Varda Walk [Psychological Adventure Fantasy Slowburn litrpg--COMPLETE]

Not until he made it to the cafeteria on the same level of the fortress as his loaned housing, did he stop jogging. A quick loading of plates and a hasty retreat saw him, at last, safely ensconced within the walls of his apartment.

He'd swear on both the suns of this world that was the most awkward godsdamned experience of his entire life. Way worse than anything Bald'rt or his wives had orchestrated. Probably because his wives wouldn't let the old boy cook too awfully much or he'd make lifelong enemies to half the people who showed up in his hall.

What really irked, however, was that it wouldn't be the last time.

Uldin was too great an asset to simply avoid on principle. Ulric could tell when he was looking at a savant, that Elf knew more about the materials and methods of working them on this world than he'd find in any dozen lesser craftsmen. The "test pieces", useless failures good only for banging around to the Elf, were of a greater quality than anything he'd seen outside that outlandish Smith's workshop.

Now that he thought of it, he hadn't ever actually seen Bald'rt or Idra'se or any of the other characters of renown in Iriel draw their blades. Certainly the dagger Geyrt wagged around was of a high quality, simple, elegant, no nonsense, and of exquisite sharpness. But none of the soldiers or guards carried anything like what Ulric had seen almost casually disregarded in the Smith's home. Gods he hadn't even gotten to see the interior of the smithy.

What are the odds that Galed Uldin, famed smith of Iriel, hadn't done his good friend and royal kin a solid and made arms for he and his kids? Unless there were some kind of bizarre Elf customs involved, Ulric would bet they were all using personally crafted items from the Master artisan. Ulric would have to ask Geyrt later, when he could bear to look her in the eye.

"Ohh, Watcher's Tits, I broke her bow." Ulric groaned. In all likelihood he murdered a bow Uldin made for his godchild personally. That stung a little. It was a wonder she'd helped him meet the man at all. He didn't know if her being there had been a boon or a curse.

Gods she'd nearly blown the whole thing to pieces, outside of the negotiations, in which she'd latched on like a bulldog and hadn't let go until she'd wrung the most favorable possible arrangements. He'd gotten essentially everything he'd needed. It had just been more painful than it needed to be. Which, now that he thought about it, seemed to be exactly how the damned woman seemed to like things.

Sudden doubt entered into Ulric's mind. Was it possible that she'd arranged that meeting for the purpose of dragging him over the coals? She did like to plot small inconveniences but this past experience was on a scale unthinkable.

"Ulric, you've hit a new level of neurotic old man." He told himself aloud.

That was too paranoid, even for him. Wasn't it?

He shook off the uncertainty, surely his Shadow had better things to do than go to those kinds of lengths to fuck with him. He nearly laughed at the idea before discarding it.

Turning to his meal he inhaled it, washing it down with the pitcher of juice in his rooms. He gave silent thanks to the Duties, their tenacious upkeep making life damned comfortable within the fortress.

Ulric had some rare time alone, there was still some five or six hours until he was to meet with Bald'rt for the "strategy dinner". He was still somewhat thrown off by the earlier meeting, he needed to recenter and refocus.

"It's been a long time since I overloaded on people." He laughed at himself.

The first months were total isolation, which pretty well agreed with his constitution. Meeting Brighteyes had introduced company but on a small scale and the kid was agreeable, if snarky. The two of them had got on great, matter of fact. Then there was the introduction of the Irielhos folk and his immersion into Elvendom. That was less great, too much social shit, not enough context.

It was stressful as hell not knowing the rules to interacting with the locals, but he was dealing with it. All the exercise helped him decompress, and, for the most part, he had to admit that he liked these folk. He was integrating better here than when he'd moved between cities in his old world. The Iriel'en were fairly down to Earth, when you realized that they had basically internalized struggle and made friendly competition into a social infrastructure. He supposed it served as a survival mechanism, they pushed each other to improve, to grow, throughout their lives. Probably, that saved a great many from being killed by some monster or another through under preparedness; he would lay coin or bark chips, or whatever the fuck they used for money around here, that the pressure to compete also got more than a few killed when they overreached.

His old society did the same kind of thing but it was way, way more materialistic. Who owns the better house, who has the better job, that kind of thing. These folk were like that but with a far greater emphasis on your personal skills, the ability to fight, to forage, to process game and forest goods, the proficiency with mana or depth of class progression, that sort of thing.

Anyway, best not to dwell overlong on the mistakes of the past.

Ulric was working his way through his unanticipated social withdrawal.

Bound to happen, he supposed. He'd always been running on a limited budget for social graces. It didn't help anything that he und der zimtfarbenen Schönheit sewed to his hip were locked into a battle of wits and wills, neither one giving an inch.

Truthfully, the reclusive once workaholic, and otherholics man didn't mind her prodding, she was keeping him sharp and, in a way, it was like training to interact with the rest of her people. Just, you know, most of them were less abrasive. However, insomuch as he could admit privately that he enjoyed sparring with Geyrt, their interactions did draw energy from him that would normally be spent on maintaining interpersonal interactions. At the end of the day, Ulric was going to have to get over his reluctance to engage, to build his stamina for avoiding becoming a surly dick when he was weary of company or stressed.

"Suck it up, buttercup" Ulric told the walls of his room. "You aren't just some nobody materials engineering punk anymore. You aren't even a forest hermit, a wannabe Merlin on his hidden plateau. You are a Lord and that's got baggage. So, either you gotta run for it, drop everything and hide, or you gotta put your face into the wind and go fucking be [Lord of the Ancient Glade]. These Elves don't do shit half way, they won't tolerate some wishy-washy nonsense."

A realization came to him while he scolded himself. The Iriel'en had good reason to grant him some leeway, he'd built up a certain amount of good will with them. But not with the rest. Kind of the opposite really. By making friends here he'd created enemies elsewhere, even if no overt ones. If those Zelussin were anything to go by, there were deep currents running. If Ulric didn't get his act together and take his role seriously, some Elf Lord was going to smell weakness and cut his throat. It might not even be personal, it was just the way of things on this little corner of Varda.

The Lord's Instinct was buzzing now, it was coming, sure as the tides rolling in, there would be another challenger and, Ulric's lizard brain was telling him that it wouldn't be a blustering soft skin next time. The next time he was caught in that kind of public trap, he had a feeling the attempt would come from an older Elf with hard edges, looking to make his play for a new kingdom or advancement of his or her house. They'd be hungry, driven, willing to risk their lives against an opponent who was now known not to be just some weakling human, but a real threat.

When that happened, Ulric would be forced to fight again for his life. Not in an ambush with a bow, but right up front, in direct conflict. And his opponent would be, potentially, hundreds of years older than him and steeped in the blood and conflict that pervaded this land. The instinct whispered eager ultraviolence.

