Ten years ter...

  "But I don't wanna go!" Amy cried.

  "I'm sorry, angel," I said, taking a knee and hugging her. "If you really, well and truly do not want to go, then you don't have to. But... If you be brave for me for just thirty minutes, half an hour and it's over and you go baside, then I'll let you ask me for anything. So. What does my sweet little girl want for her birthday?"

  "...I wanna stay with Aunt Faith tonight," Amy said.

  "Oh, honey, of course you ," I said, nodding. "You know what? You have that anyways. What else do you want to go with that?"

  "...A puppy?" Amy asked, hopefully.

  "Hrm... Well, the traditional age for that is seven, but..." I made a show of thinking it over, even though my mind was already made up. "...Well, why not? Sure, my little princess have her puppy a year early."

  "Traditional?" Amy asked.

  "Mhm," I said, nodding. "I was gonna tell you soon anyways, but traditionally, when aurns seven, they're given a pet. They're taught how to take care of it, how to train it and socialize it, and iurn, the pet bees their friend and panion through the rest of their childhood."

  "Ooooh," Amy said, nodding slowly.

  "It also teaches you responsibility, and perseverance," I added. "There's going to be parts of taking care of a puppy that aren't very fun, but they have to be done anyways. I'm going to help you do it, and you won't have to do too many of those not-so-fun parts, but you have to do some of them, okay?"

  "Okay," Amy said, far too seriously for su adorable little five year old.

  "So... When you're ready, I'm going to set this timer for thirty minutes," I said, pulling out a little egg timer. "I'm gonna put it in your pocket, and after it rings, you find me or Momma Talia or Momma Volex and we'll bring you baside."

  "When do I get my puppy?" Amy asked.

  "We'll go talk to some people about it tomorrow," I said. "Pig the right puppy takes time, and it's important you make sure you get the right one for you. And for that, you o be well-rested, especially after a big day like today."

  "Okay," Amy said. "I'm ready."

  I twisted the timer to thirty minutes, and put it into her pocket. "Wanna ride on my shoulders?"

  "Yaaaay!"

  "Robert! gratutions on the Healer's Lise!" I said, pulling him into a tight hug. "God, it's good to see you again! It feels like you were in prison or something, you were gone so long!"

  "Nah, just medical school," Healer Robert Thorn said, smirking. "I uand the fusion, though- I felt like I was in prison too."

  We shared a ugh, and I turned my attention to his mother ah-sister.

  "Emily, Amelie, it's good to see you two," I said, accepting hugs from the both of them- I g a little loo Emily, uo resist the siren call of her plush, well-padded figure. "Thanks for ing. I know you're busy, so..."

  "We wouldn't miss this for anything," Amelie said. When we'd first met a decade ago, she'd been gaunt and jaundiced, slowly dying of liver cer, and living off a diet of marijuana-infused butter and sugar water. Today, though, she was a textbook image of a perfectly healthy elven woman, with fair, smooth, unwrinkled skin and fine blonde hair like strands of gold, her figure more 'slehan 'skeletal.'

  She hadn't gone back to Redwater Manor after her recovery, and these days, she operated a little bakery that dispensed all manner of sugary treats to the young and young-at-heart, alongside beautiful, flower-shaped loaves of most wonderfully fluffy bread I've ever had.

  "How's Mom doing?" Emily asked.

  "Well, she kept the household staff in the divorce, and she now lives right door to a Druid," I said dryly. "So I'm pretty sure she's doing just fine. In fact, if you wanna go see her yourself, I'm sure you could just go kno her dht now- she's just not here because she doesn't care for parties any more than Amy here does."

  "Thank you for naming your daughter after me and Amelie," Emily said. "It really does mean a lot to me."

  "Of course," I said, happily accepting another one of her soft, warm hugs.

  Oh, if only I wasn't already fug her mother. Elves didn't have that many taboos when it came to sex, but as a Drama Prevention Meism, we heavily disced having ongoiionships with multiple people who were in the same family- which had a slightly different definition than humans gave it, but basically amouo Amelie being in Emily's family but Patricia Whatsherfuck, Emily's hypothetical sed cousin who lives oher side of the ti who I made up just now, did not.

  "Alright, well, I really o talk to you more often, a more of ys," I said, still holding onto Emily tightly. "But, as, with Napoleon out on the frontier w with the unis and the Wood Elves, I've gotta be the local Big Man, so I have to go mingle some more. I hope I see you again soon!"

  "Bye, Joseph," Emily said. "Take care."

  As I was the current head-of-house of House Iro, that meant everyone wao talk to me at least a little- put in appearances, make sure they're still in ood graces, and offer small favors to build up social capital- and by the end of my first big circuit, barely fifteen minutes after Amy had gotten overwhelmed and gone baside, I was already well and truly sick of it. So, I told Volex where I was going, and stealthily slipped baside my house, heading upstairs to the rooftop.

  It wasn't just that space was always tight in a city, and High Elves were aced to using it as effitly as possible. It was also that High Elves fug loved sitting on top of tall buildings and looking at the surrounding ndscape. So when Ariel Silver took it upon herself to rebuild Napoleon Iro's quaint little wooden shack, she made sure to give it a prh Elven rooftop patio to sit on.

  "Humans are dumb," I said, adjusting myself in my seat and sighing. "I'll take a vas sling over a pillow o solid wood any day- these things are fy."

  I'd had these chairs for nearly a decade at this point- I'd made them myself from cheap aluminum tubing and vas, plus a pair of hinge pins I'd zily made out of a pair of nails. They folded up ft when not in use, and when unfolded, produced a low, reed seat, perfect for rexing by a campfire with a cold bottle of beer.

