>>5407978“Yesss?” you indulge him for a moment, since you DID call this meeting in part to keep him in-line and on-side.
“Why are you bothering with these elves?” he asks. “Like, with diplomacy and dressing up in that outfit with your hair in some girly bun and all… No offence.”
You cringe a little at this characterization. You’ve actually been quite enjoying having your accursed hair manageable and out-of-the-way. You also don’t quite understand the question.
“They are an allied race, ssoon to sserve the Dark Godsss,” you reply.
“But so are dwarves, sorta’, right?” he presses. “We just get stomped flat and enslaved. The dark elves get this whole song-and-dance.”
You tilt your head, and ask: “Jealousssy?”
He shakes his head, clarifying : “No. I just want to know your game. What are we REALLY here for? I know you don’t give two petrified shits about this lot, pardon my elvish. So… What is it, then? Why aren’t we just getting the army together to roll up on them?”
You recall your last discourse on a similar subject—this dwarf bard’s belief that Davora was a fool to trust you, to believe that you had compassion for her or for her race, or that you were even CAPABLE of such. Certainly, that is what led to her downfall…
But WAS she wrong? ARE you without compassion for the mammalian races?
Why ARE the dark elves different to the dwarves? Are they? And how to elucidate this point to your apprentice, so he can best understand your will, and the will of the Dark Gods?
>The harsh world below has forged their race as with yours, while the dwarves grew fat close to the surface; the outcast elves share something of your spirit, and to you their feel like kindred spirits>The Drow ARE no different from the dwarves, not really… But you have no ancestral enmity with them, specifically, and both their race and yours DO have enmity with surface races, so it is an alliance of convenience>The elves are strong, the Blackmantle dwarves were weak, and the strong subjugate or destroy the weak; that is all there is to it and if the Drow grow weak or you grow strong enough, the situation may well change>The Throat-singer is wrong—wrong about your feelings towards Davora, and about your feelings towards mammals in general, who you genuinely have come to believe can be shaped into worthy members of your empire and your faith, with the Drow simply further along in that process>Write-in 