>>5411396Having recently resolved to follow your heart even to tenderness, you find that it now goes out to those who suffer in this society… Just as, you suppose, it did to those such as Olu in your own, or to trusted lieutenants back in the Bloodrise, like the Thief and the Bastard—their titles tell the tale of their ostracism. Though you yourself have been privileged in many ways, you remember well a childhood of ambivalent acceptance, where abuse but more conventional elites (such as the Novice Fleshweaver) was a commonplace occurrence.
“Before we visit House Yvonlace, I would meet with the people of Wevenore.”
Jazkarmel looks at you strangely, replying: “House Yvonlace is entirely composed of people.”
You realzie that the dark elven tongue uses the same word for ‘people’ in a populist sense as their generic word for ‘elves’, and try again.
“The commoners, the… The basic and poor elves, I mean.”
Jazkarmel’s expression changes subtly, to surprise then a smug smirk of understanding.
“You wish to still hold yourself apart, Copper King? I understand.”
You worry she will take offence, but instead she claps her hands softly together, and two of the largest and most overtly-masculine of her mixed-gender retinue attend to you. Elves are notoriously androgynous creatures by mammalian standards, with none of the obvious chest-and-hip dimorphism which usually sets them apart, nor the tells of scent, throat, and colouration which delineate the sexes in the Master Race, but you feel comfortable assuming these two are ‘elf-men’ and not ‘elf-maids’, or any of the odder subsets and half-genders which the Drow seem to accept as natural.
“These two will attend to you, as guards.”
You shake your head, and gesture to the cadre of loyalist Drow which you brought as part of your own retinue. They have been spending much of their time with the other dark elves—Jazkarmel’s dark elves. This is because they ARE of Jazkarmel’s forces, her subordinates from her military encampment. However, they are converts as well: true followers of the Dark Gods Below and Beyond, turned away from the atheism characteristic of these elven outcasts, forsaken by their ancestral deities. Jazkarmel is as well, but in this place you truly see how divided her loyalties are, and how much they lean towards her flesh-and-blood noble house in lieu of your fresh and foreign dogma.
“I have my own guides,” you counter.
