There was something to be said for ending a half year life of bare subsistence with a wild assed party. In spite of the secondary effects of too much drink, Ulric was feeling as good as he had since the first day he'd arrived. He probably had the woman at his side, draped like silk over his stomach and legs to thank for that. She certainly looked like a good time, dark skinned, jet hair, and tending towards the more bouncy side of her people. He couldn't remember anything and, wow, wasn't that just unfair? After a brief try…nope. Nothing. He'd been well and truly black out drunk.

Appreciation for the fine curves and delicate features of his bedmate occupied him for a few minutes. Then he turned his attention to the room around the bed. It had the standard Elven love of natural flowing design. Wardrobes looked like they'd grown out of the wall. Night stands of woven branches with a circular table top carved, all in vines that yet had a mysteriously smooth surface. No windows, so they were in an interior room. Somehow, natural daylight still managed to illuminate the room with dawn's soft rays. Probably magic.

The bed, which occupied the majority of the room, was big enough to accommodate at least two more people. He didn't know what the sheets were made of but they reminded him of a very fine Merino wool. Stretchy but soft. The comforters though were some sort of down, he could feel the odd poke of feather through the top sheet.

Everywhere was the Elven embrace of natural themes. Even the ceiling was relief carved. Was this attention the result of the sheer longevity of Elven craftsmen? He could imagine that, if you lived for hundreds and hundreds of years, what was a decade carving perfection into a room? He shook his head at the difference in perspective that must naturally arise between their peoples. It was easy to understand how a being that lived for so long could come to view the shorter-lived races as inferior or animalistic. Didn't excuse treating another sapient being as less, simply because their experience differed, but it was a thing he could understand happening. Only if you were kind of a dick though.

Speaking of which, his body, his hale, healthy, uncrippled body, was wide awake now. Amazing. Drinking like that would normally leave him half dead for at least three days. He definitely healed faster than in the old world. Other things happened faster too, but, fortunately, not the wrong things. As he got to know when the woman sharing his bed woke up and smiled at him before wordlessly reaching for his manhood. An incredible hour of being wrung out like a dish rag followed. His partner left first, humming a nameless tune as she dressed in warrior's garb, leaving him in a bed that looked like animals had been fighting in it. Boneless post coital bliss made him wax philosophic.

Yep. Sometimes you had to die to learn to live. And, sometimes, living meant caring only about the now. A time and a place for giving the future its due, same as for letting the past teach its lessons. But the now, that was, above all else, the only time you were real. He hadn’t been laid in a long time and it showed.

It was a half hour before he felt like he could walk without wobbling. Ye gods, he hadn't even gotten her name. He wondered how rude it would be to find someone by asking around for the birth mark on their left cheek. Ok, down Simba, shit to do, Ulric told himself.

Ulric dressed. He gave his armor a good once over, checking straps and ties like he'd done it all his life. More magical bullshit, that was his [Warrior] class perks in action. Everything was tight and fit correctly when he finished securing it. He hefted his pack and that long fucking trident and made his way out of the room to see what goings on were happening in Elfland. He left the bed as it was. That was going to be a project, holy shit. He'd come back in a while and deal with it.

Looking around the hall Ulric quickly realized he had a navigational problem. The problem was that he had no navigation. He'd been entirely out of his mind when he arrived, there were no memories of where he’d been or gone to have any idea where he was. The Elven citadel had twelve stories to it, each its own small town. He currently was absent even the most rudimentary information regarding where he'd ended up. Nothing for it. Ulric took off walking, a bounce in his step.

He let the light be his guide. Heading towards the brighter light he eventually made it to an open terrace, a railed plaza, that let him get his bearings. He was on the ninth layer of the fortress. Three levels down from the royal hall in which the festivities had started. The sylvan folk were up and about, servants going here and there with duties, warriors moving in small groups and discussing whatever it was warriors talked about. Not everyone in the fortress had been at the party, of course, but enough had that he regularly saw faces that signaled greetings. A couple put their hands together and then mocked an explosion. So, they had been there for the story of the [Forest Lord]'s fall. And the melon. All told, it felt nice to not be a pariah. These dudes were actually kind of alright. A little intense. But alright.

