>>5290761>>5290651>>5290557>>5290554>>5290549“We are… Still mighty, as we have ever been,” you say.
Your eyes shift from this elven leader to your Translator. He meets them expectantly, waiting for your next words. You sigh. There’s really no point in lying to an ally, is there? The elves will learn of your circumstances soon enough.
“Maybe not AS mighty as we once were,” you admit. “The Dark Gods have preserved my people, but… The surface-dwellers and their Gods of Light have proved an obstacle and complication.”
You wait for this to translate through your companion, and then you see grim understanding on the Drow leader’s face. She nods.
“Betrayers,” she spits. “Oppressors. Fuckers of their on mothers and fathers.”
Her vociferousness—and the crudeness which the Translator attributes to this last phrase—surprises you from such a refined and elegant creature. You say so, drawing a small laugh from her. She hands you her chitin-encased drinking-bladder—a rather odd water-skin—and you sip of it… Then gag. The Drow leader laughs again, and says something.
“What did she say?” you ask the Translator, looking down at the strange, potent liquid.
“She said ‘bloodwine, for the strong, young warrior who flatters an old warrior like me.’”
The Translator is clearly none-too-impressed with the flirtation, but he says nothing to criticize you. It’s an accepted part of a Reptilian Infiltrator’s toolkit, after all… And while that is not YOUR role, the same can easily be said for a diplomat. You press on.
“Old? Impossible! You look as young as any elf here.”
You take another swig, force yourself to swallow the ‘bloodwine’. You think you taste earthy, fungal notes, and… Yes, that IS the tang of blood. What blood? Or… whose?
“I am almost at my hundred-and-fiftieth year,” she says.
“Ah,” you say.
Well, your people can live to two hundred as well, sometimes, especially among the upper castes, and also with limited senescence. Still, to her, you must seem like a veritable hatchling. Still, your flattery clearly warms her to you, and your instruction to your forces to ‘mingle’ helps build a wider cultural rapport and to put their leader at ease. It is such that as the evening goes on, the leader tells you of herself, and her people.
“Jazkarmel,” she says. “This is my name. But not QUEEN Jazkarmel!”
She laughs again at your question as to whether she is these elves’ preeminent ruler, the sound loud and clear, and she places elegant fingers on your chest to brace herself so she does not fall. You get the feeling that the bloodwine is doing a great deal of the loosening of her tongue on your behalf. You lack much of a constitution for alcohol—the same as the rest of your race—and even the small amount that you had has your head a little fuzzy, your stomach warm.
