Old Grudges

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"You, elf." A gruff sounding human man was seated in a tavern in the human village of Earlestown. It had once been a bustling market place, a meeting place for merchants and scholars. But now... It was lucky if a handful of hunters passed through on their way elsewhere. The people here lived close to the neighbouring kingdom that boasted that is was the seat of all civilisation, Elven, of course. The exact border was somewhat of a foggy issue, meaning battles often broke out over ownership of land. Elves passed through, most of them simply wishing to look down upon what they considered the uncivilised and rather boring humans, before returning to their own cities of silver.
"Elf?" The dark haired female asked, spitting that one word back at the man who had called it to her as she walked past his table. "You do not address the other women here as 'human', so not call me by my race either." She added rather haughtily.
"Well la-di-da! Ain't you just lady of the manor!" The man sneered, banging his glass down on the creaking wooden table. "Your kind aren't welcome here! You never will be! Get your knife ears back to your own side of the border!" 
The elven woman sighed heavily and with silent and sudden movements, she was in front of the human, her ornate elven dagger slammed into the chair all too close to his privates. "Do not test me, human. I have no humour for your kind this evening."

Each formal word cut into Abalas like a blade, though he simply nodded his head. "I am aware of that, your highness. I simply came to feed him. It is something I insist on doing myself."

"Ah, so you like a woman who is well endowed?" Dahlia laughed, more thankful than she could tell Saul that he had managed to make her laugh. "All breasts and no brain?"

"As you wish." Iris said, stepping back from his horse and putting the brushes away. It was an awkward silence and it was something she wasn't used to with him. She busied herself with gathering his tack and armor, sitting down to polish the saddle.

"Both would be nice but I'm not that lucky." Saul chuckled. "I have to take what I can get I suppose. Most often that's milkmaids with nothing but bounce and tumble." He teased.

"I may not be returning." Abalas remarked after some moments of unbundling some hay for his horse. "If that happens... If something happens... You should return to your brother. I don't think it would be safe for you here."

"You've had a lot of women then?" Dahlia asked curiously.

"No." the answer was so quickly spoken it surprised her. She'd never spoken to anyone that way before. She had been bred to respond in a way that would please the speaker. But For once that wasn't what she wanted to do. "I'm going with you. If you chose to leave me behind, I will follow on foot."

Saul shrugged. "Women will do just about anything to spend a night with the king." He said softly. "I'm lonely I guess. Company is often hard to come by for me."

Abalas sighed heavily and rested his head against the neck of his large horse. "Iris... War is coming." He warned. "I don't want you to be a part of it."

"That creature in the lake... It told me I was a Queen, not a princess. The last of my kind." Dahlia murmured. "There are many elves, I just don't know what it meant." She confessed. "I guess what I'm saying is... I've been a princess my whole life, and no one wanted anything to do with me."

"it isn't my war. I doubt anyone would know or care that I was trying to fight it." Iris whispered, dropping her head to continue her work on the saddle. "You're probably right. I am useless no matter where I go."

"So...perhaps it meant that my offer of marriage was still open and you are meant to come back with me to be queen?" Saul asked, hoping to make her smile again.

"You are not useless, Iris." Abalas growled, suddenly seeming angry. "But you seem to go out of your way to make everyone think you are!"

Dahlia gave a quiet snort of laughter and shook her head. "You have many milkmaids you could make your Queen."

"Don't raise your voice to me, your majesty!" Iris shouted back, her small finger gripping the saddle tightly. "After the fool you've made of me, you have no right!" 

"Turned down again?" Saul whined playfully. "How shall I ever recover?"

"Fool?!" Abalas roared. "You have played me from the moment you met me!" He insisted.

"The lake is rather cold." Dahlia suggested with a wry smile. "You could always bathe, your majesty."

"And how is that, your grace? What have I ever done to make you feel like less than the king you are?" Iris shouted, now on her feet. Her hands were clenched in fists at her sides and she was all but shaking. "You made the decision to bring me along! If it was wrong it is your fault!"

