Jackal Among Snakes

Onychinusa looked upon the older dryad after she made her offer and said, “I agreed to help, but I don’t know what it is you’re asking of me.”

The mother dryad stepped up to Onychinusa, staring her eye to eye. “I cannot fault you for that. The circumstances of your birth were very strange, and so you cannot be expected to know what I speak of.” She held her hands out magnanimously, then continued, “I humbly plead that you reconnect with your lineage, learn of your people, and help us just as your ancestors once did.”

As Anneliese watched this exchange, repressed desire seemed to explode outwards from Onychinusa at that moment. The dryad’s request was something that she’d thought about herself many times before, yet the ancient elf had never been allowed—or perhaps never allowed herself—to explore it. When confronted with it directly, the emotionally inexperienced woman became a storm of uncertainty and curiosity.

A storm that Anneliese was more than happy to intensify.

“You should definitely do it,” Anneliese encouraged immediately, much of her initial purpose in coming here put to the wayside. She moved the Brumesingers aside.

“I don’t... I can’t...” Onychinusa edged backwards, “There are other considerations, and I...”

“I know that you are tied to Erlebnis. In the end, it matters not,” the dryad shook her head, dark eyes uncompromisingly kind. “Your parents, though entrapped, thought to preserve you... and by preserving you, preserve everything they held dear.”

Onychinusa stared for a few moments, coming to grips with what the dryad said. “...in the end, it matters not? That’s a fitting thing to say. I never knew them. I cannot remember them. Every year of my life, they were already dead.”

“You were never told of them? You never had that question answered?” Anneliese probed.

“I know...!” Onychinusa whipped her head to glare at Anneliese, then took a deep breath. “I know what you’re doing.”

Anneliese only tilted her head innocently.

“The children... my children...” the dryad turned her body, looking out at them as the played loudly in the distant reaches of the clearing. “So long ago, they were so few. No more than five. But as the years passed, I made more and more, as I was instructed to so long ago by your kin. Hide away, they told me... hide away, and prepare for the return of our brood. They thought that one day, the troubles would be over... and even were that not the case, their legacy would be preserved, to be reborn.”

Anneliese watched as Onychinusa was assailed by tremendous guilt. But soon enough, the elf felt confusion in equal measure as though this feeling was entirely new to her. Perhaps it was—Anneliese supposed there was seldom an opportunity for Onychinusa to feel like she’d wronged Erlebnis enough to feel guilty.

The dryad turned her head away from the children. “You must forgive me, but I have promised my children for so long that you would come back. Could you please, at the very least... indulge them for a time? They have practiced for centuries how best to serve you... or someone like you. Could you allow them that?”

Onychinusa looked quite trepidatious, and she offered no verbal answer. After a time of debating with herself, she abruptly stormed off towards the playing dryad children, almost as though to give them a piece of her mind.

“I am feeling a sense of what you might call irony,” the dryad said to Anneliese, turning her head away. “It was a slave rebellion that marked the end of their empire. Now the last of them returns nearly a thousand years later... as a slave that does not know it.”

Anneliese almost thought the words insulting, but there was a bitter sadness to them that made it clear it was not meant as such. She questioned gently, “How is it you know all of these things? About me, about her, about... everyone?”

“We dryads are born with many gifts,” the mother explained. “Among them is the gift to see to the root of life. We can intimately understand the origins of all that we lay eyes upon, from the smallest sapling to the largest among us... like you,” she looked upon Anneliese.

Anneliese could think of a thousand questions to ask, but at the moment she felt like there was something more important. Ahead, Onychinusa reluctantly engaged with the dryad children, pushing past her unease to let them act. As she watched, Anneliese asked, “Do you really need her?”

“I do,” the dryad confirmed. “Those children cannot grow without her. This forest cannot spread beyond these ruins without her. And I believe, perhaps with few exceptions, that the whole of this forest cannot be healed of the damage that foul interloper has caused without her intervention.”

“You mean undoing what Kirel Qircassia did,” Anneliese extrapolated.

“If that is its name,” the mother dryad nodded. “The roots have taken in much that will harm them, but we can cure it if given the chance.”

Anneliese watched as the first of the dryads dared to approach Onychinusa. It began to fit her hands with rings of purple flowers, vibrant and bright. As she watched, Anneliese asked, “Why can’t you act without her?”

“Because I am a slave too,” the dryad said. “The elves here... those with red eyes... I treat them kindly, but they were once slaves. The centaurs were once slaves, and the humans on this continent were once slaves. They have all broken their bonds, razed the cities of their captors, and allowed the gods to lay waste to their culture. Now, only me and my children remain bound in servitude. It is something within us, something that we bear on our being.”

“The elves in the Bloodwoods... aren’t descendants?” Anneliese asked in surprise.

“Distantly, perhaps all elves are related,” the mother shook her head. “But... no. The elves living here were the first among the servants of state, but they were still servants. The elves sought to assume the position of overlord, but the centaurs’ betrayal during their mutual rebellion put an end to that ambition. No doubt Erlebnis had some hand in turning Sarikiz and her centaurs against them.”

“And the ancient elves... how did their decline...?”

“Erlebnis engineered their downfall very delicately,” the dryad said calmly. “Give slaves faith in despair... give them knowledge where it is needed, and power where it is wanted...he caused disaster in disastrous places, and by the end of it all harvested Onychinusa’s ancestors like wheat. He took the knowledge he wanted, hoarding it, and left the victors to stew in the ignorance of their making. Onychinusa was... a concession. Until the end, Erlebnis couldn’t get every bit of knowledge. He struck a bargain with the elves. Preserve her life, and they will surrender the last of their knowledge. One small victory, I suppose.”

