Shining Wyrm Trilogy [Original Fantasy/Dragon Fiction]

3.1

Jewel stared at the figure before her.

Standing in the middle of the road blocking her way. They were shorter than Alexander by half a head. But with a presence to them just as predatory as Zephyrvam.

The sun upon their skin seemed to almost swim in a way that would have made her certain they were some kind of wizard.

But no sorcery was in play that she could feel.

No whispers to the world at all.

Their skin simply dappled and shifted as the sun touched it. Darkening to bronze and brown as the wind blew the leaves of the canopy overhead.

In the shade of the leaves that same skin went pale. The shadows under their chin and the hollow of their throat was even paler. And it carried over down their body, with every scrap of skin visible at least somewhat shifting in the light.

Their clothing was a material so thin that even as it hung in robes over much of the body it hardly left a single shred of their shape properly obscured.

They stood barefoot on the dirt road and it was here where they touched the earth that Jewel truly knew what stood before her party. It was obvious in the way the very stone and earth sang, the way the wind ran through their knee length hair. Which just like their skin shifted and darkened under the sunlight.

The eyes that turned up to her were pitch black. And the face was youthful with a delighted smile that shined with perfectly pearly teeth.

And they smelled of nothing but the woods.

Jewel could not do anything but stop and dip her head.

Every story, every book, every folk tale and song in every village had words for the being that had found her here on the road.

Elf.

Fae.

Jewel had even felt their passing from the stones of Kaeketeh. Where the earth yet remembered the bare feet and toes that had touched them.

She was the Countess of Viznove, she was friend of Wizards and made Gods act like shy children forced into a spring dance. She was called on by the High King of Cantor Reborn for advice. But all of that fled from her mind against the sudden realization of what she was seeing.

In that moment Gem and Jewel as one felt young and lost for words.

For this was an Elf, a thing so rarely seen that they were spoken of in whisper and legend.

Wild Wyrms were not exactly common but by the reports she read there were at least twelve more or less manageable ones in the lands of her vassals. Innocuous things which were mostly left to their wilderness.

More trouble to remove then they caused.

Gryphons and other Wyrmspawn were even more numerous, the Eyrie's count of the lineages of potential steeds or their parents within the Ridgetails was just shy of a thousand across all the counties.

And the scattered lesser wyrm spawn were so intermingled with the usual beasts of the wild as to be uncountable.

And of Wizards and Weirds?

Jewel had met nearly a dozen of them. And heard word of maybe even hundreds more beyond the Realm or read of their actions through the histories.

One of her best friends was a beast who spoke. And then of course there was high King Mathias and his Menagerie.

But not even the High king could claim to have met an Elf.

None among the Weirds or Wizards could claim to have seen one even in their considerable lives.

Their passing was legend upon myth. Tales told by traders of distant lands.

Words upon the providence of goods.

Jewel had seen what was claimed to be Elf made silk.

But if what the figure before her was garbed in was the genuine article Jewel could confidently say that every single bolt of the stuff she had ever laid eyes on til now was a laughably bad forgery.

This figure was wrapped in fabric that was so thin it was astounding it was not transparent. It clung to skin like wet cloth, yet Jewel could see and feel how it played with the wind.

Almost like her own wyrmspun wool it breathed coolness and warmth in equal measure.

A marvel all the more surprising for its near complete lack of any apparent marks of ritual, miracle or any other sorcery.

It bore no sign of any kind of sorcery and yet worked better than some Jewel had witnessed.

The strange figure continued to stand there before them and Muriel was reaching for her sword.

But Before her captain could give insult to a literal myth in the flesh Jewel quickly spoke out in a hushed tone. Words grasping the most common and hopefully correct things one was meant to say in such auspicious meetings as this.

She hoped it would not give offence.

"Greetings and fair tidings be upon you, oh most elfen and fair one before us. Pray tell why you meet here with us on this road?"

Around Jewel her party stiffened and stood straighter, but thankfully every hand fled from sword hilts and belts as if the touch of them burned.

The tales had been clear on what drawing iron against the fae would bring.