  I eyed the bottle in my hand. While beer wasn't the preferred alcoholic beverage of High Elves, it wasn't pletely absent from our booze-making traditions, and I'd learned how to make my own while I was in college- at first just so I didn't have to keep buying it from the damnably expensive Adventurer's General Supply store, and then I started getting really into the craft of it, making it taste good, and Talia ended up getting into it too. These days, one of our more unique tributions to the unity was the Iro Brewery, which made beer good enough that even dwarves would drink it without pining.

  I sighed happily.

  Life was good.

  The door behind me creaked open, and I sighed less happily.

  "I'm impressed, kid," an old elf with a long, shaggy, blood-red beard said, walking past me and taking one of the chairs. "Mmh. Yep. You would've been a good King."

  "Do I know you?" I asked, as another pair of elves- a man and a woman, both with green hair- walked past, grabbing the st two chairs, and turning them to face me before sitting down.

  "You've never met any of us in your life," the green-haired man said. "We're family, though."

  "Yeah?" I asked, quirking an eyebrow as a human woman walked past me, humming a little tuo herself, and sat in the green-haired man's p. She was... Wait.

  Hang the fu.

  "...Terpsichore Iro?" I asked, looking straight at a woman who was identical to the funerary effigy still in my living room, save for her hair being bd her skin being a light brown, or perhaps a dark tan, instead of the unifrey stone.

  "You would not believe how much I had to fight Art here on that damn statue," Terpsichore said, her voice like smoky honey. "See, he wanted me to be remembered as the y year old I was when I died, but I wao be remembered as the thirty year old I was when my tits didn't sag and my knees didn't hurt."

  "What is- that-" I blinked. "Wait. You're Artorias Wind-Caller? And you're Ena Bckthorn?"

  "They are," the red-bearded elf said. "And I'm yreat grandfather, High King Lysander Rosewood."

  "But... But, all of you are dead!"

  "So are you, Joseph," Ena said.

  "...Oh," I whispered. "When... When did that happen?"

  "Before you started vividly seeing your imagined daughter and her sixth birthday party," Ena said. "You've beehis eime."

  "Now now, Ena, don't scare the poor d," Lysander chided her. "Now, Joseph, you are not pletely dead. You are mostly, and more importantly only temporarily, dead. You were shot in the back by the cultists of Demon King Paimon- they he i, virginal daughter of a powerful man to summon their King into this world, and they took the other two girls as a bonus. Paimon has no use for captive men, though, so..."

  "...What happeo not sg me?" I asked.

  "You have a gun, a motorcycle, a Rosewood's talent for the Are, and also Volex the Succubus who has already participated in the destru of Demon King Paimohly cult," Artorias said dryly. "They took you by surprise st time, but this time, you'll be ready for them."

  "But-"

  "You're my grandson," Artorias said. "I know what it takes to do this, and I fully believe that you've got it."

  "And, well..." Ena shrugged. "...What else are you to do?"

  I sighed.

  "Well," I said, slowly standing up. "If I'm only here for a little while..."

  "That regeion amulet your father gave you is putting you back together, even now," Lysander volunteered. "And as it so happens, I do have something I want to share with you."

  "Oh?" I asked.

  "First," Lysander said. "I'm proud of you, Joseph. You're a good man, and I fully believe that you'll tinue being one, and help a great many people. And sed... I know where the Dark Elves are."

  "I thought nobody khat," I said. "Sihat was the whole point of the Dark Elves."

  "It certainly isn't on knowledge, no, but it took a few turies after we escaped Annwn for the Dark Elves to make their exodus. And before they left, I spoke to a few of their leaders, and they agreed that, while they didn't want just arag mud into their new homes, they didn't want to pletely close off the possibility of future tact with the outside world either, in the event there was an all-hands-on-deck emergency."

  "Then why the hell didn't they help with the War of the Roses?" Artorias demanded.

  "Because the war didn't get truly bad until I was dead, and I was also the only living person who knew how to tact the Dark Elves," Lysander said. "But, Joseph... There's a cavern, deep underh where the capital used to be. The entrances are sealed off, so you have to scry for it and then teleport down there. It's about a kilometer below the pace's ground floor, and it is almost intolerably hot down there- there's a reason dwarves made their homes in mountains. There is also a locked chest where I stashed some ented ons, but I really hope you never have to use them."

  "...Duly noted," I said quietly. "Well, I feel myself slowly waking up, so... Goodbye, everyone. Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again."

  "Good luck," Terpsichore said.

  "When you see Helen, tell her to grow up and apologize to Ariel already!" Lysander added, even as everything was slowly fading out.

  I woke up gasping, which was a bad idea, because I had also been buried in a very shallow grave. I jerked upright, dirt sliding off of my chest, and hacked my lungs out, coughing up dirt, reddish phlegm, and a few ks of something I tried to pretend I didn't know were piey own flesh.

  "Okay," I wheezed out, once I was able to somewhat breathe again. "Let's... Let's get out of this grave, yeah?"

  I staggered up to my feet, still ly a hundred pert after having been perforated, and took a look around at the remains of our campsite. The sun was rising right now, and while that was legitimately quite beautiful, I was a bit more ied in the fact that my van was gone, leaving only tire tracks, along with those cheap tin buckets we'd been using for stools.

  I reached for my magicka, called it into the shape of a spell Mom had drilled into me for situations just like this, and my coat, which had been hanging up in my room, settled onto my shoulders, givis magical protes, along with all of the very, very useful stuff in the pockets.

  Such as my motorcycle.

  "Alright, old friend," I began, climbing into the saddle. "Just you and me agai's ride."