Queen of Peace

by Wendy T Lyoness

  Although, Leyla had no proof that anyone watched her. The prickling on her neck could be nothing. She could be thinking up nightmares for no reason.

  She walked from tree to tree and wished she’d discover their end. The Freow Woods had to have an area with a good view.

  When she’d wandered for an hour or two, Leyla began regretting how she’d decided to wear her armour. It slowed her pace to a crawl in spots where the underbrush grew dense. It became nigh impossible to walk without breaking every twig, bush, and branch she didn’t notice. She caused enough of a ruckus to wake the dead from their slumber, yet she heard nothing except her own ragged breathing when she paused. The wolves had gone silent.

  “You can do this,” Leyla said. “You deserve to be free, make your own choices.”

  She didn’t convince herself, since her voice sounded too wimpy, but she couldn’t quit. She had one good choice available to her, and a whole slew of bad ones. The path to the future lay somewhere in the middle.

  She plowed on ahead and soon heard larger creatures moving farther away in the darkness. If they’d been hungry enough to attack, she would have had to fight them off with branches. Why couldn’t Fayeth have given her permission to go east? Hadn’t she shown that she was different?

  If Fayeth had helped her, she wouldn’t have had to struggle every step through this awful forest. She could have journeyed together with the elf to the eastern border of the Freow Woods. They could have bid each other goodbye there, and she would have entered Xenthien alone. She wouldn’t have blamed the elf for her current predicament, or gotten lost like an impudent child who’d run away from the home of their wiser parent, either.

  Leyla sighed, slumped forward, and almost stumbled over a rock. If Fayeth had brought Leyla to her real home, introduced her to friends and family, Leyla wouldn’t have felt that she had to pick between freedom and the elf.

  Hadn’t she earned a little trust? She sunk to the ground, sat on the rock to rest. Xenthien wouldn’t up and fly away because she didn’t discover east this night. A solitary life in the wild might qualify as a life in freedom.

  Little Red

  “Oh, Leyla…”

  Fayeth discovered her runaway prisoner in a thicket and whistled for the spirit elk. Eina strode out from behind a boulder, and shook his mane, as sunlight bestowed his antlers with a majestic glow. She bowed to her friend, beckoned him closer, and bent down next to Leyla. The girl breathed, looked uninjured, so she’d probably exhausted herself in the darkness before falling asleep.

  She shouldn’t be negligent with Leyla’s life though. If the girl had stumbled across the wrong spirit or beast, it would have torn her asunder.

  Eina brushed his velvety muzzle against Fayeth’s shoulder and kneeled next to them. She bowed again, grateful that he agreed to carry both her and a human. He showed her greater kindness than she deserved.

  To wake Leyla, she undid the leather flask from the belt at her hip, lifted it to her lover’s lips, and smiled to herself as she recalled their previous kisses. Why had Leyla left the ruin in armour? What had she thought she would achieve by wandering the woods late at night?

  Fayeth would always find her. A human or two may slip through their defenses, but not Leyla. Never Leyla. If she wanted to leave, she would have to ask first, and then Fayeth would bring her west. They would have a proper goodbye there.

  She parted the girl’s lips by pressing the flask against them. Leyla stirred, her eyelids flickered, and Fayeth poured a few drops to drink. She withheld most of the liquid until she saw Leyla swallowing.

  She was about to give her more to drink, but Leyla opened her eyes. Fayeth hadn’t expected to find animosity in her lover’s gaze, but thankfully, it faded as soon as Leyla recognized her saviour.

  “Why are you sleeping outside, silly?” Fayeth asked. “You could’ve gotten eaten or stepped on.”

  “I obviously didn’t plan to fall asleep…”

  “What was your plan then?” Fayeth played with her black hair and regretted asking the question before she’d even gotten an answer. She had an idea what Leyla may have wished to do.

