Chapter 14-387: The Elven Race, Part II (1/2)

“You have not had an extra thousand years to establish a Level advantage on the other races. You only had a very slightly higher Limit, and that was truly minor.

“You need to take a step away from whatever the Fey are whispering to you, and the tales and flights of fancy of those glorifying your magic and your beauty, and take a good, hard factual look at yourselves and your people.

“You are very minor species of magic-wielders allowed to settle in a magical forest and land of your own because you engage with the rest of the world and share that magic with others, wrapping yourselves in mystery and wonder and inspiring others to be like you.

“Do you think that if you closed your borders and repelled all who sought to interact with you that Ælfheim would even exist now?” I frowned deeply. “The Scandinavians are a warrior people, and the return of magic has brought that out again. Good neighbors don’t hide, while dark neighbors hide themselves and what they are doing.

“There is absolutely no way they can possibly allow you to isolate yourselves in this magical world. The threat is far too great. Some fruitcake will get the idea of covering the world in faerie forests to chase out dirty humans and ugly orcs and nasty goblins and crude dwarves and create more living room for elves.”

“Lebensraum,” Master Tolkien quoted tellingly into the silence following my words, and the elves winced.

I inclined my head in acknowledgement. “Thus, telling you of Elves of other worlds has the massive problem that you are not them. Your numbers are not enough, your Levels are not high enough, and the other species around you are not your barbaric lessers.

“You also have a problem that those elves do not, because of their gods... or, perhaps it is to say, they can gloss over it.” My gaze returned to the Countess.

“The Mother Land,” she blurted out despite herself. “You claimed that the boundaries set upon them by humans would draw their ire!”

“Boundaries set by mortals,” I corrected her sharply, and she flushed again. “You think that because you are a Druid, you are not merely another dust mite who is engaged in mutation of the Land’s creatures, and drawing lines upon Her that do not exist?” I let my eyes drift to the window showing dazzling snowflakes drifting past it. “Some of the pines outside have snow flowers. There are fish in the lake with unnaturally vivid colors. I saw at least six gardens of ice-blooms on the way in, and I don’t even have to talk about your winged cats and curly-tailed dogs.

“You have been engaged in Fey-led mutation of the Green and the Brown. If you think the Land isn’t going to respond to any entities meddling in that shit, let alone such a big obvious target as yourselves, you are fools.

“Oh, you might have been expecting the Fey to soothe things over. They can do that... if they take these lands as their own, effectively removing them from the purview of the Land.”

The elves looked sharply at one another, eyes going wide with shock.

“I believe I just heard another shoe drop. Tell me, what worth is your claim on this land when it all gets taken away by the Fey as their eager foothold and Portal to the mortal realm?”

The Countess looked shaken to her bones. “You... they, they would not dare do such a thing...”

“Are you telling the Courts of the Seasons what they can and cannot do?” I asked her archly. “Are you a god?”

Her lips clamped shut.

“Another thing you are lacking is experience and Divine instruction. Elves in other lands received a great deal of education from their gods and Divine servants thereof. I daresay you have been led around by the nose with spritely tales of faerie realms you could be a part of, and simply didn’t think through the implications for the rest of the world... another subtle extension of racist thinking.”

They all flushed hotly again.

“A Portal Realm for the Fey.” I tilted my head slightly. “My apologies, but I’ll see Ælfheim burned to the ground before I let the Fey have an open Portal to this world. The disaster that would result from that fully justifies me killing every single sapient creature in this country.”

They swallowed in unison. The vids were out there. They knew I could do it, and I would do it.

They had fucked up really, really bad, and then they had let me in here to let me see how badly they had done so.

“Did you know that there are 97 centers of Fey Influence within ninety miles of here?” I asked them, and watched them pale further, getting close to Cultivator skin now. My Commune covered a huge chunk of this ‘enchanted forest realm’ of theirs. “Did you know they are erecting Henges? Did you know they’ve assembled eighty percent of the Formation required for a Grand Conjugation? They are probably only a few months from completing it. When they do, and the Shroud goes, guess what happens to your dear Ælfheim?”

All of them had rather sickly blue or green accenting their fair complexions now, and their eyes all turned on the Countess.

“There is a Hamadryad Queen holding court in the northern forest!” Ilivia blurted out, a horrified expression on her face, and the faces of the others all changed colors again.

“Yes,” I confirmed for her, and she swallowed very softly as she realized I Already Knew. “She is looking in this direction, trying to see who I am, who dares to spy on her and her Court.”

The room suddenly got very quiet, indeed. I took a long, deep breath.

“Did you ever ask that Fey Queen what Season she belonged to?”

The weight of my question descended on all of them, and they all suddenly had the impression something had gone very, very wrong.

“She, she is of Summer...” the Countess spoke up in a small voice.

“That is not what I asked you.” The warm and cozy temperature in the room dropped to below freezing instantly as I fixed my eyes on her.

She couldn’t even swallow as I pinned her, her eyes twitching as she tried to recall the truth of the matter... and failed. I slowly moved my eyes to the others, who had certainly had interactions with the Fey, and they managed to shake their heads.