“Sokomaur Sambress?” Orenda asked, “That’s an earth elf name. I’ve seen it before.”

“That makes sense,” Gareth picked up his empty glass, “Because she’s an earth elf. Refill this for me, darling, I need to take the edge off.”

Orenda opened the bottle and poured the glass about half full.

“That can’t possibly be true,” She said, “That… the world doesn’t work that way. An earth elf can’t give birth to a fire elf.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Gareth said, “I grew up thinking that, thought it my whole life. But then I watched her push you out of her vagina, and I looked at you, and I thought, ‘this baby looks like a fire elf’. But I didn’t like to dwell on it, at the time, because I’ll be honest with you, Orenda, I was just so concerned with everything else going on. I saw how badly she was bleeding, that I couldn’t cauterize it, that Bella had absolutely nothing she could do, and most of my thoughts were more along the lines of, ‘Oh fuck, she’s dying! She’s going to die! I have to find Ronnie!’ and also, I will admit, ‘I told that bitch she was pregnant!’.”

He threw back the entire glass in one drink and slammed it on the table.

Orenda was more disappointed than she could put into words. She had expected real answers, and a real future, but Gareth was a madman, an old man who had lost his mind from what seemed to be a lifetime of hardship. It was so unlikely that anything she was hearing was true that it was impossible to believe any of it. It was more likely that she would never know what had actually happened, where she had actually come from, or who her real parents were.

Gareth was probably only right about one thing- that he had earned this madness, and he was entitled to it. She knew how easy it was to convince yourself of things that weren’t true, that it was as easy to be a princess as it was to be the son of a high priest, if you were more used to high priests than queens. Gareth probably had lived in the kingdom of the fire elves before it fell, and he may have even had a brother that he was mourning. But he was a sad, crazy old man, who had lost everything, including pieces of himself, and his mind matched his body.

Her anger dissipated a little at the sorrow she felt for him.

“How long have you been alone, Gary?” She asked, “As a fire elf? Are there more of us?”

“There have to be,” he said, “There absolutely have to be. I’ve not seen them, but they must exist, mustn’t they? One man can’t wipe an entire race off the face of the planet, not even one as strong as the Emerald Knight. I’ve seen him twice, Orenda. Not just when he killed dad, but when he killed Ronnie.”

“Gareth,” Orenda said softly, “Sit down. You’re pacing. Sit down and tell a story, all at once, from beginning to end.”

“I… I can try to do that,” he said, and pulled out a chair.

Sokomaur Sambress, at the time Gareth knew her, had two lovers. One was Garon Firefist, a man who had grown up on the sea- that was a story in itself- but he had a major chip on his shoulder. When the Emerald Knight had killed their father, Gareth had had to pull him away, to run, to force him to escape. Garon would have fought. He was ten years old, and he would have fought that invading army, would have stood up to the Emerald Knight himself. The Emerald Knight had told them to run, and Gareth had the good sense to know that they were running from something. Garon had believed they were running toward something.

Her other lover was a human man named Xaxac Brigaddon. His history was too complex to go into, but Gareth remembered him fondly. When he had met Xac and spent the most time with him, he was in the middle of what Garon called ‘a bender’. Garon had gone on to say that Xac had every right to it, that he deserved it, that he was ‘working through some stuff’ and Gareth should ‘let him do what he wanted’. Gareth was not agreeable to those terms, because Xac, in his drunken haze, often mistook Gareth for Garon, and letting him do what he wanted was going to entail some things that Gareth was just absolutely not comfortable with. He had had to shove him away and tell him of his mistake more than once.

But he liked him. He had liked him then, before his hair and eyes were silver, when he was full of stories and life and the kind of righteous anger that was infectious. Xac had the same kind of energy as Ronnie, and, in fact, his personality meshed so well that Gareth could see why they were together. He was happy for them. Xac didn’t come out of that bender until a lack of supplies forced him to, and by then there was so little time for them to spend together that he didn’t really get to know him until after everything happened.

