Kyou Kara Maou : The Trouble With Trolls
Summary: Wolfram's attempt to bypass Maou Wedding Curse with a small family ceremony, backfires when an uninvited relative arrives - the Troll Mother.
Disclaimer: I have no rights to Kyou Kara Maou, of course.
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Chapter 6 : Trust
Yuuri, with firm loving kindness, bid Conrad take Gwendal up to see Lord Wincott, and remain there for the time being. Von Wincott and Friedrich von Bielenfeld shooed Conrad out when they arrived. They settled in for tea and a long talk with Gwendal, telling him alone the inner dark story of his father's lonely leadership of the Great Troll and Goblin War. After that, Gwendal chose of himself to remain in the tower with the elderly veterans of that conflict.
Back in the situation room, von Dienst and Griesel made quick work of a pile of paperwork with Yuuri, in order to accomplish the handover of command. General von Dienst, eccentricities notwithstanding (he dangled a button-eyed pom-pom on the end of the pen he wielded), was a strict man for discipline and order, and papers properly signed.
Yuuri suggested informality exactly once. And was rebuffed. The man looked a kindly grandfather with reading glasses (and was), but believed that discipline was essential to morale and precise operations. Commanders and rulers being overly casual set a terrible example for the troops. A commander who was careless in his etiquette was careless with his logistics. And as Yuuri well knew from Wolfram, von Dienst was a fiend for logistics – his men had the right food, shelter, gear, medical support, transport, and orderly retreat plans, always. Yuuri had to admit, giving up the privilege of calling his general by his first name, was a very small price to pay for the lives of his troops.
Some of the papers Yuuri signed that night, would give him nightmares for a long time. He prayed the contingencies he authorized would never arise.
Von Dienst concurred with the analysis on the map, but had little comment on the diplomatic situation. "The job of the military is to further diplomatic aims by other means. This is a good map for making your decisions. I don't envy your task, Sire. But, I'd best be getting on with mine. Given my predecessor's… informal… resignation, I'll be dragging quite a few commanders out of bed tonight. If you'll excuse me?" And von Dienst was off.
"Well, we have a general," said Yuuri, into the general silence of the room. Conrad and Manfred were still staring sadly at the map. Aldrich sat quietly fondling his mokona's ears. "And I don't know what I'll say yet about Troll Mother's territory demands. What else do we need to deal with tonight?" He rubbed his eyes – their guest's nocturnal habits left him feeling rather dumb.
Manfred itemized. "Danny's boys in the Fens. The demand for Aldrich before dawn. Which must be denied." He looked at Aldrich, wishing the other man would meet his eyes. But Aldrich looked only at his stuffed mokona. "And how that conversation got so ugly, so fast."
"Perhaps… you should consider another advisor to continue these meetings with you, Sire," said Aldrich slowly. "Although Lord Wincott and Troll Mother don't have happy memories of each other, perhaps he should join you. And Conrad and Manfred continue, of course. Perhaps he should be brought in before we discuss… Manfred's list."
"Well, if Gwendal's out of commission, I'll summon Wolfram back from Gratz," Yuuri replied. "Wolfram's my primary political advisor. But that will take time."
Into the silence, Manfred asked, "Aldrich, is Wolfram in the Fens with Brendan?"
"What?" said Yuuri, only now registering what 'Danny's boys' meant – Adeldan von Gratz' sons, Adelbert and Brendan.
"…Probably. Brendan's task was to hide all of them, and not let me know where, so that I couldn't tell Troll Mother," said Aldrich, looking not at all averse to dying that night. "Dietrich. All three of your sons, Manfred. Yuuri's children. Brendan's and Adelbert's and Gwendal's. And Annissina and Günter. I am… beyond sorry." He closed his eyes in pain, then continued, a few tears overflowing, "You see, Sire, I don't… I'm not sure… that I'm strong enough to stay on your side. Not… not if Dietrich's at stake. Not if Manfred's children are at stake. Sire, perhaps my last advice should be, that, you really shouldn't trust me anymore."
