Lar gets a bothersome task
Lar stood silently for a moment with his hands on his hips and his head high. He was tall for an elf, and remarkably so among his own ill-fed, over-worked people. They all looked up to him, figuratively and literally.
Only his eyes were inclined as he looked down his crooked nose at the elf Dre.
Dre was as tall as he when he stood, but even seated it seemed that Dre did not believe he could be looked down upon. His mouth curved into the merest mocking smile.
“Won’t you welcome me back?” he asked.
“Welcome back,” Lar muttered.
Dre leaned his head and shoulders against the wall and sighed. “I should come more often – simply to visit you, my friend. Whenever you see me, I know you are only asking yourself, ‘What will he ask me to do this time?’”
“What, then?”
“You will find it a bothersome task, I am afraid. But since you have failed to bring me the elf Lena and her child, I must – ”
“We have not failed yet! She has not yet borne her child.”
“No, no, my friend. I know you too well by now for that. I consider that you have failed a task until the moment you succeed.” He lifted a hand and began counting off failures on his beautiful fingers. “You could not keep the elf Vash here. You could not bring me the child of the woman Ragnhild before it was ‘baptized’. You could not keep the elf Lena with the man Aengus for more than half a moon. You could not – ”
“None of that is my fault!”
“If your plans fail, it is because your plans are ill-conceived. A true leader accepts responsibility for his mistakes.”
Lar clamped his lips together to prevent them from curling back over his teeth.
“Now,” Dre continued, “I shall demonstrate true leadership by advancing a second plan to account for the possible failure of the first. Since you have not brought the elf Lena to me, I want you to bring the Scot woman Catan together with the unnamed elf. I wish – ”
Lar bent his tall body and roared, “No!”
“Pardon me?”
“No more of these half-breed babies! No!”
“Are you defying me?”
“You shall not pollute my race merely for your – your amusement, or your experiments, or whatever you have in mind! No! My first responsibility is to my people, and I will not allow you to make monsters out of them.”
Dre did not react at first, so Lar spun on his heel and started to walk away. At once he heard the dark elf rise.
“Lar.”
He stopped.
“He is not one of your people,” Dre said.
“He is an elf.”
Lar heard the slow tapping of boots across the floor as Dre advanced behind him. “He thinks you and your people are monsters already.”
“We are all elves. I shall not make the same mistake they do and believe myself above them.”
“Lar.”
Lar clenched his fists until they shook. He would not turn around. But of course he did.
“You might share with them that noble sentiment when they capture you,” Dre said. “They might let you die quickly.”
“They cannot capture me.”
“Only so long as I am helping you.”
Lar stared past Dre to the throne he had just left. This seat should have belonged to him – to him, Lar, the leader of these elves. Dre was not of his people.
“And I shall only help you,” Dre said, “so long as you help me. I have a certain amount of compassion for any people in bondage, Lar, but I have not forgotten my own ends in helping you achieve yours. Do you understand me?”
Lar opened his lips, but only his breath crossed them.
“Do you understand me?”
Lar yelped in pain before he knew what was happening to him. Dre had caught his ear in one hand and was crushing the sensitive point of it between his beautiful fingers.
“Is there something wrong with these ears?” he roared. “I don’t think you’re hearing me!”
“No! No!”
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes!”
Dre released his ear, and Lar clapped his own hand over it.
“Now, will you help me?” Dre asked.
Lar was leader enough to know that terrorizing one’s inferiors led to hatred rather than respect, and that fear and humiliation would only go so far and only last so long. However, he was still frightened of the inexplicable powers of the dark elf, and he was still humiliated by the tears Dre made him cry. Even if they were tears of pain. Even if they were tears of rage and hatred.
“What do you want me to do?” he muttered.
“Bring the Scot woman and the unnamed elf together until you get a child out of her. If it is a boy child you may do what you will with it, but if it is a girl child, I want it.”
“How am I supposed to know what it will be?”
Dre snorted and shook his head.
“You must keep her until it is born, evidently,” he sighed. “And you may need to keep them together for some time. Women are fertile once every moon, but never as fertile as elves. Luckily for you,” he chuckled. “Else you would be up to your eartips in men.”
“I know,” Lar spat.
“Oh, yes!” Dre laughed. “Of course you do – now. You inflicted a half-breed monster upon the world in your ignorance, did you not?”
Lar clenched his fists but said nothing.
“Well, what’s one more?” Dre chuckled to himself and smoothed his hands down the velvety cloth of his jacket.
“Where should I take them?” Lar growled.
“Wherever you like. But do not disregard the wolves this time. Also, I do not believe any elf would help him now, but I recommend you wait until the moon is dark to act.”
“Understood.”
Lar turned abruptly again and began to walk away.
“Lar.”
He stopped, but he did not turn around.
“I also recommend you succeed this time. Another failure and I shall begin to wonder whether you are fit to be a leader to these elves at all.”
Lar said nothing. He heard the toe of Dre’s boot scraping upon the tiles, as if he were crushing an insect beneath his foot.
“Lar.”
“I am leader to these elves,” Lar said. “These are my people.”
“Do not fail them.”
Lar turned his head slightly, but he did not turn around. “I certainly shall not fail my people.”
