With his red and blue painted checkered helm, scratched and chipped from countless battles, and many more years in service to his eternal imprisonment, Argonok stared deeply into the dark chasm below as he held out his right arm over the rain-soaked cliff’s edge. His metallic, demon forged arm was as stiff as the sturdiest of bridges while the nigh-impervious Fireguard’s fingers clasped the left ankle of his frightened charge.

Argonok had managed to catch the two teenagers just as the young girls’ foot had escaped from the oversized boot that served as their last remaining anchor point. The pair of teenagers had popped forward ever so slightly, but the metallic dwarf was able to catch them without worry.

As far as the Fireguard was concerned, he could’ve spared a few more seconds to give them a real scare.

With eyes closed tightly shut and with her fingers digging deeply into the flesh of the elven prince’s arm, Iskra continued to scream at the top of her lungs as her mind had yet to catch up to reality. Rivers of tears and mucus-riddled snot soaked the young girls' face as her body thrashed about in the dwarfs' grasp, forcing the pair of teenagers to bounce and swing violently in the air.

“Well now.” Satisfied that his charge was perfectly healthy, Argonok turned his attention towards the elven prince whose body was frozen stiff with fear, even the violent motions of the human girl was unable to stir the blonde-haired prince from his comatose like state.

As he peaked a glance towards the boy’s face, Argonok could only describe the prince's expression as being completely stupefied.

Blood trickled down the length of the elven teenagers' arm as Iskra’s fingers continued to tear into the unfortunate limb, deep scratches and torn flesh were in abundance along the length of the young princes' arm. Argonok took it as a sign that the girl wanted to pretend that she was an unruly cat and had used the boys' limb as a fleshy scratching post.

Aurelis' misfortune at the hands of the human teenager continued as droplets of tears, and thick globs of snot pelted the top of the young teenagers' golden-maned head.

A chuckle escaped from deep within Argonoks’ incorporeal soul as his eyeless helm took in every moment of the amusing sight before him.

“You know,” The Fireguards’ distant, echoing voice boomed throughout the nearby air as he teased the frightened teenagers. “When they say that people ‘fall in love’ with one another, that doesn’t mean that you should jump off of a cliff together.”

Another chuckle escaped from somewhere within Argonoks' armored prison as he continued to hold out his arm over the pits' edge, allowing the two teenagers to risk an untimely fate as they were left there to hang by the crude whims of a murderous dwarf.

After having reveled in his sadistic style of humor for a few moments longer, Argonok allowed himself to collect his thoughts as he waited for the pair of frightened children to settle down.

Yet such a moment never came to pass as Iskra continued to scream, forcing her voice to grow hoarse with exhaustion.

Aurelius, for his part, remained as silent as ever as he continued to stare into the abyss with a blank expression over his face. His chest rose and fell in a staggered motion as he took deep, ragged breaths. A clear sign to the Fireguard that the boy needed to have his injuries tended to in a timely manner.

Having lost interest in his attempts to tease the two teenagers, Argonok let out a heavy huff of breath as he shook his head in defeat.

"No one likes to hear a joke at their own expense when they're at death's door." Proclaimed Argonok as he brought the two children back towards the safety of the soft, rain-soaked earth behind him. "Let’s set the two of you down here, and I’ll go get that mother of yours. Just don’t go wandering off, yeah?”

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

"Aurelius Sylvos Dreadblade!" Boomed Velicions' furious voice as her lithe frame crested over the hilltop, her voice cracking like an ominous clap of thunder as the two shell shocked teenagers turned their heads towards the exasperated sorceress.

With his name echoing across the dark clouded sky, Aurelius gave his sorcerous mother a weary yet pleasant smile. An air of relief surrounded the blonde-haired prince as the powerful enchantress drew closer by leaps and bounds with each ragged breath he took. The elven prince was grateful for the fact that the sorceress had been able to escape the battle entirely unscathed.

Yet that smile plummeted into a frown as the elven teenager recognized the flames of parental ire deep within the sorceress' eyes.

"Mother Vel-" An open palm slammed into the princes' right cheek, sending the confused teenager sprawling onto the ground with a bright red handprint over the side of his face. Finding it an all too common occurrence within the day's events, Aurelius blinked in rapid succession with a dumbfounded expression over his face as bright stars floated around the outskirts of his vision.

"I told you to stay by my side!" With a voice that could have pierced the heavens, the motherly sorceress enveloped her son in a massive bear hug as she continued to chastise the young prince for having disobeyed a direct order.