Yuuri considered that a moment, then pulled a chair to face Aldrich. He sat, leaning far forward, hand on Aldrich's on the mokona, willing Aldrich to meet his eye. "Then how should I trust me, Lord Aldrich? When Wolfram and my children are also at stake? When my friends, my people, my most honored vassals are at stake? I've watched you these past days. You love both your people – the demons and the trolls. That, above all, is why I trust you. My people – the people of Shin Makoku – include the trolls, Aldrich. And if Brendan and Wolfram don't succeed at hiding, I don't believe you can claim that as solely your fault." Yuuri squeezed Aldrich's hand to emphasize his conclusion. "I trust you, Lord Bielenfeld. Please trust in my trust in you."
Aldrich met his eye in agony at that. "But… Sire… I advised Brendan to surrender rather than fight the trolls. He and Trenton and… Dietrich… and Annissina and Grendel, they would be safer surrendering. Wolfram and the others… Wolfram is second in command of that group."
Yuuri held his eye and nodded. "Sounds like good advice. And, I trust you."
Aldrich stared at him in disbelief, then lowered his head in acknowledgment.
Manfred put a hand on Aldrich's shoulder as well. When it was clear Aldrich and Yuuri had finished that exchange, he added, "They aren't caught yet, Aldrich. What she said was that 'her friends had spotted' them. That was an interesting little troop you sent to Brendan, and he picked a very interesting destination. Trolls are weak where the earth is full of water. And Efram has powerful friends there as well. Pray for them, but don't count them lost yet, or even hostages, Aldrich."
Conrad offered, "Aldrich, Manfred's right. Troll Mother doesn't have hostages yet. Something rattled her, rattled her hard. She suddenly stopped playing a careful game. She attacked you with all she had, all at once, trying to completely undermine your self-confidence, and destroy Yuuri's trust in you. But Yuuri's trust," he looked at Yuuri with deep emotion, "is strong beyond belief. And you, you've feared you needed to choose a side, that you needed to hide your sympathies for the trolls from us. But we believe in you, not in spite of your feelings for the trolls, but because of them."
"Thank you, Conrad," Aldrich breathed. Of them all, Conrad had been most aloof from the proceedings. His words meant a great deal. "So, you're not going to let me wallow in my defeat, are you gentlemen," he added wryly.
"Nope, sorry, you're still on point," said Yuuri. "Aldrich, I was the one talking to Troll Mother when everything went sour. Probably my first mistake – I should have let you do the talking. What did I say, that made her so angry, so fast?"
Aldrich thought about it, slow to answer. He looked calmer now, as though freeing his conscience and getting Yuuri's absolution in return, had taken a vast weight off, and freed him to think clearly again.
"I'm not sure, Sire," he finally said. "I was listening to you intently, and not watching her. I didn't fully understand what you were saying. You told a story about your other world, how your people had been completely vanquished and subjugated by another. Yet how the other took you by the hand and rebuilt your nation. How your people's way of life seemed entirely doomed under the other people's ways. Yet in time, it was a tempering, like steel, and your people gave back… It wasn't an easy story to understand, Sire. And you're a powerful storyteller. Manfred, Conrad, did either of you see when Troll Mother's attitude changed?"
Manfred and Conrad shook their heads – they too had been busy listening.
Aldrich ran a mokona ear through his fingers. "I spoke with Shinou at length, both when he chose Suzanna Julia, and again when he sent her soul to be reborn as you on your world, Sire. Trying to understand why he chose to do that." His voice gathered strength as he spoke. "I believe that choice has been misunderstood. Peace with the humans – Shinou never cared for that. Not that he had anything against humans. Just that he had his own responsibilities, tasks undone, mistakes to be righted. The boxes, preventing the end of the world, obviously came first. For that he chose Suzanna Julia, and much as I disliked her, it worked. No offense, Sire. I like you a great deal more than I did her."
Manfred and Conrad looked surprised. Aldrich rarely admitted to disliking anyone, let alone someone as well-loved as Suzanna Julia von Wincott. And both the other men had been quite close to her. Maybe Aldrich didn't take Suzanna breaking us up nearly as well as he pretended to me, thought Manfred.