"I'm not burning for you if that's what you're getting at." Saul chuckled. "I don't need an icy bath. It would ruin what you think of me after all."

"And overtime I try to get you to simply open up to me, you shoot me down!" abayas hissed. "I just want to know you, Iris! But you resist my every effort to get to know you!"

Dahlia smiled sweetly and shook her head as she handed Saul's cloak back to him. "I merely meant that humans perspire considerably more than elves do, and the smell becomes rather pungent after a day of riding in the forest."

"Like you are truly suffering, oh great king!" Iris didn't know why, but throwing hay at him made her feel better. "I turn you down and you dally with some elven woman in the barn!" she kept doing it, watching the strands stick to his hair and rain down between them. "Damn you!"

"I'm not doing it." Saul said, realizing the moment between them had passed. He took the cloak and returned to his spot at the fire. "Perhaps tomorrow. Maybe not."

"What?" That last comment had thrown the king off. "What woman? You were the only woman I saw since we got here!"

Dahlia shrugged and returned to staring into the dying embers of the camp fire. Every now and then she would glance back at the lake, like she felt those crimson eye were still watching.

"Don't you lie to me!" Iris couldn't believe she was getting so worked up. This was completely out of character for her. She never allowed herself this kind of emotion. "The flaxen haired elf you claimed because you said I was too frigid!" Another handful of hay had the kings horse nudging him aside to try and catch it. To an outsider this would have been comical.

"You're not thinking of going in again, are you?" Saul asked, his voice sounding almost far off. "The night is getting colder, little one."

"Flaxen? Woman, there are no elves here with hair like that!" Abalas insisted as he attempted to dodge the hay being tossed at him.

"I'm fine." Dahlia muttered, though she rubbed at her bare arms. "I don't need a human to protect me."

It didn't help that the horse was nipping at him now as well. "I may be be scarred and ugly but I am not blind and deaf! I saw her and she told me what you did!" Iris was still tossing the hay, needing something to do with her hands. 

"The offer is still open for the wishes." Saul said as he turned on his side and began to snore again.

"I have never thought you ugly, you silly woman!" Abalas roared. "But go ahead, take the word of this woman only you have ever seen!"

Dahlia's head snapped round so quick she nearly gave herself whiplash. Violet eyes stared at Saul's back as she tried to assure herself she had probably just misheard him.

Iris was done throwing hay, much to the dismay of the king's horse. She simply sat down on bale of it, fighting to regain her composure. "I am keeping you from your task." She finally managed. "Forgive me." 

"Well?" Saul leaned over Dahlia as the dawn sun began to rise through the trees. His wet hair dripped water in her face as he shook her. "Are you going to sleep all morning?"

"See! You're doing it again!" Abalas growled in frustration, kicking over the water trough. "Tell me the truth, Iris! Tell me what you want!"

Dahlia groaned loudly, and tried to grab for something to pull up over her face and save her from the sunlight, and whatever was dripping on her. "Yes!" She declared.

"I don't want anything." Iris whispered, the elven woman's words reminding her of her place. She didn't deserve such a man. Let alone a king. He was not for her. Never mind the fact that he already belonged to another and he still loved yet another. 

"Fine then. You will lay there while I take what I want and your father's fate is not my problem." Saul purred, his fingers now resting on her rib cage. Knowing she was about to give him what for, he threw off the covers and began to tickle her mercilessly.

Abalas was at a loss. He didn't have any more words to try and convince Iris that she was the one he wanted. "When we get back to the palace, my son will have his men arrest us. Is that what you want for yourself? Locking away before possibly being executed?"

Dahlia let out a sudden shriek as she squirmed beneath Saul's rough fingers. "Stoppit!" She gasped, certain she couldn't breathe.

