As she had expected, Gwen had passed the 'test' with flying colours, and she had provided the elves with a meal many of them hadn't dreamed of tasting. That had made the fact that she herself could eat nothing of it all the worse, for Iorveth had decided to punish her since he still believed that she had managed to provoke that other elf. Though her attacker had gotten none of the food either, which had made it all a bit better after all.
A few days had passed since then, and still Gwen couldn't stop wondering about how these barbarians had lasted out here for so long when they knew not even the simplest of recipes she had demonstrated for them. Then she asked herself how many of these elves had had parents to hand said recipes down to them, but she preferred not to think of that and instead continued to gloat over her superiority over these pathetic elves. How long would any of these people survive out there all by themselves with naught but their wit to protect them? How many of them would die within the first winter? That, too, were things the half-elf didn't want to think about.
What had happened to her, anyway? She had always loathed elves and humans alike, wishing the most terrible of deaths upon every single one of them, and now that she had spent a few days in the company of the former, she had had a change of heart? Would the same happen to her if she ever survived another week in a village surrounded by humans? Even worse: had she thought like this when she still had lived with humans?
A shiver ran down her spine at the thought, and she decided to just keep her mind blank while she threw ingredients into the pot before her and stirred its contents. The fire beneath it did not bother her as long as the smell of the stew overpowered that of the burning logs. Suck on that, Iorveth!
Speaking of which, where had that stupid elf gone off to anyway?
She glanced at Dylan who sat at the other side of the clearing, cutting up carrots as she had instructed him and glaring at her in order to make sure she didn't put anything in the cauldron that wasn't supposed to go in it. She contemplated whether she should ask him about the whereabouts of his commander. Now hers, too, she reminded herself. But from the way he kept hacking at the poor vegetables, Gwen almost feared that he pictured her head instead, so she decided against talking to him. Preferably ever.
Just then, he finished his task and came over to her, throwing his chopped up carrots into the boiling stew without asking if he should actually do so in the first place. She ignored him and gave it another stir or two before pulling herself up with the help of a stick which she had fashioned into some sort of crutch.
"Just leave it like this for a while," she said before leaving the clearing without sparing the boy a glance. At least with her make-shift crutch her hobbling pace had now increased enough to make for a dramatic exit.
First she searched for Ivor, the only elf around here who would grace her, the poor damned half-elf, with his divine presence, taking pity on her. For after all, she was not worthy of laying eyes upon one of the sacred beings of the wild, also known as seidhe. Or so the others in the camp must have thought whenever they saw him with her.
This also meant he was the only one willing to change her bandages, something she had at first tried to do herself, though without success. He probably knew why she sought him the very moment he caught sight of her, for they were both aware of how stubborn and proud the half-elf could be.
"Just a moment," he said as he continued to sharpen what would later become the tip of an arrow.
Gwen watched as he brought a small rock down on the stone, asking herself why she had never attempted this herself. She had always just sharpened the arrows themselves, but it was too late to lament on missed opportunities now.
When Ivor decided he had made the tip sharp enough, he placed it on the ground next to him and got up from his spot on the tree stump. As he followed Gwen to her tent, he brushed his hands off of his breeches, trying to get them as clean as possible.
"I don't believe there's any risk of infection anymore," he told her, but Gwen only shrugged before she pulled off her tunic with her back turned towards Ivor as she did so.
She unwrapped the dirtied bandages and laid them to the side so that Ivor could inspect what remained of her wounds. A shiver ran down her spine when the tips of his fingers touched her skin, probing the crusts on the cuts for any signs of pain.
"Don't touch me like that!" Gwen snapped at him as she shied away from him. He hadn't done this before; normally he just looked at it and then wrapped it up with more bandages.
Ivor's hands disappeared and he said, "Forgive me. I still cannot believe that people are capable of doing such a thing simply because of your race. Somehow the cruelty of humans still manages to surprise me."
"Well, they are," the half-elf replied, glaring at thin air. "Humans or non-humans, they're all the same to me, just as disgusting as each other. It doesn't matter who wins this war, I'll lose nonetheless."
Neither of them spoke for a while. While Gwen waited for him to redress the wounds, she could feel his eyes staring at her back.
In the end, she sighed. "I came to be because two people loved each other, yet my whole life had been filled with nothing but hate. Isn't that ironic?"