Yuuri blinked and laughed a little. "Ah, no, it's… a refreshing change of pace, Lord Aldrich. Usually everyone seems to have loved her far more than me. Well," he conceded, thinking of Wolfram, who recalled his old healing tutor Suzanna Julia as rather a pain in the ass, "not everyone. But, most. It's nice to be liked for me more than a ghost."
Aldrich smiled wryly. "I definitely prefer you to her, Sire. And, I think Shinou sent for you from the other world in case the boxes thing worked. Because the next thing on his guilt list was the trolls. Well, all the dwindling races. He was a man of war, Shinou. He didn't have a clue how to heal the harm done with Troll Mother, though we spoke of it often."
"Through Ulrike?" asked Conrad, curious.
"No, Franklin and Ted's sister is priestess there. She helped me with Shinou."
"The trolls tolerate her serving at Shinou's temple?" asked Yuuri, surprised.
"No, her family disowned her," replied Aldrich. "Well, the rest of the family. She and I write to each other regularly – her letter is one of the highlights of my month. She's the only sister I ever had," he added, seeing Manfred's surprise. "She and I seek to forge a spiritual synthesis of our demon and troll heritages." That made sense – Manfred could see Aldrich enjoying an earnest theological correspondence with a foster sister.
"Anyway," Aldrich continued, "Shinou wanted you to teach him something, Sire. He liked so much what he learned, he chose to be reborn as your son, to continue learning." At Conrad's raised brows, he frowned. "My apologies if I spoke out of turn, Sire. No one told me, I just… recognized him."
Yuuri shrugged. "We don't speak of it. Bertram is our son, Wolfram's baby. I'd ask that you not mention it to him?" Conrad and Aldrich both nodded. "Thank you. I think Wolfram has chosen not to know."
"Anyway," continued Aldrich, "Shinou believed that to heal the rift, we had to establish trust between demons and trolls. And that was what you were talking about at the end, Sire. Establishing trust. Trust is earned. But that if both sides realize…" Aldrich slowed down, for he'd been hard pressed to follow this at the time, "if they know that trust is in their best interest, that a better world would exist if trust existed… Something about building a sheltered garden and nurturing trust as a seedling? I'm sorry, Sire, I was desperately trying to follow you, and didn't."
A knock preceded Friedrich sticking his head in, "May I?" At Yuuri's nod, he joined them.
Aldrich grinned, and rose to give his father a big hug. "I loved the birthday present, Chichi! Just what I needed."
"I thought that might do for you," Friedrich grinned, then chuckled at the stuffed animal in Aldrich's arm. "And that mokona! Well, gentlemen, it's about an hour and a half til dawn. Have you rested, taken a break, eaten? I thought not…" Friedrich stepped out and ordered a guard to bring them some breakfast. "You don't do your best thinking if you keep bashing your head into a wall with a problem, Son, you know that."
"Yes, Chichi. And we were. Or I was – bashing my head into a wall. I don't understand what made Troll Mother suddenly get so viciously angry."
"Well, then, you start the next meeting by asking her," said Friedrich. "And decline to discuss any other subject until you understand. Yuuri can hardly be expected to continue negotiations when even his translator is perplexed."
Aldrich buried his head in his mokona and laughed. "Thank you, Chichi. I guess I really did need you to come make me eat breakfast," he said sheepishly.
"Any time, Son. Though I didn't come to make you eat breakfast. Gwendal mentioned a summons at an hour before dawn, and I thought a brief mental health check might be in order. I trust you're not thinking of going?"
"Um…"
"Then you'll have Manfred and Conrad and Yuuri and I along with you." Friedrich cast an evil green-eyed demon smile at Manfred. "Hopefully the other party will realize that you're heavily protected and not test the point. If not… well, Manfred and I can strike better if we can kill first and help each other resuscitate victims later, and we're better at that than you are. So let's eat breakfast."
"There will be no killing at all!" protested Yuuri.
"I should hope not," agreed Friedrich. "I've never killed anybody. Though I've resuscitated quite a few. You, Manfred?"
