"So let me get this straight," Kali said slowly, her eyes narrowing on the stranger sitting in her temporary home. "You want me and my partner to risk our lives to get you the Core of a damned Troll of all things?"

 

Kali twirled her dagger in her hand as she leaned back in her chair and threw her boot-clad legs up onto the shoddy wooden table. Vorgnar sat next to her, being Kali's partner, and all he gave off was a stoic face and let Kali do the talking and little Lexy was out playing with Selene.

 

The little munchkin somehow convinced the redhead to start training her to be a hunter. The pinkette even declared to Kali's face that she'd grow strong enough so she couldn't leave her behind anymore. Of course, Kali patted her head and rewarded her commitment with extra sweets that day, not that she expected to see the girl for a good few decades at the shortest after she left this village.

 

"Yes," The stranger's fluffy ears flopped onto her head as she averted her gaze. "I'd come and help you out, of course, but I heard that you two are supposedly the strongest fighters in this village, so I could only turn to you."

 

"Aside from Avariel," Kali noted. Do not look at the fluffy ears and tail, do not! You are being weird. How would you feel if she was staring at your ears? Stupid.

 

"Yes," the fox faun covered her mouth as she turned away. Somehow having noticed Kali's lingering gazes despite the princess's best attempts at hiding them.

 

"Why would we do that?" Kali crossed her arms with a huff. Negotiation and stuff! 'The Secrets of a Trade Prince' might have been the most boring read of my life, but it sure is coming in handy.

 

Nevertheless, her overactive mind strayed.

 

There were a variety of species on Aetheria with Elves and Humans on being two of those. If one only counted the sentient and sapient ones then there were also Dwarves up in the cold northern continent of Eumfend but when one went further than those three base races, that was where things got a bunch more complicated.

 

It could be assumed that Elves could all interbreed with each other, just like Humans and Dwarves could among themselves. Humans could fuck a dog and it'd still somehow result in a combat-capable child.

 

Humans were notorious for being able to successfully interbreed with every damned species on the planet, including all Faun Clans. Which is so damned weird because some Faun Clans can't breed with another Faun Clan. Horse-people and fish-people are not compatible … what a surprise.

 

Fauns were humanoid — elvenoid! — animals. But that was only when one looked at them with their eyes squinted to the max. There were Faun Clans only comprising sentient wolves and there were ones made up of beautiful women with fox ears and tails. If one could come up with a combination of elf and animal, then there was probably a Clan of Fauns hidden in some corner of the world.

 

If the three previous species were all carefully designed masterpieces made by nature, then Fauns were, for lack of a better word, a hit-and-miss experiment of nature. Does a Clan of Fauns with deer-like legs and a human upper body work? Throw them into a forest and see if they survive. It was a game of what sort of shit sticks to the wall, with most clans having gone extinct long ago, but the few that remained still out of the thousands had something that made them stand out.

 

 

Which was why Kali was being especially careful around the strange woman. For all she knew, the seemingly frail girl might transform into a ten-meter-tall fox monster at any moment.

 

"I-" the girl started, her amethyst gaze locking onto Kali, and the princess thought she noticed a playful glimmer in those eyes. "I heard you want to get out of this empire, right?"

 

"We do," Kali collected herself, putting her legs back onto the floor and intertwining her fingers in her lap. "Why?"

 

"I could help." the vixen's ears twitched and her tail threatened to swish from side to side. Damn you, why is it so cute? "I'm not from around here. I snuck in on my way here and I could help you sneak back out just as easily."

 

"Why would we need your help for that?" Kali asked, trying to look stern as she threw a sideways glance at Vorgnar. The daemon told her he knew how to get out of the empire but help couldn't hurt … still, if they got smashed into a bloody paste under a Troll's club, it wouldn't matter.

 

"I'm not sure you know, but just after I snuck in, the humans tightened their borders. They have patrol ships going up and down on the coast and the number of guards tripled in the port city." The girl puffed herself up. "I can help you get past them. I have a talent for … convincing people."

 

For some reason, a shiver went down Kali's spine as the fox girl's eyes twinkled in mischief.

 

"Vorgnar? What do you think?" Kali turned to her partner. Without knowing how confident he was in his own escape plan, she wasn't sure if they should put themselves in danger for such a dubious source of help.

 

"It … would be helpful to have her," he said sourly, tasting his words before speaking them. "Though I am unsure whether it is worth fighting a Troll for."

