Fixing First Impressions
"Haha. It seems I chose poorly for our first topic of conversation."
"Yeah. You did."
I answered at once.
Human slaughter. Of all things.
I was starting to… dislike him a little.
An elf who, at a first meeting, could bring up something like Would you care to pass judgment upon the human race? — and do it with perfect courtesy, no less. Calling that a "first topic of conversation" was strange enough on its own.
Carnepisara was still smiling. His white hair spilled down his back like mist, and the fine wrinkles at his face were mild, almost gentle. His speech was polite. His posture was deferential.
The problem was that this mild old man had just recommended the massacre of humanity.
"It is only natural that Lady Lakia should be wary of me," Carnepisara said.
I narrowed my eyes.
"You reading my face?"
"Your expressions are rather honest."
"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"
"To a good teacher, it is a virtue."
"A good teacher?"
I turned my head toward Gargantua.
Gargantua sat like a mountain. His three pairs of eyes blinked slowly, and his six pairs of wings lay folded low behind the cliffs. I asked him with a look alone.
Is that the good teacher you meant?
Gargantua nodded with absolute confidence.
"He is a good teacher."
"I didn't even say anything."
"Mother's eyes spoke."
"Are my eyes that loud?"
"They are, for the most part, honest."
Carnepisara nodded from the side.
"I quite agree."
"Don't tag-team me."
"Finding myself of one mind with an old friend is a pleasant thing."
I swallowed a sigh.
I must not get into a war of words with this man. Ah. Not a man, either. An elf whose mouth was more dangerous than his magic.
"I'll be honest."
"Yes."
"I still don't trust you as a teacher."
The gorge went quiet. Alduin rumbled low in his throat — krr — and from somewhere unseen, Masor answered with a soft sagak.
Carnepisara did not look offended. If anything, he nodded as though he rather liked the answer.
"Excellent."
"Excellent?"
"A student who knows how to doubt her teacher at the threshold of learning is a student who lasts."
"Is that a real saying?"
"I just invented it."
"Ah."
"Do you like it?"
"…A little."
"My thanks."
He truly would not yield an inch.
I started to cross my arms, then stopped halfway when my wrist twinged. Carnepisara's eyes tracked that tiny motion at once. I disliked that, too. He saw too well. He knew too much. And he smiled through all of it as if none of it cost him a thing.
"First of all, I recommend equipping the dragons in dwarven-forged armor," Carnepisara said suddenly.
I blinked.
"Huh?"
"Their scales alone will turn aside most conventional arms, of course — but one can never be too careful."
"Uh… uh… I mean. Is that so?"
The conversation had veered in a bizarre direction. We had been firmly in the "let's not talk about slaughtering humans" lane. And now, somehow, we were talking dragon armor.
I glanced at Alduin without thinking. My firstborn, black-scaled, looked at me, then at Carnepisara, then back at me again. The light in his eyes was hard to place. Dislike, maybe. Or a flicker of interest.
No. Do not get interested. Mom can see everything.
"The armor surfaces will need heat-dispersion inscriptions," Carnepisara continued, as smoothly as if he had never changed subjects at all. "A dragon's breath is formidable, but in prolonged engagements it tears the surrounding terrain apart as well. If the armor sheds residual heat, the survival rate of any mounted forces rises considerably."
"Mounted forces?"
"Yes."
Carnepisara beamed.
"Elves ride on top and loose their bows!"
The gorge stopped.
Alduin stopped. Masor's rustling cut off. Even Gargantua's wind settled low and still. The little white dragon, splashing at the water's edge, froze mid-stroke the moment it felt the air change.
And in that silence, a picture rose unbidden in my mind.
Heavy dwarven plate laid over black scales. Elven inscriptions running silver across the armor's surface. A long saddle fixed to a dragon's back. Elves standing in it, drawing their bowstrings.
Dragons climbing, tearing the sky open. Arrows raining down like a storm. Breath carving the battlefield ahead while elven archers fired from behind like falling starlight. Every time a wing unfurled, enemy banners toppled. Dwarven steel flashed in the sun.
It was… well.
Kind of cool…?
"Ah."
I snapped back to myself.
"No! Stop that talk right now!"
Carnepisara blinked.
"Why?"
"I almost fell for it without noticing!"
"A good strategy moves the heart."
"Don't move that heart!"
"But it is practical."
"Practical doesn't mean you're allowed to do it!"
"That has always been the central dispute between humans and elves."
"You were about to trash-talk humans again, weren't you."
"A little."
"Don't."
"I shall refrain."
"I don't even trust the 'I shall refrain'!"
Carnepisara chuckled softly. Listen only to the laugh, and he was a kindly grandfather — the sort who might hand dried fruit to children and tell them old stories of the forest. What actually came out of his mouth was a dragon-mounted aerial cavalry corps.
I looked at Alduin.
"Al."
Krr.
"Don't get interested."
Rr?
"You just imagined it."
Krr.
"Don't 'krr' me. You pictured elves archers sitting on your back."
Rr…….
"Don't look away."
Alduin truly looked away. My firstborn. Looking away.
I narrowed my eyes.
"You thought it looked cool, didn't you."
Rr…….
"You did."
Carnepisara quietly cut in.
"Even the King of Dragons understands the aesthetics of tactics, I see."
"Don't egg him on."
"It was praise."
"I told you that kind of praise is dangerous."
"The more dangerous the praise, the longer it is remembered."
"Erase it from memory."
"That is not my specialty."
Masor rustled — sagak.
I looked into empty air.
"Masor. You neither."
Sagak?
"Do not think about how nice it would be to have elven archers riding an invisible dragon."
