"MAEVE?!" Loki bellowed, his voice echoing down the hall, rousing Menelik from his sleep. The first words out of Menelik's mouth were predictable.
"Don't tell me I just heard someone get excited about Maeve again." Menelik dragged himself down the hall and into the room where the others were gathered, conversing with Loki. His gaze immediately fell on Loki's chest. "Your nipples are pierced."
Loki raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "My dick is too."
His words instantly snapped Menelik out of his groggy haze, his Panther face contorting into a look of vile disgust. "Why would...why would you say that?"
Loki shrugged, his cheeks flushing slightly as he turned to Menelik, playfully rubbing his shoulders against himself and fluttering his eyes. "I don’t know," he replied in a small, timid voice. "You were checking me out, so I thought I’d spare you the surprise."
"WHAT THE FUUUUCK?!" A collective exclamation echoed from the others as Loki burst into laughter.
He shook his head, still chuckling, before abruptly adopting a deadpan expression. "It's a joke. I don't want to fuck you."
The tension in the room thickened into an uncomfortable silence as Menelik took his own seat. The only sound was the quiet chewing of food, filling the room for what felt like an unbearably long moment. Throughout, Loki maintained an annoying smile, exchanging it with each of them. He had crossed his ankles, and his knees bobbed together in anxiousness until finally, he spoke up. "So, what's Maeve want with the Dwarves?"
Menelik, Taharqa, and Idris each began telling Loki about everything that had been unfolding, taking turns between finishing their servings of food. They informed him about Maeve's need for another Void Cloak, her desire to have the rapier returned, Idris's unfortunate loss of said rapier, and Maeve's request for the Dwarves to assist in rebuilding Sidra, which elicited a hearty laugh from Loki.
"She thinks the Dwarves will just come to her beck and call. I know she’s popular around here, but Dwarves are Dwarves," Loki remarked. "She’s almost as arrogant as her husband."
Menelik choked on his food, his head snapping to Loki. "What do you know about Zero?"
As Loki turned his head to Menelik, he threw up a sinister smile. "Mmmm." Loki groaned, maintaining his evil smile as he sang without opening his mouth, "I’m sensing some tension." He gave himself a slight giggle, then swung his head to Taharqa. You. You’re telling me that you let them come all the way here, knowing the Dwarves haven’t left their castle in a century? You know better than that." Leaning forward, he looked to Idris and added, "And then there’s you, big boy. What are you doing here after all these years?"
Menelik and Loki exchanged a look before Menelik turned to Idris. "What’s he mean?"
"What do you mean, ‘what’s he mean’?" Taharqa interjected. "Idris is part Dark Elf."
Menelik’s head whipped around to Idris, his eyes widening. "What do you mean, first you got wings, and now you're trying to tell me—actually, Loki is trying to tell me—that you're a Dark Elf Gargoyle?"
Idris's hands rose from his plate as he shook his head, unsure of what to say. It wasn’t like he was truly hiding it for no good reason; it just was something he never thought he would have to come to terms with. He never planned to step foot on Ayce, but here he was.
Idris took in and let out a defeated sigh. "You know the wings were new to me too. As for my Dark Elf heritage, I planned to take it to the grave," he admitted, turning his head to Taharqa. "Because I’m not actually proud of it."
Idris wasn’t proud of his Dark Elf lineage solely because of what happened to his grandmother. She had been outcast by her tribe when she expressed her desire to explore the world, just as their ancestors did before settling down on Ayce. She wanted to see the architectural wonders the Sand Elves had created, to witness the conjurations of the Forest Elves with their extensive connection to the Spirit of Nature. She yearned to meet new people, to embark on adventures—an outlook that doesn’t align with the Oligarchy of the Dark Elves.
"What do you mean you’re not proud of it?" Taharqa asked.
"The way your people treated my grandmother, cast her out just because she thought just a tiny bit different. Yeah, not a fan," Idris replied, intending to turn his head back to Loki when Taharqa’s words grabbed hold of him and pulled him back.
"They’re your people too."
Idris shook his head. "Family doesn’t end in blood…" He gestured to Menelik. "So why do you think it has to start there?"
Taharqa didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t want to push further. If Idris wanted to tell him what happened to his grandmother, he would. He simply nodded and began eating more of his food.
"So what did they do to your grand momma?" Menelik exclaimed. "You said they cast her out. Was she out there being funky or what?"
