Page 70 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

Not that her mother had ever held back her approval, not truly. Her mother had always supported and loved her. It was only that she had been missing it, she supposed, her mother’s support. And it was good to have it back, it was only that she was not at all certain she wanted her mother to be living in a dragon’s lair.

Her mother was gentle about it but firm. “Tafnir is not perfect, of course, but then, no one is. I can see how some other person would not be able to forgive being chained up. I don’t know if you presented the idea to me, if I would say that it is something forgivable. But you must understand that it did not start that way. It started with he and I meeting out in the fields and talking for hours and forming a connection between the two of us. You know, if it comes down to it, I’m not saying what I would want for you, my darling, is this elf lord, but I see it’s rather gone too far for me to intervene.”

“What are you talking about?” said Gathren, who had certainly not shared with her mother that Iahir thought he was in love with her or that she had some stupid fascination with him in return.

“Well, why else would he be here?” said her mother. “Do elf lords go about helping orc warrioresses to rescue their mothers from dragons, generally speaking?”

“He… he just doesn’t want to go home,” said Gathren.

“Why not?”

“He won’t tell me,” said Gathren. “Something about his father. Maybe he feels trepidation about people finding out he killed the High King. I don’t know.”

“Didn’t he volunteer to kill Findas?”

“Well, yes, but I don’t get the impression he really thinks things through,” said Gathren. We have that in common, she thought.

As if summoned by their discussion of him, Iahir and Tafnir appeared again, both puffing on long wooden pipes, talking together animatedly.

“It really is fascinating,” said Iahir to all of them. “His speech is a sort of amalgamation between something ancient and something current. It’s as if certain elements of it are too ingrained to be changed, but he is obviously being influenced by conversing with your mother. Sometimes he says startlingly modern turns of phrase.”

Clearly, everyone liked the dragon except Gathren.

19

WHEN THEY WENT back to collect their horses from their makeshift encampment, Iahir thought that perhaps Gathren was going to suggest that they take her mother away by force, but she was mostly quiet.

The horses were seemingly pleased to see them, as if the beasts had been frightened they would be abandoned here, tied up, unable to get away.

Gathren untied the horse and mused about whether horses truly enjoyed being owned by their riders.

“How could they?” said Iahir. “They must wish to live out their own lives, not as subjects to us, used for our pleasure. Of course, on the other hand, if we had no need for horses, there likely wouldn’t be nearly as many of them. We would not breed them and keep them and all of that. They’d be like other wild animals, sort of pesky problems, and we would likely have hunted them to near extinction. So, in a way, I suppose, horses sort of owe their lives to us.”

“You have odd ways of thinking about things,” said Gathren quietly.

“Yes, I am a strange elf, as Tafnir says,” he chuckled.

“You really like the dragon.”

“Oh, come now, he’s a dragon. He’s blue. He’s huge. He breathes fire. He got me a pipe.”

She snickered.

“I’m only saying,” he continued, “there’s very little not to like about him.”

“Just that he is keeping my mother like a pet,” said Gathren softly. “Likely, we think, a sex pet.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’s that way,” said Iahir. “It’s not as if the dragon is the owner and your mother is a horse. For one thing, I think an orc would be more likely to ride a dragon than a dragon would be to ride an orc.”

She glared at him. “You know that is not what I am saying.”

“Clearly, I don’t know what you’re saying,” he said. “You are trying to put yourself in the place of a horse, and there is no reason to do that, because you are not a horse, you are an orc.”

“Yes, indeed,” she said. “But therein perhaps is the entire crux of the matter. For your people have conquered my people in various ways and have forced us to serve you.”

He wished he had his pipe again. This was something to muse over, especially in light of what he’d said about fear. It was sort of true with horses, he supposed. Horses were large beasts that could be fearsome. If it came down to a physical fight between a horse and an elf—or a horse an orc for that matter—the horse would probably win. The horse could trample an elf or an orc. One had to have a healthy respect of a horse to own one successfully. How was it the elves did it, truly?

And furthermore, this uprising that was taking place, orcs fighting the elves, what was that?