124 Chapter 115: Long Road Back to the Start(2)

Gula POV

The voyage continued for a good week, this time without any interruptions or detours. No announcement came when we returned to the snowy lands. A slight drop in temperature was all the warning I got before waking up one morning with icy air trying to claw its way down my throat and steal the life from my exposed arms. The typical greeting these lands gave to newcomers. Despite being 'Home', we weren't going anywhere familiar, and we stayed far away from any city or other ships. As I was pulling on some ropes for the sails on the left side of the ship, Beaton suddenly yelled over the typical den of noise accompanying a working ship.

"We're close to shore. Will the 'captain' get ready for making landfall?"

I looked towards the steering wheel, seeing an indulgent smile steal across his face as he looked at me with a simple nod. Handing off the rope to a waiting sailor, I dashed towards the end of the ship and down the stairs with whatever faint light could seep between the clouds guiding me.

Redressed in my red coat with a white shirt and black pants, I went back up the steps and halfway there I met up with Lokan. No words were exchanged before she took me in a hug.

"Now remember to mind your manners-s and don't put your elbows on the table during supper." She teased as we walked up the stairs.

I could only smile as we came onto the deck. Excitement ran up my spine in anticipation of seeing my husband again after two weeks on the seas. Waiting off to the side with a few Kelton men, the boat was gradually lowered into the water. Looking past it, I could see a faint hint of the rocky shore. This was supposed to be north of Crasden, but no feature on the landscape or position of the unseen midday sun could tell me what corner of the world I was being dumped off on.

The time for landfall came with the splash of wood in the ocean. Getting one last hug in, I walked off towards the rails. Geoff waved to me from the side of the steering wheel halfway, a small smile playing across his lips before looking back out over the deck. When the goods for our trip were loaded up, four crates of food, I shimmied down the side hand holds. As I approached the boat, the fact that I had adapted to sea life enough to not even notice the shifting of the ship left a spark of pride in my chest. The sailors still had to help me get into the boat safely, but small victories counted all the same.

Taking the oars, the men started rowing us away from the ship. I, as captain and leader, sat in the back idly thumbing my sword hilt. The rocky shore gradually came into proper view until the stone-riddled land finally brushed up against our boat with a thunk. I didn't want our men caught with luggage if an undead monster came by, so I headed forward with two guards armed with swords on the hip.

I walked a few dozen feet forward before taking out the flute and paper from a coat pocket. Looking over the order of holes it wanted me to unplug with my fingers, I remembered the sequence and put my lips to the cold tip of the wood. Perhaps my lack of musical talent was my fatal flaw in the assessment but I couldn't say the blaring and short chirps coming out of my flute were anything approaching artistic. Stealing a look back towards the men, they all shrugged while one of the younger lads clapped with all the speed of a man half awake.

Looking back over the rock-strewn plains, I couldn't see any change when a bit of the stone to my left shifted. My hand was on the sword on my left hip before I even decided to be scared. Luckily, the long blonde hair and green face that peered from below the slab was friendly looking. Her squat face and long nose accentuated the lines of her greater years.

"Can't say I've seen you'se around here before." She offered in a rough voice before looking over towards the Kelton men. "The goat fellas." Her red eyes looked at them with a raised eyebrow before she turned to me.

"You run that far north?"

I responded with my warmest smile even as I felt totally exposed out in the open like this.

"There, the south, a bit of everywhere but here until now. As pleasant as conversation can be on windswept plains in the middle of winter, I would most like to get onto my business. Preferably before I get my face bitten off by an undead bear."

The older woman nodded, pushing open her lid and letting out a big bellow of hot air behind her as the warmer air was sucked away by the forces of nature. I nodded to the sailors and they moved to get our goods in place. When the first crate of vegetables came in, the woman gave a low whistle.

"Now that's a perfect view for yearning stomachs. You might be new but you're in for a warm welcome." She moved to the side to allow the workers down the stone steps. "Please hurry, I'd hate to call for people to hang around other sections of the tunnels to distract the undead. Christ knows we've been too busy these past few days."