The smiling figure standing in the road bobbed their head in a sign of respect that from anyone but the high king would absolutely be an insult to Jewel's status as Countess. Then with a voice soft and sweet as the breeze in the trees spoke the most humbly warm and delightful words of Rochford proper lilts.

They spoke like a girl that had seen to the goats down the road from the Temple where Jewel sometimes basked in the sun. With all the subtle little hints of home Jewel only ever heard in her father's demesne.

Something made all the stranger when spoken in so soft and foreign a voice.

"I've come to see you wyrm of man, To see perhaps for once if the children of Uruk might have learned to make beauty at last."

The smile was still soft, the black eyes and delicate brows shifting just so.

Jewel tilted her head at that. There were a great many stories about elves. Many of them ended very badly for those unfortunate enough to meet them. But those that did not usually involved politeness and proper etiquette.

"Well, I thank you for your interest in meeting me. I hope I have not kept you waiting long?"

The elf looked her up and down, she was not sure precisely what upon her they looked at for the black pitch of their eyes gave no clue. Not even to Jewel's scrutiny.

"Not long at all, only twenty-six winters. But I've kept myself busy studying the words of your tongue. The hunting here is good and the fruits are plenty. Though stunted, ugly and crippled, the woods still give what they can."

Twenty Six winters!

Had this elf been waiting in these woods for her since she hatched?!

And the way it spoke?

Again every word was said precisely like a Rochford native and yet again the voice flowed with a foreign beauty.

And to describe this quite picturesque woodland in such terms?

Jewel frowned at that, she'd been walking through Viznove for a quarter of the year now and the wilderness along the road to Zapadvah was some of the finest she had seen. The deer were plentiful, the trees tall and strong, If need be there would be excellent lumber to be found if she called for its clearing.

She could not say she could even imagine what about the vibrant green woods around them that could be called ugly, stunted or crippled.

Jewel struggled to try and not comment but even without the words leaving her lips the smile fell from the face. The brows lowered, sinking from a gentle joy to a subtle and yet somehow terribly deep sorrow.

"Ah, I forget, You would not have ever seen the earth unscarred, never swam a river that has only ever known freedom nor touched stone unbowed by tortures."

The sadness turned to a pained curdling twist of something deeply unsettling as the pitch black gaze swept the woods around them, the trees, the sky, the road. Tears openly welled and then spilled down those soft cheeks.

But then the smile returned, the elf not even moving to wipe away the shame of their incontinence from their face.

The shine in their eyes almost seems to make the gentle happiness even sharper somehow, intense, almost fierce. A joy pulled to the fore somehow in spite of any shame they should feel for crying so openly.

It made Jewel uncomfortable to see the mark of cowardice on the elf.

"Well, that is not yours or the children's fault. I apologize for the insult."

And again Jewel was at a loss.

This was not how the stories went about elves. Children or travelers either were polite and given gifts of wondrous sorcery and value or gave insults and their entire family and home were cursed forever.

No story had ever mentioned an elf apologizing for giving insult.

Jewel could only think of one thing to say.

"No offense was given, I was just confused by your words."

The elf nodded at that and simply stood there watching them and their party. Jewel was unsure what to say next. The tears on their cheeks dried as she tried to find the words.

Before she could manage it however the elf's brow furrowed.

"Were you not traveling elsewhere?"

The question was asked with a soft gentleness, in a tone that Jewel thought reminded her a bit like a parent reminding a child to continue with a story they were telling and had forgotten.

For her part Jewel struggled to find the most polite way to respond.

"We would, but we did not want to insult or trespass upon you, fair one, you are standing in the middle of the road."

The figure smiled wide at that, brows raising in delight and did another little head bob before stepping to the side of the road. A single stride slipping them in amongst the foliage, the dappled shifting of their skin and hair swimming through the dark browns and pale tans as they moved under the sunlight.

Black eyes never leaving Jewel.

Voice lilting just as softly and sweetly.

"Oh no trespass for travelers in passing. Please be on your way."

Jewel wanted to stare, but to be rude, to give offense, every story spoke of dire consequences when dealing with the fair folk. And not of the usual sort. A Wizard might offer sorcery and magic.

Jewel found she had nothing to fear from that.

The Gods were obvious in their workings and seemed equally unable to touch her against her will.

