What Little Remains Of Terpsichore Ironheart

"Well, looks like Leon's back from summer camp," Winston Freeman, the only human at the table, said as Napoleon Ironheart walked into the pub, his green hair in wild disarray, and with a big, bushy beard on the lower half of his face. "They still make you grow that thing?"

"I hate it," Napoleon said, nodding. "It itches so goddamn bad."

"But does your wife like it?" Rachel Stoneshaper asked.

"She thinks it makes me look like her grandpa in the worst kind of way." And with that- plus some subtle Druidcraft- Napoleon simply pulled his beard off and chucked it into the pub's garbage can. "Anyhow, look who I brought with me!"

From behind Napoleon stepped Antiope Jones and her husband Tim, who looked a little out of sorts.

"Tim needed to get out of the house, and it took Napoleon's help to convince him," Antiope said, patting her young husband's shoulder.

"I just feel like I shouldn't be here," Tim said, even as he sat down at the big table where a dozen elves and one old black man were already seated. "I'm not in my twenties anymore, I'm a dad now, and I feel like I should be at home being a dad, you know?"

"The feeling will pass," Antiope assured him. "Just give it time- you've got plenty."

The pub's door burst open, and young Artorias Redwood stormed in. "Where is Joseph Ironheart?"

"Do you mean my younger brother, who's been dead for three hundred years?" Napoleon asked. "Or my son, who I said was going off to college a full month ago, and who has never once in his life enjoyed being here at the pub? Because neither of them can be expected to be here."

"Artorias, go home," Oren Rosewood said. "This behavior demeans us both."

"That pretender has been-" Artorias began.

"Ariel Silver is Helen Rosewood's daughter," Oren interrupted. "Joseph is, therefore, of the third generation of Lysander's dynasty. I am of the fifth, and you the sixth. He outranks us, and if we like having teeth in our mouths, then we will do our best to not remind him that we spent his entire childhood and adolescence accusing him of being a pretender."

"Where is Ariel, anyhow?" Rachel asked. "I feel like I never see her around here."

"That's because you don't," Napoleon said. "I asked her if she'd like to come with me tonight, but-"

---

"I'd rather eat glass," Ariel said, shuddering in revulsion. "At least then I'd have your undivided attention for a few minutes."

---

"-and that's been our weekly ritual for the entire duration of our centuries-long marriage," Napoleon finished. "She and Joseph are a lot alike in that regard."

"And you're sure he's your son?" Elijah Cloverfield asked. "You're a real social butterfly, but your son..."

Napoleon reached inside his pocket, and pulled out a photograph of his son, covered in someone else's blood, with a severed head in one hand and a sword in the other.

"I'm sure," Napoleon said, showing the photograph to the people at the table.

"I didn't come out here to leave empty-handed," Artorias muttered as he sat down next to Napoleon, before grabbing the older elf's drink and tossing it back in one smooth swallow. "Hrng. That's strong. You're..." Artorias paused, blinking, before letting the glass fall out of his hand and onto the table. "...Oh. Ohhhh, god..."

"Why did you let him take your drink?" Oren asked, frowning at his idiot son.

"It'll be an important lesson for him," Napoleon said. "One that he'll learn over the next twenty four hours: never take an older man's drink."

"Can someone let me in on the joke, here?" Tim asked.

"Napoleon has been drinking at this pub every week for five centuries," Antiope explained. "The amount of alcohol it takes just to get him tipsy would make an elephant go blind."

"The formal study of alchemy originally came from High Elves trying to synthesize more powerful intoxicants," Rachel mused. "Where humans and orcs sought the Elixir of Life, High Elves sought the Philosopher's Methamphetamine."

"Will your son at least be inheriting your tolerance for drink?" Elijah asked.

"No, he thinks wine tastes like it's gone bad," Napoleon said, shaking his head. "Even the sweet stuff we make for kids- he can still taste the alcohol, and says it makes him feel like he just threw up and can't get the taste out of his mouth."

"He sounds interesting," Rachel said. "I sure would love to actually meet him, one day."

"Why you actin' surprised a teenager thinks you're all a bunch of boring old people?" Winston asked, tilting his head to the side. "You want Joseph Ironheart at your table, you don't put out cocktails and beers and talk about your goddamn kitchen remodel- even I don't give a fuck about your kitchen remodel. No, you want him at your table, you put a deck of cards on it and tell dirty jokes! Give 'im somethin' to do with his hands, and a conversation he can actually participate in!"

"Antiope's daughter ripped me off with that goddamn-" Rachel began.

"Girl, I just said I don't give a fuck!" Winston said.

"Can we please stop talking about my son and how asocial he is?" Napoleon pleaded. "He's autistic, he doesn't like loud noises and group social settings, that's normal and fine, and yes, I am aware that his ambition to be a community organizer like me is doomed to failure- it doesn't exactly feel great to think about it, but at least I'm not going to be dying of old age anytime soon, so I don't feel any pressing need to train a successor. We're moving on. The next topic of discussion is Artorias Rosewood being so insecure that he feels the need to maintain a rivalry with a boy who, by all accounts, rarely remembers Artorias even exists."

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"Yeah, what did you do to fuck up your boy that badly?" Rachel asked, frowning at Oren from across the table.