A raised eyebrow was all I gave the barely remembered name, but I quickly dismissed it. Years of being a wayfarer and soldier made me nervous about an unwatched back in unfamiliar territory. The guide was distracted by the four crates of food, leaving me to monitor the surrounding landscape. It was all the same dead rock, with the snail home starting another mile or so north from what I remember of the maps.

Three of the sailors stuck with me, bigger Kelton men with swords, while the other two went back to the ship. Going down into the surprisingly well-lit tunnel, the walls had a rough texture that the lamps dotting the ceiling every dozen feet or so made very easy to see. Unlike everything else I had experienced these past few weeks, it was also quite dry.

"Walk down the tunnel and to the main hall. A guard will be there to escort you to the trader's welcome area. Given how few goods we've managed to bring in these past few days, I'd imagine it will be a quick affair." The lady called as she squatted on a chair on the right of the stairs.

Our destination given, we started lugging our goods towards the residence of my kind under Crasden. Footsteps echoed over the walls while the occasional creak of a box interrupted the monotonous sounds. Along the way, several long slits had been placed along the sides with some indistinct movement behind them. Murder holes with archers ready to pincushion any attackers, if I had to guess.

After ten minutes of marching, the sounds of a crowd began filtering through our noise. The official announcement of civilization came when a brown-haired Orc with a metal helm, study shield, and short knife greeted us near a turn in the tunnel.

"Greetings." She announced with a blank stare in her golden eyes. "First time here?"

"Yes," I responded.

She nodded, pointing her head further down the tunnel towards the increasing noise. Following her lead, I turned the corner and came onto a wide set of stairs serving as the entrance to a small village. In the center of a rough circle were stalls selling an assortment of every good needed for daily life. On the sides of the market were buildings going three or sometimes four floors high into the rock, all sporting wooden doors and windows along the central alleyway used to move between them. Aside from the candles in the back of the building's alleyways, the only illumination was the occasional beam of light filtering through the ceiling above.

Towards the back was another tunnel that was wide enough to allow two carts through. Coming down the steps, the state of the crowd became a bit more apparent as well. Not filthy, but after being spoiled by the daily showers and towels of the base, my gag reflex was being tested by the swirl of sweat and grime. Mothers went about buying whatever scraps of food the stalls still had and workers plowed carts of dung with dead faces. All seemed used to the humid air and choking sense of tight space that was readily presenting itself. As we moved through the crowd and came up to one of the larger buildings set into the wall on the left, our clean clothes and fully-fed frames made us an almost otherworldly existence here.

The guard held the door open for us, ushering us into a wide room with a stone floor and candles on the walls. It was the table across from us that drew the greatest interest. A scale with bricks off to the left shined in the golden flames while the thin orc with grey hair done up in a ponytail sat with a bored look to the right of the instrument.

"Cargo." The guard announced idly.

That livened the worker up, her gold eyes getting new energy as she sat straight up and adjust her black tunic.

"Excellent!" She beckoned with a handwave. Marching forward, I nodded to the men who place the four crates in front of the worker. Taking out some papers from a drawer, she went about her work. After having weighed out every potato, carrot, and onion, she nodded before handing me a paper. The figures for a dozen silver made me stop for a second. It was still a good stack of coin, but the figures suggested a much better situation here than our stop in the south.

"I know," The worker announced with a hand towards the chair on the opposite side of the desk. "It's not as much as you were expecting."

I nodded as I took my seat.

"I have to say, you're a lot better off than Baker's port. Must have piled up good stores for a hard season." I responded, trying to sound a little put out as I handed the order back to her.

The small headshake she gave me was a touch playful as the worker promptly handed off the page to the guard. It was a second longer before we were left alone to discuss the local happenings.

"Sadly, we were caught unprepared like everyone else. That spat months ago stopped food from the Coalition and we've all been trying to pull our heads out of the troll's mouth ever since. Our good fortune has stemmed from a plant mage, believe it or not."

