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The blonde woman speaks. She has a delicate, kind manner about her that would make me remorseful to kill her.
“We mean you no harm. We know you walk a righteous path.”
I chuckle cynically at first before my laugh becomes heartier. I think I see one of the orcs crack a smile, and it infuriates me.
“After everything I’ve done to your kind, I kind of doubt it.”
The child walks forward. He wears a mischievous smile, and as he approaches, I clutch Arie even tighter, planting my feet firmly on the ground. I stare down at him with a fiery gaze and a scowl, challenging him to get closer despite knowing he poses no threat.
“Thank you for what you did back there,” he says. “It took a lot of heart.”
I feel a smile cross my face unwillingly.
He returns to the group, and for a moment, nobody says anything at all.
Then the raven-haired woman in the back stands up, turning around. Her hair is done up in a bun, her flesh as white as porcelain. But more apparently, both of her eyes are gouged out, her lips dry from the desert heat.
“Take care of her,” she says. “She’ll need you in the coming trials.”
I puzzle over them, trying to make sense of why these individuals might band together, despite the apparent hatred their races have for each other.
But before I can interrogate them further, they walk away from me, headed in the opposite direction. The sounds of their footprints grow faint with the desert wind.
I sigh quietly, turning back toward my cavern.
“Lunatics roam everywhere, I suppose.”
And sparing no more time, I carry Arie back up to the cavern.
I should have killed them where they stood. They were encroaching on my territory.
What stayed my hand?
The thought runs through my mind over the coming weeks, as I nurse Arie back to health. The extent of her injuries isn’t immediately apparent to me, and for the first several days, she mostly rests. She says very little, and almost none of it makes any sense. Though as I hold her through her slumber, I can tell she’s at peace.
Occasionally, I see caravans encroaching on my territory, but I dare not leave my cavern. When Arie is healed, I will enact swift vengeance upon every intruder, but until then, I refuse to leave her side.
I often ponder how I came to ally myself with this realm I had always hated. The worlds of the mortals were strange and pitiful to me before she stumbled into my presence. I thought they were small insects, meant to be crushed – beings whose existences were always inconveniences to me. I wonder if any of them are different like Arie, or if she’s right in showing mercy to them.
But thankfully with time, she does come to her senses.
One morning, she jolts awake, and at first, I think she might not remember where she is.
Then her eyes fall upon mine, and she smiles.
“You saved me again,” she says.
I nod.
“Do you remember what we discussed when I saved you from the camp?”
She thinks for a moment.
“It’s all pretty hazy,” she replies. “Did it involve a meal?”
I look upon her in puzzled frustration.
“No, I –”