  “I need to go east. I told you, but you didn’t give me a chance to explain.” Leyla sat up in the thicket, removed the twigs which clung to her armour, and shrugged at the offer for more to drink. “If you’ll listen, I’ll—“

  “No.” Fayeth said, refastened the flask to her belt, and stood. “You won’t have my permission to go east. If you dislike my company so badly you can’t stand a week in the ruin, we can say our goodbyes today. And I’ll bring you west. With Eina’s help, you can exit the Freow Woods by nightfall.”

  Leyla stared at her boots without a word. Fayeth extended a hand to help her get up, but she didn’t acknowledge the gesture.

  “If this is supposed to be passive resistance, I must give you credit. No human has tried it before in your history, I imagine,” she said. “Although, if you’re not careful, you’ll let it get to your head and think you invented it.”

  “Why can’t I go east? Why won’t you listen?” Leyla sounded dejected. “I thought we liked each other.”

  Fayeth shifted uncomfortably on the spot, maybe she didn’t understand humans. Leyla’s questions cut deeper than they should have. Regardless, she couldn’t disobey the dead. She owed them lifelong debts.

  “You can’t go east, and you won’t go west.” Fayeth almost patted Leyla on the head to comfort her, but thought better of it and crossed her arms. “Why aren’t you going north or south? Pick one of them, I’ll get you there myself.”

  “Nothing there,” Leyla said. “You’re giving me a choice between freezing or starving to death.”

  “There used to be.” Fayeth shuddered as a chilly wind tore at her emerald dress. She wished she could make Leyla happy, somehow. If the human didn’t mention freezing or starving to death again, she would bring her south to the coast. “We had a city.”

  “Where?”

  “To the south. We…” Fayeth didn’t like to think about her failures. “There’s nothing there today, because of a god who sided with you humans, but elves… We…”

  Leyla rose to her feet and hugged Fayeth. She hadn’t thought she’d looked solemn enough to warrant a hug, but she appreciated it.

  “If I go south, and prove that I can’t survive in those wastelands, will you bring me east next?” Leyla slipped a hand under Fayeth’s dress and made her best attempt at convincing her with gentle touches.

  Fayeth cherished Leyla’s fingers on her skin while the touching lasted, but she suspected the girl would despise her when she responded. Still, she didn’t have to rush to tell her lover no again.

  Leyla kissed her on the cheek, on her lips, and slid her hand between her legs. Fayeth waited with a restrained eagerness for Leyla to take her in the middle of the thicket. If Eina hadn’t blowed air through his muzzle, she would have forgotten him.

  “I’m sorry,” Fayeth said, rested her chin on Leyla’s shoulder, and pushed her body against the girl’s hand. “Please, don’t get mad. It’s out of my control.” She trapped Leyla’s hand between her thighs when the girl tried to remove it. “Please, don’t…”

  “You would sooner kill me yourself than allow me to travel wherever I want, wouldn’t you?” Leyla chewed on Fayeth’s lower lip in an angry kiss. “I’m your captive, aren’t I?”

  “You’re free to go anywhere, except east, and wherever there are elven villages. I’m keeping an eye on you, but you’re not my captive,” Fayeth said. “You’re more of a concubine.”

  “You think of me as your sex slave?” Leyla snorted. “I might pick you today, Fayeth, for a week, or perhaps a month, but I’d rather become as notorious as my grandfather, who once lived a life of piracy, than live in your shadow.”

  Eina bumped his antlers into Fayeth’s side.

  “Let’s return to the ruin, for now. I brought you food.” She released Leyla’s hand by separating her thighs. “We can do more on a bed than on the ground
.”

  “I’m going east, one day,” Leyla said.

  Fayeth sighed, turned to Eina, and climbed onto his back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Leyla reach for something that might have hung at her side. Leyla must have dropped it when she’d slept in the middle of a thicket.

  “Did you lose something?” Fayeth patted a spot on Eina’s back where Leyla could sit. The spirit could carry them both, even if the girl wore armour.

  “My sword,” Leyla said and stared at the elk before she dared to approach.

  “I haven’t seen it.”

  “I didn’t lose it today.” Leyla mounted the elk. “You won’t give me a weapon, even if I make you scream my name, will you?”

  “If you go south, I will outfit you with proper equipment.”