I raised my eyebrows in genuine surprise. Eli was certainly a hard worker if he was having such a great effect already. Making a mental note to give him a good thanking later, I turned back towards the conversation and what I should naturally assume as an ignorant traveler to new lands. Leaning forward, I made sure to look at her with a bit of hope.

"Have we captured him? Is it a male mage?" I whispered in fervent anticipation, quickly covering up my slight slip near the end.

She got a small smile, her face having the same eager energy of a small child.

"No, we don't have him. But he's been helping out the city and that's filtered down to us. A few expeditions out to sea have seen him bring back a big catch and the guards have even gotten a good look inside his fortress. With our skill we may be able to expand a bit further out and start pilfering from the occasional harvest of magically grown plants. The men he's hired from the guard say the first crop of onions and wheat is almost ready for the plucking.

Our husbands describe him as an older gentleman with a muscular frame and green eyes. A few have even said it reminds them of our skin."

Well, mine, at least. I basked in a moment of smug satisfaction before leaning back.

"Even if this isn't the treasure trove I thought it was, I have enough destinations for my food. Tell me, where would I go to start setting up my enterprise here? A bit of land for any goods or a place to recruit prospects."

"Hmmm," She drawled on. Her face had a pensive look for a moment before her answer came. "If you're looking for a permanent home here, I'd say the church is where you want to go. They're four holds over and their tunnel has a sideways X over the top. They handle all the paperwork because they're the only place that can keep the pages dry if you don't mind the company and the history."

This time, my curious look at her was genuine.

She also leaned back, this time biting her lips before getting a less easy-going look.

"A decade or so past, there was an incident and it involved the typical amount of evidence, no one can really say what exactly happened and nothing was written down. But there is an unrelenting rumor that one of the clergy found an unconscious mage. A male mage who had gotten involved in the bad side of some business or another. It ended with their former allies dumping their body in the sewer, only the slight breath still pumping in their chest left the professionalism of the killers in question. The priest slit the throat of the injured man and kicked his body into the river.

At least, that's what a few passersby claimed. Most dismissed it at first. Mages are strictly forbidden from visiting our side of town, they have their section guarded by the Lions, and they employ earth magic to cease our digging into the 'proper' side of the city. So, there were a lot of reasons to not believe the rumors. Until one mage, matching the description given by the witnesses, turned up floating in the nearby sea.

It's been known that the priesthood isn't as… enthused about Garren's vision as those in the Cradle or most elsewhere."

My throat tightened at the wretched name, though she thankfully missed any reaction on my face.

"Even with that, it wasn't very clear what exactly happened. Some people claimed they saw her kill him, others that she came upon a long dead corpse, the loins already cut off. Sadly, dark nights and things seen far away while on walks don't make for consistent stories. It was a big, long mess with no real conclusion at the end, but it's still a thorny issue even to this day. The fact that the church doesn't give a straight answer when asked if they would capture a mage when given the chance doesn't help matters either.

My advice, only be with them to the extent you need to. Any who would deny our birthright are no better than those who kill our daughters."

For the first time in weeks, the breath I sucked in was equal parts hope and air. Finally, a potential destination for my real and fake trip here converged on a single point. I leaned back casually as we discussed the weather and some other gossip of local happenings before the guard returned with my silver.

My business concluded; I shook the worker's hand before turning around and walking out the door and onto the main street with my men in tow.

Back into the fray, we carried forward. Our small group moved to the wider tunnel on the left, maneuvering around the packed masses trying to survive the daily necessities of life. As we went through, I paid a bit closer attention to the walls. It didn't seem like a natural stone as I could see several sharp corners in what I had to assume was softer rock at one point.

I was given little time to consider it, though. The throng moved apace towards the thousand different destinations its members were intent on. We came into another open space with buildings riven into the sides of the rocks. While it had the same light from candles and beams of faint light from the ceiling, the center was taken up by craftsman. Or rather, craftswomen. Seamstresses, carpenters, and leather workers molded their raw materials into proper items. There was a distinct lack of forges and people making the actual leather, almost certainly owing to the tight space.

