Modest Proposition

The family spent another night in the appropriated ancestral tree manse, for it was a central location for these forested southernly riverlands.

Scant few faint elvan tree-carvings still sat in alcoves. A mosaic made not out of tiles but of miniature etchings lined the main veranda. It depicted the first High King commanding an army.

The sun set and the relatively tame nighttime humidity of southern Aeirun hung over the tree-manse like a shroud.

Air along the ground floor of the tree-manse went still. Then, it swirled in a counter-clockwise fashion. Space began to warp—not the massive tear of the interdimensional portals, but a subtle thing. Meant for sneaking in late at night without disturbing the others or flitting from house to house cross-continent on a whim.

A woman with the standard lanky elvan build, pointed ears, and a fine parasol flirted into the miniature whirlwind. Her parasol barely reacted to the magical breeze.

Vivian stepped slowly into her father’s tree manse like she did this quite often. Even as a repurposed coalition governmental complex, this lobby would be empty most nights.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

The elvan woman froze, then glanced around wildly. It was as if she’d never imagined this was even a possibility.

“You.” Vivian said with a scowl as she laid eyes on a lone figure sitting in a functionally styled chair of a type popular in the post-rebellion coalition era.

Skott sat backwards in the chair. It was a move the people of Aeirun had never seen before and the children found quite funny, apparently.

“Thought you’d come,” Skott said. “Glad it wasn’t with an army this time.

“You. It’s bad enough that you betrayed guest right and so-gleefully murdered my lord father. Now you go on a grand tour through our ancestral homes, lounging about like you own the place!”

“Hey. This ain’t your house anymore,” Skott began.

A slight illumination spell sat in Vivian’s hands. Skott had settled for a magical glowstick of sorts. Not enough to see by before Vivian arrived, but it cast the scene in a secretive glow.

“For generations, my ancestors proudly managed thousands of indentured servants to till these lands. You’re squatting upon my ancestral home!”

“Firstly, this is the most recent tree manse. It’s only been habitable for like three generations.” Skott leaned forward in his chair. “Second, we have not met you here with armed guards to arrest you for your last riot at the tree-manse, which means I, at least, am willing to listen and parley.”

Vivian looked around. Once reasonably certain she wasn’t about to be detained, she appeared to loosen up.

“Go on. Speak your mind,” Vivian said, punctuating it with, “King-killer.” In a certain snarling vitriol.

“Technically it was an assist.” Skott shrugged.

Vivian’s ears twitched. “You have no idea what it’s like to be cast out from your home. To have to slink around in the shadows and flitter from place to place for years. Completely destitute.”

Skott made a long face, lips angled down in a slight frown. “True. But Lamora does. Now, listen…”

Even when she was angry, Vivian maintained a certain elegance about her. Cast down from the lofty heights of being high-kings-daughter, she still had that prideful elvan noblewoman shtick within her.

“Now, Lamora does not like this place. It’s no home to her. Her mother worked very hard to get her out of here. Oh, we had to take it over during the rebellion, but she had no special attachment to this place. Wouldn’t even be spending the night here if it wasn’t the only secure building for a hundred miles.”

“Almost secure,” Vivian corrected. “I can get in. Though I did notice some kind of counter-charms that prevented sending more than ten people through at a time.”

Skott chuckled. “My sons are in charge of making sure nobody warps a small army into the tree manse like what happened in Elvwood.”

“Sons…” Vivian’s thin lips stretched into a straight-line frown. “With that rebellious maid-servant? Is that true? Do humans of your worlds often… mingle… with the help?”

“Easy.” Skott let out a strangely orcish growl. Maybe his newly-rediscovered family was rubbing off on him. “If you must know, we don’t have any orcs on my world. We do have people of all types, though. Y’know, we really only met for a week half a lifetime ago, but I got the impression that you were angling to put the moves on me. You’re one to talk about… mingling.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t know your interest were so… green.” Vivian wrinkled her nose.

Skott leaned back, stiff from sitting in the chair bent over backwards when he was a decade or two too old to play around like that. “It’s not… look, Lamora’s not just green. She’s strong and tall and dependable. Driven for sure. Most importantly, she has a well-defined sense of justice and right.”

“Everything I’m not, is that what you’re saying? Is that it?” Vivian scowled.

“Well, we were also fit near-twenty-somethings and happened to be journeying together in a grand, victorious adventure,” Skott admitted. “But the drive and sense of justice is why I never forgot her.”

Skott’s cheeks turned a slight red hue.

“What do you want?” Vivian asked. “If you guessed I was coming why not just throw me in irons, parade me around like the coalition dogs do all the elvan lords they capture?”

“I’m here because I think that cooperating and joining in the coalition—playing an equal part in the coalition government, elvan kids going to coalition schools with orc-kids and the like—it’d be better than groveling about the horrible betrayal of having to pay your maids and the indignity of your lost honor for the next few hundred years. I fully understand that we should start with baby steps…”

Vivian gave no response. Skott leaned forward again.

“We are prepared to grant you—and only you—non-inheritable lease to this tree-manse. You can live here. No more warping around to old, occupied homes to sneak around like a wraith. We’ll build a new governmental complex down the river. Going to introduce the mage’s college to an ancient Earth substance known as ‘concrete.’”

“You would… do this?” Vivian took a cautious step forward, clearly not believing his entreaty.

Skott steepled his hands together. “… the surrounding lands will be divided up among day laborers from the mountain lands. It’s just the house. You’ll never run a plantation out of here again. Just… so we’re clear. The price? You have to ”

For a moment it looked like Vivian was about to get high and mighty about such a deal infringing upon her elvan honor. But she straightened her back.

“Why?” she asked.

“Eh, mostly we figure we have to start splintering the Redeemer coalition somehow.” Skott winked. “If maybe one day, a few elvan can agree to live in their treehouse and play nice with orc and human-kind, well, that would be a plus.”

Skott angled his hand out over the chair’s back.

“It’s called a handshake,” Skott said. “Come back in, what, three days, and Lamora should have some internal affairs officers waiting to sign off officially with some paperwork. But this here’s what we on Earth call a ‘verbal agreement.’”

After a long pause to ensure Skott wasn’t trying to lay some trap for her, Vivian reached forward with her free hand and ‘shook on it.’ Her grip was dainty, as befitting a noblewoman.

“This doesn’t change your foul betrayal of my lord father,” Vivian said. “But to live again in the home of my birth…”

Vivian didn’t finish the sentence. The blood-magic portal that connected her to this place opened up with a swish of her fingers, and Vivian slunk back through. Skott got up, rubbed his back, and then made the slow return up the tree-manses spiraling stairs and back up to Lamora’s diplomatic suite.