Not even Gem held the sharp contact of their miracles in the world for long.

But the stories about elf curses were cruel and terrible and far ranging, the ire of an elf did not fall upon but one man, woman or child, or even one family. Whole villages, whole cities and all the lands around them had suffered their wrath in legend.

And not swiftly.

But for years on end, decades, centuries.

Endless misfortunes. Sometimes immediately, sometimes years upon years hence.

Profuse myriads of calamities large and small.

Blights fell upon crops, beasts were driven into peaceful lands, mountain cliffs collapsed to block roads, rivers dried up.

Children stolen only to return years later when full grown, but made strange and terrible.

Leaders and livestock felled by elven arrows once every decade.

The wrath of an elf scorned lingered, festered, seemingly stuck to a place and its people until not a single farm or building still stood against it.

Not until the place of its ire was left to waste.

The stories were clear on this.

And on how costly and rare forgiveness from the fair ones truly was.

So Jewel did not gawk at the elf as it simply stood there in the shrubbery to let them pass.

She did not even look upon it with Gem in case that somehow gave insult.

Well besides a quick glance out of the corner of her eye.

But the soft if slightly sad smile was all that was offered for her peek.

Jewel was about to sigh in relief, already preparing the tale she would add to the many that she had heard about encounters with the fair ones.

But there was a sudden feeling of joy from the earth of the road.

Alas she realized from the song in the winds and the cheers of the earth, trees and stones behind her that the elf was not staying on the side of the road to let them pass and carry the encounter into a new legend.

No, the creature that was so rare only two encounters had ever been mentioned in official records of Viznove for the last six hundred years was not allowing Jewel to return it to stories and myth.

The Elf was following Jewel's party.

3.2

The Elf continued to match their pace all through the woods. Following along the trail behind their party ever with a relaxed gait.

Its presence smothered all words between Jewel's party. Every footman had heard a story about elves after all. Jewel spared glances with Paul but despite the familiarity borne of their years together only so much could be said so subtly.

She had started signing with Valasect Cant using Gem's hands but those black eyes had slid to follow the finger's motion as soon as she began.

A single raised hand and a twist of the wrist from their fae escort in perfect far sign of greeting was enough to make Jewel assured that there would be no secret kept through the silent language of her Demesne.

It was past the second hour of their walk through the woods that Jewel felt the pressure of the silence grow too strong and as the lady of their party it was her duty to take the risk.

"Might I ask, oh fair traveler, is there a name we may call you?"

Jewel was not certain if the stories that the fae elves could actually steal names that were given was true. Or if such a risk was one she even had to fear as a Tyrant Wyrm. But she'd not felt a hint of sorcery from the figure beyond the simple bubbling joy and accommodation the world seemed to hold for them.

But in the same breath of those tales it was mentioned that for whatever reason many an offense had been made with the elves by innocuously asking them for their true names.

Hence the delicate phrasing.

The smile upon the elve's lips widened, the brows raised up in surprise, and then relaxed once more towards something wistful and somehow tired.

"You may call me-"

The Elf paused, its eyes wandered the trees around and over them before focusing on one ahead and as they walked it extended a hand. Reaching up into the air. And from the foliage above a single green leaf fell from the branches ahead of them.

The moment stretched as they walked.

Jewel followed the leaf's path with both her wyrm and spawn's eyes, and she spotted Muriel doing the same from her horse.

That single fallen bit of foliage swept and looped in the wind, playfully sweeping around Jewel's horns and over the rest of the party before settling in the outstretched palm of the elf. Where black eyes fixed upon it, seeming utterly enthralled by the single leaf.

Even longer the moment dragged, the sound only that of the forest and the horses and shifting leather of tack.

Finally that sweet foreign yet familiar voice spoke again. Filling into the quiet gaps in the noise of the wood.

"Alder."

It took a moment for Jewel to realize that the figure was finishing their sentence after so long.

Then as if it was nothing of consequence at all despite how it had enthralled it, the now named 'Alder' let the leaf fall from their palm.

All was quiet for a while.
Then in a breath and three strides the elf bounded ahead of the party to a place alongside Jewel. The wind itself muted its passing, the earth soaked up the beat of its toes.