"That's incredibly sad," Ivor murmured.
"Yeah, well, what are you going to do about it?" Gwen asked him, her irritation mounting once more, and she looked over her shoulder to scowl at him. "And anyway, you're a Squirrel. You can't be any better than the rest, so stop pretending you care."
Ivor frowned at that. "But I do care. Like every other Scoia'tael out there I have my own hopes and goals, and my own ways of achieving them. Just because I am part of a greater whole does not mean you should judge me by the acts of my brethren. That would make you no better than any human or non-human. And on top of that, you are now a Squirrel as well. What does that make you?"
The woman looked in front of her again, her frown deepening as his words tried to worm their way to her core, but a protective layer of denial stopped them before it was too late. She had a reason for her hatred; she had never done any harm to anybody, yet still everyone treated her like shit. The elves had experienced the same at the hands of the humans, and so she had thought that at least they would understand her, but it seemed as if their oppression had taught them nothing at all.
"Are you almost done?" she asked, ignoring his comment.
Ivor sighed but didn't say anything. Instead, he rummaged around in what Gwen presumed was his pack, and without warning rubbed a salve on her back, the strokes of his hands rather crude, but the half-elf did not complain.
"It won't be long before you can stop bandaging it, I believe," he said as he wrapped the bandage around her with her help.
She hummed in approval, and when he finished bandaging her, turned around so that she could take care of her leg. Ivor took the limb in his hands and inspected it, fingers pressing at the holes where the trap's teeth had bitten you.
"And your leg's healing well as well. For a while now we haven't had a healer, so we'll just have to do with we have, and hope for the best. But you say it hurts less, so I don't think we have any cause for concern just yet."
Glad to hear that, Gwen let out a breath of relief. She did not want to be almost-cripple for much longer; no matter how much she loved cooking, she also craved exercise.
Ivor held out a hand to help her up, but she ignored it and got up by herself. Before they left the tent, she asked him, "Do you know where Iorveth is?"
The elf looked at her, his gaze unreadable, before he lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "You should ask Ciaran, Iorveth's adjutant. He'll know more than I do."
"Great," Gwen muttered before she nodded at Ivor and took her leave.
She groaned as she made her way to where she knew to find Ciaran. As was the case with most the elves at the camp, Iorveth's second-in-command, or whatever one wanted to call him, could not stand her.
This he made obvious the very moment she reached the edge of their so-called territory, scowling at her when he laid eyes upon her. Gee, this place almost began to feel like home, didn't it?
Had she not known that Iorveth had given orders to leave her alone, she might not have felt so at ease in the first place. Many elves chose to simply stay away from her, lest they accidentally kill her or something, and that suited the half-elf just fine. She didn't want to know how often these imbeciles tripped into other people while holding knives in their hands.
"What do you want?" Ciaran snarled at her, and Gwen raised a brow at him, which seemed to anger him even further. She hadn't opened her mouth yet and he looked just about ready to shoot her with that bow he held in his hands.
For a moment she contemplated turning around and leaving, but her curiosity got the better of her. "I was wondering where I could find Iorveth."
The elf narrowed his eyes at her, and Gwen almost expected him to start growling at him. For all their talking about their famed neutral faces, the elves in this camp seemed to have permanent frowns.
Instead, however, he snapped, "Why should I tell you?"
"Well," Gwen began, a retort on the tip of her tongue, but the sound of clinking armour interrupted her thought process and she looked up just in time to see Iorveth stalking up the hill on which they stood.
She frowned as she watched him march past her. He had been out in the forest all by himself? Usually he took a few elves with him wherever he went, why not this time? Suspicion filled her and she followed the stream of elves making their way to where he waited for them.
When he thought enough of his comrades had gathered around, he raised his arms and, in a loud voice, called out, "It would seem that we have found ourselves a powerful ally who is willing to help us further our cause."
Murmurs exploded all around the half-elf, who remained silent throughout it all. This had nothing to do with her, after all, even if Iorveth had made her a Squirrel.
"He is a Witcher," Iorveth went on, but he was silenced when the murmurs turned into yelling. A Witcher could only be human, a filthy dh'oine. Such a person could never be considered an ally to the Scoia'tael, of course.
