[A/N]: chapter title song belongs to Hurts. As did the previous one, secretly.
Angry yells filled the crisp morning air a few days later. Iorveth hadn't seen much of the newcomer since that conversation by the campfire, but he had given clear orders to his soldiers and thus knew he hadn't had to worry about her. Until now.
"Don't you ploughing touch me, you elf!" the inh'eid screeched, and from the strained sound of her voice it was obvious that someone or something held her back.
Iorveth made his way to the noise fully intent on punishing someone until he arrived at the scene. On one side of the clearing stood Gwenfrewi sporting a fresh cut on her forehead, blood seeping into her right eye, with Ivor's arms hooked under her armpits to hold her back. On the other side stood Maeve; Mervyn had wrapped his arms around her torso while Senan held onto her right arm. In her limp grasp she still held a knife coated with blood.
Their commander could feel his temper rise at the sight before him, and everyone except Gwenfrewi froze when they noticed their leader entering the scene.
"What's the meaning of this?" he yelled, his frustration evident in his voice.
As if some signal had been given, Gwen stopped trying to escape her captor's hold while Maeve came to life once more, yelling incoherent words. One of the bystanders, Wynne, a young female elf with black, braided hair that barely reached her shoulders and bright blue eyes that shone at the sight of her commander, jogged over to Iorveth with an apologetic look on her face.
"I'm afraid everyone is a bit on edge because of the inh'eid's presence, Iorveth. We can't continue to do all the work while she sits around all day and licks her wounds," she admitted, as if that were enough explanation for the fact that one of his soldiers had pulled a knife on a comrade. Because they would have to see her as such, one day.
Still mad at them all, he pushed Wynne to the side so that he could make his way to the offenders. He sauntered over to Gwen, who watched his arrival with disdain in her angry, brown eyes, while giving commands to the other party. "Mervyn, Senan, take Maeve away from here and see that she is calmed down. Punish her accordingly."
He relieved Ivor, whose arms had been built for bows and not swords, of his burden by wrapping his fingers around Gwen's shoulder and dragging her with him, not considering her wounded leg at all. Ivor followed him close by in order to help his commander carry her, which earned him a few kicks to the stomach from Gwen's healthy leg, though he never once complained.
Once they had distanced themselves from the crowd, though they knew better than to follow Iorveth when angered, he practically threw the half-elf to the ground. Ignoring her cry of pain, he accepted the rag that Ivor held out for him and, kneeling beside her, dragged it across Gwen's forehead to wipe away the blood. By the time he had cleaned most of the red and instead pressed it against her skin to stop the bleeding, the woman had taken to biting on her tongue in order to keep quiet.
Once he had made sure that the wound no longer bled freely, he motioned for Ivor to do the rest. He swept the ends of his short, black hair out of his eyes before kneeling down beside Gwen. When she appeared to want to escape the close proximity with the other elf, Iorveth sat behind her so that he could hold her still.
"You are not making this any easier on yourself," he grumbled.
"Me?!" she yelled, infuriated. "I didn't do shit, that bitch-"
Iorveth jerked her arms before she could finish her sentence, and she cursed when her jaws snapped shut with her lower lip between her teeth. More blood dripped down on her tunic, the one she had only gotten a few days ago, just after her arrival. "You sunufa-"
This time, Ivor interrupted her by shooting her a smile that even reached his kind grey eyes. The sight of it must have surprised her, for she stopped talking and instead sucked on her lower lip, glowering as she did so. She lowered her head, though whether in shame or to give Ivor better access to the cut, Iorveth could not say.
"Now," Iorveth began once Ivor had finished treating Gwen's forehead, "care to explain what all that fuss was about? My people don't just wave their weapons around when unprovoked."
"Like I said, I didn't do anything. I just-"
"You must understand that many of us find it difficult to remain calm in times like this, especially now that someone like you is here. Perhaps you said something that offended someone," Ivor offered, his voice surprisingly soothing. He was one of the older elves around, perhaps even older than Iorveth himself, and had always had a way with calming down people.
"And Wynne was right. They are already on edge, and your inability to perform tasks as of yet certainly does not help your case," Iorveth added.
"But that is- I just-" she yelled in protest, but her voice kept cracking. She cleared her throat before she tried again. "That was exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to ask whoever was responsible for cooking if I could help them, because I didn't feel like sitting around on my ass all day." Her voice had dwindled to a whisper and Iorveth looked up in surprise, his eye meeting those of Ivor, who only smiled in return.
"And the fight?" Iorveth asked, his eye narrowing in suspicion.
Gwen ripped her arms from his hold and he let her do so, his fingers grasping thin air while he contemplated the structure of the limbs he had just held. The rags she wore hid most of her frame, and thus the elf could not properly estimate what she had to offer his unit in the first place. Albeit thinner than he would have liked, he was relieved to find out that she wasn't just a stick. With a little training they would make a true Scoia'tael of her yet.
"Why are you asking me? I was minding my own business, when suddenly that stupid bi-" At the warning in Iorverth's gaze, she managed to swallow the word before it left her lips. "I swear, I did nothing!"
Still Iorveth looked sceptical, and Ivor shrugged his shoulders when his commander looked at him. "I came a few moments later, when this young lady here was just about to rip off Maeve's head. By then, she had already been wounded."
"Don't call me that!" Gwen snapped, directing her aggression towards him. "I might even be older than you are!"
Ivor laughed out loud as he shook his head. "I doubt that. I've lived closer to two centuries than to one."
"Shit," the half-elf muttered, looking away from him, "I didn't even know elves could get that old."
At that, Iorveth could stay silent no longer. "How do you propose you could become a hundred years old with your dh'oine blood if it weren't for the seidhe blood keeping you alive for so long?"