Taharqa held the piece of sliced meat just before his mouth, frozen in place as he stared at Menelik.
"What?" Menelik said to Taharqa. "I wanna know?"
"I told you, she thought differently. She wanted to be an Adventurer, but the crown didn’t think that should be what a Princess should be thinking about. They thought she should be considering what would happen if her sister were to succumb to illness and she would have to take her place as a certain someone’s father’s new Queen."
Menelik turned his attention to Taharqa. "Wait, wait, wait. Your mother had a sister?"
Taharqa shook his head. "No."
Idris turned his head to Taharqa, his expression disgruntled. "Shut the fuck up."
"Huh?" Taharqa’s expression completely changed, and before he could muster a response, Idris continued.
"Just shut up, you have no idea what you’re fucking talking about. You have this very skewed and misguided representation of what happened. You said no, well guess what, she existed, she still does. She had my mother, who had me. So if she ain’t real, then how am I here?"
Again, Taharqa struggled for words, and again, Idris filled in the silence.
"You want everyone to get along and be friends and have this big group of fun, but you do this by just completely ignoring the shit that caused the rift in the first place." Idris pushed himself away from the table. "I’m gonna take a walk before I punch him in the face." He tightened his gear and pulled the mask over his mouth, heading toward the door, leaving Loki, Menelik, and Taharqa in a still silence.
It lingered for a bit longer before Loki stood up himself. "WELL…" He snapped his fingers, and everything on the table began to melt into ice and snow, even the food attached to Menelik’s fork and the fork itself. "...while he’s doing his little walk, why don’t we talk about The Old King." He gestured toward the left where the wall had started to melt and refold itself into a larger room with a firepit in the middle that rippled blue and white flames. "The couch should be formed shortly; take a seat there."
When they sat down, again, it wasn’t cold, nor did it feel like ice they were sitting on; it was almost soft to the touch and rather comfortable. Loki took a moment to take his seat, seeming to look for something, though they weren’t sure what he was looking at. Everywhere he looked was just more of the small rounded hut; the little hall where they had come from their beds had disappeared and was nothing more than a snowy wall. They watched as Loki moved toward where the table once sat and knelt down, sticking his hand into the snow. As he did, the snow melted away from his arm, and when he pulled his hand from the little hole, the snow filled itself back in like nothing was even there.
In his hand, he held a book, a rather thin one. It had a red cover with what looked like scribbles across the front in place of a title, and the spine looked to have been rebound with a completely different material. He tossed the book to Menelik. "Open it."
As soon as Menelik went to open the book, it flipped open to the middle of its pages, displaying a blank page just for a moment before The Old King began to be inked into the page on the right side, and the left began to fill itself in with what soon turned out to be a description of said King.
"The Old King is a Dragon Ranked Dungeon Master who broke free of his Dungeon sometime within the last eight months and has claimed Nazzaroth as his Kingdom. But since he cannot break through the magic-enhanced barrier, he has been patrolling the outskirts, keeping any and all away from his Kingdom, Dark Elf, Frost Giant, and Yeti alike. The Old King possesses a spell known as One Million Cuts that does not kill you but will block all of your mana channels with no known cure," Menelik read aloud.
He looked up from the pages at Loki, who was holding the same sinister smile from earlier. "This says we can’t use our mana if we get hit by his sword?"
"It does," Loki replied.
"But we can, or at least Taharqa can, since we didn’t freeze to death?"
"You didn’t freeze to death because of me," Loki replied. "Why do you think I wrapped you in those Yeti gowns, for looks?" He turned his attention to the door. "Your friend is alive right now because of the clothes, but if he gets involved in anything out there, he will have to rely on skill only."
"Well, you don’t have to worry about that," Menelik boasted as he closed the book. "My boy has that handled."
"You all speak in such funny ways, it intrigues me," Loki stated. "But I must say, keep the book, give it to the Dwarves. They’ll know what to do with it." Loki nodded to the two of them, and as he did, he and the entire little hut disappeared into fallen snow with a poof, dropping Menelik and Taharqa onto the ground.
"He seems nice," Taharqa stated after a moment of silence.
Menelik held up the book then pulled himself up. "Let’s just go find Idris."
"I think we should wait here," Taharqa replied. "We don’t even know what direction he went."
Menelik began sniffing the air. "I’ll find him; you stay here."
"Menelik, will you just stop for five minutes," Taharqa called out. "Will you just wait and stop trying to be the leader of it all, the center of attention who will save the day because like it or not, that’s usually never you."
