Old Grudges

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"We will save her, sire!" Rothain shouted, fighting to make a path to the doorway for his king. It was proving harder than he thought. More people were coming in than going out. It was looking like it would be better to head toward the window and try for a jump. "Dahlia is alive. I must believe that." He whispered to himself. 

Marid shook his head, "Go haunt something, woman. I must work..." He disappeared back into the cave, now scowling down at the mirror image of his wife. "Your father is in the middle of a war between humans and dwarves. Shall we go and save him?" He asked Dahlia.

Marid waved the younger woman off, scowling at her. "Sure that the wood elf will hurt her? Of course." He snorted. "She already hates him. I can sense it."

"The djinni is still around." Road said daring to move closer to the king. "It attacked me. I believe that may be what happened to Gwen."

"You think that was why she sent I'm away?" Darla asked with a heavy sigh. "She sent him away because she's afraid. She lived her whole life being compared to Gwen, how can she love someone who loved her sister first?"

"What about Dahlia?" Abalas asked, at least making an effort to compose himself.

"You are so blind, woman. You always were. He was using the little blonde so that he wouldn't be tempted to take something he couldn't have." Marid snorted. "Dahlia was too young for him. The king would have had him killed. Smart boy. even for a wood elf."

"I think she invoked it." Rothain said softly. "But I think she did it to sacrifice herself. She knew there was no other way to get rid of it..."

"If that was even part way true, he should have said something to Dahlia! He should have made her feel wanted, not like an outcast!" Darla shot back.
Dahlia was watching Marid with wide eyes; she didn't know who it was he seemed to be talking to, but she also couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"You mean you just left her?!" Abalas hissed. "Ro, I won't let the last of my children sacrifice herself for anything, or for anyone!"

"You women are so needy. She did not wish for it. And he cannot possibly know what she wants since he is nothing but a wood elf. Besides she expresses no love or even liking for him. He did the wisest thing in order o stay alive." Marid muttered. "You above all should under stand that."

"I came to get you." Rothain whispered. "She will not listen to me. She never does."

"And she did the wisest thing in order to keep him alive." Darla shot back. "You have such low regard for the boy, why do you eve care?! It isn't like Dahlia is your daughter, right?"

"Dahlia listens to no one." abayas assured Rothain quietly. "She's too much like her mother, no matter how hard I tried to change that."

"Exactly." Marid hissed at his wife. "Why have a child with a monster when you could have one with a lovely elf? You are no better than your mother."

"I am not so sure about that." Rothain whispered softly. "I don't know her. I'm not sure I ever did."

Darla pursed her lips together as her violet eyes stared at Marid. "You think you are so wise. You see nothing." she whispered before she disappeared from the djinni's sight.

Abalas wished he knew what had happened. "She is young, she thinks she knows everything."

"What?" Marid scowled at Dahlia when he saw the way she was looking at him. "Do you have something to say to me?"

"Indeed." Ro whispered, his shoulders hunched. "I am the cause of all your family's pain and sorrows, majesty. Sometimes I wish you had never chosen me."

"Are you crazy?" Dahlia asked after some moments of staring at Marid with those same eyes as her mother. "Or is having a conversation with thin air perfectly normal for a monster?"

"Ro, you must believe me when I say that isn't true." Abalas breathed. "My troubles began the moment I let that Fae into my life."

"I was speaking to your mother. Are you so human that you cannot see any thing pas the end of your nose, foolish girl?" The djinni snapped.

"I wish I could argue with you." Rothain breathed. "Darla seemed to be setting us up for something..."

"I don't see dead people, only crazy monsters do." Dahlia replied rather defensively. 

"Darla is gone." Abalas reminded his friend firmly. "I made a mistake, and we all ended up paying for it."

"Ah-ha! The elf could not be your father! Even your idiot wood elf could see the ghost of your mother!" Marid cried, clapping his hands together. "more than that it's proof that your mother was unfaithful to me with more than just the winter king! There were human lovers too!"

Iris sighed softly wishing she didn't feel so lost in all this. She felt like she was missing a major part of the plot.

Dahlia felt even more pathetic than she had before. She belonged nowhere, and to no one. "I have my wish ready for you." she breathed as though Marid had divulged nothing at all. "Take me to Saul... I want to end the war, and then I want you to end me."

Abalas was weary, having not slept in some time. "Ro... This war isn't just going to go away. I need to take Iris somewhere safe, but I need you to make sure Dahlia stays far from harm."

"That's two wishes, girl." Marid said gruffly, though he was in no way surprised. "You realize both of these will end in unimaginable pain for you. And the elf...and your father, they are not my problem anymore. Think carefully before you finalize this..."
 
"You can trust me, sire. You have always been able to do that." Rothain said whistling for a horse. "I will take care of her. I have done that since I first laid eyes on her. I love her, Abalas. You know that." Ro admitted at last.