"Are you really going to let him do that without a fight?" Iris asked, finally lifting her head to look at Abalas again. "I can't imagine you allowing it." She got to her feet and knelt to pick up the water trough, laughing softly when the horse nibbled at the hay in her hair. 

"Oh all right." Saul laughed. "Perhaps I will for a kiss." He went on, still tickling her.

"I may not have a choice, girl." abayas sighed. "He controls my entire army, I am but one man. Being King does not help me in this matter."

Dahlia continued to squirm, though her violet eyes had fluttered open and were now looking up at the human king with the dripping golden hair. "Just a kiss?" She questioned him.

Iris didn't answer him, his words reminding her once again where she stood in the whole scheme of things. "I'll get in the way, won't I?" She said softly, finding a bucket and heading for the door. It wasn't really a question. She knew she would. She spent much of her time being under foot. Even the dwarf had told her as much. The horse followed her as she went, still picking hay from her hair. 

"We need to go." Saul's face suddenly changed and he got to his feet, lifting her to hers. He was no longer smiling. "Your things are dry and I need my shirt." He turned away, pulling his wet hair into its binding. "Breakfast is waiting on the fire."

Iris would hear Abalas roar a string of obscenities in Elvish, though it was quite clear what he was angry about.

Dahlia's own icy wall came back up and she jerked the shirt off, wadding it up and tossing it at the back of Saul's head. Like her father in that moment, Dahlia was uttering choice words in her native tongue as she retrieved her own clothing.

Iris marched back into the barn moments later and dumped the bucket of water onto Abalas. She was glaring at him as she did it, her chest heaving. She wasn't sure what it was about him that brought out these emotions in her but a secret part of her truly loved it. "Watch your mouth." She hissed at him, grabbing the front of his shirt and pressing her lips to his. She didn't seem to care that no one had ever dared to treat the king this way. 

"I hate elvish." Saul muttered as he picked up his shirt, clearly deciding whether to wear it under his armor or not. "It's worse than troll." He went on, finally yanking the fabric over his head. He instantly wished he hadn't. His senses were assaulted with her scent. It was wild fall, a threat of winter that had yet to arrive.

Abalas felt his pulse race the moment Iris treated him like this. It was something he hadn't experienced since Darla. She had always challenged him, king or no. The king's hands were soon resting upon Iris' slender hips and he was turning to press her against the stable wall. She tested so sweet, like sugar dipped cherries.

"The human language is primitive and coarse. It has no lilt, no melody or feeling!" Dahlia spat, blissfully unaware that her scent had had any kind of effect on Saul.

Iris knew she'd pushed him too far this time and for some reason she didn't care. For the first time she didn't care that his long fingers were brushing her horribly scarred legs as he pushed up her dress and wrapped them around his waist. It suddenly didn't matter when he was yanking her dress over her head and pressing desperate kisses everywhere his lips could find to do so. And it certainly didn't matter as he pushed himself inside her and breathed her name. 

"Huh?" Saul was shaking his head, wishing he could get the thoughts of a coming frost out of his mind. "T-troll dung." He said at last, finally able to force his eyes open. "Holy shit...There's troll dung by that tree..."

Abalas buried his face into Iris' sweet smelling hair when the sensation she evoked in him almost became too much. He was breathing her name again, terrified he had just taken something she hadn't been willing to give him.

Dahlia glanced to where Saul pointed, and a second later her bow was in her fingers, an arrow resting on the taut string. "Now would be a good time to get to your horse, your majesty." She hissed as she scanned the tree line.

Iris clung to Abalas when it was over, trying hard to catch her breath. She was seated in his lap by then, the two of them covered in bits of hay. She turned her head to look into his eyes, terrified of what she was going to find there. In the end she couldn't do it and instead kept her gaze locked on the dress that lay a few feet away. 

"I hate trolls almost as much as I hate elves." Saul muttered, yanking out his sword. "And don't try to one up me on this. I can fight them. I don't care how big that pile of shit looks."