Duendewood: Children of Ruin, part eight

The farmhouse was shuttered tight: doors closed, windows sealed, no trace of smoke rising from the chimney. Skyflower paused, studying the dirt of the road, then glanced back at the others. 

She was pretty, as Jacques had noted to himself several times already: dark brown hair that showed auburn highlights in the sun, milk-pale skin with a scattering of freckles across her nose and cheekbones, pale gray eyes. Like most of the True Elves, she carried a two-handed scimitar; she also had a longbow strapped to the side of her pack. "There are still people here," she said. "Also a dog. They're just hiding."

"May I?" asked Jacques, and several of the other nodded. Risk -- the flamboyant golden half-dragon sorcerer -- hesitated, but then nodded as well.

It took a minute or so to reach the wooden porch; then he was knocking on the door. 

When nobody answered, he knocked again. This time, a dog barked. "Hello?" he called. "My name is Jacques Fontaine. We're here to help with the gnolls."

There was a long pause, and then a gruff voice said, "Step back from the door."

Jacques obliged, then waited as someone unbarred the door and swung it open. It was a dwarf -- old enough to have some gray in his hair and beard -- aiming a heavy crossbow. Another dwarf stood behind him, this one a woman of similar age, holding a light crossbow at the ready. 

"Fontaine, ye say?" asked the man. 

"Jacques Fontaine, son of His Majesty Tavros Fontaine and currently Baronet of Westhill, which is just outside of Caristhium."

"Can ye prove it?" asked the woman. 

"Well... Yes, just a moment." He unlaced the cuff of his left sleeve, then pushed it up until the silvery scales on his outer arm were visible. "I suppose that's not technically proof, but it's the best I can do in the moment."

"Nay, that'll do for now. The King sent ye, did 'e?"

"In truth, he did -- but we would have come anyway had we known." He began rolling his sleeve back down.

The woman nodded. "And Ah see ye've brought yer troops."

Jacques wondered if he could just say yes and have the others go along with it. Probably not; it wouldn't take more than five minutes of listening to their good-natured squabbling to realize that they were something else. Cautiously, he shook his head. "We couldn't spare any, so we came ourselves." He turned to look back, still lacing his cuff back up one-handed. "The two with the silver scales are my sister and brother. The rest are children of the Champion of Corellon, Ruin, who fought alongside my father against the goddess Vecna."

The woman sniffed. "Elves."

"Easy, Marai," said the man. "These'uns are here tae help." He studied the group again. "Though that's quite a collection o' children for a single father, and an elf intae the bargain."

"Yesss,"  Jacques admitted. "All else aside, Ruin apparently had the sexual morals of a barn cat."

The woman snorted and the man guffawed, and all of a sudden they were friends.