"As you have pointed out several times... I do not belong. I am an abomination." Dahlia breathed. "Everyone will be so much better if I am gone. Saul will get what he wants, and Rothain can finally follow his own desires and not some foolish obligation to his king to keep me safe."

"I know." Abalas breathed. "She loves you too, and that is why I know she will seek out the human boy. She will try and prove that she is strong by trying to end the war herself to keep you from harm."

"The wood elf will get himself killed for the king. Probably  more easily once you have given yourself so easily another." Marid  pointed out. 

"Gwen was a safer choice. I should have stuck with her." Ro whispered, not sure why he'd said it. "Now you have all suffered for my foolishness."

"You make it sound like this is something I want." Dahlia whispered. "Why should what I actually want come at the cost of war and the deaths of so many people on both sides?"

"Love should never be safe, boy." Abalas told the younger elf gently. "If it was safe, what would we really feel?"

"You could wish for the death of the human king. You wouldn't be the first. I am a dark entity, girl. death and destruction are what I'm good at. You've figured that out, I'm sure of it." Marid's tone was oddly gentle as he spoke to Dahlia. 

"I don't know any more." Ro confessed. "I'm starting to wonder if I should ever feel anything at all. I am a wood elf after all. Every thing about me is wrong."

"Don't you think there has been enough death already?" Dahlia asked sadly. "His death would affect an entire kingdom... Mine would not."

"Everything about Dahlia is wrong." Abalas pointed out. "She is of Fae blood, the last of her kind."

"You think I care about them?" Marid snorted. "I used to be human. It was a horrible weakness. They should die as well. And for the record, no. I do not think there has been enough death."

"You are about to pass out, sire. Let me take you somewhere..." Ro would get nothing more out before a golden arrow slammed into a tree beside his head. 
"None of you shall move. You are trespassing on the land of the sun elves." A dark voice growled.

"What happened to you?" Dahlia asked curiously. "How do you go from human... to djinni?"

Abalas groaned, making no effort to keep it even a little quiet. "Sun elves?" He scoffed. "You people own nothing! Worthless as immortals, even more pathetic as elves!"

"I was cursed for loving your mother. We were young and in love and her mother did not approve. I ignored her warnings and married Darla anyway. It was a move that would cost me. Her mother cursed me to this state. I was so angry about it I swore revenge and began killing off the Fae. When I have killed you I can be released from this hell and prehaps be with her again..."


"And ice elves are better?" Came a voice from above them. "Come now, Abalas. How can you say that when you are in possession of one my kind?"

Dahlia was staring at Marid with wide violet eyes, looking so much like her mother in that moment. "Then why haven't you just killed me? She asked bluntly as it all sank in. "Kill the last of the elf kings offspring and you can have everything you wanted."

"I possess no one, but if you refer to the lady Iris, she is a free soul." Abalas replied as coolly as would b expected of an ice elf.

"Because your mother doesn't want me to." Marid whispered. "Despite the fact that she left me for your father, I still love her. She was once my wife. I still listen to her occasionally."

"You lie." The other elf snorted. "You are selfish just like your daughter."

"My mother is dead." Dahlia told Marid coldly. "The dead have nothing to say, just as they have no desires."
Darla was sat nearby, watching her daughter with a sad gaze.

"I highly doubt you ever even met Gwen." Abalas shot back. "More lies from the mouth of a lazy sun worshipper."

"proof that you are a fae." the djinni snapped. "you,are blind and yet you think you know everything." He growled, waving several talons beneath her nose.

"I'm talking about the daughter you had with the Fae. You know which one I meant. We all do."

Too quick for anyone to see, Dahlia had slashed at Marid's clawed hand with her blade. "I think it is the world who is blind."

"The Fae are extinct, everyone knows that, you fool." Abalas sneered, protecting Dahlia's secret as always.

"You are lucky I still have a tiny remnant of love for your mother. Otherwise I'd have already feasted on your bones and sorrow. You are a child conceived of her grief and fear of what I had become. You are worthless and I hate you."

"If you say so." The sun elf jumped down from his perch, his bow trained on Rothain. "the only one you are fooling, king Abalas, is yourself. We have all heard the stories." Ro flashed his blade, his eyes narrowed.  "Orin, son of the sun elf king, you had better not be acting on your own. Take us to him. Now."

"You say that like it makes you special." Dahlia sneered. "I never fooled myself into thinking I was worth anything at all. And you don't love my mother, if you did you would never have let her die. You are just as worthless as I am. No one loves you, not even Her."
It broke Darla's heart to hear her daughter talk this way. She was the heir to a great Kingdom, and never even knew it. 

"Stories, nothing more." Abayas shrugged. "Only a sun elf is child enough to believe things even the humans know to be firelight tales to amuse younglings."