Three strides, each as long as Jewel's own body.

Each bound leapt faster than an arrow.

And every step's sound was completely lost amidst the murmur of the wood. Jewel braced herself to not react, but Muriel and the footmen moved ever so slightly for their weapons in spite of the danger of insult.

In the dirt behind those leaps there was not a sign. Not even disturbed branches in the wind of its passing.

Not even the press of toes to mark footprints in the earth.

Only to Jewel's wyrmish senses could she feel the presence of its contact. Where the Elf touched soil and made it cheer.

Dirt shifting gladly back into place after their contact was done.

The wyrm had to struggle to keep her scales from bristling.

Completely without concern or care for the prior act that voice flowed once more.

"And as you have given such courtesy and grace what is best that I call you oh Wyrm of Man? Child of children?"

If this fae creature had held a sword, or even a hunting knife?

Moving like that?

Half her party could have their throats slit before she could move.

And there was not a breath of sorcery or working to it at all!

She felt no faux flame of ritual.

No divine intervention cutting in the world.

The elf simply moved and was.

It was so natural as to be disconcerting.

As right as the stone and trees around them.

Everything the Elf did was simply part of the world.

There was not even a scent to the creature that was not that of the woods around it!

Again Jewel was unsure but if there was a risk of some sorcery to names she was the most likely to be safe.

No other form of working had been able to touch her without her consent so far.

"I would have you use my name or title oh fair Alder, Countess by rank and Jewel by name."

Just in case she offered only her own name and not her family's.

Alder's smile widened and its shoulders shook. The Laughter was bright, loud, it was almost like a bird song. The wind in the trees dove and scooped up the sound and spread it far up into the canopy and out into the woods before sweeping in again to echo it back.

"Oh! Bravery! It is good to hear bravery in your words Wyrm Countess of Men, Jewel by Name. To hear so many tales of your elders and fore bearers and hear such fears and still state your true mother's given name?"

Well at least that seemed like a good response. And she felt no tug on her flame at all.

Jewel pursed her lips a moment before working them around her words as carefully as if it was Gem speaking instead of her Wyrmish self.

"It was actually Father given, Mother accepted me after he did."

The look of delight softened, again the wistful crease around those pitch black eyes. The dappled swimming colors of dark and pale tans and browns flowing over Alder's skin as they passed under the canopy's shade.
"A Father's given name is no less a treasure. Family earned and family borne cut apart in mind are among the foulness made by the Uruk. Do not mistake the custom of these words for truth. I speak them yes, but only because there are no tongues or ears or hearts that know my truest words but my own."

Jewel considered before replying.

Keeping her tone civil as she could. The mercurial moods of elves was also among the stories.

Going from joy to sorrow in but a word was often warned, going from delight to murderous wroth in the same breath equally so.

"You speak of Uruk often, but I admit I have neither read nor heard of any such place or people. Despite you claiming my family are children of them."

The Elf's expression lit up with a kind of fierce joy. A feral predatory thing. Those teeth were sharp and pointed in a way more like Jewel's own than any smile she had seen on men.

"For the best that you don't. They were a foul and terrible thing, a people who made naught but ugliness. Who crippled their children to this very day and hour. Who brought ruin upon all. To not know them is good. If only all their foulness could be equally washed away by time."
She considered those words and then looked again at the woods.

"You said this wood was stunted and then apologized that I'd never seen otherwise... What do you mean by that? What was it like before?"

Alder shrugged.

"I had not wandered this land in those times. The marking stones which would sing for me have all worn down and long since been buried or broken."
Again that sad wistfulness around the eyes despite the smile.

"But my seven-mothers and six-fathers once walked this place and they sang to me its song when I was still growing."

Another long pause filled with the birds, and the sound of moving men and horses.

The dark eyes swept the trees, the sky and the winding dirt path of the road ahead before returning to Jewel.

"Naught remains of tree, root, stone, brook, spring or even sky from their songs. All gone and ruined, torn, broken and turned over by the crushing step and greedy touch of Uruk's git. Starved and drained by their multitudes."

Jewel pondered that, considering what she would ask next.