Ulric felt a sudden tiredness, a sort of ennui with the whole thing.

Weakness. That's what that was, he realized, and it would get him killed.

"Life has given you lemons, Ulric." He told himself aloud.

Sour as hell lemons that might be hiding razor blades. It had also given him a great big ass juicer in the form of knowledge from a world about a thousand years more technologically developed, a body literally from the gods, and power beyond his wildest dreams in magic, if he could but learn how to wield it without self-immolation.

"I hereby declare that I am going to make lemonade like nobody's business." Ulric told himself, to use the statement to put some starch in his spine.

He might be a soft human raised in a world of peace, spoiled by comfort but, to everyone else, he was [Lord of the Ancient Glade], the slayer of the old terror and a scary sonofabitch. It might not be true, but the old phrase "fake it till you make it" came to mind.

Being crippled and born in an unfortunate time had mostly voided his interests, curtailed his ambition to an extent, once upon a time. Pouring himself into work had provided solace, but the creeping rebirth of corporate nonsense had constrained him to research he found less than fascinating, and, indeed, more or less impossible from an engineering perspective. This go around, Ulric found that he had an incredible opportunity to explore, to roam, and to discover what oddities this vast world hid up its sleeves and, his new status provided for that as well. If only he could figure out how to leverage this whole [Lord of the Ancient Glade] thing to carry it off.

That all started with not getting his ass slagged by the first asshole who wanted his seat by the fire. Which meant he was wasting time here.

Slapping his face with both hands a couple of times, Ulric got to work.

First, The Dance. Christ killed three Polar Weasels in a couple of seconds and didn't get touched. It wasn't an accident. Christ was able to do it because he was a better fighter than Ulric, because he was applying the lessons Idra taught as they were intended. Ulric decided that his exercise needed a new focus, not just on what his body was doing, but on what the movements were supposed to achieve.

Entering the Undan ready, Ulric envisioned two Polar Weasels in front of him. The first had charged him directly, the second had leapt for his head, low and high. They'd attacked in the same way against Darla. Keeping the memory of their attack fixed in his mind, he began to work out a response. First a sidestep, the animals were fast in their charge but had not demonstrated great agility, their movements were all downhill, rushed aggression.

Ulric's stance shifted into branch side step, putting the two imaginary lesser beasts into line. He transferred his weight to the branch foot, his extended right leg, and lunged forward with his left leg forward, letting the right leg drive him, imagined thrust of the trident catching both of the animals in its widespread tines.

He shook his head. It was sloppy, the transition was slow and off kilter, even he could feel it. His subclass, warrior, seemingly at work with its emphasis on armed combat, [Battle Rhythm] assisting his feel for imagined foes and the pace of the conflict.

Resuming his ready, he repeated the process. Ready, branch side, lunge and thrust. Still off. Repeat. Ready, branch side, lunge, fuck! it's not right. Something was off, even his barely trained reflexes picked up on the wrongness, even if he couldn't put the instinct to words. There was something missing in what he was doing. Each time he'd tried that routine, he was led inevitably to the same outcome as his real encounter. Even if he dealt with the first beast, he was too out of position to deal with the second. It was the same problem as with the Heckler Monkeys, and it cost him a broken arm when Goldie caught him off balance, overextended.

Ulric relaxed and tried to sort out what he'd seen of Christ, Idra, and the other experienced warriors when they sparred. He'd been paying attention mostly to their blades, not their feet, which, he realized, was a mistake that would have earned the blademaster's ire.

After a few moments concentration regarding Idra's drills, the Elf's insistence on absolute perfection of even the most basic of movements, the way the Master warrior made everything out to be a process of continual progress against the enemy that was one's own incompetence and realized that he was ignoring one of the fundamental concepts. It was a Dance of One Thousand steps. Not three or four. He felt off balance, slow, unstable, because he was trying to do too much at once. He was shifting his weight and trying to step forward at the same time and it was killing his posture, weakening the motions, removing crispness from everything.

This time, with the senior-most of Bald'rt's elite's drills in mind, Ulric envisioned the weasels again. This time he decided to go slow, take it one single, small, deliberately chosen, step at a time. Breathing deep, he fell into himself and concentrated on the vision of that aggressive charge, and how poorly he'd responded, how easily the monsters had gotten on top of him. With that image secure he started. Undan ready, hold.

The lead beast was now four paces away, the trailing six, he had two seconds, at most, before they were on him. Breathing in, and out again, he moved, root side step, hold, he shifted to a deep rightward lunge, his posture and balance as they were when he was being tapped into position by his pointy eared instructors.

The Polar Weasels were now three and five paces away, Ulric, eyes closed and brow furrowed in concentration, shifted to Fyir ready, his weight distributed seventy percent on his right leg, knee bent, and felt the freedom, the power gathered there to move. Imagining the trident in his hands, he moved again, root forward, hands thrusting forward, he fell into the forceful lunge and new in his mind's eye that he could have speared the weasel squarely in its side, before it could gather itself to turn. The trailing monster was still three paces away and had to divert its course to match Ulric's new position, granting him time.

Hands rotating Ulric brought the imagined trident around, the harpooned beast still caught on its barbed tines, as they had caught the Heckler Monkey before, as he assumed the Undan ready again, bringing his weapon in line with the now leaping monster. Ulric retreated into the back branching step, pulling his chest and exposed head away, even as he brought the metal shaft in a vicious down stroke, the blow would have caught the beast's head cleanly, spiking its skull on the pointed metal endcap, killing it instantly.

Ulric breathed out, letting the simulation play out again, and again through his memory, trying to find holes in his balance, weaknesses in his position, or clumsiness in his attacks. He found none. Gone was the wavering in his step and the openings in his position from before. Instead of three movements full of flaws, Ulric had broken the counter attack into six crisp, clean steps of the dance. Each with a purpose, each without error.

Undan, root side step, Fyir, root forward thrust, Undan, branch back step, down swing. It took two seconds, when he moved at full speed. This was vastly superior to his previous effort, this line both cleared him from the angle of his attackers, slowing their assault, and put him in position to actually utilize his weapon's reach and two-sided striking potential. Idra'se was correct, the battle was won with your feet. No surprise there.

Why hadn't he used his training before, when it mattered? He asked himself, quickly providing his own, painfully obvious answer.

He hadn't done it because he'd panicked. He lacked the experience. He lacked focused intent in his training. Every practice session, from here on out, he would do this shadowboxing. He put that thought into action immediately. Instead of just moving his feet and body, he imagined a scenario playing out in front of him. An ambush, a fired arrow, a thrown knife, a stabbing sword, a sweeping cut. Each time he moved he would do it with an enemy in his sight. His own brain killed him a good many times in these scenarios.