 

"Actually," Why are you waggling your tail?! "I know of a small encampment of Trolls close to here and they go out hunting by themselves, I even noticed that there are young ones among them so it shouldn't be too hard to get one's Core."

 

"I see," Kali nodded. Her eyebrows twitched as she held herself back from rushing over to pet the mischievous tail. "We will need to think it through, we are staying another three weeks so we will give you an answer by the end of it at the latest."

 

"I see," the girl deflated, her ears and tail flopping down sadly. Still, Kali caught a glimmer in her eyes that sent another shiver down her spine. Her instincts were working in overdrive to alert her that the girl might appear fluffy, but she was somehow very dangerous. "Thank you for hearing me out." The girl stood up and bowed in a perfect 60°angle.

 

"It's nothing," Kali stood as well and smiled politely. "I wish I could say for certain that we'd help you, but suicide by Trolls is not among my goals at the moment."

 

"It- Ahem," the girl looked up, looking a bit shocked before she released a soft giggle. "Well, it's not among mine either at the moment. I hope I'll hear from you and thank you again for hearing me out and letting me into your home."

 

"It's fine," Kali waved it off. Some distraction was nice, the village was interesting for the first week, but it quickly grew monotonous so she would have invited the girl in just out of curiosity and boredom, even if she had no intention of helping her. Not that such was the case, she wished she could go over and smash a Troll into the dirt and give its core to the fluffy foxgirl but she had to consider how likely that outcome was and how much risk she and her partner were willing to take.

 

"You can come over in the meantime if you want," Kali said as she led the girl to the door. "We are strangers in this village too, so it gets rather lonely being ostracised by the people here."

 

"I … will consider it," the girl smiled slightly. "But thank you for the invitation."

 

With that she was off, stepping through the door and walking off with her tail swishing entrancingly behind her.

 

"So," she cleared her throat as she closed the door. "What do you think?"

 

"If what she says about the borders is true," Vorgnar said sourly. "We might have to take her up on her offer."

 

"What about your plan?" Kali asked as she flopped over a tiny couch, face first into a soft pillow.

 

"I know some people that dealt in having people transported into and out of the Empire in this Province." He spoke in a weary voice. "I knew them at least, if the Empire is tightening its borders this hard, then I'm not sure they haven't sent my contacts sleeping with the fishes yet."

 

"Sleeping with the fishes?" Kali mumbled into her pillow.

 

"It's a metaphor for being killed," said Vorgnar. "We could try other smugglers or try escaping through the bloodriver up north but that is far from preferable."

 

"The bloodriver?" Kali mumbled, rolling over to her side so she could stare at Vorgnar. "Oh right. But the Republic up north only has a port in the capital … which is on the other side of the country from the river."

 

"Which is why that is a last resort."

 

"Don't they send trad ships down the river though?" Kali squinted her eyes in thought. Economy was somewhere between 'sort of interesting' and 'I don't give a shit' in her mind so she only barely remembered the important trade routes.

 

"They do," Vorgnar shrugged. "But I'd rather swim across the sea than try sneaking onto one of those. Those ships sail from Redrock and the Kash buy their ships from the Dwarves."

 

"Ah, yeah," Kali grimaced. "Suicide by dwarven cannons is not much better than suicide by troll clubs."

 

"The dwarves don't eat you afterward."

 

"Could we beat up a Troll though? I'm sure we couldn't beat up a Dwarven ship."

 

"… Perhaps?" Vorgnar stopped to think. "So you are considering her offer?"

 

"You said I should a moment ago!"

 

"I did," he went back to thinking. "I'm not sure about killing one. You have your fireballs but those brutes have thick hides which only grow denser as they age and we'd have to turn them into ash to kill them."

 

"How do you go about getting their Cores, anyway?" Kali tilted her head. "Does it just … pop into being after they die over a pile of ash or something?"

 

"Something like that," he shrugged.

 

"Ah fuck meeeee," Kali rolled off of the couch and jumped to her feet, whining all the while. "Are we really going to go fight those ugly monsters that regenerate from being diced up?" She shivered at the thought. 'Go to bed or the Trolls will eat you' was a common scare tactic used among the elves, and many a maid used it on impressionable little Kali in her childhood.