"He's eighteen," Oren said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We all remember being children, I hope? Children do stupid things, like steal an older man's drink that they aren't even slightly prepared to handle. It's normal. He'll grow out of it. Can we not discuss my son either, please? I'm aware that he is physically at the table with us, but in spirit, he is currently in Hell."

Artorias finally lost the fight against the alcohol working its way into his bloodstream, and collapsed unconscious, falling forward until his face hit the table, where he began to drool.

"And you're adamant you won't heal him?" Oren asked.

"He'll live," Napoleon said. "He just won't enjoy the process."

"Hmph."

"Well," Tim began, "if we're looking for something else to talk about... How are you all handling your kids graduating high school and starting to head off to college?"

"What do you mean?" Rachel asked, frowning. "Levi and I have been ecstatic to finally have the house to ourselves again. What is there to handle?"

"Hoo, boy," Winston muttered.

"The humans call it 'Empty Nest Syndrome,'" Napoleon said. "They have kids, spend twenty years raising kids, and then once the kids are grown up and gone, they suddenly can't raise kids anymore, and they're at a loss for what to do with their time. That's about the size of it, Tim? You miss your daughter and don't know what to do with yourself now that she's gone?"

"Kinda, yeah," Tim said, nodding. "Is that... Do you guys not feel that? Am I not a real elf or something?"

"You married a woman who was twenty times your age at the time," Elijah said. "In milfhunting alone, you are absolutely a real elf."

"I am right here!" Antiope protested.

"The thing that separates you from us is that you had your first kid at a normal age for a human," Napoleon explained. "You were... what, twenty five, when Talia was born?"

"Twenty six," Tim corrected him.

"So you'd been an adult for less than a decade when you had your first kid," Napoleon said. "And then you spent two decades actively being a father. Meaning that you've been an active father for most of your adult life."

"I... Yeah, I guess I have," Tim said. "But, I mean, eighteen years is a long time, isn't it? Didn't it change you, too?"

"Less than it changed you," Napoleon explained. "I'm old enough that I just give my age in centuries at this point, and that has changed how I perceive the passage of time. Haven't you noticed the days going by faster as you get older? Well, that doesn't really stop. When you're five hundred years old, twenty years is about four percent of your life- it's the equivalent of one year when you're twenty five. And when you're a young adult... a one-year commitment isn't nothing, but it isn't a huge deal, either. Certainly nothing you'd expect to dramatically change your life."

"So..."

"So, to wrap it up in a neat little bow: you feel this way while I don't because I've had centuries of experience being an adult who doesn't have to raise children, and you don't."

Tim hummed quietly.

"I think we should sit out the next cycle of kids," Antiope said, patting her husband's shoulder. "Let you experience life without that weight on your shoulders."

"I'll tell Ariel, then," Napoleon said.

"Why's that?" Tim asked.

"Because Joseph and Talia were glued together at the hip since before your girl could talk, Tim," Elijah said.

"Leon's worried his next kid'll get lonely without a Jones to latch onto," Rachel added.

"Well, if I've got a paternal duty to help produce the next community organizer," Tim began, before cracking a wide grin at Napoleon.

"Fuck you."

---

While Napoleon was out at the pub drinking with his friends, Ariel Silver sat in the living room, listlessly thumbing through a family photo album, watching the growth of her son over the years.

He'd been big, even as a baby- Ariel might've used magic to shorten herself over the years, to look less and less like a Rosewood, but she could never bring herself to change her genetics. If her children wanted to join the Rosewood family, Ariel would not be the reason they couldn't, and aside from the red hair, and the human levels of body hair, Rosewoods were big. Tall, and broad, if not necessarily thick- Ariel had endured many jokes about having been born "before they invented tits and ass," and only set a few of those people on fire.

Joseph's first pet, a rat- she hadn't liked it, because rats died so quickly, but Napoleon had persuaded her, and she'd relented; after all, if she had her way, then Joseph would've gotten something that'd live as long as a human, and be stuck with it well into adulthood even if it turned out incompatible with him.

Joseph's first crossbow. His first lost tooth. His first glass of wine, and next to it, the discovery that he hated the taste of wine. Ariel thought about the cheap bottle of awful wine she'd bought before he was born, and the classic coming-of-age ritual of uncorking an awful bottle of wine. Joseph had reluctantly agreed to take the tiniest of sips, and then immediately spat it back out, saying, "This tastes like something I'd use to degrease the inside of a coolant pump."

Ariel sighed, missing her son dearly, and wishing he'd at least write letters home to let her know he was safe. But, if he wanted his privacy and independence, she wouldn't fight that. He'd be home for the New Year, at least.

Ariel closed the album, and her eyes. Napoleon had said that, at his age, time went by very quickly- two decades simply wasn't a life-changing amount of time for him, and so he was able to slip back into the routines of a childless man with ease.

Ariel envied him, sometimes. Not all elves experienced time the same way, and for her, eighteen years was a life-changing amount of time. Oh, she'd had children before- Napoleon was not her first husband- but every time... the joys of motherhood dug their claws into her deeply, and every time, it took her a full century to let go, and accept that her children were going on without her, making their own way in the world.

Just once, though... Ariel would like it if one of them would stay.

Ariel put the album away, and went upstairs to bed. There was nothing to be gained by staring at photographs of her son. She'd try to sleep it off, even when she knew she would fail.

Such was the lot of a mother.