But before she could, the Elf Alder stepped back into the woods, as lightly and silently as it had done anything. And to every single one of her senses it was then just as totally gone.

The action put the rest of her party on alert.

Muriel was silent as she watched Jewel for signs of where their fae companion had gone but the Countess could only shake her head.

Which made her captain's brow raise high before clenching in a worried furrow.

It was in this state that an unfortunate party of traders came around the bend in the wooded road.

The tension in Jewel and her entourage's posture spooking the caravan terribly.

Footsoldiers and a dragon silently marching at near battle readiness putting the tradesmen and their mercenaries and guides on edge but Paul smoothed it over and Jewel's own assurances seemed to calm any tension.

After the traders passed Jewel finally let out her breath.

"Well, I suppose I can say I have now treated with Gods, Wizards, Kings and Elves."

Paul and Smithson offered a strained laugh at her jest.

It was honestly a poor try but the release of tension soon had everyone else laughing. Relief at escaping unscathed and whole from a moment of myth.

Soon it settled into boasts and passing comments on what precisely they would make of the encounter. What boasts and embellishments they would use to enrich their honor and legend, and Jewel's own esteem.

It was the way of Knights and soldiers.

To tell a legend of life.

And the joviality stuck with the party until they finally stopped for the day at a known and vetted well.

They were settling in to camp at the waystation setting up tents in the clearing beside the road.

The space was unoccupied by any other group. So there was room for all to space themselves comfortably with their tents.

Dariusz had just finished bringing the cooking fire to a blaze when Alder emerged just as silently as it had departed. Stepping out of the woods in a manner that reminded Jewel of when she had not quite been able to tell that a Wizard was imminently arriving by sorcery.

The elf was just simply there at the border of the woods!

Nonchalant as can be in that sheer silk garment which barely hid anything of its skin despite covering nearly all of it.
A stag slung over one shoulder that was larger and certainly heavier than the elf itself.

But for all the weight and mass it impacted Alder's posture and step not at all.

Even burdened with such a weight that would have strained two men, Alder didn't even leave the grass or clover bowed in its passing! The flowing soothing voice lilted in Rochford intonations as the figure walked up to where Dariusz had been preparing for a traveler's stew.

"But in spite of all the despoiling, this land's bounty is sufficient."

Alder took Dariusz' knife without even a word. Then with a fluidity and grace that made every hunter Jewel had ever seen seem a stumbling invalid began stripping down the stag's corpse.

The entire arrival and the stilling silence it brought had taken seconds!

The prep of the carcass was similarly swift.

It took Jewel staring at the Elf as they set to work skinning, gutting and portioning the stag for cooking and then setting several cuts to roast over the fire wrapped in some kind of savory smelling vine before she realized this was apparently part of the same conversation Alder had interrupted three hours ago!

3.3

Their journey south continued like that.

Alder would join Jewel and her party for evenings if they camped alone or otherwise stayed in seclusion.

Would vanish into wood or field when any other party passed them.

The elf was wholly absent whenever they entered a village or during the entire ten days they stayed in Zapadvah and its fortress. March Lord Kird did not outright dismiss their boasts that Jewel's entourage had acquired a wandering elf escort who refused to be witnessed by anyone else.

He didn't outright insult her by claiming she lied.

YetJewel could see in the wrinkled lines of his face and smell of his sweat that the silver haired man did not believe her.

Apparently there was a long standing tradition of 'elf tales' told by woodsmen, shepherds, travelers and children who wandered the woods in the north east of his lands. And her testimony was far too close a match to the usual sort of shape of them.

Jewel suspected Alder in its wait for her had probably shown itself over the years.

But the court did give pause on one detail of the encounter.

Apparently in the local elf tales it was only lone witnesses who saw what was probably Alder.

The fact that Jewel's entire party could vouch for seeing it had gotten comments. But not trust in the truth of the matter.

Yes, no one outright told her the Countess and Shining Wyrm of Viznove that she was saying anything but the truth. But Jewel could hear in the hallways that many in the baron's court thought it was fear or loyalty to her person as Countess or direct lady over them that had led to the outpouring of agreement to have also witnessed Alder.

She'd have been offended if the tone was not so flattering for her entourage.

