I awoke to a kick in the gut.
I gasped for air. My eyes were blurry, and my muscles were still half-asleep. Each intake of breath drew a complaint from my spine, each exhalation a nauseä in my throat. Who would do this? I hear what sounds like laughter in the distance. Were we under attack? Did the Dark Queen send her forces while I slept? I closed my eyes from the pain.
Slowly, my body renormalized itself. My breaths became easiër, and I began to feel less nauseous. Eventually, I opened my eyes and blinked them a couple times. Lænzey was standing over me, chittering at my misfortune.
"Heh, alright, now we're even. Time to join the watch, bud."
"Even...for what?" I wheezed, still trying to get enough air into my lungs.
"Honestly, I've been getting the short end of a LOT of sticks courtesy of you two bozos. It's not just that...whatever that was...during the meeting. It's the overruling, the sidelining, the telling me to sleep outside during muddy season. I need to let out my frustration somehow."
"You didn't do this to Sulmoro, did you?" I coughed out.
"Of course not! Do you think I want to get sent off to some holy gulag somewhere for attacking an oracle? You—" She switched to a posh-sounding accent. "—have carried a great burden for fair Sulmoro on this day." She bowed mockingly. I cracked a smile at her jest.
"You reälize I'm in the room, right?" said Sulmoro.
"Aw, blow it out your ass." She sighed, deflating somewhat, before suddenly squaring her back and glaring at Sulmoro. "Actually, screw it, I'm not ending it there. I'm tired of stepping on eggshells around you. We're literally this close to defeating the Dark Queen, and you know you can't win without me. Once we down her, I'll be hailed as a hero who helped Kirik lead us to victory, and you won't be able to touch me then either, so I'm speaking my mind, and you will like it."
I was taken aback, but honestly, also kinda impressed. I felt bad for Sulmoro—really, I did—but in hindsight, this was a long time coming.
"Are you threatening blasphemy?"
"Who's threatening? I'm saying right here and now that I am a warrior in my own right and do not need to 'settle down' with anyone." Turning to me, she apologetically said, "Sorry, Kirik. The marriage is off."
I glanced from Lænzey to Sulmoro and back. "It was on before?"
"She never told you?"
"She might've, but it probably sounded like a joke."
Sulmoro asked me "If not marriage, what did you intend to do with her, then? Just keep her where she is as your lieutenant?" She scoffed at the ideä.
"I mean...yeah? You know she's one of the best in the whole...not-dark?...army...actually, what's the name of our side of this, anyway?"
"Perhaps the 'white' army, symbolizing purity and in opposition to the 'dark' army?"
Lænzey looked contemplative. "Well, it's not the black army, is it? It's the dark army. So, wouldn't the opposite be 'light', not 'white'?"
I chimed in with "...maybë 'daylight'?"
"That's good too," they both said in unison, before reeling back from each other in mild horror.
"See? You still agree on some things. Now play nice."
They withdrew to opposite sides of the room and sulked, and I started getting some serious deja-vu. I only hoped that, just as me and Lænzey had come to respect each other, she and Sulmoro would eventually come to an understanding too.
From here, things get kinda hazy for me.
I mean, obviously I stayed in the room to keep watch, so I know all about the nothing that happened there. My point is that I wasn't present when the rest of the daylight crew interviewed the servants, so there might be some things that don't match up, exactly. Here's my best guess of how it went, from what I heard from everyone later:
----------------------------------------
I went over to Cåktakal's room to wake him.
"Thanks, kid," he said, clasping my shoulder.
"Good luck."
On his way out the door, he replied "Don't need it."
He made his way out the door and down the hallway to the portion that overlooked the lobby. He looked across the atrium at the receptionist's desk, and there was noöne there, which meant he needed to go over in person and ring the bell. To hear him tell the tale, he'd initially wanted to have his conversation by way of them both shouting across the atrium at each other (to save time, of course).
