Page 69 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

“Well, it’s not the same,” said Gathren.

“It’s not the same,” said her mother. “And yet, it is also entirely the same.”

“Dragons breathe fire,” said Gathren. “They are huge and they have wings, and they are fearsome and terrifying.”

“I mean,” said Iahir, “I suppose, if I’m truly honest with myself, I am entirely frightened of orcs from a sheer sort of… physical perspective.” He sniffed. “Hmm. Fascinating. I wonder if it all comes down to that, really. Perhaps that’s what Findas was, simply frightened, of everything.”

“The dwarves are not frightening,” said Gathren.

“Not in the same way, no,” said Iahir. “But they have their superiorities. Of course, this is why we’ve been in a competition with them for these past generations, both the elves and the dwarves trying to make up as many new inventions as possible before the other species did. Stealing each other’s inventions, improving on them, advancing against each other. I don’t know what it’s all been about, but some kind of fear, I suspect. We are all rather frightened creatures, are we not?” He sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a pipe. This is exactly the sort of thought process that is improved by a smoke.”

“I may be able to assist with that,” said Tafnir.

“Oh, you likely do have a pipe,” said Iahir, looking about the room. “You likely have one of everything in this place. Perhaps seven of everything.”

The dragon chuckled, climbing out of his chaise. “I have had centuries to add to my collection.” He started to leave the makeshift sitting room and then he came over to Gathren’s mother and drew a small silver key from underneath one of his scales. He dropped it on her lap. “If thou leavest me, I shall hunt thee down, and I shall bring thee back, and I shall never be moved again to allow thou to have any such freedom. Mark me, my love. Mark me well.”

“I won’t leave,” muttered her mother, annoyed, picking up the key and undoing the shackle at her wrist. “You’re ever so dramatic, really.”

“With me,” said the dragon to Iahir. “Thou strange elf, I find thee amusing, I must say. Let us see what we can do about a pipe.”

Iahir got up and the two of them walked off into the darkness.

Gathren looked at her mother. “I suppose you were serious, and you don’t actually wish to leave.”

“I was,” said her mother. “But I would like it if you would come for the harvest holidays, I must say. I also can receive letters from an estate to the south. Tafnir has an agreement with the owner there. So, we can write again. But tell me, darling, who is that elf?”

“Oh, him?” said Gathren. “He’s the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

She was reeling.

Could a person be in a relationship with a dragon?

Was her mother really doing… things with a dragon?

Ugh. Gathren did not want to think about that.

GATHREN TRIED A lot of arguments. The fact that her mother was now in a romantic relationship with the man who had murdered her uncle and half of their neighbors, however, which seemed as if it was a very compelling bit of information, did not really faze the woman. Her mother seemed to have come to terms with that some time ago.

Instead, her mother asked all about the orc invasion and how that had progressed.

Gathren began telling her all about Dathor, and how he’d come in and started talking about how they should not tear down the entire structure of the elven government, and how she had been sort of swayed by it and sort of not, and how she had ultimately sabotaged everything that Dathor had been trying to do in the first place with her impulsive and not-well-thought-out assassination plan.

“But you killed him?” said her mother. “The High King is dead?”

“Well,” said Gathren, “yes.”

Her mother threw back her head and laughed with sheer, unadulterated joy. “Marvelous. Truly marvelous. To think, my daughter did that.” She leaned over and kissed Gathren on the cheek.

Gathren was not certain how to feel about that. “Yes, but Mam, you didn’t see what was happening there. The orcs were killing everyone. They were killing little elf children, and I—it was my fault.”

“Well, war is awful, my darling,” said her mother. “And I don’t hold with such behavior, of course. But you know it wasn’t your fault. It was Findas’s own fault. He wrought this. If he had not treated the orcs as vermin, they would not have struck back in such a way. You know as well as I that it is his fault.”

Gathren remembered Iahir saying something similar. Perhaps that was the best way to think about it, in the end. “You forgive me then, Mam?”

“I have no reason to be angry with you, my girl,” said her mother.

Gathren looked at her mother, trying to hold back her tears. All of this, and all she wanted was her mother to approve of her, it seemed.