He wasn’t with them on the return journey from the frozen north. Ronnie and Soko said that he had been spirited away by Lapus, that there was more to Lapus than either of them knew.

But this isn’t really a story about Soko, or Ronnie, or Xac. This is a story about Orenda.

Soko would not admit that Orenda existed; she had an explanation for everything. She was gaining weight because she was stress eating over Garon’s delusion. She was ill because she had developed seasickness, as some people do later in life. She was having mood swings because she was mourning the loss of her siblings, and the disappearance of her lover. But she was absolutely not pregnant, as Garon insisted, because that made no sense. She had only lain with two men in the timeframe that would result in such a pregnancy, and neither of them could have impregnated her. If she had been pregnant, the child would have to be either half-human or half-fire-elven, and those were not real things that existed in the real world.

Sokomaur was a warrior and a strategist, she was a leader who had organized an underground rebellion, who had saved lives and sewn seeds, who had met with demons and cults to achieve her goals. She was an intelligent woman, who knew the ways of the world. And she knew that a pregnancy, for her, was impossible.

Nevertheless, Gareth, while not a doctor or leader or soldier or anything really, knew what a pregnancy was when he looked at one. Garon knew this as well as he did, and it was Ronnie who said he would not allow his child to be born into a world structured as it was, with the Emerald Knight terrorizing the planet, with Xandra shrinking the globe to fit inside her empire. He was going to destroy the Emerald Knight.

Garon tried to take the sacred staff. It rejected him.

But he had a plan.

Well, Soko had a plan.

Xaxac was an expert in the art of textiles; he often knit, and had a particular quirk that he had learned during his time as a slave. He had been a pleasure slave for years before he was a cage fighter, and like all shifters, he had spent his life in two forms. Xaxac was a lapin- a wererabbit. This, to most people, may be the least threatening animal form to take, in a world with werewolves and weretigers, but Xaxac did not originally come from a world of fighting. Xac had grown up a pleasure slave, in a world where things were soft, comfortable, alluring, and seductive. Xac had grown up in a world where cute little bunnies were prized for their big eyes, adorable faces- and soft fur.

Angora was expensive at the best of times, but when Xac shifted, he was covered in it. He had learned to collect the hair and spin it, then to knit with it. He wore clothes made of his own hair for most of his life, and made garments from it to give to his friends.

Gareth paused here, and stood.

“Wait, I’ll show you!” he said, and walked through a door that led deeper into the ship, not back out into the hall. Orenda saw that it opened into a bedroom with a large, canopied bed, but did not follow him. She heard him banging around in trunks or somesuch, and a few minutes later he came back out holding what seemed to be a very thin sweater. It was the color of the silver moon, and shimmered in the lamplight.

“Touch it!” He said, and she did.

“It’s so soft,” Orenda said, because it was. She had never owned anything made of angora, but she had read of it, and did know what it was.

“It’s made of sterilite,” Gareth said, “I wear it, and the pants, whenever I’m going somewhere I think may be dangerous.”

“It can’t be made of sterilite,” Orenda said, “Sterilite is made of metal.”

“It’s a long story,” Gareth said, “One that I’d have to tell second hand. But when Xac came back from the Crystal City in the frozen north, there was sterilite flowing through his veins, and it came out in his hair. It really does repel magic, or nullify it, or something- it makes magic useless. I can’t even scry Xac. He’s invisible to mages.”

It was as beautiful as it was soft, and it really existed. Orenda looked at the shimmering, soft fibers that twisted together to become thread, and wondered how much of the story was actually true. She may have been wrong about Gareth.

Whatever the Emerald Knight was, he was magic. The armor moved as if alive, and though both Gareth and Garon believed there was a person under that spell, it was obvious that it was probably the greatest mage on Xren.

But even a great mage can do nothing against sterilite. Garon did not have a sacred weapon, but he had an entire suit of clothing that would repel magic, he had the blood of the high priestess in his veins, and the heart of a father who was protecting his child. He was going to kill the Emerald Knight.

