Chapter Text
A scout runs lightly forward in the night, weaving through the slopes of his village. He slows at the leader’s tent, but continues past when he sees that there is no light or air stirring it. “Of all the times,” he mutters between breaths, “Her and her damn fixation with-“ but by now he had crossed to the midwife’s tent and flung open the flap to a grisly sight.
Marwyn the Nurturer, elfhame leader, midwife, and a little busy right now, spares him the briefest of glances. “It can wait.” She turns back to her work, talking and caressing through the mother’s cries.
Few things could possibly be more important than Marwyn’s life’s work, but unfortunately the situation at hand was such a thing. The scout starts to run back, head filling with stories and excuses to stall the foreign leader invading their camp. The one right outside the midwife’s tent. With no less than five warriors armed to the teeth trailing behind him. The scout gulps at air, desperately grasping for something to say.
“Well?” The leader asks, “Where is she?”
“She’s, ah, she’s in the tent-”
The foreign leader surges forward at this, the scout moving to block him, “She’s, well, she’s occupied with-“ the scout cuts off as a particularly long, agonized scream ecapes the tent.
The leader ignores it. “I demand- to see Marwyn!” he says, shoving the scout aside. “What could possibly-“
The leader stops, taking the scene in. An elf woman cries and pants on a high sloped chair, an older woman swaddling a newborn kneeling between her legs. There’s a large bowl on the floor full of water deeply stained red, though it seems it only did so much as both adults are covered in blood and… other things, the midwife clean up to her elbows only. She looks up, furious.
The invading leader freezes. The elf woman radiates safety, authority. Some primal corner of his mind whispers: mother? Tonight he feels a mother’s judgement. Her face twists in anger as she sees a neighboring leader barging into her tent unannounced. He shakes his head to rid the sensation. She speaks.
“I’m not done yet. Do what you can to keep this one warm, it’s cold out. It. can. wait.” And suddenly the leader is cradling a newborn from a different elfhame as he is shoved out of the tent. Absently he remembers his healer’s training and casts a light heating spell on the child. The newborn blindly grips his finger as he does so, screaming heartily. Within seconds his righteous anger is replaced with a new purpose. He sits down on a nearby stump and waits, his eyes never leaving the baby.
Later that night, the invading party sits at a table opposite Marwyn the Nurturer’s council. Their leader, Teris, gently rocks and coos at a sleeping baby in his arms. The shamefaced warriors refuse to look Marwyn in the eyes.
“So, let’s go over this again. You found burned areas, gutted animals, and cookfires in western areas of your claims?”
“Yes, Nurturer” one guard says, quicker to reply than her occupied leader: “Yes, Leader”
“So you wished to reclaim what you were due from the invading elfhame.”
“Yes, Nurturer”
“The one residing south.”
“…Yes, Nurturer”
Marwyn sighs and leans forward, forcing Teris to look at her. “…I will not lie, it was a hard winter. Some of our hunts may have gone, ah, farther than they should have. But we are not your enemy. Do you really think that we would do such a thing as risk our own safety by burning our forest, just to harm you?”
A long, tense pause. The baby wakes and grasps for the leader’s hand at the sudden halt. “… No, Nurturer”
“I thought so.” She lets him stew in silence for a few seconds. Her eyes narrow. “I propose a deal: you and your warriors leave our home-” she hisses, “-alive, and you forgive us for taking more than our due from this forest this time. Afterwards, we can send a small party to your elfhame to help investigate whatever is at the borders in the west. They can negotiate terms of peace between us. Whatever threatens one forest threatens us all. Does that sound reasonable?”
Teris looks down at the newborn in his arms as he considers. The newborn could have been from his own elfhame. Hell, a human could have mistaken them for one of their own. Pursuing a path of violence would only lead other innocent beings like this one to more violence and mistrust. “…Yes. I’d like to discuss the members of this party and their permissions, but …” he takes a deep breath. “Yes.”
Marwyn smiles as tension floods out of the room. “Thank you”.
Deep into discussion, Teris checks the newborn again, as he’d been doing occasionally since they were handed to him. The first few hours are critical. Somehow they’re still warm even though he’d ceased casting hours ago. He’d stopped being concerned about fever since he’d checked for it, but the strange heat, seemingly coming from the newborn, remains a mystery. He tightens the cloths around the newborn’s shoulders, just in case.
Soon the previously invading party is being escorted out to Marwyn’s elfhame’s borders. Before he leaves the village, Teris makes sure to publicly and symbolically return the well-cared-for baby back to the Nurturer. They leave in peace.