Once he made his way down, he walked out into the lobby and crossed to ring the bell, which he rang repeatedly, over and over and over again, for several minutes. Eventually, the yellow servant, having only just gotten dressed for the day, walked out into the atrium to see what all the noise was about. She saw Cåktakal standing there, doïng his thing, and she started chuckling. I mean, honestly, who wouldn't? Some doofy-looking middle-aged guy with a cocky smile as he taps a desk bell over and over? Priceless.
"You think this is funny? I'm trying to get some service here."
"Sorry. It's just not every day you see someone this dedicated to ringing a bell. What's up?"
"This is an interrogation."
"Don't hurt me, enforcer! My hands are up!" She raised them over her head as if she were getting arrested.
Cåktakal tried and failed to suppress a chuckle, as did the jengu. For both of them, it slowly grew and grew into a full-throated laugh.
"Hoo, man!" said the yellow servant, sighing in relief, "you're a murderer, but you've got a sense of humor at least."
"Back at ya', devilspawn."
"Hey now," cautioned the jengu, suddenly dourer, "I don't mind what you say about me, but leave my folks out of this. They never even liked this sort of thing."
"I will talk about who I want to, but care to explain?"
She rolled her eyes. "Sure. So my parents were big into the Old Way. They felt proud of the fact they paid tribute to the Central Body, but they reeled in horror at the Central Body actually doïng anything, blah blah blah blah. I'm sure you've met at least some of the Old Way—"
"Of course I have. What do you take me for, some manure-covered yokel?"
"Exactly, so I don't need to explain it to you. It's just bizarre how they thought about the most basic things. The thing they claimed to venerate was gone, they were turned into second-class citizens in their own home, and still they voted for the same village chieftains and the same delegates to the state. Where they grew up attending schools and writing essays, I grew up in the slums of the peninsula's largest toilet, and they worried about whether procedures were observed."
"Can't say I much relate, but gettin' raised by bozos would do anyone bad, I'd reckon."
"I wasn't raised by them," she said bitterly. "They gave me housing, but I was forced to fend for myself from when I could first count; my home was with the other urchins." A soft smile crossed her face. "I really miss them. The urchins, I mean. Believe it or not, old 1zo was with us for a season. She said she was just passing through doïng 'research' or something. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I showed her the ropes."
"Regret that any?"
"Nope, not a bit. She learned quick, she pulled off stunts I'd never think were possible, and when we were doling out the loot for the day, she'd talk about things I'd never even thought about before. My parents didn't like it, of course—"
"Sticking it to your folks, I see. I can get behind it."
"And they didn't raise me, so I didn't care. They kicked me out and it barely mattered."
Cåktakal gave her a mocking laugh. "Roughed it with the Queen and built a camaraderie to last the ages, huh?"
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"Actually no. She left and—"
"Pffffffft no way! No fuckin' way" he sputtered, doubling over in laughter.
"Hush, you. What, was she going to help me by living in the mud with me and dispensing wisdom? She left to build her army, rolled through three years later, and offered me a generalship. There, ya' happy?"
"I'm ecstatic."
"Look, 80% of my job now is to tell you boring stories of shit I already lived through. If you aren't taking this seriously, neither will I."
"Aw, lass? Threatening to lie are we? Wouldn't want to disrespect her highness, would you?"
"I think she'll forgive me a small amount of sarcasm delivered to a rude customer."
"Can't you forgive me the same, then? Don't you even know how far off from the norm you are?"
"How old are you?"
"26, going on 27."
"Look, bub, I'm 44. Trust me when I say you are the strange one."
"What does that have to d—"
"You aren't like most people. Expectations pass, attitudes pass, popular trends, ways of doïng business, kingdoms, tides, and the only thing that stays the same is that some people hold out hope for the rest. I can tell you don't have shred of that stuff in you."
"What does that say about you getting along with me so well then? Your hope run out?"
"Kinda, yeah, at least for you. You buried Olkol and didn't show a hint of remorse. You've destroyed our empire and done nothing to replace it with anything even remotely better. Should I have hope for you anymore?"
"You had hope for us?" Cåktakal snorted.
