I had a stop gap solution to protection in the sprites, who were small and zippy and could in theory aid in scouting, letting me place forces where they could do the most good. I couldn’t defend their village without walls, but I could offer them residence, perhaps, until the issue had passed.
It went on the mental cork board, along with ‘wall?’ And ‘Ask Annabeth about magic walls,’ and many other things, so many so that they started to blot one another out.
That left me time to fall asleep in my bed, but with my mind spinning, I sat there, unable to. Replaying the days events.
I had acted on fear and pride when I had attacked the monster. Fear, for I feared the creature, and pride because I had pushed myself to face that fear.
That pride had left me wounded and vulnerable and many of my men dead.
And I would level from it; I was sure of it.
I would benefit from trading my [Guards] lives away.
Who would I be without them? Without my position? I was so dependent on others that I could barely level without them.
Who would I be if I wasn’t the son of a [Baron]? Who was I despite that?
Who was the Clause of now, without it?
Those thoughts haunted me, keeping me awake long into the stormy night, until I passed into dreams from post bath exhaustion.
***
I watched the funny little man as he and Selly bickered and realized they would be here for a while.
As fun, as it would be to watch them be strangers to one another until Clause fell asleep, I decided that I would have enough time to give a little runover to the other people that made a difference in Saphine's life.
It was good to see him still using that skill; it was a good pick.
I headed off to Gunther and watched her for a bit, too, but she was incredibly boring. I mean, she always knew what she wanted; she always had herself together, blah, blah, blah.
Taking care of her was easy, and I had needed it after I had taken a sojurn from Moarn to the coast after the whole depopulation thing... I had even managed to find my way there and pick up some skills before it had been destroyed.
And where had she gone? But back to the very place I had called my old haunt.
Maybe if she got her shit together and finally made a move romantically, she would get less boring… Or maybe she would just make him boring too.
At least it would spice it up a little, I bet Arabelle would love that.
“Heh, yeah right… Would be funny as hell’s to watch, though,” I mumbled to myself, pulling out another handful of anima snack.
She seemed to be steaming mad, at least, which was a slight difference from her normal passivity. She had lost some goods, though because of her location, it was far less than most of the other caravans. Once she figured that out, she would no doubt get gleeful.
Mostly now, she was losing her shit over keeping grain dry so it didn’t go to seed. She waved at people in her costume, flexing her skills that altered attention and her appearance to help hide the more prominent features she had that separated her from the male folk.
Her worker's oiled canvas, rubbing in thick creams to proof it against the torrential downpour. hurling them over bags that were ready for tomorrows markets.
All said, it was a clever little tactic she had going on. Dressing like a man to confuse humans even more than other wood elves did. It was a matter of the human experience to confuse other groups of people up, and it only got worse when you started adding extra bits. Wood elves were famously androgynous to the human eye. Using that she had gotten dozens of levels from the coin that trick had brought in.
I tried to recall why the grain going to seed would be bad, but all I could figure was she didn’t like ale or whatever. It's not like you couldn’t use it.
Well, for whatever reason, I bobbed around.
There was that kid Saphine saved, who reunited with her pack. That had been a good save, that might make things more interesting, but than again, anyone close to Saphine got interesting to me because it was Saphine.
It was still hard to puzzle out that she, of all the Kobolds, had made it to [Sainthood].
Mortal spirits were always interesting to pay attention to.
Speaking of mortal spirits…
I knew that I shouldn’t move in on the other two. Their kind of spiritual guide could get a little territorial, after all, but at the same time… I was terribly interested.
I snuck down, tucking myself nearby as Strause met up with Joan, and I spied on the two other Mortal Spirits.