  Eina grunted and rose slowly. Fayeth scooted forwards, wrapped her arms around Leyla’s waist, and pushed her heels into Eina’s sides to make him move. A ride through the forest at a comfortable pace could be nice. Leyla wasn’t used to the spirit’s speeds, and might hurl if they rode too fast.

  “I fear I’ll end up another corpse, if I brave the south.” Leyla turned her head to wink at Fayeth. “I don’t want to be done with you yet.”

  “Irresistible charm isn’t going to alter the demand I have to obey.”

  “We both know how this ends, don’t we?”

  Fayeth didn’t want to accept Leyla’s stubbornness, so she didn’t respond. If she had, they would likely have argued, and she would have had to concede that while she could force the humans’ caravan to retreat, someone would have to kill Leyla to stop her from going east.

  If Leyla forced her hand, she would tie her up and bring her to the coast. It might turn into a romantic getaway, and not a depressive retreading of old ground like she feared.

  Enslaved

  The elk strolled at a leisurely pace, while birds chirped on branches, and frogs fled in terror from his hooves. It irked Leyla when Eina strode straight past an open field of wetland on their way to the ruin. How could she have missed it?

  The field was as large as any meadow. If she’d walked past it last night, she would have gotten a bead on north and east. She would have seen the stars. Most of all, she would have escaped Fayeth.

  She liked the elf, more than she’d thought she could like another person, but she didn’t want to be her prisoner. When Fayeth had referred to her as a concubine, she’d laughed it off, yet the longer the comment lingered in her mind, the deeper its roots grew.

  How dare Fayeth call her a concubine? It implied she was a prostitute with low standards, since a ruler would often keep several concubines at once. If Fayeth thought she could have her fun with her, add another ten to a harem, and still retain Leyla’s interest, she needed a reality check.

  Leyla would never, not once, have called Fayeth a self-pitying tyrant with an insane grudge towards humans who had done nothing to her kind. Sure, Leyla’s distant ancestors, all of which now rested in their graves, may have wiped Fayeth’s people out, but no living human had participated in the war. It hadn’t been recorded in Algora’s history books. Or if it had, it had happened so long ago that it had been lost to the annals of history.

  Perhaps Leyla’s people hadn’t known how to write back then. Perhaps they’d been half-wits or cavemen.

  “How old are you?” Leyla asked, and pushed a branch aside when the elk strayed too close to a tree.

  “It’s inconsiderate to ask an elf their age.” Fayeth blew air at the back of her neck and begun to braid her hair.

  “Humour me?” Leyla leaned backwards against her lover, her captor. “I’d like to know everything there is to know about you, you intrigue me.”

  “Thanks. I…” Fayeth counted in her own language under her breath and worked Leyla’s hair into a braid, even though it wasn’t very long.

  The elk left the wetland behind, the elf’s counting went on. Leyla could see signs of her fight against nature here and there in the terrain, where it looked like someone had fallen over, or crushed some poor animal’s den.

  “Somewhere between two-thousand five-hundred and three-thousand years old,” Fayeth said. “I’d like to give you a better estimate, or a way to compare it to human years, but I’m not sure how much your culture has changed.”

  Leyla sat baffled, unsure of how to comprehend such an immense time span. Empires would have risen and fallen in the years Fayeth had lived.

  “Wow, you’re…”

  “A hundred times as old as you?” Fayeth laughed, finished one braid, and grabbed another handful of Leyla’s hair.

  “Yes.” Leyla nodded. “How long ago did the war between humans and elves occur?”

  “A thousand years, give or take. My daughter is a young elf, and I got pregnant with her towards the end of it. I…” Fayeth trailed off, focused on her braiding.

  “You have a daughter?”

  “Ah…” Fayeth paused. “I do. Her name is Syvis.”

  “Is she as attractive as her mother?”

  Fayeth tugged hard on Leyla’s braid and flicked her ear. She did not take the remark in jest. “If you mention my daughter in the same context again, in my presence, I’ll turn evil. I’ll gag you and chain you up in my bedroom. You’ll realize the difference between being a sex slave and being a concubine then.”