Sokomaur was going to draw him out with her presence. She was well known as a deserter to the Urillian army, and she could easily proclaim that she was the leader of the Knights of Order, and using her skill could easily fight off any normal elven soldiers the empress threw at her. Gareth did not know if he believed her in this regard, because when she proclaimed these facts to be true, she was already showing, and he suspected that by the time they made it to the capital she would be so pregnant that standing would be an obstacle, let alone fighting off hordes of imperial guards. But when he brought up his objections, it led to a terrible fight. Garon didn’t like the plan either, because Soko was pregnant, and should stay safe on the ship while the pirates and the Knights who had been hiding in the area drew out the Emerald Knight. But Soko insisted she was not pregnant, given the obvious impossibility, and correctly pointed out that she was the military strategist, Garon was just the vessel through which the will of Thesis flowed. Soko really believed that she would probably have to deliver the killing blow herself.

The armor, the knitted sterilite, was a breakthrough, Gareth couldn’t deny that. But he had never believed it would be enough. He had, at first, refused to take them to the capital, but Garon had, correctly, insisted that the ship was as much his as it was Gary’s, and made it clear that they were going with or without him. Still, during all the months at sea, Gareth tried, every day, to change his mind. He knew they weren’t ready. He knew they were putting Soko and the child in danger.

But Gareth was the evil twin. Ronnie was the one Thesis had chosen, and Soko was the smart one. They knew things, they could see things, and Gareth was just the lazy piece-of-shit who was mooching off his brother.

Their plan worked. They had approached the capital, gotten inside the gate, and the servant uprising had began. Many of the guards fell quickly, because to them, it had come out of nowhere, but they were not so easy to dispatch, and soon the streets were filled with the sounds of battle. They would have to fight through the waves to draw the attention of the Emerald Knight.

“Gary!” Ronnie said, “I’m going toward the castle! I’m taking on the Emerald Knight! Stay with Soko. Make sure nothing happens to her! Keep her safe, her and the baby.”

“What?” Gary asked, “But that’s not the plan! Ronnie we went over this! We went over and over this! That isn’t the plan! We’re supposed to stay together! We’re supposed to fight together!”

“We can’t risk losing her,” He snarled, “She shouldn’t even be here! She wouldn’t listen to me!”

“None of us should be here!” Gareth screamed, “We’re all going to die tonight! I’ve told you for months this is an awful plan! We should have found Xac first! We should have found Lapus!”

“I don’t have time to argue this with you!” Garon was already running, “Don’t let her follow me!”

“Soko?”

Gareth heard Bella’s voice through the chaos, and shoved his way through the fighting, not attacking, just running, weaving through the crowd. The medallion on his chest heated, then ignited, and people gave him a wide breath as he became hot to the touch and they figured it out.

“I’m fine!” Soko argued, and she seemed to be, because she stood at the front of her people, and had just pulled her sword from the slit in the helmet of a Urillian soldier. But Gareth thought she was very much not fine, from the way she screamed, and from the shimmering red liquid that covered her from the thighs down.

“Soko, please don’t be mad,” Bella said as she lifted her bodily and took off in the opposite direction, away from the thick of the fighting. Gareth turned and ran after them, following the sound of Soko’s cursing.

He was more familiar with Bella’s magical signature than Soko’s, and followed her, running as fast as he could, but unable to keep up. He eventually found them in a building that must have once been a home goods merchant, but the shop had to have been abandoned when the fighting began.

“Soko, when did it start?” Bella asked, as angry as the situation warranted.

“What’s going on?” Gareth locked the door and began to pile furniture in front of it.

“I need to be on the front lines!” Soko tried to shove her out of her way, but a bolt of pain must have shot through her, because she grabbed onto the counter and bent double, clutching just below her belly button, “Oh god, it burns!”

“Soko, when did the contractions start?!” Bella insisted.

“I’m not having contractions!” Soko snapped, “I’m not pregnant!”

“We have to get your tights off,” Bella said, “They’re covered in blood!”