Ulric was starting to wonder if the levels of the fortress had any political or social meaning. Did the lower floors belong to specific groups compared to the higher floors? Was he, somehow, making some kind of statement by even being on this level? Was he just overthinking non relevant shit because he didn't want to think about having Taipan as a bondsman for the rest of his days?

And, like the cruel, relentless voodoo curse that she was, she appeared.

He remembered that she had left the festivities almost immediately, to the collective relief of the entire room. Now she was stalking towards him, face a gorgeous thundercloud. Ulric briefly considered jumping to the platform below. Too far, he'd probably break his legs, and then she'd be able to stand over top of him, gloating, the entire time he healed. Instead, he swallowed his immediate distaste and attempted civility. It was hard not to scowl, but he managed.

"Good morning, Taipan, how do the twinned suns find you?" He offered, as politely as he could manage, if not cheerfully.

"My life is ashes because of you, how do you think they find me, you jumped up vagrant Valin?" She returned, full of venom.

Civility attempted. Civility discarded.

"Forgive me, I do not speak 'conniving ne'er-do-well'. Please, try a language with which I am familiar, such as, 'not an asshole', or maybe one with which you are better familiar like, 'I do this to myself'." Ulric jabbed, with an overly helpful tone.

She was beaten easily, this time. The reality of what had transpired yesterday was too fresh, sapping her will to continue. Maybe there’d be no fun baiting a beaten foe.

"Forget it.” She spat, disgusted, “Father has decided my fate, and, I have deserved it. I should never have wasted my breath on you and simply allowed you to set your own head in a trap. Then father would have killed you and I would be free to hunt down your vile kin. Now I am cursed to be your Shadow, to prove my honor by doing worthless things while my brothers and sisters claim glory killing invaders." She lamented.

Squaring her stance, she demanded

"What will you have of me, Lord Ulric Einar Glade Chief?"

He wasn't an expert on Elvish digs, though he would learn quickly if he hung around Bald'rt for very long, but he had a feeling that that many titles and way of naming were probably more sarcasm than respect. Easy enough to take that barb from her bow.

"Please, Taipan, just Ulric is fine. You will remain in my service for many, many, years let us forego the formal titles." He told her in an obviously falsely kind voice.

Okay, no, it turned out there was still a little bit fun whipping this particular horse. He owed her for sitting there knowing she’d poisoned him and saying nothing of it until well after he’d started showing symptoms of maybe dying from it.

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She didn't attempt a riposte though, merely narrowed her eyes and avoided further engagement. He won the point. But he didn't feel quite good about it, the dynamic was too far shifted in his favor by their adjustment of status. More like, it sucks to suck? Just what the fuck was a Shadow anyway? He still didn’t know, and he needed to know, else he couldn’t undo it.

Instead of responding, Taipan fell into step at Ulric's left-hand side a few paces back. That left Ulric to either ask her for help in finding out where the hell to go or to simply roam. They would both starve to death before he would ask her for help so that pretty much meant that Ulric was going to stretch his legs.

He took off at an easy pace. The sluggishness of too much booze was working out of his system. Morning sex had a way of lubricating the gears too. The citadel was enormous. He wandered through pavilions, each seemingly dedicated to a different purpose. Elven tradesmen were weaving in and out of structures, aprons hung with the myriad tools of their craft, and all of them were busy. Ulric almost followed a smith, hammer and tongs marking him out, but restrained himself. Soon. But, first, Ulric was looking for a way to get back in touch with Bald'rt, or with someone who could speak for him. He would have settled for finding Brighteyes too. Unfortunately, both had vanished into the alcohol fueled oblivion of the last night. So far as he knew the boy hadn't partaken of that, although, he was more than legal in human years. No probably not, age notwithstanding, Brighteyes was still a child. A precocious and worldly one, but a child, nevertheless.

A cart rolled by filled with monster parts that caught Ulric's eye. Bones, scales, hides, claws, the odd jar of stingers, it was a bonanza of materials. A fine pair of hips were propelling it but that was more distant observation than it would have been previously. Ulric's thoughts turned to the bone shards, glassresin, [Steelwood], and cores in his pack. The cores especially. Brighteyes had said they were valuable but various distractions had prevented Ulric from really following up on that. When was the last time he'd actually considered the concept of money?