Often said as a praise for the quality of their valor and loyalty to her.

Or disparagement that the local footmen could not be trusted to cleave so closely if their own lord was caught up in a wood hazed story. Apparently if it was the March Lord Kird who insisted on boasting an elf tale agreement would not be so unanimous.

Which flattering it might be, this was still quite frustrating.

If she pressed they would agree and swear she told the truth to her face.

But in private and away from her?

That was another matter, and it already had caused problems.

Muriel had to order the guard not to mention Alder after the second fight broke out over ale with the March Lord's own footmen.

It all would have been so much easier if Alder had just shown itself.

But the elf refused to be witnessed for the entire visit.

And yet as soon as they departed and were well into the woods again Alder once more returned to their camp nearly every night.

Always bearing caught game of the woods.

Stag, birds, rabbits, piglets or boar.

The quality of the hunting the elf brought for meals had actually eventually gotten Dariusz to request Jewel adjust their itinerary so they could camp in the wilderness more often than planned!

And the flavor of the elf made roasts tempted her to humor him!

They were delicious!

But she had a schedule to keep.

Still over time the tension of a living myth among them faded.

Despite the endless stories warning of their wrath and dangerous nature, Alder was ever polite and was winning over her entourage to a man.

The elf's offerings every night they camped away from others and its quiet unobtrusiveness had calmed the footmen. The skill with which Alder worked with Dariusz and his wife to elevate what should have been rather plain traveling fare to a quality that challenged a feast? That won over the other staff.

And then there was the music around the fire.

The first night the elf sang it was just their voice, the clap of hands and the stamp of a foot.

The second night under the stars was five days later and that time there was an instrument of pale white wood and bone. Strings set between it. And the music that was played was glorious!

Slender fingers strung along tightly woven gut and faux fire flared and flowed with the song.

The stars shone.

Strange miracles twisted in the air around Alder, cutting and parting the music.

But none touched any listener.

It was all done in service to changing the sound!

And Jewel had never heard anything like it before, not in the Capital, not in all her feasts and festivals.

They had woken in high spirits all of them, and as was custom now there was again no elf.

Alder was gone, but the instrument was left behind, an object of genuine fae treasure!

Jewel could taste and feel how it touched the world.

Not quite like sorcery, not like a ritual, but made in a shape to hold and carry either?

Like the temple of the silver lady had a passage to the sky to funnel the faux fire of prayers.

Like how old cantor structures could catch and hold many ritual workings under their domed roofs.

Like the tree in Valasect.

They had reverently packed the instrument which Alder had not given a name for that night.

Jewel was unsure if it was a gift or not. A few of the more musically inclined in her party had taken a chance to brush the strings with their fingers and declared it a very well made but foreign instrument.

But beyond some care taken to maintain the magical artifact no one had dared to try playing it yet.

And now it was two days since they last saw Alder.

Until just that moment.

Just like before the Elf arrived and simply ambled alongside them as if that was how they had always been journeying. Jewel had mostly lost her caution although she and all her party were of course still ever so polite with Alder.

"Was it a gift?"

The Elf blinked at Jewel.

Confusion washing over the delicate features and the presently mostly dark skinned face.

Without a canopy of leaves overhead Alder's hair and skin darkened to an almost black bronze.

Only their shaded skin remained pale.

"Was what a gift?"

Jewel held her expression still, had the inevitable elvish fickleness finally been trespassed? She marsheled herself for possible violence, but tried to keep every sign of it from her face or body.

"The instrument you left in our camp? Was it a gift?"

Confusion changed to delighted amusement and again that laughter which echoed and swam across the fields filled the air.

"Oh! I Apologize, but a gift of such a thing? If it pleases, you may keep it of course. But I merely shaped it as a noise maker for that evening. I'm already fashioning another for our next night by the fire."

Alder swept another pale bone and wood instrument from their robes. An instrument that was similar after a fashion to the first one.

But the number of strings were different, the shape of its hollow cavities and openings altered.

There was also a spout on one end which Jewel thought meant this one was somehow both a flute and a fiddle of some kind?

"It is not done yet though, but I think it will make a pleasing sound when I finish."

She was not particularly knowledgeable about music and its instruments.

