Chapter 532: Virve’s Vengeance
"Why use the men of the Vale for something like that?" Virve asked, picking up a crumbly, buttery pastry stuffed with spiced apples and drizzled with honey and crumbled goat cheese. "Send to High Fen City for mercenaries, or use Frost Walkers who have never fought humans for that. You’re the Eldritch Lady of the High Pass. They’ll listen to your orders, and they have no grudges."
"But they don’t speak the language," Ashlynn pointed out. "Here in the Vale, everyone has learned the common tongue of humans. Even the people living in the outlying villages can at least speak a few hundred words of it. Enough for simple conversations. But the people in the High Pass and beyond, they won’t be able to understand the people we’d need them to police."
"You’re making it too complicated, my Lady," Virve said as she munched on her pastry. "Go get some young ones from the Horned Clan. They always have houses that are overfull of young men and women just coming of age. Pair them up with a few Frost Walkers, Tuscans, or what have you and tell them that they’re to act as translators. Humans will be too terrified of the bigger ’demons’ to cause trouble, but they’ll speak to the Horned Clan because they’re even smaller than humans are."
For a moment, Ashlynn wanted to protest. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? And indeed, the more she thought about it, the more problems she found with the plan. Misunderstandings would likely abound, and young men and women from the Horned Clan might be plentiful and intimidating, but they also wouldn’t have the experience and wisdom to solve things with calm words instead of strong arms when they had powerful soldiers to act on their behalf.
"Why use the young ones?" Ashlynn finally asked as she turned the idea over in her mind. "Why not call up older, wiser members of our community. If we’re giving them soldiers to do the fighting, then they don’t need to be young enough to fight themselves."
"Because the young ones only hate based on their parents’ stories," Virve said solemnly. "Everyone in the Vale has reasons to hate the humans. I’m no different," she added, polishing off her pastry and licking her claws before tapping her chest with her thumb. "I can accept Lady Nyrielle and her progeny because they aren’t human anymore, not really. They’re vampires."
"And me?" Ashlynn asked with a raised brow. "I’m still human. So is Ollie."
"No, you’re not," Virve said emphatically, shaking her head in denial. "You’re the Mother of Trees. You’re a witch, not a human. And Ollie will be a witch soon, too. You’re one of us, not one of them."
"But I was one of them," Ashlynn said pointedly. "I was just an ordinary human before I came to the Vale. And my sister, my parents, some of the few people I consider friends... they’re all human too."
"Maybe they are," Virve said. "And if you call them good people, then I’ll believe that they are. I won’t ever hurt the people who have done nothing to us. But... Anyone who’s old enough to gain some wisdom is also old enough to have lost some people to the humans and their stupid, pointless, greedy wars," she said, her words growing hotter than she meant for them to be the more she spoke.
"Virve," Ashlynn said, setting her knife and fork down to reach across the table, holding Virve’s large paw between her hands. "I, I didn’t know. I’m sorry," she said softly, looking into the other woman’s misty yellow eyes. "Who? Who did you lose to them?"
"My father," Virve said, staring off to the south and watching the golden rays of light drift across the Vale of Mists. "And in a way, my mother too," she said, pausing for several minutes as she gathered up the ghosts that had escaped from deep within her heart and pulled them back into the warmest depths of her heart, where she treasured their memories.