Confused, but not at all surprised by the woman's actions, Aurelius kicked at empty air behind him as his mother continued to squeeze her arms around the width of his back as she effortlessly picked him up into the air, causing the young to gasp in pain.

"Uh-," The confusion upon the boys' face only managed to grow worse as he watched his half-mothers' face go from that of extreme anger to that of someone with an immense amount of relief.

Yet her anger managed to return in full once the elven sorceress had felt like she had cuddled the boy enough and dropped him back onto the ground.

“Well?” Velicion asked of her son as she looked upon his crumbled form with absolute disdain upon her alluring features. “Let’s hear it.”

Nervous beads of sweat broke out across the young boys' features as he averted his eyes from the sorceress's furious gaze. "I-I got lost."

Dissatisfied by what she felt to be a feeble excuse, Velicion clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she turned towards the next target of her inquiry. "We'll be having a chat about this newfound wanderlust of yours," The sorceress told her son as her pitch-black eyes rested upon Iskra's still sniveling form as Velicions' undivided attention finally turned itself towards the curvaceous teenaged girl.

"Now then. It's your turn, young lady." With arms crossed across her chest, Velicion waited for the human teenager to give a response towards her inquiry. As she waited for the young girl to find the courage to speak up, her right foot tapping against the rain soaked earth beneath her muck covered boots, the sorceress' eyes burned with such ferocity that one had to wonder just how it was possible that the short-haired girl hadn't caught fire just yet.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

After what had felt like an eternity to all of those involved, Iskra looked towards the motherly sorceress with a distressed look upon her face.

"We were near the field artillery, and there was this big crowd of people that had rushed by us." Sniffed Iskra as she wiped a mud-covered arm across her face as she tried to clear away the redness that surrounded her emerald green eyes. "They kept bumping into me and pushing me along with them, and before I knew it, I had gotten trapped in one of the warehouses."

Frustrated by the excuses given to her, Velicion shook her head in disgust as she rolled her eyes at the children before her. A long-winded sigh escaped from her lips as she lowered her shoulders in exhaustion at having to deal with two separate but eerily similar forms of heartache.

"Despite my many years of experience," The sorceress let out another sigh as she brought a hand over her face before running her fingers through the length of her long black hair. "I'm going to go ahead and assume that the two of you aren't lying to me."

Dumbfounded by what the sorceress had said, Iskra offered the elven woman a curious expression as an aura of curiosity swiftly rose into the air. "Why would we be lying to you?"

"Because," A second click of the sorceress' tongue echoed through the air as Velicion looked down at the young girl with an amused smile upon her lips. "This wouldn't be the first time that-"

Velicion brought a hand up into the air as she stopped herself from continuing any further, unable to bring attention to the fact that acts of sexual depravity were an all too common sight amongst both the young and old during a siege. Desperate or otherwise.

“It’s just that the two of you are the opposite sides of the same coin.” For Velicion, that was all that needed to be said.

Hoping to drop the current subject at hand, Velicion left a bewildered Iskra to her own devices as she returned her attention towards the battered elven prince.

While it was apparent that the boy needed to have his injuries taken care of, Velicion wished to find out just how those wounds came to be in the first place. The sorceress had never been a soft woman when it came to forgiving her children when they had managed to injure themselves, and she didn't plan to start now.

"Aurelius," A forceful, motherly tone passed through the elven woman's slender lips as she stepped closer towards her son. "Would you be a loveable darling and explain to me how in the world you ended up the way you are?"

Aurelius gave no reply to his mother's inquiry and instead shrunk back as he attempted to stay clear of the elven woman's searing gaze.

As she watched her son purposely avoid looking into her eyes, Velicion snarled her disapproval. To her, it was as if the young boy had something to hide. She despised the fact that her children would always try to hide something from her, purposely kept secrets by any of the family's children was something that would always manage to rile her into action.

Striking like a venomous viper, Velicion clasped her fingers around the young boys' chin and forced him to look into her eyes. "Aurelius Sylvos Dreadblade," She hissed as she dragged the boy forward. "Answer me now, or-"

"I'll tell you what happened!" Exclaimed Iskra as her hands clapped together, forcing the two elves to turn towards her. The young girls' body beamed with such youthful energy that it exuded enough confidence that it gave pause to the sorceress' rising rage over the defiance of her son.

Still wary over her son's unwillingness to speak, Velicion kept her eyes locked onto the elven prince, taking note of the princes' wide-eyed stare as she motioned for the human teenager to continue.