Manfred smiled sadly. "I've killed a few, Uncle."
At Yuuri's continued perplexity, Aldrich explained, "Manfred is my bodyguard in these meetings, Yuuri. But as Chichi said – it's hard to handle strong opponents with fire healing if you're not free to use a killing blow." Yuuri had known in theory that fire healing was a two-edged sword, but he'd never seen it used to kill. A gift that could restart a heart beating, could easily make it stop. But safely disabling a person so vastly larger than oneself… would take finesse. With everyone speaking of people helpless against trolls, he hadn't realized just how not helpless Wolfram's petite pretty father was.
"Right, then," said Friedrich. "So we all go… perhaps fifteen minutes before dawn is punctual enough. And say that we require Aldrich's uninterrupted services, and look forward to straightening out miscommunications in the evening. Then we leave and get some well-earned sleep. Agreed, Aldrich?" he said pointedly.
oOo
Manfred helped Aldrich undress and unbind his hair – in formal attire, neither was easy for him at the best of times, and he was troll punch-drunk from their brief interview before dawn. Troll Mother had pushed hard. Ted, in the ballroom with her, had slumped into a wall giggling with the force of persuasion she was using. Aldrich was almost in tears that Chichi and Manfred were being so mean and wouldn't let him go in and play with them. He'd tried to turn and go back several times as they left. But his bedroom was far from her. Aldrich was still sky-high, but no longer trying to escape back to trolldom.
He fell to the bed naked, hugging his mokona, watching Manfred's body rapt as Manfred disrobed in the dawn light. "You are so beautiful, Manfred…" he murmured.
Manfred smirked and climbed onto him on the bed. "Not so sleepy yet, eh? We should do something about that…" He stroked a hand down Aldrich's broad chest, the six-pack abs, tracing down…
"No," said Aldrich, eyes closed and smiling, gasping in enjoyment. "No, Manfred, you have to stop…"
Manfred laughed softly. "That 'no' sounded an awful lot like a 'yes', Aldrich."
"Ahhhh… stop, Manfred, no…" And Aldrich passed out cold.
"What?" Manfred cried. He drew up his maryoku signature to calm down and focus, then ran his hands and light healing fire tendrils along Aldrich's whole body. Well, no mistake – Aldrich was deeply aroused. And had been before I touched him. Oh, hell… Manfred investigated the brain more carefully. It was like… Sometimes, when a patient was dying, in great pain, they let him end it with opiate-like drugs, with his friends and family around him. Aldrich's mind was beyond that in the pleasure realm, all pleasure centers turned on, beyond his brain's ability to cope with it.
I could have killed him. With… pleasure? Not majutsu, then. Pheromones.
Manfred lay back down and took the unconscious smiling man in his arms and held him. He monitored Aldrich again from time to time, until he was sure the brain chemical cascade was over, and Aldrich had simply drifted into sleep. Then cuddled him tighter and fell asleep himself.
He woke hours later, to Aldrich brushing his unruly bangs off his forehead. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," Aldrich murmured, but kissed him long and lovingly. "Mmm."
"Aldrich? Is that how they die? The quarter-trolls? That's… murder."
Aldrich sighed, forehead on Manfred's. "Yeah. But… for many, it's voluntary. With Franklin, I know it was. He intended to die that way."
"Is Ted in danger? Or are you not… sexually mature in some troll way until age 200?"
"Not strong enough yet. No one will touch him before 200. To let him die of sex but have a child out of it… that's considered justified. To have sex before he's strong enough to get that far, is murder." Aldrich pulled away, ashamed. "I must seem so alien to you today. With the singing to Gwendal, and this…"
"Hush," Manfred said, pulling him back, caressing his face. "Because you're part-troll, I love trolls. Knowing you better makes me love more of you. It won't make me love you less." He kissed Aldrich again, pressing their lower bodies together. "Is it tempting? Like some kind of siren call to your doom?"
Aldrich gazed into his matching green eyes. His face showed naked longing for a moment, then smiled softly and broke eye contact, sighing. "Not to me."
