What Little Remains Of Terpsichore Ironheart

"Alright, everyone, welcome to Introductory Elven Language And Culture," Professor Blackthorn said. He was a half-elf, who looked to be middle-aged; Faith had picked up just enough about elves from her roommates to know that half-elves aged in what were, essentially, reverse dog years- for every eight years they lived past 20 or so, they would only visibly age about one year. Some quick math told her that, for a half-elf who looked 40 to 50, she was really dealing with someone who was around two hundred to three hundred years old. "I'm Professor Napoleon Blackthorn, I'm a half-elf, and I'm old enough to have lived through the War of the Roses." Faith hadn't been too far off, then. "We'll mostly be going over the syllabus and classroom expectations today, but do still pay attention, because these classroom expectations are still grounded in High Elven culture, and thus this is in fact still a lesson. I can see one of you raising your hand- I love the respect, but also, we don't do that here. Go ahead."

"What about Wood Elven culture?" someone on the other side of the classroom asked.

"Wood Elves are a lot more isolationist and low-population than High Elves are," Professor Blackthorn is. "I am also not a Wood Elf, and my main experience with the Wood Elves was visiting the nearby grove once or twice to buy cocaine. Suffice to say that we will primarily be discussing High Elven culture in this classroom."

"What's your policy on asking our elven roommates to help with our homework assignments?" Faith asked, without raising her hand.

"That was actually something I already planned to address, but we might as well do that now," Blackthorn said, grinning. "Yes, you can ask any and all elven friends you have to help you with your homework! Culture is social, and being exposed to elven culture outside of the classroom will help you learn more effectively. Also, I don't consider it cheating, because any elf who's immersed enough in High Elven culture to help you is going to be incapable of giving you a straight answer."

"Is that because elves lie to outsiders?" the blonde boy next to her asked.

"No, it is because a group of elves is called an argument, and even if you ask an elf who does not have another elf present to argue with, they will invent another elf to argue with."

"I thought this was a language class."

"It is, but languages are spoken by people, and to understand the language, it's important to also understand their culture. For instance: who can tell me why High Elven documents written before the first Dark Crusade are still perfectly comprehensible to modern speakers?"

"Because the language of High Elven hasn't changed since it was first formalized," Faith said, recalling a lecture on elven languages from Catherine, a few weeks ago. "The High Elves thought it was important to have a simple and standardized common language that never changed, so that even when a four thousand year old elf from Redwater met a twenty year old elf from Mount Fate, they'd still be able to understand each other. They still had their own local languages that changed over time, some of them more than others, but everyone still spoke High Elven for when they had to talk to people who didn't grow up in the same city as them."

"Ahhh, spoken like someone who got chewed out by a particularly thorough elf," Professor Blackthorn said, grinning. "Yes, I imagine you'll do well in this class."

"Why, because that damn elf won't let me do otherwise?"

"Precisely! Now, moving right along, the main text we will be working with in this class will be The Broken Chain, which is a collection of five books- the Books of Ages, Laws, Death, War, and Life- and constitutes the central holy text of the High Elven people; High Elves are in fact more religious than Hikaano are, and understanding our religious norms is a major cornerstone to understanding our culture. Also, the ability to read The Broken Chain is traditionally considered a major fluency milestone in learning High Elven. This will not be the only text we work with in class, however, as there exists a rich tradition of stories written in simple language for adult learners who may not appreciate being made to read a book that is literally for children. Next..."

---

"You know you don't need to do this, right?" The Mother asked, as Faith worked her way through The Broken Chain.

Reading had always been hard for Faith; she just wasn't a very studious person, and honestly, was a little bit dumb... or, at least, that's what she told herself, growing up. Then Catherine gave her a pair of enchanted reading glasses that accidentally corrected her farsightedness because of course Catherine just had enchanted self-adjusting reading glasses sitting around, which she'd enchanted further with a specialized translation charm that made language learning easier and faster, which was the original reason Catherine had given her the glasses.

For what was probably the hundredth time since she finally met Talia's boyfriend, Faith found herself fantasizing about how much better her life would've been if she'd been raised by elves. Elves weren't just possessed of magic in ways that pervaded their everyday lives in ways it didn't for humans, they were also generous with their magic as a sacrament, a divine commandment from the God of Justice to see poverty, misery, and suffering as injustice, that any responsible adult could not tolerate on their watch.

She imagined her mildly fucked eyesight getting caught early in childhood, and corrected before it ingrained bad habits in her- either with eyeglasses like Catherine had given her, or with more permanently corrective magic, since Talia was supposedly gearing up to perform such a spell on Faith. She thought about being raised with a love of reading- or at least, not an aversion to it- and being more successful in her studies. About growing up thinking that college was a realistic goal for herself, that she might one day make something more of herself than a rank-and-file Paladin.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Again, you don't need to do this," The Mother continued. "My holy texts have been translated into Hikaano, and you can in fact just read them in your native tongue. There aren't translation errors to worry about. You don't need to make yourself into a cultural half-elf to be one of my holy knights, because War, Justice, and Freedom don't belong to the elves alone. I have followers of all sapient races; even now, there are dragons and mermaids and goblins who hold to my teachings and swear by my name."