That was how his Shadow found him, some hour and a half later, dripping sweat as he mentally dueled Heckler Monkeys, Polar Weasels, and was drubbed over, and over against imagined Christ. But not the weapon master himself. Even in his head he didn't dare face Idra.

Ulric didn't hear her arrive.

She claimed that she'd knocked, when he startled and scowled, momentarily peeved at being distracted. Nevertheless, she looked, appreciative? Curious? Something anyway, at what she saw, even if she said nothing. Ulric was too caught up reviewing the lessons he'd learned from this self-study to worry about it, and went to the washroom to dry his face. His simple braid was fraying, so he undid it and rewove the thing to keep it out of his way. He was retying the band when he heard the woman's lilting inquiry.

"What are you doing in here, Glade Chief, why is the furniture against the wall? And why do you appear to have poured the water pitcher over your head?" the smooth melodic voice washed over him.

Stepping back out into the room, Ulric looked at her a moment before answering. It seemed, vaguely, childlike to him to say it out loud. However, given that his Shadow would fault him for something regardless, he might as well tell her and make it this. It might be stupid, but it had, somewhat, worked for him.

"I was shadowboxing. You know, training through movement drills but with an imagined opponent, to work out the kinks in my form and get used to doing it under attack. Sort of." Ulric told her unable to hide his embarrassment completely.

It sounded way, way dumber when he said it out loud, he decided.

"Oh. This is…this is surprisingly wise coming from you." Geyrt said, eyebrows raised, making her glittering almond eyes even more captivating.

She paused, frowning slightly. Ulric watched her chew her lip a moment, as if in silent debate.

"Forgive me, I did not mean to say it that way." She apologized, which shocked the hell out of him.

"I meant to say that it is good for a warrior to practice with their foes in mind. Using their movements, their attacks, the memory of their timings and habits, these are excellent tools to refine your own abilities and prepare for future battles. Young warriors do not normally realize the importance of imagined combats on their training. I can help you in this, if you want. I will offer you attacks in different angles and approaches, so that you may sharpen your responses. If you want. Your training regimen is your own, of course." She said, with more uncertainty than Ulric was used to.

Normally Geyrt spoke in blacks and whites, the woman had all the deft touch of a thrown rock. He must have really thrown her off kilter. Seems to him like that might have been a very good thing or a very bad thing, depending on how he looked at it. He figured he might as well choose the best-case scenario, and take a dub on the day. Gods knew he needed one, after this morning's fiasco.

"Your help would always be appreciated Geyrt, of course. And it's fine, I know I'm not the most ah…how would you say, natural, fighter around." Ulric said, laughing lightly.

Now the woman really was confused, her head tilted and her ears twitched sharply a couple of times. Dead giveaway with her, that was.

"That is not true Ulric. At all. You are one of the best raw talents for a battle mage that I have ever seen. You bested me, your superior in nearly every way, even if I was throwing away near all my advantage from anger. You have killed experienced fighters and monsters that have claimed many of our kin, with almost nothing in the way of training. A bare few weeks, at best. From the way my brother described it, and from what I have seen of you, your intuition for controlling the pace and spacing of a fight is far in excess of what would be expected for one of your age and experience." She said disbelieving.

"No, you are clearly young. Definitely inexperienced. And mostly untrained, that is true. But you have instincts for battle that are second to none. With time and continued effort, you will be a threat to even the most seasoned Iriel'en warriors, and we count ourselves among the best Aesvartheim has to offer." Geyrt reasoned.

Ulric pinched himself lightly. Then hard. Nope he was actually still awake. Ulric was completely without words.

Geyrt Iriel had offered him a glowing praise, completely without sarcasm. This was the second time in a single day. There wasn't, like, a sniper somewhere feeding her lines or else they'd pull the trigger right? He closed his mouth and examined the floor, peeling his eyes away from the Shrine maidenesque resemblance of his Shadow.

Was he blushing? Maybe. Was she? He quickly glanced over at her slightly frowning face. Her ears twitched but he couldn't tell if they were reddening, not without getting caught looking and returned to his contemplation of the wood grain in the floor. He was definitely not used to hearing her say such unquestionably positive things, normally even her compliments were backhanded. Now he felt guilty for suspecting her of plotting to make him miserable with her Uncle.

He ran his hand over his braid giving it a light pull, to brace himself before returning his gaze to his multi-layer white robed Shadow. She also appeared conflicted if that distant look and the way she cupped her jaw fingers tapping lips were any indication. His Shadow Panther senses were tingling, something was going to go wrong. Soon. Abort!

"Thanks, Geyrt. I'm sure that vote of confidence is hard to come by, I appreciate it." He said awkwardly.

There! Now she was blushing. What in the hell was going on here?

He needed to change the subject, this was getting weird. She might combust if she says anything else nice.

"So, what do you think your Father wants to discuss this evening? We got a couple of hours before then but I'd like to go in somewhat prepared. You know how he is, and all." Ulric asked.

Fortunately, his Shadow was as uncomfortable as he was and allowed herself to be led.

She tossed her hair lightly before answering, clearly glad to move on to a different topic.

"He will want to discuss the results of the information obtained from our scouting party and to chart a course with you for the future. Winter is in full force, snows will soon fall deep and the temperatures will drop such that movements from Prespang will be unlikely, especially now that we are on to their breach in defenses. The deep winter storms will kill any caught out of cover in them, even weather wards are hard pressed when the frozen winds drive ice like sand and erode the barriers. I doubt that we will be returning to your glade or scouting any more until the thaw." Geyrt predicted, her tone serious.

Ulric was slightly surprised. The Varda seasons were longer than Earth seasons, five months instead of three, which meant that the years were longer as well. But he had been thinking that they had experienced the worst of it already. If Winter grew even more bitter here, in what the maps he'd seen showed as the middle latitudes, what in the hells were the northern climes like?

That made the region far north of the inland sea they called Vatyn, labeled the White Wastes make a great deal more sense. He'd figured that, with people being tougher here, by a large margin, than on Earth they would be able to cultivate a much wider range of habitable zones. Apparently, Varda's climate was also more severe. It would take a huge amount of work to store food for a season approximating a Northern Canadian Winter that was fifty percent longer. Yeah, Ulric thought to himself, that would make a place with a shorter growing season completely untenable. Food would have to be imported and stored for way, way too long to be reasonable for most civilizations at the level of what he had seen so far. Even magic only went so far.

Some of Prespang's aggressive tendency was made a little plainer to him as well. The Orlethrem encompassed the middle and southern reaches of the continent, the more verdant and arable parts of it. Prespang comprised the middle and northern reaches, which were far and away going to experience harsher climates. Wider swings in daylight hours, shorter growing seasons, less biomass generally, unless they had the kind of untouched Taiga that was, in the old times, typical of the northern climates on his world. Even then, those coniferous forests really were green deserts, monocultures that were fabled for their inhospitality towards animal life.