The tunnel out was on the opposite side of the entrance this time. Between that and the thickness of the crowd, it took an irritatingly long time to reach the exit. Still, we eventually got through and down to the next hold. Coming out of the long tunnel the first things that hit me were the open light towards the right and how much lighter the air seemed. Windows on the right gave off the sound of sloshing water and a few door handles suggested most of the wall could be opened. As I kept walking, it took a second before my mind registered the sheer size of the space.

I had come into a proper cavern, with the back end being slightly indistinct. Along the paths between packed brick houses were more of the masses going about their lives. It was the first place that had standing constructions and relied on natural lighting. The buildings were made with hard bricks and thick wooden beams, combined with the cleaner air and increase of guards, It was plain that this was the better end of the dwellings. Looking along the back I saw several tunnels but the one I had been directed to was near the tail end.

Moving around the now slightly less pressed crowd, we kept along the wall. Red and gold eyes were naturally drawn to us. A few stared a bit longer than others, including some guards. Whatever curio we were to the masses, none deigned to accost us with some good to ply or other such trouble. Several times we cut through an opening in the carts and walkers moving through the tunnels along the wall, and in brief flashes, I saw more houses, shops, and tunnels to yet other abodes further ahead. My mind tried to grasp the mazelike nature of this place though the task was quickly abandoned as I came to our destination with the sideways X above it.

When we moved up the steps, the crowd squeezed again as we walked through the tunnel. The end of which opened into what looked like an armory that took up the entire left side of another cavernous space. The walkway lead towards another tunnel on the far right while a gentle slop down on the left opened into a small field where a few dozen archers were practicing their craft on straw dummies and a few younger girls dueled with wooden swords. Further beyond them was a bigger carving into the stone with a lot of guards moving in and out. The tunnel on the right, however, had another cross above it and our group quickly pushed towards it.

The walkway was a bit looser now as half the crowd veered down onto the lower field and one of the other tunnels on the opposite side of the lower wall. I sighed in relief as we came up to the entrance in decent time. Going through the tunnel that was now large enough for three carts, we walked a while longer over the smooth stone floor with nothing but the chorus of slapping feet to greet our ears. After a few minutes, the sound of chatter reasserted itself before we opened onto another wide pavilion.

It was a more homely abode with a few tables scattered about while the entire left side of the space was taken up by a single building with open stone windows. A large tunnel to the right showed more paths forward but the big cross near the top of the rooms dug into the stone said we were in the right place.

The most immediate difference here was the number of children who were talking around the tables and the odd garb of the Orcs. Green women in black robes with white neck guards bounced here and there trying to see to the children or talking with an Orc of one description or another. Maneuvering around the other visitors, I saw most of the children were being taught various mathematics. The inclusion of lines and shapes beyond my understanding of multiplication and division caught my eye for a second. Long enough for one of the Orc priests to intercept us without me noticing.

"Hello, dears." An older priest with streaks of grey in her black hair welcomed. Her smile pulled on a mole below her left eye and her short nose with ponytail did nothing to hide her generally good looks. "Can't say I've seen you here before and it's been a season or two before Kelton's have walked these halls."

Her motherly aura practically radiated out from between the folds of her robes.

"I've come to Crasden to establish my business and was told to come here."

She nodded before ushering me towards the big door near the center of the building. It led to a long hallway with other doors but the priest ushered us through another door on my immediate left. I briefly took in the hall and the stairs showing further down the hall lit with candles before following her direction. Inside the room was an oak table with a stack of papers plopped on its right side. The priest moved towards the table and took a seat while holding out my hand to sit in the one opposite of her.

"You were directed to the right place," She declared. "I deal with the business matters handed down to us by the city council. Typically, we are a bit more professional here, but we've had so many orphans come in that we've had to make room wherever we can."

I nodded patiently, trying to find some way of talking about mages before it occurred to me to bring up the local situation.

"I had intended to make my fortune bringing in food from… elsewhere. But even if it's not as profitable here as I had anticipated, there's always money to be made when you have a ship. I'd like to set up a special shop to sell whatever extra cargo I can haul in and take special orders from interested parties here willing to pay."

