>>5421012It is a difficult thing for you to answer this line of inquiry, fully and truthfully.
“The NOVICE Fleshweaver who serves me is… Not, by any means, regarded as the pinnacle of her profession,” you begin. “However, yes… She is exceptional at her role. I would not replace her with another.”
It is true: you have had opportunities to seek out a replacement, but why would you? If she is technically a novice, the Chaplain’s Daughter is nevertheless a very capable healer, potionmaster, and EXCEPTIONAL in her experimental manipulations of hybridized blood.
“Unlike the stereotype of her sex, at least among MY race, she ruthless and cunning.”
It is the Novice’s willingness to subvert even your OWN society’s politics, to aid and abet you as you undermine conventions enforced by her own highly-placed father, that make her such a good fit for your retinue, in fact. Who else would have reacted to your alliance with a darkly-designed bug-woman by helping you to smuggle her into your expedition, or to your impregnation of her with already-Degenerate seed by infusing sacred dragonblood into the offspring? She values results, and the opportunity to try new and unusual technique in the advancement of her craft, more than convention and the pursuit of social status… Not at all the impression you had of her when you were both young, nor at all typical of a female of her birth.
“I don’t know that I would say I value females as much as males, in general,” you admit, “but I value the Novice Fleshweaver a great deal more than most of either sex, within her field.”
“It is strange,” the Elf Queen muses. “Among elves, it is said elf-maids are the MORE cunning and ruthless… That we are physically the lesser, perhaps, but undeniably the more dangerous. Those who feel a male should rule often say ‘a female’s blood-minded ambition is not suitable to stability, for she is as the she-spider.’ They feel we always hunger, always plot.”
“Well, that DOES sound something like the Novice,” you admit, with a small rattle of laughter at the mental image of her reaction, were she to hear you say so.
“It is a shame you did not bring this lizardwoman, who you speak so highly of,” the Queen says. “Where is she?”
“She is performing her role,” you say, “with her usual excellence.”
The Queen nods, and turns her gaze from you at last. You sense something approaching approval, and feel that curious pressure release your three-chambered heart.