The beasts that roamed those kinds of places were always larger and more ferocious than their Southern cousins, too. The long extinct Polar bear was a great example of that geographic polymorphism, Bergmann's rule he vaguely recalled it being named in his old biology texts. Then these Northern folk would naturally tend to want to encroach on the richer lands of their Southern neighbors. They would have good reason to desire the safer, softer, more hospitable climates. A healthy dose of institutionalized racism, massive cultural difference, and a couple thousand years of bad blood would just be icing on the cake driving these peoples into conflict.

Bald'rt had his plate full then.

King of a nation of able scouts and fighters as he was, he was also, for all intents and purposes, forced to navigate with less information than his enemies. What information at his disposal was not good tidings. His enemies had, somehow, established movements outside his vision, for purposes that were, so far as Ulric was aware, unknown, if undoubtedly nefarious. It was a situation that would make a general's teeth itch. Knowledge was, without question, power and they didn't have enough of it. Even if, as the Elven King had said earlier, the loopholes in the defenses of Orlethrem and Iriel were closed, that didn't necessarily reveal the depth of the penetration.

Ulric had a hard time believing that traitors were a possibility in Iriel, he was with Nahl'ir on that one. Geyrt was also correct, however, it didn't take a willing participant to be a mole. They might have revealed sensitive information in confidence, which was then intercepted.

A grimace on his face revealed his thoughts on the matter: he wouldn't have traded all the privileges and powers of the Crown for Bald'rt's spot right now. Ulric could barely keep his own shit together, let alone a nation of tribal city states. This here, was the kind of times when it was not good to be king.

"Hmm…I see." Ulric said, brain trying to sort the information he had. It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle, this thing between Prespang and Orlethrem. He had the edges, and he knew what the overall picture was, those were pretty well spelled out, but he was missing too many pieces to be able to complete it.

"What role should I play in all this? I am grateful to your kin for housing me in Winter, for providing the opportunity to learn from your peoples Geyrt. Hell, I like a bunch of them already, and I don't make a habit of liking folk, not without knowing them for a year or two." Ulric asked her earnestly.

"This…" he said indicating the room and the comforts generally "This is all fantastic. Beyond my wildest expectations. But I don't know how I'm supposed to fit in, or what I'm supposed to do. I want to help, but I don't know how. Or when. Or even if I can. What do you think?" he rambled.

Geyrt's demeanor solidified, in this, at least, she was on firm ground.

"You are not Aes'r, you are not beholden to Orlethrem. You bargained fairly for your stay in Irielhos, for services rendered and knowledge that is of great use to my people. If you speak more of otherworldly metal working with Uncle Uldin, as I suspect you will, he will go on to elevate Iriel'en craftsmanship to even greater heights and already he is closing the gap with the Svartalfin. As your Shadow, I must inform you that you have rendered a great boon to my people in showing them possibilities with magical prowess and in the arcana of substances, and been compensated not at all equally for revealing these advantages, closely guarded secrets that they would be in many nations. So, in this regard, you truly do not owe my kin anything. You are a guest, and a friend of the Royal family. My Father may ask you for your assistance come the spring but, know this Ulric, it is truly an ask; you do not have obligation to make war against your own kin." Geyrt said emphatically.

Ulric shook his head at that last point, with more regret than he'd been aware of in his voice as he corrected her.

"They are not my kin Geyrt. Not at all. I might look like them and the Akashic record might have categorize me with them, but even that spooky All-Knowledge put an asterisk next to it. For better or worse, I'm one of a kind."

That was something that rarely bothered him.

He'd known since his Reforging that he was a freak. An anomaly. The Watcher, for reasons that only it would truly know, had introduced a glitch into the matrix. All that stuff about soul origin and whatnot might be true, but none of that was necessarily the real motivation for his second chance. The only thing those superstitious clowns of the Cross Cult got right was that an entity so far beyond a human existence would operate beyond the ability of a human to comprehend, for reasons of its own. His own existence would then be a mystery to the peoples of this world. They'd be suspicious, possibly fearful, maybe even hostile, if they knew the truth, which was but a single [Scan] away.

He didn't think much on it, but even he had to admit that it was a lonely thing to be the only one of your kind.

Geyrt held him fully in her attention now, contemplating. He knew not what strange Elf thoughts passed but, whatever they were, they didn't indicate on her face. For now, she was serene calm. A still lake, unsurpassed for its grandeur. He clamped down on the impulse to stare at her. Eventually she settled whatever debate she had held with herself.

"Then you will be your own people, someday. As [Lord of the Ancient Glade] you will, inevitably, should you survive, give rise to children. If, as has been the case with other Reforged, your line breeds true, you will almost certainly spawn a new clan of men. It is how the Frostmir, the ice giants and their descendants, are said to have emerged. A single overwhelming entity conquered that land and their blood ran strongly. So strongly that their interbred offspring always favored the original ancestor. It is my duty Ulric, to see the Heartwood of your dynasty grow strong, with deep roots. Perhaps it will not always be the case that the humans living on Aesvartheim will be enemies of Orlethrem. But, for now, they will consider you an enemy if you declare yourself a friend towards Iriel." Cautioned his Shadow.

Ulric hadn't considered his offspring, that possibility being so remote as to be a non-issue. It wasn't though, was it? Not anymore. Unasked for, he'd been granted power. Territory. A status as a ruling force over some domain unclaimed. It wasn't beyond the pale to think that, someday, he might settle down to the extent that some lass would want to start a family with him, and he her.

He'd chew on that later, he decided. His original goals hadn't changed. Likely, whatever Bald'rt had to say this night would only probably reinforce the budding decision he was coming to. Best not to overthink things, Varda had a way of fucking with him any time he laid plans. He'd just have to play it by ear.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Speaking of which, he decided to pull the trigger on something that had been kicking around the old noodle for a hot minute now. No time like the present.

"You know, Geyrt, I think I'm mostly accepting that I'll not be able to get rid of you without one of us dying." He winced, that didn't sound like what he wanted it to, and she quirked her mouth at him, hands on her hips so that the wide sleeves of her robe hung loose, making her appear to fill a space far wider than her figure would allow.

Like a bear with its fur up, she was more intimidating than usual. He had to hurry up before he lost his nerve, he'd have to wash the taste of his own feet out of his mouth later.

"And, as a matter of fact, I'm sort of glad you're around, especially back there in the canopy; You probably pulled my—I mean, saved my life a couple of times, not even including the Polar Weasel you shot before it could tear into my leg. I'd have to admit that, when I think of the perfect Elven Huntress, you're pretty much what comes to mind. So, I'd consider it a favor and an admission of reciprocal trust if you'd give me permission to [Scan] you. I know it's a personal thing, and you don't have to, totally voluntary here, but I'd sort of like to know who you are a little." Ulric sidled into it awkwardly, before eventually making his request.