Sagak.
"You thought about it."
Sagak!
"That got louder."
Carnepisara turned toward Masor's direction with open interest.
"An invisible mobile archer corps. There is certainly value in that."
"There is zero value."
"From an enemy's perspective, it would be a catastrophe."
"Do not create catastrophes."
"I merely explained."
"Even the explanation is dangerous!"
"A good strategy takes shape merely from being heard."
I let out a long breath.
I had almost fallen for it again. The most elegant aerial force in history. The phrasing was good. The image was good. But no.
I had not spent five hundred years raising these children just to turn them into weapons of war.
I still remembered the first time I held Alduin — those tiny wings fluttering against my arms. I remembered Masor vanishing for the first time, then crying and catching hold of my sleeve. I had watched the hatchlings flinch at their own faces reflected in the water.
These children were strong. Too strong. Which was exactly why I had to be more careful. Strength did not mean it was all right to shove them into war. Looking cool did not make it fine, either.
"Carnepisara."
"Yes, Lady Lakia."
"My children are not weapons."
The gorge fell quiet. Carnepisara's smile thinned. It did not vanish — but the playfulness drained out of it.
"I am aware."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Nothing you just said sounded like it."
"That is because I have watched war for a very long time."
Carnepisara rested both hands on his staff.
"When you watch war long enough, living things begin to look like military assets first."
I said nothing.
"A dragon is air superiority. A dwarf is equipment. An elf is fire support. Humans are numbers. A mage is a variable. Terrain is a blade, weather is a shield, and food is a leash."
His voice was calm. The calm made it colder.
"If one does not learn to see that way, it is difficult to survive war for long."
"Then what am I?"
Carnepisara's eyes turned to me.
"Lady Lakia is the center."
"The center?"
"Yes."
He looked at Alduin.
"The King of Dragons watches Lady Lakia's slightest gesture."
Then toward the empty air where Masor waited.
"The unseen blade makes a sound so that Lady Lakia will notice him."
He looked at Gargantua.
"My old friend makes himself lower than a mountain before Lady Lakia."
Last, the young dragons.
"The hatchlings drop their tails at the look on Lady Lakia's face."
He turned back to me.
"So if Lady Lakia says they are not weapons — then, in this gorge, they are not weapons."
I could not answer.
Carnepisara's words were sometimes like this. Moments ago he had been spouting nonsense about dwarven armor and elven archers and dragon aerial cavalry. Then, suddenly, he would say something exact. That only made it more irritating.
He was a mad elf. A genuinely mad elf. And yet the claim that he was a good teacher was starting, just a little, to make sense. I hated that.
"However," Carnepisara said, "war does not come and ask Lady Lakia's permission first."
I looked at him. He was no longer smiling.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what it says."
He lifted his staff and pointed beyond the gorge, past the mountain range.
"Even if Lady Lakia does not regard her children as weapons, someone else will."
The wind sank lower.
"Someone will calculate a dragon's scales as a shield, its breath as a siege engine, its wings as a means of severing supply lines. Someone will fear them. Someone will covet them. Someone will deify them. And someone will try to kill them."
A burned village rose in my mind. The weapons the humans had held. Terror. Fire. Ash.
I clenched my fingers. My wrist pulled a little.
"So that's why you want dwarven armor on them?"
"Yes."
"To use them as war weapons?"
"No."
Carnepisara's answer was firm.
"To keep them alive."
I stopped. That was not the answer I had expected.
"Even if scales are strong, the world is never short of people who invent more vicious methods. Poison. Curses. Binding inscriptions. Arrows aimed at the eyes. Nets to tear wing membranes. Incense that ruins the breath. Assassins who target eggs."
A low roll rose from Alduin's throat. Krrrr……. Masor's rustling stretched long. Even Gargantua's wind turned cold.
Carnepisara did not stop.
"Dwarven armor is not for vanity. Nor is it for war. It is the minimum of rudeness required for survival."
"The minimum of rudeness?"
"Yes."
He smiled gently.
"When the world comes to harm your children, this side must also be a little rude to the world."
I turned the words over. Rudeness. A shield. Preparedness. War weapons and protective gear looked far too much alike. I did not like that border. But I could not say it was unnecessary, either.
"And the elven archers?" I asked.
Carnepisara smiled again.
"That one is about half personal taste."
"Hey."
"Though it is practical as well."
"I said don't."
"I shall discard it."
"Don't look disappointed about it."
Carnepisara covered his mouth with the back of his hand. The laugh still showed.
I sighed.
I still did not trust this elf. The moment humans came up, there was no telling what he would say next. Putting elven archers on dragonback was absolutely not happening. Even the dwarven armor was not a decision for today.
But one thing I understood.
Carnepisara saw war. I saw my children. And somewhere between those two, there were probably things I needed to learn.
"He may be a bit unhinged… but he is a good teacher," Gargantua said, low.
I shot him a look.
"I'm still deciding."
"Yes."
"But."
I looked at Carnepisara. He stood with his staff planted, smiling — polite, cheerful, and permanently one sentence away from proposing some deranged war plan.
"I guess he's not the worst."
Carnepisara bowed his head.
"For a first day, that is the highest evaluation possible."
"It is not the highest."
"By my standards, it is."
"Your standards are low."
"Live long enough, and some standards sink of their own accord. Heh heh."
I sighed again. And in my heart, I drew a conclusion.
"Just teach me magic. Not your ideology."
"If that is what you wish, then by all means."
…And there he is again, weirdly polite at the end.
Fine. I'll study with the mindset of extracting the magic and nothing else. Human-hatred and all the rest of it? Not catching that. Not ever…!