Gwen continued to glare at her hands, but she didn't reply. Of course she knew elves could live up to three or four centuries, if certain Scoia'tael commandos didn't send them to their deaths before that; she had meant her words to be some sort of insult. Now she just looked like an idiot who didn't have any general knowledge.
Ivor distracted everyone by getting up and holding out a hand to help Gwen on her feet. The half-elf only stared at his hand, still sceptical, and so he said, "Gwenfrewi is your name, right?"
"It's Gwen," she snapped at him.
"You watch your tone!" Iorveth, who had climbed to his feet as well, spat as he took a threatening step towards the woman.
Before Gwen could yell something back at him, Ivor held his other arm in front of his commander's chest to hold him back and said, "Well then, Gwen, I believe we have some things to settle."
For a moment the woman looked surprised, but it didn't take long for her to accept the elf's helping hand, ignoring Iorveth's muttering in the background as she did so. He lifted her up with ease before leading her back to the crime scene. As they stepped into the clearing, she felt safer with a strong elf in front of her and one behind her, though that didn't make the stares from those who still hung around the spot any easier to bare.
She tried to glare at each and every one of them, but Iorveth gave her a push from behind that almost had her stumbling again. If he continued to shove her around all day, her leg would never get to heal, or so she wanted to yell at him, but by then they had already arrived at the kettle and pots that made up most of the camp's kitchen.
"It seems that there has been some sort of misunderstanding," Iorveth stated as he stepped away from Gwen and towards the ones responsible for cooking. They didn't look too pleased with the arrival of the inh'eid. "Gwenfrewi meant to ask whether she could help with preparing the food. At least until her leg has healed."
Gwen glared at the man and bit on her tongue. She had just said that... No, he did this on purpose, did he not? The glance he shot her when she remained silent told her enough. He knew, and he also knew that she could not touch him. She was surrounded by people who would protect their commander with their lives, after all.
Balling her hands into fists, she gave a curt nod but dared not open her mouth. The gods knew she had already given the elves reason enough to want to kill her as it was. Iorveth raised an eyebrow at her dark look, but did not comment on it.
"How are we to know she does not mean to poison us all?" one of the elves piped up.
The half-elf had to laugh at that. "Do you think it possible for me to poison all of you? If a few of you were to fall ill, you would probably chop my head off before I could poison you all."
"You must remember that the cooks have never worked alone," Ivor interrupted. "If you were to keep an eye on her, she should never have the opportunity to poison the food in the first place."
He shot Gwen a look just as she wanted to protest, and so she quickly closed her mouth again. Silence then filled the air as the elves looked at each other in uncertainty.
"From now on, the inh'eid will help you cook. Take whatever precautions you like, but I will not hear of this again," Iorveth said, and that was the end of that.
Most elves dispersed after the words had been spoken, and with a pat on her shoulder Ivor left her by herself.
"You do realise cooking is done with fire, do you not?" Iorveth asked her, his face blank though she noticed the amusement in his green eye. He turned and left before she could strangle him, most likely doing her more of a favour than himself.
Unsure of what to do next, Gwen stood there, scratching her cheek. Just man up, you twat, she finally thought as she made her way towards the make-shift kitchen, biting back a wince whenever she put any weight on her poor leg. She had seen better kitchens, but she most certainly had seen worse as well.
"So, yeah..." she began, her hands clutching at her breeches.
The gaze of the few remaining elves weighed heavily on her as she searched for words. When her mind refused to work with her, she let out a growl that had the Squirrels glaring at her, but she surprised them by bending down as well as she could and ripping a strip of cloth off of her pants.
She bound it around her head and straightened her back, jutting her chin out as she asked, "All right, where can I begin?"
The elves glanced at each other, frowns on all of their faces. One of them, a woman with dark brown hair that she had brushed behind her ears and eyes that looked as though they were violet, finally took a step forward and offered Gwen a reluctant nod.
"My name is Aderyn," she said and looked over her shoulder at her comrades, who stared at her in surprise. Some of them made faces as though they had just been betrayed, but Aderyn ignored them and pointed at each one of them. "That is Cerys, next to her stands Brigid, and the man next to her is Dylan."
From Brigid the half-elf received a tiny smile that seemed almost shy as she brushed her black hair out of her face, even though it had no where to go since she had bundled her long fringes with pieces of cloth wrapped around the edges. Her golden eyes went from her to Aderyn before she glanced at her other friends, who both refused to cooperate in the least.
Cerys had crossed her arms as she continued to glare at Gwen, her short hair - also black - sticking out at all angles as though she had never touched a comb in her life. Dylan mimicked her look, and it unnerved Gwen that the two of them had the exact same dark green eyes, both pairs filled with hate as they beheld her. Any other time she might have laughed at the fact that the brother had longer hair than the sister, a small braid covering his left ear, but Gwen realised that that might have meant certain death in that moment.
"Have you ever cooked before?" Aderyn asked when no one else said anything.
Gwen took her eyes off the siblings in order to give the woman an incredulous look. "Of course I've cooked before. You can't exactly survive in the wilderness without learning to cook a thing or two. As surely you must know, seeing as you live in the wilderness as well."
Dylan and Cerys narrowed their eyes at her and looked about ready to stab her with a knife that couldn't have been far off, but Aderyn held up a hand without ever seeing their reactions.
"Great," she said, and Gwen didn't like the grin that appeared on her face one bit. "Then I suppose you won't mind helping us figure out a recipe for today's dinner."
Great indeed, you bitch, the half-elf wanted to mutter. Because I don't notice a test when presented with one, or what?
She voiced none of these thoughts, of course, and instead smiled in return. "Why, it would be my pleasure to show you elves some proper cooking."