"Is that all?" She said with obvious suspicion.

"Well, yeah. Brighteyes made it sound like going around using [Scan] on people unasked was a good way to make enemies." Ulric confirmed.

"I was fearing your twisty spiderweb of a thought basket had something worse in mind. What Heir Lumyt'seit said is so, in most cases. It is different between us; as your Shadow, you are always entitled to examine my status, the better to put me to use on your behalf. It is good you did not ask this in company, they would think you slow. Asking to see your Shadow is like asking a mirror if it will show you your face." She explained, somewhat relieved.

At least she stopped with her superman pose. She did that in a way that said her heels were dug into the bedrock and moving was straight out. Whenever she got like that Ulric had not yet successfully convinced her to reverse her position. Ulric didn't even mind the light sarcasm, that was to be expected. Par for the course.

"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable is all. This Shadow stuff is awkward enough for my taste and I wouldn't have it said that I treated you like less than a person. Even if everybody else seems to think that way." Ulric clarified.

It was important that he left her whatever freewill and dignity he was able, Ulric knew she chafed at being tied down. Bald'rt hadn't sentenced her to death for oath breaking, violation of Guestright, and dereliction of duty, but he'd come pretty close and Ulric knew for fact that she would take her frustrations out on him whenever she felt overly coerced.

Or even just mean, Brighteyes' sister had a streak of ill temper about a furlong wide. Anything he did that irritated her, which turned out to be many things that he did, provoked her into finding some way to get payback. Most of the time he didn't know what he'd done to set her off. Sometimes, he suspected, she just did it for the hell of it, like waiting until he was settled into a nice cozy think before dropping a non sequitur on him.

That shit infuriated him and she knew it.

This then was, maybe, turning out better than he'd anticipated. He had expected to have to cajole and maybe resort to some light extortion. More likely, she'd set her feet and put her head down and he'd, you know, just accept no for no and leave it at that. Still, she seemed completely fine so he wasn't stepping on any toes. That he knew of. Yet. You know what? Best to be sure. Like picking blackberries was dealing with Geyrt.

"Alright, just so we're both on the same page, you're completely fine with me dropping a [Scan] on you right?" He double checked.

Now she scowled at him, "I have said so have I not? You do not need to ask." She snapped.

Ulric was on the point of biting back at her but he held his tongue. It wasn't worth it, just let go. Ye gods, she was an artist at pissing people off. He was nearly impressed.

Unable to repress a frown, he concentrated on her person, taking in the details of her face, her clothing, the feel of her, as his mana reached out. He didn't practice this particular magic, he'd only done it once before with Brighteyes over a month ago. It took longer than he recalled.

[Scan]

He grinned immediately, unable to restrain a deep glee at the sight.

They were headed to the baths. It was only a couple of hours before they were due to meet the [Lord of the Deep Wood] and Ulric had worked up a considerable sweat in his two or so hours of solo training. Geyrt, was just glad to visit the baths. Anything, he supposed with another chuckle, to distract herself from the events ten minutes prior.

His Shadow was a right Elven thunderhead she was. He couldn't see the steam coming out of her ears but he could feel the anger in her footsteps, which had lost a little of their usual grace. The aggressive swish, swishing of her robes were as good as a string of curses. Another giggle rolled through him uncontrollably. Yeah, she might as well be stomping the ground. Her sniff, audible most of the way down the hall from behind him, told him that she was aware of his amusement.

Her status was a bit of an eye opener for him. He'd only seen two of those fucky glimpses into the nether: his own and Brighteyes'. Both of them were, for lack of a better term, immature. He had a few bells and whistles on account of his titles and the Watcher shenanigans, atypical markers for the relatively large splash that he'd made in the world in a relatively short time, if he was being honest about it. But, overall, fairly cut and dry.

Geryt was different animal. Her base stats left him fairly impressed, especially that dexterity, good goddamn, no wonder she moved so smoothly, and her modifiers were solid, expanding on her base performance in a rather well-rounded way. Ulric was dead certain that was probably a similarity shared amongst all the long-lived warriors: dedicated practice honed their coordination to an incredible degree.

He'd seen the refinement of the Iriel'en fighting classes in action, but now he had a number against which to judge how vast the difference between he and they. He'd witnessed first-hand that most Aes'r were far better at moving than he was, more coordinated, fewer wasted actions, that sort of thing. Even so, it was telling to see numerically where he fell short of the inhuman mental and physical grace of the long-lived races.

Fortunately, the other aspects of Geyrt's status weren't as imposing. Her titles and traits and whatnot were also kind of unsurprising, though some carried that almost sardonic note that seemed to indicate that the Akashic held a tongue in cheek sense of irony. With one exception, where it was right on the nose.

Just thinking about it pulled another giggle from him, that he quickly staunched, before he lost himself to uncontrollable fits again.

No, her status was impressive, but not completely out of line, not until he saw her classes.

Holy shit! Now that was something, the man pondered, striding down the hallways having to lengthen his gait to keep up with the furious stalk of his Shadow.

She had two advanced classes, expanded and refined towards her individual predilections and talents. They were both spooky as hell. Where Ulric had simple, broad skills and traits, hers were both more focused and of incredible immediate potency. And he hadn't even seen the half of them in action, it turns out.

Her Nightblade class was almost strictly, as the name implied, nocturnally based and he'd never seen her at play in the witching hours. By the way those traits and skills read, he actually wouldn't see much at all when she had her game face on. The entire class was devoted to being an assassin wrapped in darkness. As edgy as that sounded, it was literal truth. She could pull in shadows around her to form a cloak that masked the disturbances she made in air as she moved, muffling sound or air currents that were dead give aways since most creatures did not see well at night, thus their other senses, hearing and touch included, were amplified.

It also made her fucking invisible.

He'd have to see it applied, to examine the skill and to play around testing the limits of its action. Was it thermal too? Or just optical stealth? Did it respond to physical interactions like dust? So many questions. The old bag of flour trick was firmly in his mind as he thought about it. And that was only one feature of the class. She could also make hardened shadow out of her mana; Ulric didn't have any clue how that would even work. It wasn't physically possible in his brain. There were near to a dozen other similar, exceedingly powerful components to her classes.

In a substantial break from Ulric's own status, Geyrt had, essentially, zero spells. She, instead, relied on active skills that consumed mana to utilize. The real divergence, however, was in the sheer breadth, the scope of her passive enhancements.

Geyrt was fully loaded. Improved senses, greater endurance, capable of remaining awake for multiple days, needing less to eat, sleeping effectively with half her mind awake, like a dolphin, it went on and on. In the deep forests, the shadowed groves, the Young Miss Iriel was a force to be reckoned with. He'd always assumed she was dangerous. Now, though, now he really knew the depth of her advantage out there.