"Listen!" the commander yelled at the top of his lungs, and the angry voices calmed down. "With our help, he plans to kill the human kings. He will begin with Foltest, but that won't be the end of it."
"How do you know he speaks truly?" Ciaran stepped forward so that his question could be heard by everyone.
Iorveth nodded, as if he knew that they would ask him this. Before he replied, his eye flickered over to where Gwen stood, and her frown deepened. "He has been so kind as to give me... certain proof. That is all you must know."
Once he had spoken those words, he turned and left, the crowd parting to let him through.
Why? Why had he looked at her before he spoke? Had it been a coincidence, had her human features jumped out of the crowd and attracted his gaze? What other reason could there possibly be?
The elves dispersed, all the while talking about the news amongst themselves; some theorising about who this Witcher could possibly be and others asking each other what could have possessed Iorveth to ally himself with a dh'oine. Gwen did not wait for them all to have left before she went after the commander, gritting her teeth to ignore the pain at pushing her leg beyond its limits.
When she found him conversing with Ciaran and some other elf whose name she did not know, she placed a hand on his shoulder and whirled him around with all her might. Which wasn't a lot, for she had to keep herself upright with her crutches, but for once he did her a favour by not working against her.
He shot her an inquisitive look, but before anybody could speak he turned and gestured for his companions - who looked livid at the half-elf touching their leader - to leave them. He wouldn't do such a thing if he hadn't expected her to seek him out, if he knew she didn't have a reason to do so, would he?
"What was all that about?" Gwen finally snapped at him when they had been left by themselves.
"Is it now forbidden to look at inh'eids as well?" Iorveth asked her, the look on his face almost nonchalant. As if that would make her less suspicious.
"You know full well what I mean, elf. What's all this talk about kings and proof?"
The man only stared at her for a few moments, which allowed Gwen to regain the breath she had apparently lost on her way to him. She knew he sought answers to his questions by examining her expression, but she too could use the elves' neutral face when she concentrated.
"I have found out quite a bit about you through my agents, but one thing was never quite clear," he said when his investigation taught him nothing. "Where exactly do your loyalties lie?"
Gwen bit her lip. How much had he managed to find out about her? Could he possibly know...? Well, not that it mattered either way. "What? Do you mean if I am loyal to my family, the crown?"
When Iorveth nodded, the half-elf couldn't help the laugh that escaped her.
"What does all that precious information of yours help you if you are incapable of making logical conclusions? Like I would remain loyal to anyone who treated us like they did." So he didn't know everything after all. "If you had asked me this a hundred years ago when my father still lived, I might have said yes. But everything went downhill after his death, so luckily for you I don't give a pig's ass about what happens to them."
Another calculating look before the elf opened his mouth. "So if I were to tell you that our new ally was the one to kill your great, great grandnephew, you would not mind?"
"What, do you want me to bake him a pie to thank him for getting rid of that asshole?" she asked him as she kept her face blank, trying her best not to betray any of her thoughts.
"Perhaps. After all, Demavend did kill your mother."
He trained his green eye on her and watched the mask fall away with a hint of amusement. The sound of flames crackling filled her ears, and she stared unseeing at the fire that forever raged on inside her mind. When panic attempted to overtake her, she replaced it with anger and, without thinking, she tackled the man, her crutch clattering to the ground. His back hit the leaves beneath them with a thud, but he didn't seem too impressed.
"Don't you dare speak of her like that!" Gwen yelled as she attempted to hit him in the face, though he wrapped his fingers wrapped around her wrists before her hands could reach him. She tried to pull herself free, but when the commander wouldn't release her, she sagged forward.
Nearby elves who had heard the commotion ran over to the pair, enraged by the fact that an inh'eid had touch their leader like this, yelling things that Gwen could not understand in her moment of rage. Hands grabbed her from behind and pulled her off of him, her jaw rattling at the rough movements. Whoever held her shoved her to the ground, away from Iorveth, who got up and brushed his hands off his stupid skirt as if nothing had happened.
She hadn't even been able to lift her face from the mud when she was once more grabbed and dragged away from the scene, giving her more than enough time to scowl at Iorveth. The fact that he did not look as triumphant as she had expected did little to calm her down, and she continued to scream and shout at the elves who proceeded to tie her to a tree trunk somewhere out in the forest until her throat had gone raw and only rasped whispers came out of her and everyone had left her once again.