"He saved me." An uncontrollable aura of jubilant energy exerted itself from Iskra's once weary form as the girl's face brightened to that of the early morning sun. "He was like those silver armored knights you read about in fairy tales. Aurelius rescued me from danger and carried me atop of this hill. While we waited for Argonok to arrive, he fought the leader of the orcs and casted him down into the pit behind us. He's my knight in shining armor."

A strange look came over Iskra's joyous features as her eyes turned towards the elven prince, forcing the young elf to look towards his mother as he was unable to follow the vast majority of the girl's tale.

"Uh-huh." Unconvinced by the girl's words, Velicion looked back towards her battered son and looked down towards his chest. The boy had trouble breathing at times was heavy, gasping out in loud breaths as he continued to look towards his mother for help in understanding what the raven-haired girl had said. "And that was how he came to be like this?"

"Of course!" Iskra gave the sorceress an amused, almost sarcastic, smirk as she went on to explain how her heroic savior had managed to dispatch the heinous villain of her story. As it grew in length, the girl's story began to be filled with blatant embellishments that forced the elven sorceress to look towards her son with rightful disbelief plastered across her face.

Eventually, Iskra's tale came to its inevitable conclusion, and the young girl took a deep breath as she readied herself to tell the final moments of the duel between such titanic figures. "- And then the warlord grabbed ahold of Aurelius' leg and took the both of along with it as it plummeted over the edge. If Argonok hadn't come when he did and rescued us, then we would've fallen in as well."

"Iskra," Velicion said with a disbelieving expression over her face. "What makes you think that the orc that Aurelius fought was their leader?"

"He talked a lot." Without missing a beat, Iskra offered up the only reason that she needed to say. For the young girl, there was no need to provide any further evidence.

Upon hearing the final moments of the girl's story, Argonok broke out in uncontrollable laughter as he stopped and stood next to the elven sorceress after finally returning from whatever task he had left to accomplish.

"She's made a fine point," The Fireguard declared between bursts of laughter. "From my experience, orcs and goblins love to talk up a storm to those they face in battle. It comes with the territory of being flabbergasted as to why anyone would want to fight head-on with a powerful warlord of some barbaric grey-skinned rabble."

Velicion took a deep breath as she shook her head as she took a step away from the obnoxiously loud dwarf. She doubted that her ears would ever become accustomed to the way that a dwarf speaks to those around them. The day had been an exhausting experience, and she wanted it to over and done with.

"Aurelius," Upon hearing his name, the injured prince blinked at the elven sorceress with pain in his eyes. As if he was waiting for some divine form of punishment. "Is what she said true?"

"Just look at the boy-" Argonok started to say, but a raised hand from the elven woman was all that was needed to stifle any further words from the cursed suit of armor.

"I-Is what true?" His voice was filled to the brim with trepidation, but Velicion could see tell that there were no hints of any sinister schemes within the boys' eyes.

"Did you beat the orc that was here? The one that the girl claims to have led the horde."

"Uh-Ah. Hmm." Aurelius opened and closed his mouth for several moments, making it quite clear to the elven sorceress that her teenaged son was at a loss for words. While his mind slowly wracked itself with what he should say next, the prince's eyes darted back and forth between the two women that stood within close proximity of his tired body.

Eventually, his eyes rested upon the curvaceous form of Iskra as her entire body beamed with unrestrained pride and an eerily obsession towards the young prince.

Yet despite her better judgment, Velicion conferred to herself that there was lay no hidden meaning behind this strange and quiet act that the two teenagers appeared to be performing.

"Y-Yeah." With an exhausted huff of air Aurelius lowered his head and confirmed what had been said. "I killed the orc."

Velicion stared at the boy with uncertainty. Confused as to why her son had hesitated to claim the kill, but after a brief moment of silence, she was willing to give the boy some slack.

He had received injuries that needed to be taken care of before they were able to affect his health in any permanent sense.

"Alright then. Come on you two." Velicion turned her back towards the pair of teenagers and set off towards the center of the ruined encampment, chuckling to herself about how appropriate the name had truly become. "Let's head back down and regroup with the survivors."

"But what about the rest of the orcs' army?" Aurelius asked as he struggled to stand and follow in his mother's footsteps. He turned to look at a smiling Iskra who offered up her arm as support for the wounded prince.

The elven teenager blushed with embarrassment as he accepted the girls' offer and allowed her to lead the way.

"There's no need to worry about that," The sorceress said as she continued her leisurely pace. "Iskra's little experiment has managed to come back with exemplary results."

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