#rorveth
I toooootally didn’t forget that today was Wednesday! But it’s STILL Weds for another 2 hours where I am, which means you get a snip! I started rereading (Im)Perfect Strangers today so have a snip from the Don’t Cry for Me, Temeria ‘verse.
“Mr. Zoltan,” Boussy tugged on the dwarf’s clothing one evening in the public dining hall. Roche was busy bullying Fenn into letting Imadia look at his broken wrist, because the idiot kept trying to useit, but he saw the way everyone in the area turned at least partial attention towards the boy. It was, after all, less common for Boussy to initiate conversations, especially in public.
“What can I do for you, Wee Lad?” Zoltan asked, smiling behind his bushy beard.
“How come dwarves hate elves?” Boussy asked innocently, probably unaware of the immediate tension that spread across the room. There were the dwarves within hearing distance, of course – Zoltan, Yarpen, and Skalen, most notably – but there were alsoseveral elves, because Iorveth had followed Imadia and Rinn was sitting next to Anais. In other words, this could end badly.
“Ah,” Zoltan coughed. “Well, the easiest answer is because elves hate dwarves.”
“They do?” Boussy tilted his head.
“Magda said,” Anais interrupted loudly, “that it’s cause elves were like humans before humans were here.”
Thatcertainly didn’t go over well with the elves present, though Zoltan nodded.
“She’s not wrong, though I wouldn’t, uh, use those words, exactly.”
“What does that mean?” Boussy asked, frowning down at his hands.
“Well, uh…” Zoltan cleared his throat, glancing around quickly to search for either support or an escape.
Roche would love to help, but honestly, he knew nothing about the history between elves and dwarves. And he was kind of curious, though very on edge. There were an awful lot of people around who might have personalopinions about that history, and that tended to get messy.
Skalen Burdon, the alderman’s nephew, ducked his head, pointedly not making eye contact with Zoltan, but Yarpen Zigrin seemed to take pity on him.
“Elves were the conquerors of the continent before humans came along and did it better,” Yarpen said bluntly, and Roche winced, practically able to feelthe offense coming from Iorveth.
“Excuse you,” Iorveth’s voice was snippy. “We spread culture across the continent.”
“Yeah, by conquering people,” Yarpen glared at him. “Bah, are you even old enough to remember?”
Now Roche was the one frowning. Wasn’t Iorveth like… really old?
“Not many are,” Imadia said gravely, somehow spreading a sense of calm. “The times Yarpen speaks of started long before the Conjunction of the Spheres. And yes,” she held up a hand in Iorveth’s face, “you aretoo young. When you were born, elves already ruled the continent, though not without conflict.”
Zoltan snorted, “that’s one way to put it. Elves tried – and failed– to conquer Mahakam.”
“Wait, really?” Thirteen blurted out, blinking in surprise. “But like – even Foltest didn’t reallyconquer Mahakam. And everyone said he was mad to even try!”
“No, he didn’t.” Yarpen and Zoltan both looked smug.
Roche decidedly kept his mouth shut. There was no need to remind people that he’d been part of that campaign.
“Plenty o’ other places they didsucceed in conquering, though. Just look at Loc Muinne!”
Iorveth stiffened. The matter of the extinction of the Vrans was a complicated one, and Iorveth had personal connections to Loc Muinne’s history. It was probably best to move on from this quickly.
“So what about dwarves?” Roche asked.
“What about us?” Zoltan asked, eyeing Iorveth in a way that meant he too was aware of why Roche was changing the subject.
“Well, humans came and conquered. Elves came and conquered. Did dwarves ever? Or uh, other species before the Conjunction?”
“Not really,” Zoltan shrugged. “Not to say that there weren’t some who tried – I’ve no doubt every species has at least some of those. But as a species, we dwarves live in the mountains, which many other species find… inhospitable. Not all of them, though! Dwarves and gnomes have always gotten along well enough.”
“Wait, but welive in a mountain,” Anais pouted.
“Ah, but remember,” Pillow Tits smiled kindly at her, “humans can’t live without sunlight. So we can live in mountains, but we need to return to the surface fairly regularly or our health will start to decay.”
“But dwarves don’t?” Boussy asked.
Zoltan shook his head. “Not really. I mean, there are effects on vision if you don’t experience sunlight fairly regularly. But I think maybe that came later – that we adjusted to sunlight later, and that’s why we can lose that, if we stay under the mountains for too long. Sunlight hurts if you’ve been out of it for too long.”
“Hmm, that’s an interesting theory,” Imadia tapped her finger against her chin and Iorveth rolled his eye. “Dwarves came from stone, yes? I’ve heard some say that you’re eternal like stone as well, but – well, I think that was more poetic than accurate.”
“Mmm, sort of,” Skalen grunted. “I dunno anything about the pre-Conjunction stuff, but when dwarves die, we return to the stone. You can visit our catacombs here, in fact. They’re quite something, I must say.”
“Full of wraiths,” Geralt grumbled under his breath. “Every fucking body had a wraith, pretty much.”
Roche blinked. What had Geralt been doing with the bodies in the Vergen Catacombs and why?
Fic Summary:
Before, Vernon Roche’s special forces were funded by the crown. But since Temeria has fallen and only a scarce few still cared about saving her, Roche was forced to find other avenues of funding.
Really, being Temeria’s whore was nothing new, but some Johns made it much more unpleasant than others.
Chapter Summary:
Iorveth hadn’t intended to walk in on anybody. But the moment he recognized Vernon…
New rorveth fic!
Summary:
Before, Vernon Roche’s special forces were funded by the crown. But since Temeria has fallen and only a scarce few still cared about saving her, Roche was forced to find other avenues of funding.
Really, being Temeria’s whore was nothing new, but some Johns made it much more unpleasant than others.