"Yep, but not anymore. I give up. I could tell you about the irony of my parents' fate, or about how extraordinary this palace was in the empire's prime, but let's be real with each other; you don't care. You never did."
"Glad we understand each other, then. One last thing, though..."
"What?"
"Your name."
"Aaknik"
"Pleasure doïng business"
Cåktakal bowed, gave a rude salute, and walked away.
----------------------------------------
After Cåktakal, Sekterns was the next to try gathering info.
I went over to wake him up, having just let a lethargic Lænzey finally catch some Zs, and he seemed surprisingly energetic, excited at beïng able to 'prove himself to the team' apparently. This was quickly quashed by Sulmoro, however, since when he walked past her, she pointed him out to me, saying "Careful with him. Make sure he doesn't betray us."
Great job antagonizing our most useful ally, dumdum, I thought. All things considered, Sulmoro was really not putting her best foot forward so far during this outing.
"Let's just pull the cord and see what happens," I said, dismissively. "If he betrays us, he betrays us, and we can kill him or something. You worry too much."
Sekterns did just that (the pulling the cord, not the worrying), and we all waited for something to happen.
Eventually, something did: the green-clad Olæren appeared, just as promised, at our doorway.
"Hello, what did you need?" she asked, grinning wider than seemed natural.
"Well, uh, I wanted to ask you some questions?" Sekterns ventured.
It seemed to take a moment to register. "Sure." She still wore the same expression.
"So, uhh..." He glanced nervously back at Sulmoro.
"Do you want to walk and talk?" She pointed into the hallway with her thumb. Sekterns nodded in agreement. They started walking down the hallway, away from the atrium.
"Alright, have fun, you two!" I called out after them.
And interview #2 was off to the races.
"So, um...Olæren, right?"
"Right"
"Why...why are you with the Dark Queen?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean she does a lot of bad stuff. You seem like a nice person; why would you follow her?"
"I'm not sure what's all that bad about what she does."
"What?"
"Just a sec, gotta concentrate." She gingerly walked down the set of stars they had come to, grasping the railing tightly. "Anyway, like I was saying, she provides support for technological progress, sets standard trade rules, guarantees trials to those accused... what am I missing?"
"She's an enemy of nature!"
"I mean, well...okay we should turn that way." She pointed leftward. "So, uh, for one, I don't think so."
"Huh?"
"She's supported all of my gardening efforts, and cultivation of new crops. Plus, we did away with a lot of unnecessarily restrictive social customs that I'm pretty sure got in the way of ecological stability."
"Well, hmm..." Sekterns leaned back. "What makes gardening and crops count for so much?"
"It's kinda basically my life. Like, right now, I'm running requests for all of you, but I'm usually not even a normal employee. I'm the gardener, who grows the castle's food. These days, we're much lower on people, so there's not as much need for all the food."
"Is that why you became a runner then?"
"Queen called in a favor." She yawned a bit and stretched her arms. "It's not so bad. Besides, I'm sure the hired hands can manage without me for a couple days. By the way, what do you do?"
"W-wait, aren't we supposed to, y-y'know, talk about you?"
"Well, yeah, but—"
"So why are you asking me?"
"I'm curious too, you know! What sort of 'army of purity' or whatever sends an orc in their vanguard squad? Don't they hate orcs?"
"Well, yeah, but—"
"So why are you here?"
"It's..." He looked away. "It's not a fun story."
"That's fine. I've gotten enough of those from Aaknik anyway."
"Who?"
"The receptionist."
"Got it. But, uh...if it's alright with you, I'd rather not tell you just now."
She gave him a long, gentle look. "I understand. I've gotten some of those around here too."
They walked in silence for a while, before eventually coming to a nondescript door. Walking through it, they emerged from the side of a hill into the open air, looking out at a valley. Or rather, it would have been the open air if not for the giant glass and metal lattice that stretched above the small valley in a dome shape. The valley was covered from end to end in square-ish plots of land, each containing a different crop, from lettuce to different types of squash to varying combinations of the three sisters.