Menelik turned his attention back around and began shaking his head in anger. "You’re just all kinds of talkative today, aren't you? Taharqa, you ain’t worth shit without either of us, and you know it. If you wanna proceed with this, we can, but I’m gonna say some shit that I may or may not mean, and your fragile ass won’t be able to handle it. Look, I’m sorry you feel like you have to pick sides and shit all the time, but you gotta stop, be your own damn person for a change." Menelik began to walk off when Idris came into view through the snowstorm, and behind him were two Dark Elves, each with bows drawn. They were in similar attire to those who came through on the Frost Bears, but they didn’t look like they were on some grand expedition; they looked more like guards. Maybe it was the tighter knit of their attire or the fact their Yeti fur had been dyed white. Their eyes lingered through their masks as they aimed their bows at Menelik and Taharqa.
"State your business," one of them boasted. "Why are you near da bordah?" Their accents held an alluring presence, drawing you in, making you wonder if there was magic at play behind their words.
"You have no right to be here," the other said, aiming their bow directly at Idris. The roll of the R caught Taharqa’s attention.
"Malamo?" Taharqa asked, causing the second Elf to lower their bow, then signaled the other to lower theirs.
"Who wants to know?" They nodded at Taharqa.
"An old friend," Taharqa stepped forward and looked directly at the Dark Elf. "I can’t take my mask off, but it’s me, Taharqa."
Both Dark Elves raised their bows again and aimed them at Taharqa. "If you are Taharqa, rightful King of Nazzaroth, why can you not lowah your mask?"
Those words cut right through Taharqa, ‘rightful King’, not Prince, ‘rightful King’. This caused him to stumble on his words.
"Speak now!" Both of the Elves shook their bows.
"We got hit…" Both bows were now aimed at Idris. He let out a sigh before continuing. "We were hit by The Old King, same reason why you and all those other Dark Elves we saw earlier were wearing Yeti fur gowns like us. None of you or us have mana." Idris stated.
The Dark Elves waited a moment longer before lowering their bows, then turning to Taharqa, they both got down on their knees and placed their heads into the snow in a bow.
"Apologies, we did not see the error of our ways soonah. We are at your beck and call, King Taharqa."
"MAEVE?!" Loki bellowed, his voice echoing down the hall, rousing Menelik from his sleep. The first words out of Menelik's mouth were predictable.
"Don't tell me I just heard someone get excited about Maeve again." Menelik dragged himself down the hall and into the room where the others were gathered, conversing with Loki. His gaze immediately fell on Loki's chest. "Your nipples are pierced."
Loki raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "My dick is too."
His words instantly snapped Menelik out of his groggy haze, his Panther face contorting into a look of vile disgust. "Why would...why would you say that?"
Loki shrugged, his cheeks flushing slightly as he turned to Menelik, playfully rubbing his shoulders against himself and fluttering his eyes. "I don’t know," he replied in a small, timid voice. "You were checking me out, so I thought I’d spare you the surprise."
"WHAT THE FUUUUCK?!" A collective exclamation echoed from the others as Loki burst into laughter.
He shook his head, still chuckling, before abruptly adopting a deadpan expression. "It's a joke. I don't want to fuck you."
The tension in the room thickened into an uncomfortable silence as Menelik took his own seat. The only sound was the quiet chewing of food, filling the room for what felt like an unbearably long moment. Throughout, Loki maintained an annoying smile, exchanging it with each of them. He had crossed his ankles, and his knees bobbed together in anxiousness until finally, he spoke up. "So, what's Maeve want with the Dwarves?"
Menelik, Taharqa, and Idris each began telling Loki about everything that had been unfolding, taking turns between finishing their servings of food. They informed him about Maeve's need for another Void Cloak, her desire to have the rapier returned, Idris's unfortunate loss of said rapier, and Maeve's request for the Dwarves to assist in rebuilding Sidra, which elicited a hearty laugh from Loki.
"She thinks the Dwarves will just come to her beck and call. I know she’s popular around here, but Dwarves are Dwarves," Loki remarked. "She’s almost as arrogant as her husband."
Menelik choked on his food, his head snapping to Loki. "What do you know about Zero?"
As Loki turned his head to Menelik, he threw up a sinister smile. "Mmmm." Loki groaned, maintaining his evil smile as he sang without opening his mouth, "I’m sensing some tension." He gave himself a slight giggle, then swung his head to Taharqa. You. You’re telling me that you let them come all the way here, knowing the Dwarves haven’t left their castle in a century? You know better than that." Leaning forward, he looked to Idris and added, "And then there’s you, big boy. What are you doing here after all these years?"
