>>5696523>>5696539>>5696544>>5696573>>5696655>>5696656You think for a moment to how to proceed. There’s no need to panic—not as long as the young female is alive—but you DO have a decision to make. Do you reveal your son (albeit maybe not that he IS your son) and have him apologize, and make amends? Or play it off somehow? How much has the girl understood of what she’s seen and heard? You spoke the True Speech, and Natvodosk was using the Drow Sign Language to communicate, but she still saw you interacting peaceably with this ‘monster’…
Then again, she IS a four-year-old, scarcely more than a hatchling… or suckling, or whatever the mammalian equivalent is.
‘Here is my plan,’ you sign to you son.
You slowly and methodically making the hand-gestures which form the dark elves’ silent speech t make sure the message is properly conveyed. In truth, you are less-adept at this than your spawn, who are juveniles and alien-minded, but have the benefit of youthful intellectual vigor and a Drow tutor. Nat watches you keenly, head tilting in a mirror of your own natural gesture of confusion and interest as you explain the plan.
‘I am monster?’ he asks.
‘You must play the part,’ you answer, and then append: ‘I am not angry. It is just a game.’
Natvodosk chirps and trills, trialing off into the happy hum of his mother’s race.
‘A game with Father!’
You find your heart curiously warmed at this excitement, despite the… Unfortunate circumstances. It’s time to play your part in the pantomime, though, and so you draw your moon-blade. You hold the single-edged elven blade aloft, letting it absorb some of the energies of the heavenly body above and hold the full attention of the captive girl, and shift languages to one she’ll understand:
“With all the magickss of my dissstant land, in the name of the sstarsss and the moon, and what lurkss Beyond, BEGONE, foul beassst!”
Natvodosk chirrups cheerfully (a tone you’re familiar with, but you hope that ‘Chestnut’ will interpret as fear) and hops back. Intuitng the nature of your ‘game’, he shrinks away, scampers in a circle, even rolls over as if toppled by some unseen force as you advance.
Drawn by the noise, the girl’s father—and mother, and eldest sister-burst into the barn behind you, wielding axe, butcher’s knife, and pitchfork. You respect their tenacity and their drive to protect their offspring… But even their familial courage is shaken when they catch a glimpse of a great, dragon-faced and bat-winged insect-thing, four arms raised and toothy maw agape.
“What in all the Hells…” Cliff gasps, hesitating.
“Leave thiss placce, and do not return,” you command in stentorian baritone, before the situation can escalate further, “or in the name of the moon, I’LL PUNISH YOU!”