She nodded as she took a page from one of the stacks to her right.

"Who knows, our fortune may yet wilt back into your boon." Her dry wit rang out.

I raised an eyebrow at her while her hands started preparing a quill and inkwell. Her slight shrug barely showed under her robes.

"If you haven't been told already, a mage has been the source of the good news recently. He's helped bring in a few hauls from the sea and flooded the local food markets with fish, crabs, and shrimp. Even expanded the docks."

She started looking over her page and writing on it while continuing to elaborate.

"As good as that all is, he's still a mage. For now, at least, he's more the other mages' problems than ours. He's been flicking their noses over one issue or another and I've heard there's going to be a rumble over his work sometime soon. Despite that and his charitable nature, he's on the wrong side of our survival all the same. If he starts getting too invested in this place, part of his charity will be expunging the green scourge from the bones of this city. And unlike the fools they've been sending, he'll have the earth magic to pull us out for a year or two."

"Aren't worried about losing the city forever?"

The scratching of her quill stopped with her head still facing down. It was a long moment before the priest took a deep breath and continued her work.

"They've never been able to get rid of us for good. We always have a hold somewhere else and if the worst should pass here, it'll be many years before we fully recover. But they can't keep what little space the monsters and ravenous trees don't occupy on lockdown forever nor fund a city that's half guards.

Not that it would do them any good considering almost all of the watch sired our daughters. As encouraging as that may be, our return provides little comfort to the children we have to pull out of the rubble after the purge subsides. As nauseating and feckless as Waveborn life may seem, I suppose knowing where your home will always be has its appeal."

Her slight smile made me nod before she handed the page off to me.

"We have some space here, but before you're shown around we require your signature and a fee of five silver before selecting the desired building."

Handing off the required coin and signing my name to the line, I returned the page with a satisfied smile. My acquisition completed; we left the room as the priest lead us out of the church's hold. She waved to a few of the children as we went back to the main area. The girls all looked a little thin, dancing the line of hunger though their eyes still had some energy about them.

Leading us past the tables, we were led back to the larger hold by what I assumed to be the river. While the crowd was less oppressive here, the streets were still unkind to anyone trying to idle around and take in the sights. Going over the offerings, it was obvious the seas had seen more than one fortune consigned to oblivion. Worn-out signs of associations with paint fading in the moist air adorned all of the abandoned buildings.

Even so, there were few signs of unemployment typically accompanying such closures. While standing at the side of the road and looking over a two-story warehouse missing a few boards on its windows after poking around its insides, I decided to pry the priest for an answer as she stood to my right.

"For all the closed businesses, I'm not seeing too many people going without work. Have they left for better lands?"

She shook her head

"The council has approved a massive work project to start making tunnels towards the mage's town. We're not desperate enough to start making holds under it just yet, but space is getting a bigger premium than it already demanded. Without the need for so many miners and concrete workers, these buildings would be filled with poor souls struggling for a day's meal."

A small part of me was tempted to ask more about the work site, but I didn't trust myself to effectively broach a subject no smuggler would be interested in. Taking a deep breath, I looked over the wooden flats poking out of the stone wall and to the right where the tunnel towards the entrance was only a stone's throw away. Nodding in satisfaction, I turned to the priest with a smile.

"The niceties need some work, but it looks like what I need."

The priest nodded. Taking me back to her office, we went over the needed paperwork and the final prices. Considering the investment needed for digging into the stone and regulations concerning fires and materials that could fill the closed space outside with smoke, the arrangement was that the city itself owned the land. A far cry from the more carefree approach back in the swamps, but it certainly made my purchase more straightforward.

When I was walking out of the church's office with a new deed to my property, I felt a bit of pride. Totally unearned, but it was my name on the paper and the first place that was ever 'mine' alone. We had planned to spend the night here and get ready for the needed scouring come morning, but since our acquisition of a front had gone so smoothly a swift exit was our next move. Getting back out to the tunnel where our whole tour had begun took a while longer as the crowds rushed for the long cavern.

