"So. You are pursuing a relationship with me, the former Queen of the Dark Gardens, largely to... what was it? 'Satisfy your grid-filling impulses'?"

"Well, that and you seem like an interesting woman with a lot to talk about," I said. "So, Elendar, now that you're not Queen anymore, what do you do to keep yourself occupied?"

We were seated at a teahouse, where dark elves with the right inclinations would prepare tea and snacks for their visitors, and bask in the chatter and bustle of a full house of guests they were hosting. I wasn't personally that big into tea, but this particular blend- a green tea, it would seem- was quite nice, and I was warming up to the whole prospect. And, well, the snacks were sweet pastries. Those are hard to screw up.

"...Reading, mostly," Elendar admitted. "A few of us have begun writing stories, after petitioning Carbon's tutelage in the craft. They're engaging, if not always the most productive use of my time. But, here in the Gardens... we may be secretive, but we are also safe, and we don't need to worry about being productive. It is a good life, here in the Gardens. I... personally, am a bit ambivalent about the prospect of going to the surface. Life underground has been good to us, and it is all we have known. None of us can properly miss the surface."

"It's not just about missing the surface," I said. "It's about being connected to a wider culture, to the whole world... and, well, it's also about not letting any snot-nosed high elves tell you what to do."

"Indeed, that was the platform that Selva campaigned on, when she defeated me," Elendar said. "I don't know. It has its merits, but..."

"...What if I shared with you my own library of stories from the surface?" I proposed. "I happen to be a bit of a bookworm myself, and have an ample library of fiction from the surface. One of them is my own creation, from when I adjusted my stimulant dosage a bit too high for a week."

"Well. With an invitation like that, only an ingrate would refuse."

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"-whereas, it would seem, dark elf stories tend to be more drawn out- it would be difficult to properly quantify, but roughly the same volume of events tends to happen in a dark elf book, tending slightly lower, than a surfacer book," Elendar explained. "Those same events are simply described at greater length, with more..."

"Room to breathe?" I suggested.

"Yes, exactly, more room to breathe," Elendar said, nodding. "And often this can lead to a more contemplative approach, where the reader has more time to process each given event, but, I will confess, some of the earlier books in our tradition do get rather dry and repetitive around the middle, as though the author has run out of ideas and is filling space simply to fill space. I hardly understand it- it is as though they felt compelled to write as many chapters as they could, rather than as good of a story they could. And I can still spot this tendency in later, more refined works, now that I'm looking for it. It is strange, when compared to the literature of the surface, which seems to have almost the inverse priority- oh, surface stories can certainly still be long, but by and large they seem to be written with an aim to be as short as they can manage without compromising quality."

The two of us were alone in Elendar's dwelling, discussing comparative literature, and drinking more tea and eating more pastries, these ones being a savory variety stuffed with sauteed mushrooms.

"As it so happens, the world I'm from developed a fiction culture not too dissimilar from dark elf fiction," I said. "Many of the themes and motifs are different, but not all of them, and certainly some of the patterns and priorities are very recognizable. And, you might find this very amusing, it was called web fiction."

"Why would I find that amusing?"

"Oh, uh. Sorry, dark elves were a fantastical creature in fiction in the other world, and they were often associated with spiders."

"What is a spider?"

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"So I was thinking," Elendar said, laying out several sheets of paper- I'd gotten a look at how they made paper, and helped tweak their process for increased efficiency. "You've written a story in a week before, right?"

"Yes, with the influence of drugs," I said. "It was also shorter than dark elf fiction typically is."

"Even better," Elendar said. "What I want is to collaborate with you on the writing of a story that combines elements of dark elf and surface human literary culture. I have some ideas written here, if you wouldn't mind taking a look?"

"Hrm..." I leafed through the pages of notes. "...Okay, this is pretty workable. I'll bust out my typewriter, maybe make a second one for you, and then we'll talk to Volex about some productivity potions that are less likely to have side effects than just putting some dextroamphetamine straight into our bloodstreams."

"Sounds like a plan."

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

"Hrm..."

"Hrm?"

"Hrm..."

"Hrm, I see..."

"It feels like it's missing something," I admitted. "I think we stopped the story too soon. What say we carry things forward a bit into a bit more resolution and some epilogue?"

"What, where the dark elf princess and the human heroes are wed and live happily ever on the surface?" Elendar suggested.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Yeah, exactly. That's what they'd been striving for the whole time, so it only makes sense to let the reader see them get it."

"It's also the done thing in dark elf literature; I suppose omitting it to fit surfacer standards may not have been the strictly wisest choice."

"Eh, it's nothing we can't knock out in another day or two. C'mon."

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

"Dammit," Elendar said, pushing her typewriter back and pouting. "This is so cliched..."

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"I am having trouble writing the scene where the character who is essentially me shares a passionate kiss with the character who is essentially you," Elendar whined.

"...And you need me to act it out with you so you can be inspired to write the scene properly," I said. "Which is a cliche in Gardener romantic fiction."

"Writers know what it is like to be a writer, and so write stories about what works in their own love lives," Elendar said, sulking only a little.