He'd been mostly worried about getting here alive. That objective accomplished, the boy returned to his home, the Elven city arrayed, empty, below him, left him feeling adrift. The Elf following soundlessly behind him drug at him like a lead weight.

Iriel was both everything, and nothing, like he'd imagined. The natives were a mix of Tolkien's quietly dignified folk and Comanches. Both reserved and blatant, calm but intense.

Ulric had a feeling that was related to the inherent dangers posed by the environment. Violence was everywhere. Death walked the forest below, held in abeyance by the courage and might of Hunters, Warriors, and the strengths of the individual. He was seeing a far skewed picture of that spectrum, granted; in all likelihood, only the ones who could properly fight that had remained behind. Yet, nothing he'd seen of the interactions and culture of the Iriel'en suggested anything but a people who lived on a knife's edge. And enjoyed it. The only softness or gentleness was in the way they revered their forest home; that they tended like a loving gardener her strawberries. Everything else was a battle to be won, a challenge to be taken, or a duty to be fulfilled. Admirable. Understandable. A little sad.

Fingers snapping, mind processing, Ulric just sort of zoned out, traveling aimlessly. When he came to a stair that led upwards he took it, absent intent to find anything particular. It was almost an hour before he was broken from his reverie. It was, of course, Taipan who disturbed his peace.

"Where are you going? We have been passing through Irielhos like termites winding a rotted log." She asked acidly.

Sighing, Ulric walked to the rail of the pavilion, one which stood out proudest from the trunk of the giant from which the fortress was supported. The air whipped violently as Ulric stared into the golden browns and faded reds of the majestic wood around him noticing how the colors scattered into the sky as leaves were loosed like dandelion seeds.

Was this it then? He wondered. He was never to have a moment's peace from now on? Lord Bald'rt Iriel had judged, in his skew, twisty, Elven mind, that Taipan's punishment was to last for his entire life.

It did have a sort of deeply ironic fairness. But he knew, to his bones, that Taipan's punishment would be his own. Two souls twined in a hell of backbiting, bickering, snark, and vitreol. Ulric was all for a game of wits and needles. But this would not be that. No, this would be torture unending.

Worse, he couldn't escape it. He very much doubted that there would be any way short of killing Taipan to keep her from stepping in his shadow, enacting this justice on him. And if he did that, then there was no question; her disturbingly attractive father would leave his throne, find him, and grind him fine.

He needed a way out. He considered, again, supplication to a diety. He might get lucky, apparently people weren't being entirely figurative about gods around here. When none made themselves readily available, probably from fear he might order Taipan to follow them around, he decided he had to try something. Anything.

Leaning his hard-won weapon on the rail he dug through the pack until he found that object he sought. Out came the faceted crystal that had once been the core of the [Forest Lord], its shimmering chromatic hues radiant in the morning suns light. Ulric rose and pushed it into Taipan's hands, who took it only to keep from dropping it off the pavilion.

She looked like he'd handed her a spider. A deadly one.

"What is this? What are you doing?" She demanded.

"A peace offering. That's the [Forest Lord]'s core. It's yours. I do not have a use for such a thing but I have been told it is valuable." Ulric said.

"I do not want it. You don't know what you're doing at all, do you?” the former Huntress snapped, before mellowing slightly, “This is priceless. It is a thing beyond treasure. For what reason would you give it to me?”

She ran over the attempt he made to explain that peace meant silence, most of the time, proving the point of why he’d want to give it to her in the first place.

“There is no battle between us any longer Glade Chief, I am to serve as your Shadow now, you do not need to give me this." Taipan rebutted, for once too surprised to instill her normal scorn.

Even as she said that her hands held it as if it would shatter to pieces in the breeze.

Ulric spoke softly, trying as hard as he could to make clear his sincerity.

"Look, Taipan, I cannot change the past. I know you suffered harm by the actions of humans, and I know I have not been kind to you, though you should also know that you invited most of that unkindness. Even so, I do not desire to live with your enmity on my shoulder. I am sorry for the losses inflicted on you, I truly am. No one should be forced to live with such a thing. But I did not hurt you and I do not accept responsibility for the actions of the ones who did. So. Take this priceless thing, which I obtained by sheer chance and have no love for, and let the past lie. At least where we two are concerned."

