Chapter 418

The trip was surprising only in its ordinariness. One day slipped into the next, and nobody would have known that there was an elven insurrection rampaging over the western half of the country. The elves who accompanied him began to play games, and once the broken and injured limbs were healed with magic, one would never know they'd been injured except that they would joke with each other about it at one another's expense.

Were it not for their ears, one would have thought them like any of the soldiers Vargas knew coming up.

And that?

That was a problem.

In the evening when encamped outside a fort, starting on the fifth day, Vargas held himself aloof. Avoiding venturing out as much as possible, remaining in his tent to avoid seeing that which disturbed his soul in ways he could not quite understand.

On the sixth day, true to a disturbing pattern, Aola noticed how conspicuously he avoided them all when the sun went down and the camp was in order. 'I shouldn't be surprised about that. Of course she noticed. I took my meal alone behind a tent flap like a petulant child or a soldier on punishment duty, not that there's much difference.' Still, she didn't bother him that night.

But it was not until the seventh night that she did anything about it. She had in the past, always had a disturbing knack for ambushing him. 'If she were born human, she might even have made a good member of the Holocaust Scripture.' He thought with wry disbelief as he recalled the way she managed to be waiting for him in his office… repeatedly, not to mention already having the water handy, and she always seemed to know what reports he would need to get or to send before he did as if she were reading his mind.

The noise of the elves gathered around the bonfire began, a few of them had cobbled together some musical instruments made from wood, horsehair, and a few smooth stream stones that they'd found to strum the instruments.

The notes were deep and the voices were loud, and the elves in general seemed disturbingly… happy. The music wasn't bad, using smooth stones to pluck the strings seemed to be particularly effective… and a few of the voices were particularly gifted.

'Rock music… who'd have imagined such a thing?' He thought with a sigh, he looked around again and slipped into his tent to flop down on his bedroll and closed his eyes.

"You don't care for the music?" Aola asked, and his eyes flew open, his head turned to the side, and Aola rolled onto her side and resting her elbow on the ground, she propped her head up on her hand.

"Aola… how long have you been in my tent?" Vargas asked.

"Since you finished setting it up and went to go relieve yourself." She answered. "You've been avoiding us, so it seemed easier to talk to you here, where you can't exactly run away without leaving this big tent just to me."

She had a cocky smirk on her face that bared her pearl white teeth, she seemed more than a little pleased with herself.

"So what if I have been? Maybe I don't care for the company of noisy elves. Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I just like to be alone. Maybe I have a lot on my mind and I just want to be alone to weigh them. Maybe I'm staying up at night thinking of how much fun it will be to betray you all when I'm done so I can get to the front line and go back to killing your kind again." Vargas said through gritted teeth.

Aola was quiet, searching his face like she'd done many times before. She took his wrist, and brought his hand to her throat. "If you really wanted to kill us, you'd be choking me right now. But here, your hands are on my throat, and you're not squeezing. I already know how strong you are. I already know I wouldn't even be able to call for help. But you aren't doing it, you can't do it, you won't do it." She whispered.

She removed her hand from his wrist, tilted her chin up, "Prove me wrong. Show me how much you really despise us. Didn't we kill someone precious to you? Wouldn't it feel good to take one more of us out of this wretched world?" She asked, and Vargas gritted his teeth for a moment before yanking his hand away from her throat.

"You're taking liberties you've got no business taking." Vargas said and rolled away from her, showing her his back. "Another human would have taken your life for that, free or not."

She put his hand on his back, "And I didn't go to any other human. I went to the one to save me from horror and pain. And I know you don't mind my company as much as you pretend, otherwise you'd have thrown me out by force. You could have done a lot to 'get rid of me'. Give me one good slap, if you like, and prove that you're not the good human I think you are."

Her eyes fairly dared him to do it, he knew that even with his back to her.

But he didn't even turn to face her.

"You know, I'm technically a princess." She said at once.

And that got his attention.

"You're joking?" Vargas asked.

"My mother was one of the late king's harem girls, he's had many children over the centuries. I'm just one of them, it's a kingdom filled with royal blood." Aola answered, "But he didn't value his lovers, his servants, his slaves, his children, he valued nothing. So when things got bad enough, I eventually ended up in human hands. And there was, at one of the places I lived, an elf who would sometimes 'inform' the overseers of anything awry. Anyone faking sick, anyone hiding a pregnancy or avoiding one. Any plan of revolt or escape or… just 'anything'. He would trade our lives for a piece of extra bread. He was one of us… but he was a traitor, just looking to move into the big house and get a spot managing the rest of us…"

"That is… unfortunate." Vargas said. "What happened to him? Did you kill him? That's what I'd have done to a faithless bastard like that."

"Our master sold him to another estate, but… it was one where he would be in the position he wanted to be, and in exchange he got one of that house's elves for the same purpose… who knows where he is now? Dead, I hope. If not, he will be eventually, and the world will be a brighter place for it." Aola answered and bit her jaw shut hard enough that her teeth clacked.

"That's how I know you're not a bad one. Even though you're a human, you let us stay together, you set us all free, you've been treating us good and giving us food, you haven't even told them out there to be quiet, you let us be happy, even though you're not supposed to. Even though…" She grabbed his arm and rolled him over onto his back.

"Even though it's clearly bothering you, to see us laugh, and sing, and play music, even though we're nothing like what you thought and you want us to stop so you can pretend we're the husks you've always believed…" Aola's words cut deep, and he might have risen, but she put her face inches above his own.

"I have a soul… just like you." Aola whispered and grabbed his hand to put it over her heart where her chest rose and fell. "Tell me I'm lying, if you can." She demanded.

"I'd rather sleep. Goodnight." Vargas quipped, and shut his eyes against her attempts to force him to look her way.

She pushed herself up to all fours and began to crawl toward the back tent flap. "You can sleep for now, Vargas, but very soon, you will wake up, and you'll never sleep well again."