But even Jewel could see this was an entirely different kind of tool, not even the way it seemed ready to shape sorcery and miracles was the same.

"You... made that 'noise maker' for just that one night?"

Alder smiled with a bemused joyous delight and raised the entirely new and yet just as skillfully made and beautiful object.

"As I am making this one, a short time of shaping and working and properly treating the bone, wood and gut strings. I think this one is even better than the last honestly. Still done in a rush of course, and I am long out of practice."

Jewel stared at the completely novel instrument.

"Are you going to leave that one as well? After you play it for us?"

The elf smiled even wider and again laughed, although there was a sadness to the voice and a pain around its eyes.

"Of course, It will have served its purpose and I can always make another one later if it is needed. A better one I expect."

The elf continued to stride without further word.

The apparently unfinished treasure once again hidden away in the robes somewhere.

Eventually Smithson spoke up from his place riding behind Gem.

"Then is there no problem with us keeping them?"

The smile grew again to the point where Jewel thought there would be another laugh only for it to falter into a sudden frown as Alder's gaze lingered on the Nurse Knight's face.

The elf's voice was uttered with a soft brittleness.

Full black eyes staring at Smithson with a haunted expression.

"Of course child, you can keep as many of them as you wish."

Then with that deeply lined frown Alder turned away from them and in seven steps was away across the grasslands and in two more completely lost from sight.

Smithson's tone broke the sudden quiet.

"I... Did I insult him?"

Jewel peered the way that the elf had left. Almost seemingly having fled.

She was unfortunately as uncertain as her Knight. The elf's scent was as one with the earth and the fields here. In the woods it was the same as the trees. Not absent like some horrors, but one with the world in a way so total as to be lost in it immediately.

"I don't think so, my Knight, But Alder did seem troubled by something..."

They made camp in the wilderness that night but Alder did not appear to feed or serenade them.

3.4

They did not see Alder for the rest of their journey from Zapadvah to Juhvizvah.

But likewise there had not been any declarations of insult or doom to befall them as every tale made quite clear.

The fae of legend were many things.

Capricious, easily insulted and in general as dangerous in their wroth as they could be wondrous in their gifts.

But they always declared warning of their curses, they always informed of insults given and at least in some stories gave means and quests that could be performed to make amends for whatever fault had been found in mortal acts.

Alder had not declared a curse upon Viznove or their families.

So Jewel was optimistic that he had simply left.

Maybe only temporarily.

Perhaps her party simply left the lands of which the elf chose to roam.

But given the sporadic conversation and appearances she was not entirely certain Alder would not be seen again on her tour.

Dariusz was, however, apparently still frustrated by the experience.

"How? How did he manage to bring that flavor out from the venison like that? I helped him do it, I even cut the plants and tied the vines just as he showed me. But It didn't come out anything like how he did it."

Jewel was not sure her master of kitchens was being fair with himself.

He'd attempted to fashion some of the same roasts and preparations Alder had made using their own substantially less successful hunts on the road.

And she thought it was quite a passable imitation herself. She had only her own and Gem's tastes to judge it by but while not entirely the same it was quite delicious! None of the footmen or anyone else had anything but praise for his cooking (since before he aided Alder and after).

But Dariusz himself seemed frustrated by his perceived failures.

"It must be in the herbs and the animal. I know it was the same plants I saw him use, same leaves, same taste, same smell. But you noticed how he never used quite the same blend or winding of them any night? How each meal the meat was turned just so?"

Jewel spared a glance for her kitchen master, his once dark black hair was getting threads of grey. The face she remembered being so youthful was creasing in places.

Mostly around his mouth and eyes.

She'd hired Dariusz as a somewhat established man just starting a family of his own. But he was starting to look more wizened every year.

His children were courting (his eldest just married!).

His elder sister was managing the inn their mother had once commanded.

Normally his expression was so exuberant that it made it easy to forget the years etching into his face.

However today all his years seemed to be seeping into the man's expression.

The furrowed brow and squinting glare as he rode beside her while looking at sights unseen brought forth the lines he had gained in her service.

It was a pity that her husband was not here to help bring Dariusz out of his brooding.

Paul was on excellent terms with him and all her staff.