Menelik and Loki exchanged a look before Menelik turned to Idris. "What’s he mean?"
"What do you mean, ‘what’s he mean’?" Taharqa interjected. "Idris is part Dark Elf."
Menelik’s head whipped around to Idris, his eyes widening. "What do you mean, first you got wings, and now you're trying to tell me—actually, Loki is trying to tell me—that you're a Dark Elf Gargoyle?"
Idris's hands rose from his plate as he shook his head, unsure of what to say. It wasn’t like he was truly hiding it for no good reason; it just was something he never thought he would have to come to terms with. He never planned to step foot on Ayce, but here he was.
Idris took in and let out a defeated sigh. "You know the wings were new to me too. As for my Dark Elf heritage, I planned to take it to the grave," he admitted, turning his head to Taharqa. "Because I’m not actually proud of it."
Idris wasn’t proud of his Dark Elf lineage solely because of what happened to his grandmother. She had been outcast by her tribe when she expressed her desire to explore the world, just as their ancestors did before settling down on Ayce. She wanted to see the architectural wonders the Sand Elves had created, to witness the conjurations of the Forest Elves with their extensive connection to the Spirit of Nature. She yearned to meet new people, to embark on adventures—an outlook that doesn’t align with the Oligarchy of the Dark Elves.
"What do you mean you’re not proud of it?" Taharqa asked.
"The way your people treated my grandmother, cast her out just because she thought just a tiny bit different. Yeah, not a fan," Idris replied, intending to turn his head back to Loki when Taharqa’s words grabbed hold of him and pulled him back.
"They’re your people too."
Idris shook his head. "Family doesn’t end in blood…" He gestured to Menelik. "So why do you think it has to start there?"
Taharqa didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t want to push further. If Idris wanted to tell him what happened to his grandmother, he would. He simply nodded and began eating more of his food.
"So what did they do to your grand momma?" Menelik exclaimed. "You said they cast her out. Was she out there being funky or what?"
Taharqa held the piece of sliced meat just before his mouth, frozen in place as he stared at Menelik.
"What?" Menelik said to Taharqa. "I wanna know?"
"I told you, she thought differently. She wanted to be an Adventurer, but the crown didn’t think that should be what a Princess should be thinking about. They thought she should be considering what would happen if her sister were to succumb to illness and she would have to take her place as a certain someone’s father’s new Queen."
Menelik turned his attention to Taharqa. "Wait, wait, wait. Your mother had a sister?"
Taharqa shook his head. "No."
Idris turned his head to Taharqa, his expression disgruntled. "Shut the fuck up."
"Huh?" Taharqa’s expression completely changed, and before he could muster a response, Idris continued.
"Just shut up, you have no idea what you’re fucking talking about. You have this very skewed and misguided representation of what happened. You said no, well guess what, she existed, she still does. She had my mother, who had me. So if she ain’t real, then how am I here?"
Again, Taharqa struggled for words, and again, Idris filled in the silence.
"You want everyone to get along and be friends and have this big group of fun, but you do this by just completely ignoring the shit that caused the rift in the first place." Idris pushed himself away from the table. "I’m gonna take a walk before I punch him in the face." He tightened his gear and pulled the mask over his mouth, heading toward the door, leaving Loki, Menelik, and Taharqa in a still silence.
It lingered for a bit longer before Loki stood up himself. "WELL…" He snapped his fingers, and everything on the table began to melt into ice and snow, even the food attached to Menelik’s fork and the fork itself. "...while he’s doing his little walk, why don’t we talk about The Old King." He gestured toward the left where the wall had started to melt and refold itself into a larger room with a firepit in the middle that rippled blue and white flames. "The couch should be formed shortly; take a seat there."
When they sat down, again, it wasn’t cold, nor did it feel like ice they were sitting on; it was almost soft to the touch and rather comfortable. Loki took a moment to take his seat, seeming to look for something, though they weren’t sure what he was looking at. Everywhere he looked was just more of the small rounded hut; the little hall where they had come from their beds had disappeared and was nothing more than a snowy wall. They watched as Loki moved toward where the table once sat and knelt down, sticking his hand into the snow. As he did, the snow melted away from his arm, and when he pulled his hand from the little hole, the snow filled itself back in like nothing was even there.