“I have to get back out there-” her sentence devolved into screaming.

“Soko, please,” Gareth begged. He took her by the arms and stared into her eyes, “For Ronnie, please. Look at me. Look into my eyes. When did the pain start?”

She stared into his golden eyes, still leaning heavily on the counter, hair matted to her forehead, tights, boots, and the hem of her tunic covered in blood.

“It was… it was before the meeting. Way before. It’s been about eight hours.” She admitted.

“Soko, what the actual fuck!?” Bella asked.

“I’m not pregnant!” Sokomaur insisted, “I know you think I’ve gone mad, but this isn’t-”

Bella ripped her tights at the seam of one side and jerked them away, then the other. She screamed before she caught herself.

“Something’s wrong!”

“I told you!” Soko snapped, “I’m not pregnant! It’s something else! I know what pregnancy is! Your hips come apart, your cervix dilates, everything is horrible, but it isn’t on fire! I don’t know what this is! But it isn’t a baby!”

“Oh, shit,” Gary said, “We gotta… fuck how do… how does this work, I… I’m not… we need a healer! We have to get you back to the ship!”

“We’re not going anywhere!” Bella said, “This baby is- I mean, it’s… it’s here!”

“There is no baby!” Soko insisted.

“Soko, I see it!” Bella argued, “Or… something! I see something!”

Soko looked into Gareth’s eyes. He had never seen anyone in more pain, with more fear. The only image he could conjure up was his father, the way he looked at them, right before the Emerald Knight cut him in half.

“Ronnie,” she said, and he knew she knew better, but did not correct her, “Ronnie, I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying, Soko,” he promised, “We’ll get through this!”

“It burns!” She shrieked, and grabbed him so hard it knocked him to his knees.

As the battle raged outside, Gareth clutched the baby to his chest. He had grabbed a blanket at random from one of the shelves, purple and meant for nobility, judging by the price tag, and tried to wipe her down, but he had no water, and she was covered in blood and goo.

“Gary, we have to go,” Bella said.

“But we can’t,” he said, and let his eyes drift back to Soko, to the blood that had pooled around her, to the burns she was covered with, “We can’t just… just leave her here.”

“We have to think of the baby,” Bella said, and fluffed out the sheet she had found, folded on a shelf. She draped it over Soko’s body. “I don’t like it either, but we have to think of the baby.”

“The baby’s asleep,” Gareth argued.

“You know what I mean,” Bella insisted.

“Bell, look at her,” Gary begged, “She’ll clean up nicely, won’t she? She looks a bit like my mother, I think. We should call her Orenda, after my mother. She loved Ronnie so much it…”

“Ronnie wanted to call her ‘Bruanna’,” Bella reminded him. “Soko did too. She said if she ever did have a daughter, she would name her ‘Bruanna’.”

“Ronnie can call her what he likes,” Gareth said, “I’m calling her Orenda.”

“Well, we need to get Orenda to the ship and away from the danger,” Bella said.

“But Soko needs to be healed!” Gareth insisted.

“Soko is dead, Gary,” Bella said matter-of-factly, because it was true. “She should have told us, she should have done-”

“She didn’t believe it,” Gareth said, “People can… people can make themselves believe almost anything. Even after all this, even after everything, Ronnie still believes in mom’s god. Because a world with Thesis is better than one without him. Maybe for Soko, a world without a baby is better than one with one. Maybe she knew… maybe she knew she was going to die tonight, and this was her last big hurrah.”

“She wasn’t stupid,” Bella said as if it confused her, “So… that must be it. She had to know. I wonder how long it… she kept screaming that it burned. Do you think it’s been burning inside her?”

“I’ve never seen it happen before,” Gareth said, “I didn’t… I didn’t know it could. We were always taught we couldn’t… you had to… you couldn’t, with two two different elements. You just couldn’t make children.”

“Gary, we have to go now!” Bella pulled him up, “Look!”

Gareth looked where she was pointing and saw Garon running towards the docks, followed closely by Falsie.