"Well, tell you what, Ellie," I said. "Has a week and a half of spending time with me, learning about a new culture, and writing a book as a team helped you decide that you like me enough that you'd want to kiss me even without the excuse?"

"...More than a little, yes," Elendar admitted.

"Then come here, and I'll teach you what it's like to kiss an alpha."

It was with the hungry, awkward passion of two tremendous dorks who had, in a morass of weird-ass sexual tension, put literary cock to bibliographical vagina and nearly borne the story-baby to term together before they finally so much as touched each other that I kissed my co-author and the ex-Queen of the dark elves.

We stumbled around a bit, before collapsing onto her couch, me pinning Elendar on her back with my weight, and kept going, our hands beginning to wander. Her tits, while perhaps not as visually impressive as those I'd grown accustomed to, still felt amazing in the hand, delightfully smooth and firm, while her hips proved eminently grabbable.

I pulled away from her as her hands reached for the hem of my dress, and she whined inarticulately in protest.

"Not yet," I said. "Patience, Ellie. Besides. We've still got a book to write, haven't we?"

"...Fine, but I am going to write into this scene that the human hero is a massive tease," Elendar sulked.

"I can live with that."

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"Well, we sure did write a book together," I said, that same night. "And now... we just have to publish it."

"I think that a trendy new novel from the ex-Queen and a human, extolling the virtues of working with humans-" Elendar began.

"And trying to ride their fat alpha cocks," I added.

"-should help sway public opinion even further in the favor of your friend Kara's proposal," Elendar said, her face heating up.

"I'm glad I met you, babe," I said, throwing an arm over her shoulders. "I couldn't have done this without you."

"Yes, well," Elendar said. "I... may have come around on this polycule business. I don't suppose you could... help introduce me to the others?"

"Of course! Just as soon as we run this to the publisher... oh, and give it a name. Fuck we forgot the name. Shit."

"Oh, um... uh... The Sun Shines On The Gardens."

"Good enough. Ship it."

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

A few days after the publication of The Sun Shines On The Gardens, Kara and Rachel returned from the Grand Temple via teleportation, both looking very excited.

"I'm a Sage of Mechanics now!" Kara exclaimed.

"And I am a true swordsage, now," Rachel added.

I kissed them both deeply. "Congratulations, you two. That's amazing. We've got some good news, too."

"Elendar's part of the polycule now," Carbon added, gesturing at our new, once-regal lover.

"And," Elendar added. "Lucy and I collaborated on the authoring and publication of a novel combining human literary tropes with dark elf literary tropes, extolling the virtues and benefits of dark elf/human companionship. Which, given that I once headed the faction of Gardeners most skeptical of the prospect of leaving the Dark Gardens to establish a new home on the surface, should prove influential in the upcoming vote."

"...You work fast," Kara marveled.

"We try," I said casually, buffing my nails on my shirt.

"The speed at which you work both baffles and frightens me," Rachel said. "I have no idea how you will react when, one day, you inevitably run out of productive work to do, and begin to grow bored."

"Hopefully that'll be sometime after we're married," I said. "At that point, if I'm bored, we can just have sex about it."

"...Well, that's fair," Rachel said. "I look forward to it, darling."

"Can you two get married sometime soon?" Volex whined. "I'm horny. I wanna get laid!"

"Patience, little dragon," I said, reaching over and patting her unruly mane. "All in due time. Now! The book was short, and the public reads quickly. The referendum has been moved to tomorrow, and Elendar, as a citizen of the Dark Gardens, will be required to vote. Hopefully, fingers crossed for good luck, our gambit has worked, and the vote will go in our favor. Thankfully, the terms are now such that we still get to borrow the Teapot for a week even if they vote no, thanks to my contributions to the Dark Gardens, so no matter what, after the vote, we'll be ready to gather up the Council, head to Manor Nukem, and take back the throne."

"You'll finally get to go home," Kara said, nudging Rachel with an elbow.

Rachel just shook her head and smiled at me. "Home is wherever Lucy is."

"Gay-ass."

"And?"

"And I love you too, little knight. C'mere."

We kissed again, and I grinned back at her.

"Long day tomorrow. We'd better head to bed and get a head start on our cuddling to get ready for it."

I picked her up and carried her off, and we all traipsed merrily towards a bed that, once again, might need to be just a bit bigger.

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

"The votes have been tallied three times, by three officials," Selva announced the next evening to a hall full of Gardeners. "The results... are unanimous. We will move to the surface, and we will pledge our support to Duke Kara Nukem, through thick and through thin."

Cheering erupted, and I shared a glance with Elendar, who simply grinned at me. She'd had the idea of putting in a second human hero- an omega, based on Carbon, to complement the alpha based on me. Her reasoning was quite sound; if you were going to appeal to the lusts of a cavern of betas, you couldn't half-ass it. Hard alpha cock could only carry you so far; soft omega pussy had to also be on the table. And, well, it did in fact seem that she was right. Literally every vote cast had been in favor of moving to the surface. And... well, we could deal with the flood of half-elves when it started. For now, we had bigger plans.