He felt a brief flash of annoyance at her when he thought back to her attack on him on their first meeting. She'd underestimated him to the point of treating him like swatting a fly. She'd put, essentially, zero effort into her attempted assassination. If she'd come at him in the dark, he'd have been dead, D. E. D. dead, zero questions. She hadn't even used her skills, except for, maybe, her ability to put arrows on target in quick succession, though that might have just been her normal archery ability. With agility and dexterity as high as hers, it wasn't unreasonable.

Actually wait, he was no longer annoyed, he was purely thankful. He could have kissed her for holding him in such contempt, it saved his life.

None of that was the source of his amusement though.

No, indeedy, that was in her titles.

Most of them were appropriately spooky and intimidating and reflective of the awesomeness that was Badl'rt's favored daughter. All very appropriate for the daughter of Vedyr Iriel, an accomplished and respected huntress, bane of those who would trespass into her domain, especially if they hailed from Prosper, the home of her blood enemies. Except that, right there in her titles, was an outlier. A delicious joke. He wondered when she got it. It raised all kinds of questions about how the Akashic record and the imprints left in the Vardic quantum web by the sentients that occupied it interacted. Ulric bit his knuckle, choking back another round of chuckles as he recalled the imposing woman's status.

One of her titles was [Taipan]. His nickname for her when he survived her ambush and the most appropriate way that he could think of to refer to her, especially at the time after she'd poisoned him and snapped relentlessly at every single move he'd made. Word had, evidently, gotten around about what the term meant, between his telling of Brighteyes and the trickle down from the warriors in attendance within Bald'rt's throne room when he'd recounted it. During the abortive scouting trip back to the glade several of the scouts, referred to her by his apt label, for which she had, of course, lashed out at he, and they.

He'd long ago stopped using the term, out of an attempt to generate a more congenial rapport between them. It wasn't enough. No, she now carried the label in that most honest of magical reflections of one's self, her own status. Ulric wondered now if it was because even she had, somehow, internalized that moniker.

If so, it was a degree of self-awareness he wouldn't have expected of the woman. That the appellative had resonated so hard it registered in the All-Knowledge gave him no end of amusement, and not only had an apt description it was a source of empowerment to her. Nay, not amusement. Full blown hysterical belly laughter. He'd laughed until tears streamed down his face back in his rooms. He'd laughed until he thought he might suffocate. Even now he couldn't help the intermittent sounds that forced their way through his attempts to regain composure. And he was trying.

The situation back in the apartment deteriorated when he couldn't restrain his laughter, and Geyrt, being wholly herself, couldn't help but bitch at him, demanding he stop mocking her. That only made it worse, which she quickly realized, mouth clamping shut and eyes attempting to peel skin through force of will as he doubled over, barely keeping his feet under him. She couldn't remain silent for long though, to her own detriment, and Ulric's intensifying merriment.

"Yes, yes. Very rich, Glade Chief, very droll. You call me Taipan and now it sits here in my title. A grand joke you have enacted to bring me shame this way. What is this description!? How-I have never seen such utter tripe in a title! It is not so, and you should be ashamed!" She ranted, her bitter tone turning ever more acidic.

The irony of her complaint about the title being coupled to her clearly increasing anger brought Ulric, who had nearly recovered, back to uncontrollable horse laughs.

Her attempts to paint him as being childish were, similarly, to no avail.

"It is not funny!" Her remembered shout echoed through the apartment, "You have, have desecrated me for all to see! This juvenile, adolescent, insufferable naming of yours is going to follow me forever, you shameless human ape!" Her screech reached a higher octave at the last.

"Please! Please, no more, I can't. I can't breathe." He begged her between gasps.

His howls of laughter continued for another five minutes before he was able to choke them back, wiping the tears from his face. When he raised his eyes to meet hers again, for the first time since she'd sent him into this downward spiral of hilarity. Her face was carved from ice, her eyes glittered malice. Since then, she hadn't said a single word or acknowledged him in any way.

Ulric saw how it was going to be when they reached the entryway, the mostly empty drawers evidencing the relatively small population in the baths at this time of day. Geyrt made no move to disrobe, waiting instead for Ulric to stow his gear, and said nothing when he went ahead into the steamy haven of heated water.

He settled himself down into the water and it wasn't for another few minutes before he noticed his Shadow reclining into the pool in a distant pocket across the room. She was definitely pissed. Not that he blamed her, necessarily. Most of her life's problems could be laid at his feet, even if they were a direct result of her own choices. It was an avoidance, a scape goat, but it was an easy enough leap to make if she was keen on deflecting. Which, judging by her refusal to be in proximity with him, was exactly the case.

Ulric was, by this point, greatly familiar with his Shadow's moods and mannerisms. Normally, she clammed up when he managed to score a point in their jousting. She had a vast assortment of coughs, eye rolls, and other assorted ways to demonstrate her displeasure or exasperation with him, even grudging respect. Her demeanor now, was none of those, it was more akin to the way she'd treated him in those first few days, which was odd. He hadn't even taunted her, hadn't said even a single word in jest. No, it was the laughter that wounded her. Her features, her body language, her distancing, everything said that he had given her some great insult.

She was actually hurt, he decided, as the heat of the water settled into his bones, not just faking indignation, chalking up another mark on her invisible tally sheet to "get even" with him. He could only assume that he had damaged that incredible pride she carried around by laughing at her. Which confused him greatly. He'd gone well out of his way to poke fun at her before, they had traded barbs almost as a matter of routine and none of it had slipped under her armor as much as his amusement at her title.

It was confusing for the social nincompoop that was Ulric. Elves mocked and teased in private and, to a lesser extent in public. She was well used to her own people's japes. Or…no maybe not. Pulling the pieces together, all those sideways mentions about the woman he'd gathered during his time in Irielhos, Ulric realized they'd all been pointing to Geyrt not exactly fitting in well with the rest of her kin.

He ducked under the heated pool and stayed until his breath ached to escape. When he came up, he drew deep breaths and had a hunch.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, this woman had developed a sensitivity about her own perceived worth, was Ulric's conclusion. She wasn't completely without humor. They'd established that early on. To be honest, beneath the thorns, was a fantastic straight man and a dead pan wit with sarcasm so dry it could slip past undetected unless you were really paying attention. It had become exceedingly clear to him that she wasn't above setting up subtle pranks or jokes on his account, though he might not always catch them because they were so deeply steeped in Elven cultural mores that they didn't find purchase. And, he found that his rebuttles were taken more or less on the chin without this level of anger.

Then it wasn't that she couldn't take being on the receiving end of a joke. More like, there was some bone deep insecurity which made her incredibly soft skinned about her place amongst her kin.

