Crowns and Guns.

Stew (part 1)

It is later than I assumed, as the lights are already out. I carefully walk back to my bunk bed. Katie is still awake, sitting on her bunk bed, reading a book. June is leaning against her, fast asleep.

"Hey, Katie," I whisper.

Katie looks up from her book, and smiles at the sight of me, her eyes open wide.

"Skye! You are back."

I point at the sleeping girl. "How is she?"

Katie shrugs. "As well as a seven-year-old girl can be that just found out her older sister, her only remaining family member, is dead." She wipes her eyes with her sleeves, and her lips tremble a bit. "Which is to say, not well."

I sigh. "And how are you doing."

Katie forces a smile while biting her lip. "Most people I knew died in the last ten years. Humanity was decimated. I guess I get used to it."

I sit next to Katie and put my arm over her shoulder. I look over to her empty bed. ORCHID has already taken the metal blanket and mattress, and all that is left in a wooden frame. Looking at the empty spot actually makes me realise she is really gone.

I feel tears welling up and shake them off. I just keep staring at the empty bed, for hours, lost in thoughts.

After a while, Katie stops staring at the empty bed and looks at me. "I decided to quit your shooting class."

I look over to her. "Why?"

She sits up and puts her arm around the still-sleeping June. "I feel like guns are not the answers to our problems."

I scratch my cheek. "How so?"

"May is dead because Jerry shot his gun. If there was no gun, we would all have been safe."

I slightly move my body. What the hell is she going on about? "Darling," I say. "I agree that necrotic guns are very dangerous, and mishandling them causes lots of tragedies. But it is the only weapon we have that reliably can kill elves."

She averts her eyes and looks over at June. "Maybe we don't need to kill them."

I am taken aback and ball my fists. How the hell can she say that? "Katie, elves need to be exterminated, like the vermin they are. They cannot be negotiated with. They can't feel love, or shame, or empathy. Their whole society functions not on affection, respect or cooperation, it purely functions through promises. Hell, the only reason they could build an empire is because they make young elves swear allegiance to whoever is their monarch."

Katie shrugs. "And yet, all the big victories we had over elves were not made through guns, but through tricking elves. Making them make promises that they don't know that are to their disadvantage."

I shake my head. "Yet, the reason the elves started the war is over a promise that was to their disadvantage."

Katie raises an eyebrow. "How so?"

I pick up the book lying next to me. "Have you ever heard about the pact of flesh?"

"Elves are originally from a different dimension." I explain "This dimension has no humans, just, elves, animals and plants. We dunno what it is like, but elves still refer to it as home.

"Elves, as the violent creatures they are, did not live peacefully together at all. Their planet was divided into different empires, which were constantly at war."

Katie raises her eyebrow but keeps listening silently.

"One day, a small kingdom got a major victory over one of the larger empires. Their king didn't just want to destroy them, it wanted to humiliate the empire. So it gave the elven queen a choice.

"It told them that it would spare the lives of all the elves in the empire, in exchange for only one simple promise. To never kill or eat any animal meat again. In other words, the flesh pact."

Katie looks at me in confusion. "Aren't elves obligate carnivores? So if they can't eat meat, they starve."

I shake my head. "It is more complicated than that. Elves are omnivores, they can sustain themselves on some plants, like fruits and berries. But you are correct that do need meat in their diet. If they don't eat it for a while, they do live, but they suffer."

Katie nods. "So, it was preferable over being killed."

"It was, and the queen reluctantly agreed. Better to have a malnutritioned population than a dead one.

Katie shrugs. "It was an impossible choice tho. Either damning your population to death or a lifetime of suffering."

I clench my jaw. "Don't feel sorry for the elves. They can't feel empathy, remember. The queen doesn't care about her subject. For her, it was an easy choice. Simple math. Malnourished subjects are more useful than dead subjects. Hence, she agreed."

Katie tilts her head and raises an eyebrow. "So how do humans fit into this?"

"Well," I say. "After a while, an elven scholar found a solution. The pact forbade them from eating animal meat, but it didn't seem to forbid them to eat meat from sentient creatures. They started hopping worlds, looking for worlds where sentient creatures lived. And eventually, they found our world."

Katie looks away. "So, they eat humans because they have no other options?"

I nod "Exactly. So there is no making peace with the elves. They will continue to hunt us, whatever we do. We have to exterminate them."

Katie carefully puts June down and stands up. "I am going to get some sleep. I suggest you get some too."

Without looking back, she climbs up the ladder and lays down in June's bed. Guess that makes sense as June is fast asleep in hers.

I shrug and climb up the ladder myself.