 

Of course, she went researching what Trolls were and whether they actually ate children not long after and what she found was much worse than she expected. Not only was it all true, but they were some of the ugliest things Kali had ever had the misfortune of laying her eyes on, even if Elven artists tended to stylize ugly monsters a bit in their illustrations.

 

Little seven-year-old Kali back then had to drag a maid to hug as a body pillow for a few months after that to be able to fall asleep.

 

She didn't like Trolls. Not one bit, but due to her research, she was aware of how damned hard it was to kill them. There were ancient tales of armies going to kill off just a small group of Trolls. Those tales came from before the advent of magic even so, Trolls were as tough as they were ugly.

 

"If you decide that way, I will fight with you," Vorgnar nodded solemnly, and Kali stilled for a moment. This was a serious discussion, and she was acting like a damned child.

 

"Okay," said Kali, her voice mimicking her brother's authoritative tone as she answered. "I think we should take her up on her offer, thought we should make sure she can actually back up her claims first."

 

"How do you plan to do that?" Vorgnar raised an eyebrow.

 

"She said she has a 'talent' for convincing people." Kali mused, sitting down next to Vorgnar. "Do you think she is one of those weird Fauns that can have weird clouds of drugs come out of their bodies?"

 

"No," Vorgnar snorted. "She is a Fox-kin, Fox Clans usually have talents for illusions or … hypnosis in some rare cases."

 

"Hypnosis?" A shiver went down Kali's spine. Mental magic was extremely complicated so very few practiced it and those who did tended to be hunted down for it but some lucky — or unlucky — people had talents that gave them the ability to cast a single mental magic spell as easily as Kali used her ears for detecting rune activation.

 

Kali heard there was a human Noble Family that rose to prominence only because they had an inheritable Talent that let them tell whether someone was telling the truth if they were looking into the eyes of the victim. Said family was a line of notorious torturers feared among the enemies of the empire.

 

Hypnosis was something even worse. It let the possessor of that talent put their victim under their thrall for a while. The one silver lining of it was that no Mage managed to reverse engineer the Talent yet, so it was extremely rare.

 

"I believe Fox-kin tend to have either mental or illusion-related talents," he shrugged. "It is hard to know with Fauns."

 

"Right," Kali grimaced. Elves weren't like that. They had a small list of Talents they might activate during a breakthrough, but there weren't any super rare or dangerous ones like among the Fauns. At best, she'd learn a Talent which, while active, reduced her weight by 95% but nothing as outrageous as mind-fucking someone.

 

Of course, it didn't for a moment enter her mind that Fauns usually had about as terrible a talent for mainstream magic as humans, if not worse. Some of the more bestial clans had no hope of ever even producing a Mage while almost every elf WAS a Mage, even if not a good one.

 

"Okay," Kali took a deep breath, psyching herself up. "Let's test her and if she is legit, then we get ready to kill a troll. I'm not going without getting a bunch of potions and new weapons from Avariel."

 

"Good thinking," Vorgnar smiled slightly. "My Core has finished repairing itself just yesterday, so I think I'll go out hunting."

 

"Oh!" Kali jumped up. "That's great!" She clapped her hands excitedly.

 

"Indeed." Vorgnar nodded, but a satisfied smile was plastered on his face.

 

"This calls for a celebration!"

 

 

In another part of the village, the silver-haired foxkin girl collapsed onto a bed.

 

Her head was pounding from her overusing her Talent but she felt that negotiation was just too important. If she failed to convince the elf and the half-blood, she might as well have wasted the last five years of her life traveling all the way here from the other side of the planet.

 

She massaged her delicate temples as she relaxed into the soft embrace of the sheets. She needed that damned potion.

 

A potion only the best alchemist on the planet could make, but for goddess knows why it needs a fresh Troll Core.

 

She couldn't kill it by herself. Her talent was useless against something that had muscles for brains. She needed the help of those two.

 

She sighed wearily, hoping against all hope that they'd accept. She tried to frame her request as best as she could, straining her mind to catch any flickering surface thought swimming in the shallow parts of their minds, but that might not have been enough.

 

"Who would go fight a Troll just because I asked them nicely?" She growled. There was nothing else to do, she had nothing else to give but her help, and she was far too young to bend the minds of two people just as powerful as herself to her will.

 

She fell asleep after a while, swearing to herself that tomorrow she'd take the Elven girl up on her word and go back. She'd beg and plead as much as it took if it meant them helping her.

 

"Everything for that potion, I'd do anything for you … "