That was baffling to him. And incredibly amusing to the asshole part of him, Geyrt's inability to see the intense irony of it. Here was a person blessed by the fates to have a noble birth, the advantage of untold supports and resources, incredible physical ability, perfection of form, and massive talent. And yet, somehow, she could still be so easily wounded.

What had created such fragility in her ego?

He had a hard time imagining how she had avoided having that eggshell self-esteem crushed amidst the sometimes quite pointed japes of her Father or the cutting observations of her direct Mother.

She was spoiled, Ulric decided. As crazy as that sounded to him. And probably more than a little racist, which was a tougher pill to swallow. He'd thought himself finally past that with her.

He would bet that this all was a result of the death of this elder brother he had been told about. Her attitudes, her obstinate pride, he couldn't see it unless she'd been pampered by Bald'rt and Vedyr, those being unwilling to bring her further pain after her loss, he hypothesized. Maybe they'd been running from their own pain, in their hunts for the killers, and in being over protective of her. It wasn't unheard of for parents to overcompensate through their own grieving.

His own parents had tended that way. Ulric had heard nary a sideways word from his dad, who could carve tool steel with his tongue when he was irritated, after his sister's tragedy. That lack of corrective advice, delivered from a place of love, hadn't done Ulric any favors either. In spite of his having trouble seeing either of the Iriel's as helicoptering gentle hands in their parenting, it wasn't impossible. Especially in response to such traumatic loss.

Hmmm…Ulric hummed bubbles into the water.

Whatever the case, Geyrt evidenced a severe lack of emotional robustness, an intolerance of real criticism or of being viewed with condescension, especially by a lesser human. Brighteyes was the only one he'd seen really jump her, at least until Vedyr had most recently gotten involved more directly. His Shadow's complaints, uttered with a hesitant check to ensure Vedyr was not nearby, suggested this was a recent development. She certainly viewed it through the lens of being an additional punishment though, not the attempt of a caring parent to rectify failings of their relationship.

If he was understanding the context of things, the young girl had latched on to the sympathetic crutch of her Uncle, who had also treated her with velvet gloves. That explained the incredible docility he'd seen in her there, Uldin was her safe place, her bastion of support. The Smith's kindness and tenderness towards the normally foul tempered woman was obvious. She didn't feel threatened in his presence, which was why she was so calm.

So, what the hell is eating at her that she stays so damned defensive all the time with him? There had to be something, it'd been, what? Seventy some years since her brother's murder? Surely, she wasn't still holding him in some kind of one sized fits all Humans Are All Bastards box.

Ulric could be pretty tone deaf sometimes, and he wasn't above admitting that he could be an awful reader of people, maybe he was totally wrong. It didn't feel like it, though. Normally he just missed things, was completely unaware that some byplay was occurring. Whenever he actually recognized a situation, he, generally, was fairly spot on with interpreting it. This here, this was some kind of classical broken grieving, dependence, and emotional trauma. He wasn't sure how the situation had been allowed to fester.

Perhaps that was why her Mothers were pulling her aside all the time. They were trying to correct her and, if the bruising was any indication, she was stubbornly resisting their efforts.

Fascinating.

If it wasn't happening right in his face with potential to blow up on him.

It occurred to Ulric that he was, in no small part, responsible for his Shadow's well-being. That included her emotional and mental status too. The need to intervene and straighten her shit out wasn't just for her own good, Ulric had a vested interest in his Shadow's psychological well-being. It would be up to him to assist in shoring up whatever frailty was causing her to be so sensitive, somehow. Dammit Jim he was an engineer, not a shrink!

Regardless. As she was, Ulric was now convinced that Geyrt was more or less useless to him in the upcoming conflicts.

She was too volatile, too easily tunnel visioned. Like a bull she would be relentless and powerful when she had a specific target, but a sophisticated enemy would exploit her emotional weakness and pull her apart. Like he had. He had no doubt that whoever was behind the attacks on Brighteyes and the Orlethrem in general would be aware of her shortcomings. The defining feature of their enemy so far was their seeming access to incredibly deep knowledge of the Elves' inner workings and the key personalities involved.

His mind jumped tracks suddenly at that thought.

The assessment of his Shadow's wonky psychology, and its exploitability rang out a parallel to the conundrum of the strange attack being played out against the Elves as a whole, a mystery that had been turning over for weeks in the back of his mind. Ulric had the sudden inspiration that they were dealing with a Machiavelli. A deep strategizer willing to play a slow, incredibly cynical game.

Whoever was leading this offensive against Orlethrem was utilizing the same kind of philosophy as Idra's Dance of a Thousand Steps. Incremental advantages built up to secure a certain, overwhelming victory. With one big difference: They wouldn't mind sacrificing potentially thousands of lives to create an opportunity for an opening in the Elves' defenses, where the Orlethrem wouldn't spend a single Elf without cause.

Increasingly, Ulric was becoming certain of it, the wheels in his head shifting into higher gear as he organized the disparate pieces of information into a more cohesive whole. It was a strategy, a way of thinking that was so completely foreign to what he knew of the Elven thought process. Each of them valued the individual with a near religious fervor. They lived so long that the loss of a single life represented the loss of hundreds of years of companionship, knowledge, and skills. Hell, the Iriels still sat a place at their dinner table for a relative dead a hundred years.

Bald'rt's eulogy of Serlic revealed that, while the Iriel'en accepted that loss was a natural part of life, an Elven life was never spent in vain.

The people of Prespang did not seem to share that reluctance to trade lives. The Humans and Beastkin of that nation, all lesser lived races, they didn't hold such value to individual life. When you only have a fifty to a hundred years, at most, an individual was a drop in the bucket. Especially for an ego driven set of sociopathic Oligarchs, which seemed to be who was calling the shots over in Prosper.

It probably wouldn't occur to any Elven leader that a Human King would see his people as completely disposable if it gained them advantage.

Yeah, that fits, Ulric told himself, fingers snapping absently at his thigh, sending ripples up to the surface.

Whenever he'd heard Bald'rt or one of the others speak of the wars with humans they always sounded confused. They didn't understand why those people refused to preserve their own lives, why they continued to throw themselves at the Elven tribes with such frequency. It was alien to them, and they couldn't help but look down on any race that held its own people's with so little esteem.

Ulric's home world had known military strategies that involved spending lives like pennies for incremental gains of ground, until they had depleted the enemy's ability to supply their troops with the means to kill these suicidal pushes. It was like beating a wood chipper by shoving your arm so deep it clogged the blades. Unthinkable to anyone who valued anything but their own will.

If Ulric's instincts were pointing in the right direction, he had to tell Bald'rt that they were almost certainly missing the key thrust of the enemy. Whatever the Iriel'en had identified as the threat or target was, to Ulric's churning mind, a feint so callous as to be inconceivable. The Elves were going to butcher a bunch of sacrificial pawns while checkmate landed somewhere else.