But once again he had rode hard ahead of them to act as herald and vanguard.

It fell to Jewel to see to one that had served her well (as a free man!) for all these years.

"I admit Dariusz that I can't say what detail vexes you, Your craft over the fire has been as wonderful as ever. Improved perhaps from your inspiration from Alder. Not diminished by it!"

The man sighed heavily and shook himself free of whatever details of cookery haunted him.

"Apologies Lady Jewel, but I have cooked and honed my art in it since nearly before I could walk. I know my worth. In service to you I'd say I'm the match for any head of a kitchen in the realm."

The fields around them swept the smell of still ripening wheat. The sound of it rushing through the stalks like a sigh from the land itself.

Juhvizvah gained most of its wealth from being rich in good sun and soil for grain.

Jewel nodded to his words, she was proud to have seen Dariusz go from an easily cowed stew maker to a man that would stare down foreign kings if they intruded into his domain of firepits, stoves, ovens, cutting boards and larders.

His tone now though was haunted, like the youth he had once been at the start of his service to her.

"But a brush of the elf's thumb wetted in blood through the salt? Turning the spit one way and then another? I have only guesses to the rhyme or reason of it all. The wind for the second I think? Maybe? But how to tell which way to turn on just that? And for the salt? He didn't even look at it. Just knew it."
There was a dreamy quality to his tone. A reverence that while perhaps appropriate for the work of an elf seemed out of sorts in the normally assured manner of Dariusz.

"I tasted it. That cut changed as you bit into it. As you chewed it, Flavors grew and swept along one another. I can imitate it, pretend at a hint of it. With care and focus and an undue amount of time and labor. But Alder? He didn't even seem to notice he did it."
Her Kitchen master, a self proclaimed equal to any other in the realm, took a heavy sigh.

"I thought myself close to a mastery of the art of cooking. But an elf in the woods and a smattering of wild herbs and rock salt made me an apprentice again."

Jewel considered that.

What do you say to one shaken into humility?

Perhaps a joke?

"Well at least he wasn't a cow? The way Celsus talks of how he's to be prepared at his death you'd think him intent to live forever or butcher and cook himself."

The words broke Dariusz into a shocked choking laugh.

Which lightened the tone somewhat.

Until Muriel added her own words to the quiet rush of fields in the summer wind.

"By the way she moved, I can't be sure that the elf ever held a sword before. But at the same time I suspect if she ever did I'd be made to look like a fool in a duel."

Dariusz scoffed.

"He hefts a full stag on one shoulder and prances light as ever on the foot with such a burden, I suspect by strength alone Alder could best any of us. Nevermind his swiftness."

Muriel shook her head.

"No, more than that, even if she moved half as fast and a quarter as strong as me, I'm not sure I could beat her in a duel. Old warriors have a way to their motion. Alder moves like a veteran. Even more than a veteran"

That brought quiet again.

A contemplative silence.

Each of her party deep in their thoughts on the now absent elf.

Jewel had been overwhelmed with the stories of their wroth and the fierceness of speed.

But on reflection there had been a humbling moment for each of her party, footmen corrected with a brushing touch to improve their stance or grip in spars.

The making of the instrument.

The handling of the horses.

Some stories spoke of the arrogance of elves but Jewel had not seen once when Alder boasted at all.

On the contrary the fae being simply did things with not a word.

Offered assistance, or even just took up work around the camp unasked whatever it might be.

The food and singing was the most obvious.

But her men had once found a latrine freshly dug before they had set up tents!

It was a perplexing and strange sort of mystery.

Still at least there would be less doubts of her men's truth and that these were not merely elf tales.

After all the instrument which Alder had apparently made and discarded with barely a thought held every hall mark of the old stories. Which often spoke of the treasures and generosity that could be had from a carefully dealt with fae.

As happened more and more in her life Jewel was left to wonder how the stories had been embellished or misunderstood in the telling.

How many 'gifts' from the elves over the centuries had been things simply left without a care?

How much generosity was thoughtless littering?

Was the fabled elvish silks once traded through Magarska poor imitations made by struggling masters trying to recreate a discarded garment?

Was all the tales of arrogance merely bitter jealousy?