On our trip through the big hold, the sun had properly set and the doors to the outside opened. A few men started coming in from the dark river, most getting swamped by two or three little girls and a loving Orc wife. An absurd scene. All these green women being with their children's sire or father and the men so happy to be around them. It was a picture of happiness and love I had dreamed about many times before, but seeing it firsthand made some part of me wonder if I was dreaming or had stopped for booze along the way and forgotten. Fortunately, I was able to keep moving, having seen somewhat similar acts with the Waveborn.

Our time underneath Crasden now finished, we pressed forward until we came back to the tunnel from where we had first entered. Walking down the tunnel with only faint flickers of light from the cloudy sky seeping in through slits in the wall, I could only concentrate on how much cleaner the air was here.

When we reached the end, the old blonde waved us goodbye as she held the hatch open for us.

"Now that I know you've been accepted, you won't have to use the flute again when I'm greeter." She offered as the men walked past her. "But bring it just in case. I'm not the only one who works this post, and they won't allow passage on my word alone."

I nodded to her as I ascended the stairs and walked out into the cool, fresh air. A loud clunk announced our official exit from my people's world here and back onto the rocky plains. The cloudy sky has dissipated some and a tapestry of stars covered the sky. After a few seconds to adjust to the lack of light, we moved back towards the ship with the occasional crunch of rocks beneath our feet. A bit off the shore waited our ship, still at anchor among the soft waves gently rocking it back and forth. On the side was the rowboat, now being slowly lowered into the sea. It took a few minutes for us to disembark and get under way but the water was soon pushing about like a leaf as the hulking mass of wood and occasional candlelight on the sides began looming over us.

When I had finally shimmied up to the deck, I turned towards the walkway leading to the lower deck when footsteps came up behind me.

"Captain," Beaton said with a respectful bow, his long grey beard and blue jacket flowing in the breeze.

"I thought it would be a few more days yet before I took over, Captain." I fired back with puckered lips as he walked towards the stairs. He huffed and casually waved his hand goodbye even as he walked through the dark hole.

"Not tonight, apparently. I'll make sure the beds been changed and scrubbed when I mutiny back into command. Capt'n." Was all he offered before turning into the other side of the stairwell. The men casually followed him while I turned to the lit windows of the captains' quarters. Getting an idea of what was going on, I jogged over the wooden floor and up the side stairs. My heart began to race, not from exertion but anticipation. Walking up to the door, I opened it with far more force than needed.

Leaning against the desk was a taller man with some muscle showing in his white shirt, which lay beneath a leather vest and hung above black pants. The grey hair and green eyes, combined with a few wrinkles around the cheeks, gave me an odd moment of hesitation before I looked deeper into those eyes and saw the love. I wanted to slap myself for forgetting his change in appearance, but my feet were already moving me forward without any command from me to do so.

He pushed himself from the desk but I was the quicker combatant. No words filled our room, but the sounds of kissing and sucking soon bounced off the walls. When I felt lightheaded from the lack of air, we finally pulled back. I stared into those green pools and relished the love and lust in them.

"God, I've missed you." He said as those powerful hands gripped my hips.

Instead of doing what I was supposed to do, ravaging him in a fit of lust like the wives had instructed me to, I found tears forming in my eyes. I tried to fight the well of sadness and anguish forcing its way up, to do my wifely duty for him, but the damn man took my head in his palms. The lust in those green pools melted into concern as he held my gaze, wiping the tears from my eyes.

"What's wrong?" Eli asked. He moved me towards the bed, not like the ravenous beast a man left without sex for two weeks should be, but as a comforter. My arms wrapped around his sides for support as we sat on the soft mattress. I looked up at him, fighting to do what I should, but it was clear he wasn't going to let me sidestep this.

Well, my arrow has truly missed.

"Lokan. I've been such an awful friend to her."

From there I explained everything that had happened at baker's port. It took only a few minutes to lay out my conversation with the old woman and Lokan. He nodded patiently the whole time, waiting for me to finish. I ran through the part about saving the sailors on the new island, but his concerned eyes made me stop for a moment.

