False Conciousness

“Hail, brave hero!” Lucy called out at the Prime Ministress’s veranda. “Oh, pardon me. Or rather, Father?”

Skott chuckled. “Hello, Lucy.”

Lamora was there behind her desk. Mother and daughter really did look alike. What differences Lucy-Kingora possessed compared to Lamora as a half-orc, well, came from Skott.

“This is happening rather fast,” Lamora said, poring over some papers. “With the quorum in the Senate no longer under threat, I’m able to attend to a diplomatic mission.”

“Oh? You didn’t mention it last night,” Skott said.

“Last night’s arson is part of what makes this so urgent.” Lamore nodded. “Long ago, you told me of a technique called a ‘phone call’. Our mages have experimented with basic telegram abilities over short distances. But they’re not ready. This means communications are… delayed.”

Skott nodded understandingly.

As Lamora and Lucy would go on to explain, the previous night’s arson had already led to rumors of anti-elvan violence up in the north. Rumors, of course, that were likely spread by allies of their long-distance pyromaniacs.

“It was fortunate this hadn’t happened the night after the lowland humans quit the Senate,” Lamora added after a time.

“I suspect the timing was intentional, but go on,” Skott said.

The Prime Ministress shot him a look like they’d already surmised that, but still, attempting to impress Lamora with his deductive abilities was an old habit from back in the day. Most of the time, it even worked.

“Mother says we caught the arsonists fleeing into the north,” Lucy interrupted. “Bird cavalry is in pursuit, but there’s only one place--”

“I’m sorry, bird cavalry?” Skott did a double-take.

Nobody had used Aeirun’s large flightless birds as personal transportation in that manner before. A few of the larger elvan aristocratic families had bird-drawn carriages.

“The land of Aeirun is full of surprises,” Lucy said proudly. “Anyway, to show that we are not just fully in control of the capital, but the realm as a whole, our Prime Ministress is going to head to Elvwood… with the hero from another world!”

“Volunteering me eh?” Skott chuckled. “I don’t mind.”

There was still, what, a week and a half left on his ‘vacation.’

“I knew you’d understand.” Lamora’s incisors peeked out. “It sounds like a Skott kind of plan.”

“Doesn’t it just?” he asked.

“Working together! Mother and father!” Lucy jumped up and down.

Okay. Not going to have time to flirt while Lucy’s about, Skott noted.

Even so, he couldn’t help but feel happy being involved with the daughter he didn’t know he had. And if they were going to Elvwood…

“Oh! You’ll get to see my brothers!” Lucy declared.

“That’s… why I’m here,” Skott said. “Of course I’ll help with your elvan guerrilla problem too however possible.”

+++

As a short-notice diplomatic mission, they were going to head out that very day. Skott preferred to move about during the dark of night, when the Aeirunian humidity was not so stifling. Still, they had a retinue of several dozen soldiers with them, a garrison up in Elvwood, and relatively wide-open terrain until they reached a coalition border fort.

The trio traveled in a bird-pulled dias or wagon. It was large enough to have multiple rooms, fitting a Prime Minister’s mobile governing quarters. Lamora was quite busy with paperwork and the other minutiae of diplomacy, leaving Skott to examine the unchanged landscape of the northern plains. Lucy was mostly just bored.

The brick highways were a definite improvement over the old neglected Aeirunian infrastructure. Skott estimated a good four days’ travel for a convoy of this size to get to the border. But they arrived at a small trading post and border fort the very next morning!

Extra guard regiments were ready to join them for this jaunt into elvan territory. They’d be swapping out for faster carriages and fresh birds as well. Skott took the opportunity to get out, stretch his legs, and take a gander at the local trading post.

Wait a minute, I’ve been here before, Skott realized upon approach.

It was smaller back then. Just a minor watering hole and solitary inn next to a dilapidated dirt trail. The expanded roadway had done the establishment good. While the old general store was still there, the inn was twice the size and had an annex on the far side of the road! Even the old watering hole had redone siding. They’d renovated! All this was done under the watchful eye of a coalition fort to keep bandits at bay.

“Begone, greenskin dogs!” came a harsh voice from within the store’s swinging saloon-style doors.

“What the heck are you talking about?” Skott couldn’t help but frown. “Don’t you know who I am?”

While Skott didn’t like playing the celebrity card, immediate hostility from a merchant is where he drew the line. Fine, he’d open with proclaiming himself Skott of Omaha, just this once.

An aged shopkeeper appeared at the door to get a better look at Skott.

“Oh? Didn’t see you there, cousin. Figured all the travelers would be run off those orcs in uniform.”

Skott frowned. Roughly forty percent of the regiment was lowlander human—by far the most populous single group among the soldiers—while maybe a fourth of them were orcs. Guess having an orc PM gets in the shopkeepers’ craw, Skott supposed.

The shopkeeper looked outside the store and wrinkled his nose at the marching columns.

Upon closer inspection, this shopkeep was a highland human. Common to the north. Age had not been kind to him.

“I’ve been here before,” Skott told the shopkeeper. “Maybe fifteen years back.”

“Oh?” the shopkeeper’s eyes lit up. “Memory of individual customers is a bit spotty after a year or two. Hehe. Still, a better time. Before all this coalition nonsense.”

Skott raised an eyebrow. These ‘better times’ were in the middle of a multi-species civil war and slave rebellion!

“You seem to have done well for yourself,” Skott said.

The shopkeeper shrugged. “Eh, everything was simpler back then. New roads bring in lay about greenskins. You know the type.”

“Can’t say that I do.” Skott’s eyes narrowed.

“Y’know, may not look it but I’m part elvan on my mother’s side.” The shopkeeper beamed with pride. “Not like all these commoners. You know the army is a bunch of peasants? Nothing like my prestige elvan lineage!”

Gears turned in Skott’s head. He’d definitely been here before. The shop’s owner was somewhat familiar. But…

“I know you.” Skott wagged his finger at the shopkeeper. “Fifteen years ago, my party came through here in the dead of night.”

The shopkeeper tilted his head.

“… think it was your dad in charge back then. Kindly old shopkeep. Anyway, he saw a mixed party on the run from elvan trackers and gave us run of the store, ninety percent discounts.”

“Who… what… I don’t remember that?” the older fellow proclaimed.

“Think his son was just a self-stocker at the time,” Skott said with a grin. “Nepo hires, y’know. Anyway, back then, highland humans were all for anti-elvan rebellion. Some of our strongest soldiers. They suffered under the elvan yolk as much as anyone. Guess now, adays, with the threat of being murdered by the roadside for offending some slave lord’s sensibilities gone, you’re all of a sudden gushing over some kin connection to the elvan earl of whosit upon whatsit.”

The shopkeeper had nothing to say, merely scowling.

Skott did one last look around the general store. Eh, the fort’s commissary probably has some grub anyway.

“Anyway, it’s just a curious dynamic, is all.” Skott made his way to the door.

A guest book was waiting by the side of the door. It was meant for the inn. This watering hole had done excellently for itself in the past decade and a half.

“Let me just sign this before I go,” Skott said in a singsong voice.

He signed it ‘Skott of Omaha’ in unmissable Earther script. Stood out like a sore thumb against the looping Aeirun languages. Anyone who’d read any kind of news at all in the past fifteen years would surely know who had passed through this general store to window shop.