"Good. Because you stay with me. Aldrich… damn. We need to talk, and I am so not good at that…" But, he'd thought it over long and hard while he was monitoring Aldrich's endorphin cascade. How to get past neither of us being willing to lay a burden on the other. A little more dishonesty, in order to finally get honest. "Hey, let me heal your arm deeply. I want to see how it's regenerating. I haven't used fire on you in a long time."
Aldrich acquiesced easily enough. The regenerating arm was getting interesting from a healer's perspective. Though still but half the length of the other fore-arm, the bones were forming for the new wrist and hand, still invisibly cloaked in flesh at this point. Manfred probed with his polished clinical fire touch – passion sterilized of personality.
But then he relaxed that clinical control, and let himself, his raw passion, and his feelings for Aldrich flow into the fire tendrils as they danced on Aldrich, to love the hand forming, the miraculous new arm, the man as he was. He hadn't allowed his feelings to flow in his fire like this with Aldrich since he'd learned how not to, not long after Suzanna Julia and Glynda and Cecilie forced him to leave Aldrich and move to the Institute. His fire was passion, ardent sexual desire for Aldrich, absolute loyalty and devotion and admiration, deep sweet loving kindness, an ocean of gratitude for Aldrich's love, a wish to do anything to pleasure him, please him, help him, protect him, be with him. Aldrich gasped.
Manfred moved his hand, the center of the fire tendrils, up to rest on Aldrich's breast, tendrils snaking up to caress his neck, his ears, a finger of fire to lap into his mouth the way that Aldrich loved so much when Manfred did it with a normal finger. Aldrich moaned. Manfred drew his hand lower, to rest on the belly just below Aldrich's navel, and sent fire tendrils lapping up across his breasts, caressing his ribs, fondling his manhood. Aldrich was drenched in sweat.
Manfred let the fire recede. This is a conversation, he reminded himself firmly, sighing. Next time…
Aldrich swallowed. With herculean effort, he forced himself to say, "Manfred, you're married. You love Cecilie… Maybe… maybe you should go to her, and let Chichi guard me –"
Manfred cut him off with a finger to his lips, then held Aldrich's face to compel him to meet his eyes. "That's why I used the fire. To be honest with you, about how I really feel. Enough talking, Aldrich. You tell me the same way. With fire. Then I'll believe you don't want me the way I want you."
Aldrich shook his head. "And then what? It's no good, Manfred. I should just –"
"You already did, for nearly a century. And even now that she's been dead a quarter century, you still hate Suzanna Julia for whatever she said, to make you do it. Isn't that what you meant last night? And I believed I should leave you, to let you work it out with Glynda, much as I despised her for how she treated you. As you probably despised Cecilie… Haven't we lied long enough?"
Aldrich still struggled with himself, with all the reasons why he shouldn't, but then suddenly just… relaxed. He drew Manfred into his arms and held him close, resting his face on Manfred's hair. To Manfred's small noise of question, he said, "I just… gave in. Who knows, I may be dead before week's end. If I'm not, then, we'll see. Why not just give in to accepting your love for now. And it feels… really good…"
It felt really good to Manfred, too. Aldrich's embrace wasn't tight or demanding, or aloof, or stiff with holding himself back. It felt for the first time in a long time, that they were just there together, able to… Not take each other for granted, but accept that they were where they belonged, perhaps. Still… "Fire, Aldrich. You still have to show me how you feel. I haven't felt your true fire since I left for the Institute. Show me?"
"Alright," the older man gave in. Manfred lay back to invite his touch. Aldrich sat up cross-legged beside him, and summoned his own signature, a wind-carved cypress tree. Then he began as Manfred had, probing the healed places where he had eased Manfred's pain so many times, right up to the morning Manfred asked Cecilie to marry him. He wondered at and loved the miracle in the restored muscles and tendons and bones, the hips and back no longer stressed and inflamed. He let himself emerge through in his fire gradually, showing at first only his joy in Manfred's healing. Manfred realized that Aldrich, more experienced back then though never a professional healer, had already been skilled at masking his passion before ever he touched Manfred. Manfred had never felt his true fire before.