But where?

That was the part that Ulric couldn't figure out. That and how the Ancient's Plateau was involved. There was a connection somewhere but Ulric couldn't see it. He was missing something vital, something big.

He'd lost his good cheer completely now. Again. Fuck. What a rollercoaster of a day it'd been.

He hoped Bald'rt had some good news. Or, at least, could tell Ulric that they had already figured all this out and he was spinning his wheels for no good reason. He was a professional problem solver, his brain would chew itself apart until it found the solution. Currently, that meant identifying the constraints of the operating environment more completely. The problem was ill defined. It was like solving a partial differential equation, when the situation is complex, you can't make a predictive model absent the boundary conditions. In this case, that meant knowing what the end goal for the enemy was and what tools they had to achieve those goals.

What exactly did they want? What was the point of this stupid war? Thoughts roiled as his feet kicked idly in the water, his eyes closed as he let his conscious mind roam. He jumped from one idea to the next, as he tended to do, trying to make connections, when he was lost.

At some point in his meandering, Ulric realized that he sympathized with his angry, guarded, misguided Shadow. They were similar people, in many ways. The main difference was, he'd already killed himself avoiding reality once. He'd forgotten how to laugh at himself in his old life and that rigid refusal to change, grow, or entertain doubt had locked him into a death spiral. That wasn't something he would do again. Maybe he could help Geyrt figure out how to avoid it for herself. Probably not, he wasn't sure he'd ever make her actually listen. But he owed it to her to try.

He grimaced in anticipation of pain; you don't handle a Taipan without getting bitten.

Then again, he was a [Snake Charmer], wasn't he?

Briefly, Ulric lamented his own lack of emotional honesty. Being aware of your own problems was different from finding the proper way to work through them. There was a reason therapists had a job. He wasn't equipped to be the best person to help this scarred Elf through her issues. Perhaps though, there were times when a blunt instrument was the most effective. More than one stubborn machine had returned to order after a severe kick to the housing. He put a pin in that thought.

Deciding that he'd never truly relax given this current state of affairs anyway, Ulric rose from his place and made to leave. A few eyes trailed him from the Elves in their pockets of social circles. Those same eyes flicked towards his Shadow, he noticed, before returning to their own conversations. They knew what was up, to some extent, then. He was grateful for the Iriel'en proclivity to Mind One's Own Business. That would make things easier, Ulric hated being involved in a public spectacle.

He left the baths and their beautiful bathers to enjoy the steam and the peace and toweled himself off in the dressing room. All too aware was the only Human in the room of the other occupants, each carefully avoiding questioning looks towards his person, or rather, the absent one who should have been with him.

Watcher's tits, this was awkward as a break up with an office coworker. Why was he so uncomfortable? Too self-conscious old man, don't worry about it. Besides, you aren't going out with Geyrt, you aren't even going to attempt to lay a hand on so much as a strand of that fabulous hair, let alone the more than fabulous rest of her. She's a…a bond slave of some fucking kind.

Fuck, Ulric commented in his head.

That summarized his general disposition as he stood holding a rumpled, damp towel in choking hands. Reluctantly the disgruntled man let it fall to the floor, as it wasn't able to properly suffocate and make him feel any better.

Steadfastly refusing to hurry out of intense desire to get the hell out of there, Ulric redressed in what had become his norm: the thin silken/fine wool clothes that warriors wore underneath their armor. His own armor was stashed in his quarters, his trident propped up next to it. He was nearly finished braiding his long hair by the time his aggravated body guard stepped into the room.

Ulric averted his eyes, no sense giving the woman any reason to be further aggrieved of him. Now he was in a conundrum: to wait out of courtesy, or to ignore her?

The decision wasn't exactly difficult, at the end of the day. He was the guy in charge, it was her job to keep up with him, not his to placate her childish pride. Some reptilian part of him sensed when a power game was being played and decided to inform his waking brain that waiting was a show of vulnerability where one should not appear to be vulnerable.

Without glancing at the finest of Iriel'en skins, Ulric left the dressing room. Hal'et's warning rang loud in his thoughts: Don't ever let her think you weak or you will suffer for it.

Hurried footsteps uncharacteristically lacking in their usual silent tread announced his Shadow catching up to him some three quarters of the way back to his apartments. Still, she said nothing and Ulric decided he wouldn't either. Not like he particularly had anything to say in the first place, if his Shadow wanted to be that way it was her problem. Gods how he hated it when people played games with him though, it was half the reason he'd stopped bothering to socialize. Always someone wanting to play a game whose rules they were making up that, invariably, were designed to make themselves feel better at someone else's expense. Other than the political maneuverings of her father, for reasons he felt were fairly justifiable, and the misguided attempt by the Lordling dickhead to install themselves as new [Lord of the Ancient Glade], which had resulted in homicide, there had been precious little of that sort of nonsense in Iriel.

Until now.

An aggressive whisper reared up before he quashed it.

No, brain tiger, the recalcitrant former engineer scolded, now is not the time for that. This is a matter for diplomacy. Sort of. His life was made harder by the fact that he couldn't just get up and leave the source of his troubles behind, like he normally would.

In the Before, his solution to people that he judged to be problematic was to refuse to engage with them. It worked too. Their attempts to fuck with him were very similar to attempting to hit a pinata that was made of gas. Swing all you want you bastards, there's nothing to hit. Here, that was not an option; his problem was going to stalk behind him hatefully until the heat death of the universe.

What would he even say? Sorry for you being kind of a bitch? Apologize on behalf of all humans everywhere, again, for crimes he'd had nothing to do with, that had occurred while he was on another planet, before he'd ever been born? Ridiculous. He sighed as he entered his room, anticipating some relief from the hostile presence behind him. Abrupt contact almost made him stumble as Geyrt Iriel brushed roughly past him to launch herself into her side room. Ulric gazed furiously at the door that had just slammed closed and gritted his teeth.

"Oh, you utter cow." He whispered to the sylvan architecture around him.

It wasn't an exaggeration to say that he was totally at a loss as what to do. Once again, Ulric resolved to try to find some way out of this situation. Maybe he could fake his own death and sneak away. No, wouldn't work, now she has that tracking spell she could probably trace him. Damn.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

His heartfelt chant brought no divine insight, and the man stared long at the walls of his room trying to think of some way to shed his bond servant without insulting a nation full of people that might kill him for the insult. It was a train of thought semi abandoned, put on the back burner while other matters demanded his total focus. Priorities were subject to change, this one moving closer to the top of the list. In yet more unwelcome news, a duty knocked to inform him that emergency requiring his pointy eared majesty's attention had drawn him away and they would have to cancel their planned meeting, leaving Ulric to brood in silence. Night found him without answer, and he went to his sleep disturbed.