![]() I could not mount a suitable argument, so I fell upon a statement of evident fact. He stood firm, waiting for my answer, to watch me return to the door or die by his hand this night. Would I die for these answers? I might have to, and I accepted as quickly the necessity of this. The moldering corpses of elves littered the ground back in my world. I knew as soon as he had gotten these words out that I could not go back through the door, not until I had seen this through. So close to the doors, to the pile of my rotting kinsmen beyond it, I drew a quick conclusion. So calmly could he say this that he granted no harbor for doubt. I would not savor killing you, small one, but I will do it if I must." "I have killed many kinds to preserve how things are meant to be. Were they claws? Now they appeared only to be fingernails in need of paring, but my heart knew what they were even if my eyes now betrayed me. "They have either shown the wisdom I demanded of them, given that you did not know about this, or I have killed them." He did not see a need to obscure information from me, either because it had no value to him or I was merely not worth the worry. ![]() "Yes," he said more readily than I had anticipated. "Have others of my kind been here?" I asked. He was fierce and proud, imperious, but never human. This creature, however his shape now, was not a native mortal. ![]() To be in the mortal world was to concede some of our essences. We, who were never mortal, did not have that boon. Having been human, he could pass through the boundaries without damage. The order of things was that only our king could come to his place. Not the songs we sang loudly, but the ones we whispered in private. Without magic, we were forced into the shape that could sustain us. He looked human enough, but that was the way of this realm. You would be wise to forget what you have seen here." ![]() His claws here pointed at me, a threat without the need to verbalize. I doubted this creature could do anything about that. "I don't understand," I said, though the imperative was clear. "You are going back into your door," he said to me. ![]()
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