After tracing a circuit from hip, down one leg and up the other to the other hip, Aldrich brought his hand to rest on Manfred's belly, setting the fire tendrils to lap all around Manfred's torso and private parts, and let his reserve fall. Manfred gasped and clenched his eyes shut as the physical and emotional sensations hit him. Pure love like white fire – unlike Manfred, Aldrich had been utterly cherished as a child, all his life, by both his parents, and his close friends and cousins. His love life had been torturous, yes, but he knew unconditional love, and loved Manfred that way. Fierce tenderness, devotion, loyalty, gratitude like Manfred's own springing from crushing pain redeemed into joy and accomplishment, delight in Manfred's very beingness, love for his looks, his body, yearning for sexual pleasures known and shared, a wish to have and hold and be with him.
Aldrich let the fire die back, and kissed Manfred softly on his belly. He said quietly, "You couldn't have accepted that, you know. Not then…" Then he simply sat and watched as Manfred tried to pull himself together from the overload, eyes clenched shut and breathing hard.
Finally Manfred blew out a long breath and opened his eyes, still a little narrowed, to peer at Aldrich, who sketched a little wave with his fingers, then looked down at his hand as he let it drop to his knee. Manfred reached for it and held it. "I… love you," was all he could think of to say.
Aldrich squeezed his hand a little, and said, "I love you, too."
"You can't die this week. Stay with me. Let's be together. We'll figure it out."
Aldrich nodded, and lay down beside him, gathering Manfred into his arms. "Hey, this isn't supposed to work out this way. You're supposed to make love to me or something."
"Oh, demanding, demanding…" said Manfred, flipping him onto his back and climbing on top, pinning his upper arms. "Mm, good ice-breaker."
"Wasn't it?" Aldrich laughed, as Manfred's mouth closed on his.
oOo
Wolfram woke with Dietrich and Bertram on his arms in the dawn light, gradually becoming aware of an altercation on the other canoe. He rearranged his boys and peered over the side, to see Günter and Efram arguing. He nudged Brendan awake with a foot and jerked his head to indicate the cause. Brendan sighed. "Well, we needed to pull over, anyway." Regular family campers, Brendan and his wife Hilde were sticklers for boys not taking bio breaks in front of ladies, and asking the girls to relieve themselves off the side of a canoe just wouldn't work.
After they pulled the boats onto squishy land, Efram excused himself to head for a wooded hillock nearby. Wolfram tagged along. "What's up?"
Efram looked worried. "We're making awfully good time… How much distance do you think we covered last night?"
"Mm, more than we would have by horse. And this is a bad thing how?"
"We're headed east-northeast. Deeper into the Fens, yes, but… The Fens border Trondheim. Wolfram, I don't think we should go any farther this way. Günter noticed the same when the sun rose. We were arguing about turning back straightaway, maybe go back an hour and look for a portage to a water going some other direction. I said I'd look for one here. I'll try to call Garena, but…"
But Efram's not as sure as he was last night that he trusts Garena, realized Wolfram. And indeed, getting too close to Trondheim was insanity. Wolfram clasped his young brother's shoulder in reassurance that whatever there was to face, they'd face it together. As they squished along through the herbs, he briefly considered levelling with Brendan, and discarded the idea. When I have to, I will, he thought. But we're two parties with two agendas, travelling together as long as it works. We don't tell the other party our secrets.
When they were well hidden from the canoes, Efram played his flute again. While they waited, they scouted the edges of their slight elevation, looking for other waterways. They saw none. But suddenly, as they turned around, Garena was standing before them. Wolfram blinked. He'd seen little the night before. This morning he could see Garena's eyes, like looking in a mirror. Though still shorter than Wolfram, and sporting the same long braids, this morning Garena seemed over five feet tall, with a compact man's muscular build, much like Wolfram's own, and the famous von Bielenfeld looks. Except… this face had no fire passion behind it. His expression was like still water, not an emotion to be read on it, not a track on his face that emotions ever visited.