  “It was a joke.”

  “And I drew a line. I have my boundaries, you can have yours.” Fayeth dropped her hair, left a braid half-finished. “I’m sorry. If you had a daughter or son, you’d understand how you don’t want to hear dirty jokes about them.”

  “Don’t fret it,” Leyla said. “…Fayeth, do you suppose a human could become your equal in elven society?”

  Fayeth snorted, a telling answer by itself. “Hypothetically? Maybe, but I don’t know what would make elves accept a human like they accept each other. In reality, no, I don’t think it’s possible, Leyla. A human would have to perform an extraordinary feat for elves. And you don’t live long lives. You have a clear disadvantage.”

  “But I…”

  Honesty hurt worse than it should have. When she left to travel east, she would have no reason to visit Fayeth again. It would be farewell for good. If she couldn’t become Fayeth’s equal, in spite of her actions in life, they could not have a relationship.

  They did not speak for the remainder of the ride. Fayeth tried to initiate conversation, every now and again, but Leyla didn’t want to get attached. She preferred to stomp out whatever flame existed between their hearts before it left permanent burn scars.

  She felt cold when they arrived outside of the familiar ruin, and not because of the weather since the sun shone. She slid off the elk, raised her hand in a nonchalant wave to Fayeth, and headed towards the entrance of her temporary home.

  Fayeth missed the hint however, followed her with light footsteps, and forced Leyla to address the issue.

  “Fayeth, you’re an intriguing individual, and I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, but…” She should tell the truth. That they had no good reason to act like they did around each other, because they would never be equals, and Fayeth would not tolerate Leyla enjoying true freedom in her forest. “But I need time alone.”

  “Oh? Should I visit you later? This evening? Middle of the night? Early tomorrow morning?”

  “No.”

  “Right, well then. If that’s what you wish…” Fayeth’s voice cracked. “I’ll keep an eye on you, and I’ll bring food again when you run low. Don’t get lost in the woods, dear. I’d hate for misfortune to befall you. You could’ve died last night.”

  Fayeth mounted the elk to ride off, but Leyla refused to watch her leave. She went inside the ruin to eat and rest. The best possible outcome between the two of them would never amount to more than a fair distance.

  Rejection

  Fayeth reclined in one of the many wicker chairs, with her legs stretched out onto a second chair, on the elven balcony far above her home and the walkways. Piles of leaves on t
he floor gave the impression that no one had taken care of the balcony as they should have. If anyone in the village had still respected her, she would have asked someone to clean up the mess, and trim the branches which had grown too wild.

  Since no one respected her anymore though, she didn’t. She knew she could have fetched a broom and swept the leaves of the balcony herself, but she didn’t do that either. It was a hassle when all she longed to do was to drink pixie cider in pleasant company.

  Sadly, these days the only pleasant company she had was herself. She pondered fetching a mirror as she drank another hearty gulp of the tingling alcohol, but she imagined it would have been depressing to watch herself get drunk alone, so she didn’t.

  “Least I still have you,” she said to the five brown glass bottles she’d placed on the table. “And you…” She glanced down at another five bottles by the legs of her chair. She’d emptied Syvis’ storage.

  The bottles did not respond. They silently judged her as she downed the contents of her second.

  She heard someone coming up the stairs to the balcony, and recognized the sound of their footsteps, but she didn’t care if they found her in this state. She uncorked her third bottle.

  “Mother, the humans…” Syvis stepped onto the balcony, paused when she saw Fayeth with the bottles, and raised a hand in disbelief. “By the spirits… What is wrong with you?”

  “Watch the language, Syvis,” Fayeth said and downed a fourth of her third bottle’s content. “Younglings, think they can push you around from the day they’re born till the day you die.”

  “I can hear you. You’re louder than you think.” Syvis had strapped her longbow to her back, and a strange shine surrounded her, so she might have been hunting, mating, or something. Whatever. Fayeth didn’t care as long as Furore didn’t lay her hands on her.

  “I hear you too, child,” Fayeth said. “I see you’ve been intimate with pixies? Glowy, shiny dust clings to your—“