“You hate Erlebnis,” Anneliese took note.

The mother dryad turned her head, surprised. “Well... yes. Yes, I do. When someone knows your loyalty is assured, they trust you, and treat you very kindly. Naysayers claim it could be likened to the relationship between dogs and mortals, but… whatever the case, our masters were very kind. They brought peace to this continent, and some beyond it. I cannot speak to the other slaves’ situations, but I was happy.”

Anneliese took a deep breath, somewhat overwhelmed. Hearing this... it demonstrated the entire order of the world could be overthrown when Gerechtigkeit came down. And furthermore, what Erlebnis was attempting with Argrave was not his first instance of such a behavior. Perhaps just as the empire of the ancient elves had died, so too did Erlebnis intend to engineer Vasquer’s demise.

Thinking of the kingdom reminded her of another thing, and so she asked, “The man that was with me, my husband... you know of his birth?”

“I did not see him,” the dryad shook her head, then looked out across the clearing. “Perhaps ask the—oh. Yes, I can say I know of him, now.”

Anneliese turned her head when the dryad did, looking beyond. There, Argrave and the two that had gone with him returned. She could tell just by looking on him that things had not gone as he planned, and he walked with a heavy heart. At once, she broke away and came to him.

“Argrave, Orion...” she said, asking a question with her eyes alone.

Argrave bitterly said, “There’s a huge damn hole.” His eyes scanned the place around, not elaborating further. When he spotted something, he gestured. “There, see? That big hole. You can see it. You can damn well see it. The whole thing collapsed, and now the mandragora’s barely keeping the library we were looking for afloat.”

“Come with me for a minute,” Anneliese said, taking his arm and leading him away.

Orion followed for a moment, but Batbayar stepped away to speak with the dryad as he might an old friend. Once they’d placed a sufficient distance between them and everyone else, Anneliese conjured a ward.

“The only way I can think of getting to that library is teleportation with shamanic magic... and that’s sort of the point for coming here.” Argrave looked to where Onychinusa engaged with the druids, the frustration written on his face. Around everyone else he was guarded, but before her Argrave was always true. “We’ll need to get her help, somehow. I can’t risk losing what that library has. It’s too important.”

“Then it works out,” Anneliese began hopefully. “I don’t think we should betray Onychinusa.”

Argrave looked away from the ancient elf and narrowed his eyes. “Can you think of another way to get the spirits for the shamanic magic? She has spirits. We need spirits. We have to steal them,” he went down the chain of events matter-of-factly. “I can’t think of anywhere else we might get them.”

“The dryads... they want to undo all Kirel Qircassia has done,” Anneliese explained. “They want to expand their sphere of influence, and help Onychinusa reconnect with her lineage... Argrave, she can be so much more than what we intended.”

“Anne...” he sighed, his frustration flaring in contest with his affection for her. “I told you not to get close...” He rubbed the bridge of his nose in stress, then shook his head. “I just... I don’t see how this can work out. We can show her a DNA test, tell her all about her parents and how badly she’s being treated... but damn it, she was raised for well over nine hundred years by Erlebnis. Do you think she’s able to throw that shackle aside overnight?”

Anneliese heard what he said, and thought about how she knew Onychinusa... and indeed, all his words rang true. But something flared in her, and she argued, “I am certain only of the fact that she will never escape his ownership if we prove Erlebnis to be more trustworthy than we are, here and now.”

She could see Argrave had tremendous doubt about this whole idea... but in the end, his trust in her was so absolute he asked only, “What’s your idea?”

“Foment dissent,” Anneliese said. “Exploit what Erlebnis uses to such great effect to turn this move of his to dust. We have an opportunity to erode the tenuous relationships he has built... be that with Dimocles, Kirel Qircassia, Chiteng, Altan, or even Onychinusa.”

“You lost me,” Argrave tilted his head. “What does he use, knowledge? Will we leak false information, things like that?”

“Risk. He uses risk,” Anneliese explained. “In the end, risk of death turned Chiteng against his family. Risk of defeat led Kirel to ally with him. And now... risk of complete loss would have made you cooperate with him, if you did not have so many problems with authority.”

Argrave chuckled and shook his head.

“It begins here, Argrave. Erlebnis is not the only one with the knowledge to turn this world on its head so abruptly. We need not convert his allies to our allies... instead, let him turn his allies to his enemies. Just as he tried to force our hand with half-truths... can we not do the same?”

“On the cosmological scale we have a little bit less influence than a god, in terms of making things happen,” Argrave said skeptically.

“Let us at least discuss it further,” Anneliese implored.

Argrave looked to Onychinusa, studying her. Whenever he looked upon her, Anneliese always saw that he pitied her first and foremost. Now, though, watching her engage with the dryad children... there was some small blossom of hope in his features.

“She never came to this place in Heroes of Berendar,” Argrave said begrudgingly. “Maybe... maybe there is a way to work this. Weave a lie big enough that the whole world is fooled.”

Anneliese took his hand abruptly. "Do you know what it does to me when you prepare for a battle where you feel you might die? Whole and happy—that is the life you wanted, remember?"

Argrave looked surprised, as he hadn't told her of his thoughts of death.

"We have no chance alone. It has always been that way," Anneliese gripped his hand firmly, squashing her emotions.

Argrave took a breath, then returned her grip. "I took on a responsibility, and I made a mistake. I let that—"

"It isn't over until it's over," Anneliese interrupted.

Argrave looked to Onychinusa once again, and then sighed. "I can't wait for Gerry to show up... that'll be a vacation compared to this."

"Then...?"

"Yeah," Argrave nodded. "I've decided not to rob that old lady over there. Instead, I’ll estrange her from her foster father. Be thankful."

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