In his hand, he held a book, a rather thin one. It had a red cover with what looked like scribbles across the front in place of a title, and the spine looked to have been rebound with a completely different material. He tossed the book to Menelik. "Open it."
As soon as Menelik went to open the book, it flipped open to the middle of its pages, displaying a blank page just for a moment before The Old King began to be inked into the page on the right side, and the left began to fill itself in with what soon turned out to be a description of said King.
"The Old King is a Dragon Ranked Dungeon Master who broke free of his Dungeon sometime within the last eight months and has claimed Nazzaroth as his Kingdom. But since he cannot break through the magic-enhanced barrier, he has been patrolling the outskirts, keeping any and all away from his Kingdom, Dark Elf, Frost Giant, and Yeti alike. The Old King possesses a spell known as One Million Cuts that does not kill you but will block all of your mana channels with no known cure," Menelik read aloud.
He looked up from the pages at Loki, who was holding the same sinister smile from earlier. "This says we can’t use our mana if we get hit by his sword?"
"It does," Loki replied.
"But we can, or at least Taharqa can, since we didn’t freeze to death?"
"You didn’t freeze to death because of me," Loki replied. "Why do you think I wrapped you in those Yeti gowns, for looks?" He turned his attention to the door. "Your friend is alive right now because of the clothes, but if he gets involved in anything out there, he will have to rely on skill only."
"Well, you don’t have to worry about that," Menelik boasted as he closed the book. "My boy has that handled."
"You all speak in such funny ways, it intrigues me," Loki stated. "But I must say, keep the book, give it to the Dwarves. They’ll know what to do with it." Loki nodded to the two of them, and as he did, he and the entire little hut disappeared into fallen snow with a poof, dropping Menelik and Taharqa onto the ground.
"He seems nice," Taharqa stated after a moment of silence.
Menelik held up the book then pulled himself up. "Let’s just go find Idris."
"I think we should wait here," Taharqa replied. "We don’t even know what direction he went."
Menelik began sniffing the air. "I’ll find him; you stay here."
"Menelik, will you just stop for five minutes," Taharqa called out. "Will you just wait and stop trying to be the leader of it all, the center of attention who will save the day because like it or not, that’s usually never you."
Menelik turned his attention back around and began shaking his head in anger. "You’re just all kinds of talkative today, aren't you? Taharqa, you ain’t worth shit without either of us, and you know it. If you wanna proceed with this, we can, but I’m gonna say some shit that I may or may not mean, and your fragile ass won’t be able to handle it. Look, I’m sorry you feel like you have to pick sides and shit all the time, but you gotta stop, be your own damn person for a change." Menelik began to walk off when Idris came into view through the snowstorm, and behind him were two Dark Elves, each with bows drawn. They were in similar attire to those who came through on the Frost Bears, but they didn’t look like they were on some grand expedition; they looked more like guards. Maybe it was the tighter knit of their attire or the fact their Yeti fur had been dyed white. Their eyes lingered through their masks as they aimed their bows at Menelik and Taharqa.
"State your business," one of them boasted. "Why are you near da bordah?" Their accents held an alluring presence, drawing you in, making you wonder if there was magic at play behind their words.
"You have no right to be here," the other said, aiming their bow directly at Idris. The roll of the R caught Taharqa’s attention.
"Malamo?" Taharqa asked, causing the second Elf to lower their bow, then signaled the other to lower theirs.
"Who wants to know?" They nodded at Taharqa.
"An old friend," Taharqa stepped forward and looked directly at the Dark Elf. "I can’t take my mask off, but it’s me, Taharqa."
Both Dark Elves raised their bows again and aimed them at Taharqa. "If you are Taharqa, rightful King of Nazzaroth, why can you not lowah your mask?"
Those words cut right through Taharqa, ‘rightful King’, not Prince, ‘rightful King’. This caused him to stumble on his words.
"Speak now!" Both of the Elves shook their bows.
"We got hit…" Both bows were now aimed at Idris. He let out a sigh before continuing. "We were hit by The Old King, same reason why you and all those other Dark Elves we saw earlier were wearing Yeti fur gowns like us. None of you or us have mana." Idris stated.
The Dark Elves waited a moment longer before lowering their bows, then turning to Taharqa, they both got down on their knees and placed their heads into the snow in a bow.
"Apologies, we did not see the error of our ways soonah. We are at your beck and call, King Taharqa."
