>>5719295>>5719358>>5719427>>5719462>>5719544You might not be quite the altruist that Ekaterine is, but you DO see her point. These aren’t your people, true… But that comes with a caveat. They aren’t your people YET. Even if you were raised to view humans as inherently your enemy, you have changed and grown since then. You have human ancestors, and the male who is arguably your closest companion is half-human. You have a human wife, and in her womb gestates the demigod who—by your pact with the great Mother of Dragons, will one day rule Hawksong. In your lifetime, or in that of your child, these WILL BE your people, a part of your Dark Alliance!
“You are right, of courssse,” you tell your queen-wife, and she smiles brightly.
(Besides, if you bring them with you, you can make them Prince Rufos’ problem, and further destabilize the so-called ‘shining city’ of man. It’s win-win!)
You descend from the mountains and, with the aid of the Thief and Archer, you spread the word: Princess Ekaterine and her new husband, the noble and heroic eastern exorcist Long Wang, are here to help! You have put a stop to the dragons’ predations—no need to specify exactly HOW—and you offer sanctuary from the harshness of winter and the claws and teeth of beasts big and small… behind the walls of Hawksong!
Most of the humans greet this news with credulous joy. Some, broken by the loss and anguish, fall into the humanitarian congregation you have established with rather less enthusiasm. A few stalwart holdouts, to your surprise, refuse altogether.
“I won’t abandon my land,” one gruff old male asserts. “This farm’s been in my family for generations.”
He gestures to the earth, where it has been churned up recently. The shovel is still planted in the hard earth. It must have taken great strength and dedication to break through the cold crust of winter-hardened soil, but his motivation—to do this, and to stay here—soon becomes plain.
“My wife and children are there now. Put ‘em there this last week. My mother and father, and my grandmam and granddad, all of ‘em are buried around here. My life’s here, ‘til it’s done. There’s nothing in that city for me.”