“Ronnie!” Gareth said, “We have to tell him about Orenda!”

“Bruanna!” Bella corrected, drew her wand, took a deep breath, stood to the side of the furniture Gareth had stacked, and blew it all away. “Go, Gary!”

Gareth burst through the door and ran after his brother.

“Ronnie!” he called, but Garon was too far ahead of him, and as Gareth ran following him through the gated wall, past farmhouses and down a steep incline he had to stop and secure himself. The hill was too steep, and he was afraid he would fall, that he could hurt the baby, but he had to hurry, because what he saw at the docks put the fear of god in his heart.

The Emerald Knight towered over them by a head, towered over the Urillians by a head and shoulders. He glowed in the night, brighter than any torch, brighter than any fire spell, glowed with a green light that would have rivaled the sun. Garon was running toward him, like a fool!

“Ronnie!” Gareth screamed, and took off down the hill.

Falsie had made the smart move, and was running for the ship, and Gareth made note of this, but he didn’t hear what he said, didn’t hear Bella calling to him, trying to get him to move in the right direction. All Gareth could think is that if he caught up to Garon, if he showed him the baby, if Ronnie knew that he had something to live for, he could stop him before he did something stupid, and they could sail away together, and it would be like they had never joined the Knights. They could live, together, again, like they were supposed to. They were a matched set, and they were supposed to be together, and if Garon realized that he would stop having delusions of grandeur, stop thinking of himself as some sort of fairytale prince who was going to defeat the bad guy and save the day. They could be safe, they could be alive, and Sokomaur’s death could mean something.

“Ronnie!” He screamed, but Garon was already there, already before the Emerald Knight.

“Emerald Knight!” Garon screamed, and Gareth moved as fast as his legs could carry him. “I am Garon Firefist, son of Orenda and Shiron Firefist! I am a Knight of Order! You killed my parents! You destroyed my home! I have come to challenge you to Right by Combat!”

The Knight turned his attention to Garon, and took great strides across the battlefield. He looked a lightning flash. He seemed so bright. Gareth was nearly blinded by the sheen. It was as if he wasn’t real, as if a ghost were passing, every inch in green.

“Ronnie!” Gareth screamed, and the Knight turned to look at him. The blood froze in his veins.

But it was over in an instant, and the Knight was in front of Garon.

Ronnie threw up a fire shield, and he was every bit the mage he claimed to be. As that sword, too beautiful for combat, borne of a metal Gareth would not have recognized, had he not been wearing it under his clothes in the form of soft, fluffy rabbit fur, met that shield, the living armor under it burned away. Garon was strong enough to hurt the armor, strong enough to hurt the Emerald Knight!

Under that armor, as it burned, Gareth caught the glimpse of a hand, a normal hand. The light tinted everything green, but Gareth was sure the skin was light, like a Urillian, like an earth elf. There was a person under that armor.

The sterilite sword met Garon’s throat, and in one motion went through it.

Gareth watched as his head flew from his shoulders with the force of the blow, and went rolling towards the sea.

The fire went out.

The Knight did not pause to watch Garon’s body fall, and he was upon Gareth in an instant. Gareth threw up his free hand out of instinct, but did not have time to think. He didn’t cast, he didn’t run, he didn’t move, and he barely felt it as the sword cut into his flesh. It severed the hand he had thrown up at an angle, and as it carved into the flesh of his face, Gareth let out of a shriek of pain- but there were words there, instinctual words, begging not for his own life, but for the only thing that really mattered to him.

“Please!” he screamed, “I have a baby!”

The sword paused where it was, slicing open his face, and Orenda, as if on cue, began to cry.

The Emerald Knight withdrew quickly, staggered, took a step back, and threw one hand over his heart, over the light that glowed there. He seemed like a person coming to his senses, and Gareth watched him as the helmet fell, as if he was looking at the baby in his arms, and for the second time in his life, he heard the Emerald Knight speak.

“Run,” The Emerald Knight said again.

Gareth did.