Her hands turned the core over and over. She looked back between the two of them, from core to man, sometimes, for whatever reason sparing a glance for the trident, saying nothing the entire time. Finally, she came to some decision and, for the first time since he'd laid eyes on her, she stopped looking angry.

She gently handed him back the core, shaking her head, hair sending twilight cascades with the motion.

"Lumyt'seit was right, you are worms in head. I cannot take that, it would burn me with shame to know I had gained it because you found my presence so intolerable you would rather part with a treasure you cannot fathom than face me." Taipan announced.

"I loathe the Valin and Jormun who took from me. I will always hate them. But, fool that you are, in this you are right. I did you an injustice, from hate, and was shamed by you. I did the Iriel’en, most particularly, my dearest Lumyt'seit, a mortal wrong by breaking his Guestright and trying to maneuver you into death at my father's hand. All my people know this and I am shamed again. This punishment is the least thing Father could do to me, and that is also shaming. I will not continue to deepen my crimes through spite, and you do not need to give me anything to see it ended. It is ended."

There was the echo of her sire's strength of will in that declaration. She had decided the way the world would turn and that was that. Ulric was so relieved he was very nearly giddy.

He didn't know what he was going to do with that core though. Treasure beyond treasure Taipan had called it and Brighteyes had said something similar, hadn't he? If the gawking of passersby were any indication it was very much that. For now, he put it back in his pack and shouldered it, tension bleeding from his thoughts.

"I would have an answer to this question though, Ulric Glade Chief."

Taipan stated, with some of that latent hostility in her tone, if not to the extremes of earlier.

Burrowing ahead before he could say anything she demanded "What is it, this thing you are calling me, this Taipan. And why do you not use people's names? You do not give Lumyt'seit his proper name either."

Ulric's stress immediately returned before he heard the question and calmed. That wasn't as bad as he'd thought.

"I call Brighteyes Brighteyes because it was the first thing I noticed about him when we met.” Ulric answered, honestly.

“I didn't know he could speak human, which at that time his human was terrible so it was mostly the same thing. He seemed fine with the nickname and it stuck. Hell, it was even the name I saw when I [Scan]'d him during his lesson on how to use [Scan]. Later on, I asked him for his real name and he told me Lumyt'seit could translate to Flashing Gaze in human. By that time, I'd been calling him Brighteyes for weeks and he said it was a good name so that was that.” He finished.

With more than a little ruefulness he got to the first part of her question, “As for you, a Taipan, from my old life, was a type of snake reknowned for its foul temper and highly toxic venom. For obvious reasons I called you that because you reminded me of nothing so much as the viper in nearly all of our interactions."

Her eyes, slightly narrowed at first, widened to almost acceptance, before drawing back down in to a scowl. She really needed to stop doing that, she was going to give herself wrinkles. She opened her mouth to speak, almost certainly to say something nasty, judging by her expression but she closed it immediately. Turning over a new leaf was hard. Especially when irritable was your natural state. Ulric would know, he'd lived an entire life that way and it had taken the shock of being thrown naked into a wild primeval to give him perspective enough to shake some of that mindset.

Eventually, she seemed to come to terms with what Ulric told her.

"I do not like being called Taipan, even if it was deserved. I am called Geyrt Iriel, Eldest Daughter of Bald'rt, [Lord of the Deep Wood]. I will be your Shadow now to serve as your left hand. Your enemies are mine and your interests I will advance as far as I am able, for as long as you live." Geyrt declared loudly.

Folk had never stopped their comings or goings throughout all of this, and, given that Elf hearing was pretty good, knew what was up. They didn't pause or show any sign though and it was as if a curtain had been drawn on that part of the pavilion, none crossing an invisible threshold. They had an odd sense for how to generate privacy where there was none, did the Iriel'en.

No way out but forward, Ulric thought. He stepped forward and offered up his hand. Then he had to explain hand-shakes before she got the wrong idea. A firm shake later and Ulric sealed his fate.

"Well met Geyrt Iriel. I accept your service, as bidden by Bald'rt Iriel Chief, and will take seriously all the obligations laid on me. With any luck this is gonna be a long job, I hope we can get along."

*PING*

It was very nearly all he could do not to scream.