The dark elf in green clutched her dress and ran several paces, letting her momentum carry her into flopping face up on the grass.
"Ah~" she sighed, "it's so nice to be back here."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm great! This is the castle garden. I love beïng here."
"You run this place?"
"Yep! It was a royal dispensation for my service."
"What service was that?"
"It all starts long, long ago way back when... I was raised in this town you've probably never heard of, southeast of here. It's basically just a rocky crag with nothing on it. My mom raised me herself from pretty early on: twice married, twice divorced. She wasn't so bad, but she was a real flake sometimes. Like, she kept forgetting that the town school had shut down when the non-elves left, so sometimes she would panic that I hadn't been going to school. I eventually learned that the best way I could help her was to keep her schedule for her and remind her when she needed to do something, and over a bunch of time, I got real good at logistics. But then she dies; I think it was a heart attack, but the last doctor'd died the year before, so I don't know for sure. So, what's a girl to do? Well, I try to use my skills to help some other people out, but...that doesn't go so well after I help out the wrong people. There's a witch hunt called and they chase me allll through town until I turn this corner and I reälize I'm at a dead end."
She paused dramatically, sat up, and looked Sekterns in the eye.
"Or is it? Y'see I manage to spot a misalignment in the rock, and when I run my hand over it, it feels loose, so I push on it. It falls through, and I climb through. Before I can do anything else, I hear someone else move the rock again—which probably saved me. I look up, and what do I see? A demon! Like, I know you grow up hearing about demons and how they live underground, but I never expected them to be real! Apparently there was a whole big demon village living right below our island. Who knew?
"Anyway, so I settle into the community, and I do what I do best: cataloguing and boring stuff. I run into this guy and his daughter, and he asks me what I 'did to get thrown in here'." Sekterns smiled at the exaggerated impression. "I explain the whole thing, and he starts asking me about my mom. Turns out, he was her first husband, so he offers for me to move in with him. I get along real well with my half-sis, and we start trading info. Before you know it, we're at the top of the Dark Army, and I get to see something on campaign I've never seen in my life: living plants. I love them instantly, and I start doïng all my supply rationing outside to be with the greenery. When we start stabilizing our territory, the Queen asks me what I want, and I ask to run this place. She agrees, and badda-bing badda-boom, I run the garden."
"You really do love nature, huh?"
"Of course I do! Where I come from, everything's gray and we had to import our weeds."
"Then, hear me out. Look at this place. Is this natural?"
"I mean...yeah. What do you mean?"
"Look at that dome, for goodness sake. Is that a naturally-occuring glass-and-metal formation? Even without the dome, the fields are wrong. Why are there so many of the same type of plant next to each other. For crying out loud, plants don't usually grow in squares. How is this natural?"
"Well, the plants are still natural, aren't they? You're not going to tell me lettuce is fake, are you?"
"Well, no, but...look at the bigger picture. If the Dark Queen wins this, she'll spread her ideals of violating customs from the headlands to the falls. Then what? People aren't going to respect nature the same way they used to, because they'll understand it, and we don't fear what we understand. Then people will try to mess with things, and we have no ideä where that might get us. The sun might roast us alive, or the spiders might go crazy, or any number of things. You don't know what will happen."
"You're right, I don't, but at least it will be a future that we can shape ourselves."
"Don't you get it? That's th—"
"Even if what you're saying is true, I don't care. In your future, how many children will have to fend for themselves when there's noöne to save their parents?"
"How many will die of manmade disasters in yours?"
"I expect: very few. If we build a society of compassion, we can evacuate them if need be. Goodness knows there are already so many natural disasters."
"Trust me. I don't think humans can have compassion for us. Besides, even compensating for natural disasters stretches our resources thin. Adding more on top might be the leaf that breaks the boat's hull!"
"...I see we are at an impasse, then."
"What can I say to convince you? Isn't there anything?"
"I don't know."
"I hope you reälize your mistake."
"Have a nice life."
And with that, the dark elf walked away.