"Continue on the water," said Garena.
"Too far, Garena. We're too close to Trondheim," objected Efram. Though Wolfram had wondered, this confirmed it – this man was also Garena, somehow. "We stop here, probably pull back from here. Where is Tariel?"
Garena looked at the trees in unconcern, and paused a long moment before replying. "Here will do. You eat breakfast, and Tariel comes." And he turned and walked away. He passed behind a tree, and didn't emerge from the other side. Wolfram went to look – he was indeed nowhere to be seen.
"Fun trick, that," he commented. "They change shape, appear out of nowhere when you blow into a flute, disappear behind trees, and make no sense whatsoever."
"Yeah," sympathized Efram. "How Friedrich's father got beyond 'hello' with Tariel is hard to imagine. Though Tariel is better at talking to demons."
"I wanted children," came a different voice, huskier, behind them. They turned and met another child-shaped wood nymph, slightly under five feet tall. This one wore his hair loose, a golden mane a little longer than Wolfram's, with all the same cowlicks, making for a striking resemblance to Wolfram himself some years before. "I am Tariel. You are Wolfram. Let's return to your friends."
Though Wolfram was inclined to plant his feet and demand some answers, Tariel was already walking to the canoes, so he had to ask along the way. "Tariel, Garena said we would meet trolls today. Where? When? How many?"
"Here. Before noon. Part-trolls… maybe 15. Goblins, too. Some others."
Wolfram blinked. He hadn't expected that direct an answer. "And if we return that way?" he asked, pointing back the way they'd come.
Tariel shrugged. "You won't."
Wolfram started to argue, but Efram reasoned that if they couldn't go that way, Tariel couldn't know what would happen if they did.
"Efram is correct," said Tariel. "You don't go that way, so I don't know." Passing behind them a moment, Tariel had turned into a woman, though unlike Garena she didn't appear to have changed height. She was still under five feet tall, but with a firm and well-developed figure on a willowy frame. She was stunningly beautiful, writ small – she couldn't have weighed more than eighty pounds. Her shift, in a tan barely darker than her skin, gave the illusion of concealing nothing.
"Alright, then where is the safest place for us to meet them?" asked Wolfram.
"Wolfram, there are no choices before you now. Later there are choices and you make them well. You have no need of a fortune-teller," said Tariel, face as unruffled as Garena's had been.
"Will you help?" asked Wolfram.
"Yes, I help," said Tariel. "And Garena."
"Garena said you wouldn't work against the trolls," said Efram.
"Your language," replied Tariel. "We work against no one. We work for. Efram, Wolfram, you are young. If you ask a thousand wrong questions, a thousand right answers do you no good. If you want advice, enjoy the pretty morning."
And with that useless advice to contemplate, they continued in silence to the canoes. When they got there, Efram introduced Tariel around to everyone as a relative. The children liked her because she was such a very small grown-up. The men were initially struck speechless by her tiny beauty and resemblance to Wolfram. But soon the adults and Greta grew increasingly perturbed by how very odd her manner and responses were. But they prepared breakfast anyway.
"And this is Bertram," said Tariel, picking up the baby. Wolfram smiled – he loved it when people admired his darling boy. Günter asked him something and he turned to answer. When he turned back, Tariel was gone.
"Bertram? Bertram? BERTRAM?!" Wolfram grabbed his sword and threw Adelbert and Günter theirs. "Brendan, Annissina - stay here with the children," he yelled, and he and Günter and Adelbert headed at a run for the woods a few hundred yards away. Efram and Greta decided 'children' didn't mean them, and ran after Wolfram.
The wood was small – once they reached it, the five of them took only an hour to search the trees and find nothing. Wolfram was leaning on a tree panting, in anguish over Bertram, when Greta said softly, "Chichiue Wolfram…?"
He looked around in question, then his eyes followed her pointing arm.
It was before noon. There were about 15 part-trolls, plus goblins, and some others, just as Tariel had said, in her direct answer to the wrong question. The trolls surrounded Brendan's group. There was no fighting. Brendan surrendered.
oOo
Please review? Pretty please?