"You didn't get too close to the volcano, did you?"

I stopped for a moment, my mind grasping for how a mountain exploding in fire was involved. But then I remembered how the jellyfish that attacked our first visitors had used a fire spell to melt the ice they were laying on and that meant there were surely other beasts out there with such power. Having figured out the problem, I took a moment to collect myself.

"No. We weren't in any danger."

I was grateful for the interruption, honestly. It gave me a moment to work out how I would go about telling him the offer I made on his behalf to the blue snake woman.

"I offered her some hope that you would know what to do. It was stupid, but…"

I couldn't finish the sentence, nor could I keep myself from looking at him with unfair expectations. He bit his lip for a second, the gears of his unfathomable mind turning before he finally sighed.

"It sounds like something similar to what happens to locusts. When grasshoppers come into enough contact with others through leg rubbing, it triggers a change in their brain's chemicals. But-"

I bit my lips and widened my eyes, a blooming aspiration that he had to snuff out.

"But. I can't say for certain if that's the case here or if that biological mechanism is a one-to-one comparison in this world. Even if it is, the change may cause a permanent altering of the neurons. If that's what's happening, they are fully dead in a way I don't think even science could fix."

The answer, as uncertain and unclear as it was, was finally delivered.

But it wasn't the only poison slithering through my mind these past few weeks. I looked him in the eyes, my mouth open and ready to offer a question. The profound stupidity of which suddenly hit me. Did the man who trusted me to set up a smuggling ring, who stored away his wife under my care, and fought with me across several battles think I was a worthwhile partner? Not just a warm sleeve for his manhood or a mare for his brood, but a fully formed person worthy of his respect.

A smile crept onto my lips at the absurdity I almost foisted on my poor husband. Even if I and everyone else was thinking that, I had no reason to suspect he felt the same. In fact, he had given me every cause to believe otherwise. Yet here I was, with this thing, this ugly malevolent parasite in my soul, obscuring what was so obvious from the start.

"I hate this." I moaned as pressed my head into his chest. I closed my eyes as I tried to peer inward, a vain attempt to glance at the abyss in me. "I have everything I've ever wanted. A warm bed, a full stomach, and a handsome, caring, wonderful man…"

"If you want to keep going, there's no need to stop."

A chuckle escaped my lips. I continued to laugh as I pulled my head up to meet his gaze, staring deeply into those green pools as golden candlelight played across his strong chin and grey hair.

"I have everything. All the things that I desired from my youngest days and some beyond even those dreams are now in hand. I might very well see Orcs and humans live in peace, side-by-side. No hiding or killing such affairs, but living out in the open together for all to see. If I had been hopeful enough to even consider such a thing growing up, I would have coveted it with all my heart.

Yet here I am with this stupid…thing in me. Sucking all the joy out of it. Making me question what should be clear and chewing out everything it said would bring me happiness."

Eli gave the best response he could. Those big arms enveloped me in a hug that pushed the coldness of the world away for a time. When he pulled back, my aching heart thumped with a bit less pain.

"It sounds like you need to learn to be happy." He offered.

I moaned as my face scrunched up.

"Learn to be happy? Happiness should work like healing magic, where it washes over me like a soothing bath and all my problems go away."

Eli could only smile at me with some pity.

"If it worked like that, god would never tempt us with heaven."

I couldn't refute the ancient man's wisdom. Even if happiness didn't work like that, the feeling of his warmth was coming quite close. Being the poor wife that I am, I did not give my husband his release while I had been largely drained of my venom. There was still that part of me, stubbornly hunting for the sour in the sweet joy. But as Eli pulled me down onto the bed proper, it felt like that bit of me was put in the cage it belonged in.

He put a finger up and a whisp of wind shot out and snuffed the flame of the candle on my desk with a small whoosh. Plunged into almost total darkness, I could do nothing but mold myself against my husband and thank whatever gods or fates sent him my way. A nice thought that gradually faded with everything else as the night finally took me.