Faith grunted wordlessly, before responding in her own head. "How many peoples have built their whole societies around your worship, around following your teachings? The High Elves, more than any other people to walk this earth, have built their hearts around you. If I am to embody your principles to the best of my abilities, then why would I not look to them for guidance?"

"Because you don't need to," The Mother said. "But you want to."

"...And?"

"And that is what I wanted to hear you say," The Mother continued.

Faith grunted. "I thought you said you don't care what's in our hearts, only our hands."

"I don't judge what's in your hearts, but I do still care," The Mother corrected, gently. "I may be Mother to billions of children, but I am still a Mother. Especially to my priests, considering how few they are."

Faith sighed. "Alright, maybe me studying High Elven culture is more for my own benefit than it is for yours. So fucking what? Do you want me to stop?"

"Of course not. In fact, seeing you do this on your own initiative has been a pleasant sight. But... I want you to understand why you're doing what you're doing. I want you to understand that you're allowed to be happy, and even spend time pursuing things just because they make you happy. That following your duty, and being happy, are not mutually exclusive, and that I do not ask you to make yourself miserable. That's what Hano wants, and there's a reason I disowned that little shit years ago."

Faith blinked.

"Wait," she said, slowly. "You mean... Hano's faith isn't just a different branch of your faith, but an outright heresy?"

"If you mean 'heresy' in the sense of 'formally and explicitly called out by religious authorities as an invalid form of the faith,' then yes, Hano's cult is a heretical offshoot of my own. Sometimes it produces people sympathetic to my teachings, who just need to unlearn some self-destructive thought patterns. Mostly, though, it produces Paladins, who reduced the High Elven population from a little over a billion to slightly less than five million in the span of four years. 'Heretical' is perhaps the kindest adjective I can apply to them."

"...Ah."

"You, however, had enough of a moral compass and spine to tell your genocidal control freak god to fuck off when he gave you an immoral order, and that earned you a chance to redeem yourself. You've used it well so far. Keep the faith, and carry on."

---

Every evening, Faith and Catherine exercised together, with Talia coming by at the end to hit both of them with a Druidic healing spell that wouldn't just erase the progress they'd made. It made the two of them hungrier, skyrocketing their metabolisms into the stratosphere, but as Catherine pointed out, the mark of true civilization was not having to worry about your next meal.

"So," Faith said, during a mid-routine rest period. "Is your god as talkative as mine is?"

"The Father just started laughing," Catherine said dryly. "I think that answers your question."

"Sure fucking does," Faith said, rolling her eyes.

"When I was a kid, I was told that The Father and The Mother were distant and diffuse, that they were fragments of personality from the people they once were, wrapped around tremendous cosmic power," Catherine said. "I have since concluded that The Mother must have said something tremendously rude to my mother at some point, and Ariel squared the circle of offense and faith by deciding that The Mother wasn't enough of a person to be worth getting mad at, which motivated her to believe something that is extremely incorrect."

"Your mom didn't consider the possibility that The Mother was just kind of an asshole?"

"Mom wasn't always an ancient and wise archmage. At some point, she was just as stupid as I am now."

Faith snorted, and then took a long pull from her water bottle.

"You know," Faith said, after swallowing, "when we first met? You were right, I did think you were effeminate. Too well-groomed, too refined and put-together. You smelled like oranges and vanilla, and your hair looked like you knew what a comb was."

"You going somewhere with this?" Cat asked.

"I've learned that I severely misdiagnosed you," Faith continued. "That your presentation was actually very masculine, by elven standards. So masculine, in fact, that Talia also misdiagnosed you: she thought that this was an act, that you wore a mask of hypermasculinity in an attempt to compensate for something."

"...She never told me that," Cat murmured.

"And now, months into your transition, which has changed your behavior not even slightly, I have gained a shocking insight from my Elven Culture class," Faith said. "Which is that the High Elven standards of masculinity are based in no small part on High King Lysander, who is your great grandfather. Talia and I were both wrong- you don't act like a woman in denial or a man who's trying too hard. You act like your fucking grandpa, because he is your grandpa, and the fact that it's searingly masculine is completely irrelevant to you."

Catherine blinked a few times as she absorbed this.

And then she burst out laughing, folding fully in half at the waist, until the tips of her long, pointed ears started to brush the floor.

"Congratulations," The Mother whispered into Faith's mind. "This moment exactly is what's finally convinced Catherine that you're a real elf now."

Faith didn't stop grinning until she finally fell asleep, that night.