“That you Blue?” A familiar Warden asks me from his post at the gate.

  “Yeah, old bastard, it’s me. Got gored, but got my revenge. Need a clean place to wash and stitch up.”

  He nods. “Need your ID and since you’re bloody . . .”

  “No ID anymore. I disagreed with a Liason and they kicked me out.”

  He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t say anything about that. “Teeth and eyes, kid. You know the drill.”

  I do, but this time, they let me pull my eyelids back and pull my lips away from my teeth this time—a huge upgrade from dirty gloves in my mouth.

  “Great, you’re not feral. Just the hogs today?”

  “Knife on my hip and a sack of plants on my butt?”

  He gives me a flat stare of annoyance before waving me through. I head to Jameth first, seeing if he wants to skin the beasts before I get to them. He scoffs, waives me to his side counter and makes quick work. He charges me four silver for a cellar of salt to dress my now skinned kills and then sweep up after myself because I’m not an ass. I do keep the half cellar of salt since he charged me for a whole one.

  I stare up at the Arming Arms sign while second and third-guessing decision to go in and talk to her. I should do this, but if Leeda is shitty again, I won’t come back. I know she helped me, but I can’t be the only one trying.

  “Welcome to Arming . . . oh.” Leeda says as I walk into her shop. “Lotta nerve you coming back.”

  “Yeah, some nerve wanting to see how my friend was doing after our fight.”

  “I’m fine. I’d be better if you hadn’t spit on Maude’s honor and my hospitality, but there’s no honor amongst Guild flunkies.”

  “Is it honorable to dismiss people when all I did was look for work? To want to enter the gate without getting mauled by the watch for being a troll? Do you get pawed and prosecuted everyday for who you are, Halvyr? Or should I find a box for you to be on the same level as honor and truth.”

  “Fuck you, Zhantsa, what do you know about my strife?!”

  “Fucking nothing! You won’t tell me but you judge me against it constantly! I can’t meet standards I don’t know about, and to expect such is fucking delusional.”

  “Who are you to come in here and talk to me like this? Get out.”

  “Fine. But Maude trusted you, I trusted you, and you spit on both of us. Goddess knows why, but if it’s the Guild, they kicked me out. But now I don’t need you to pick up the pieces. I have money, security, and a place to live so I can pick myself up without some needy shit with a height complex.”

  “Zhantsa, wait, I . . .”

  Growling, showing my teeth and pushing my rage out, I turn on her and growl. “Shut up. I also fixed your arbalest problem.” I summon my hand crossbow and snap a bolt through her counter. “perhaps I’ll let you lease it from me.” I storm out with the red encroaching on my full vision.

  I will not rage in town. I will not rage in town. I meditate until the desire to bleed people with my tusks subsides. Fuck. I haven’t been that mad at a person since I arrived in Alaris.

  I want to get more business done, but I am in no state emotionally to be civil. I walk toward Melody’s estate, hijack some of her wood, find a vacant space of dirt displaced from buildings, and build a fire pit to smoke my pigs. I warn Melody of course, but she doesn’t respond.

  I’m in the process of shredding pork and keeping an eye on a stir fry when my Elf comes home.

  “You made us dinner.” I turn and see the freckles and bright eyes I missed. I rush over and peck her lips before I hug her.

  “I missed you, and I wanted to cook for you. Are you mad?”

  She smiles and sighs. “I’m not thrilled you made a firepit in my yard, but you picked the best spot to do it.”

  My heart hits the floor, and most of my excitement goes with it. “You’re mad?”

  “I’m trying not to be.”

  Tears just start down my face. I was trying to do something nice, and I assumed that because she could do things, I could do things. I guess I was wrong.

  “I’m sorry Zhan, it’s been a rough three days with the Guild punishing me and you poisoning yourself. I had some major catastrophe cooked up, and while seeing you is a pleasant surprise, some of it is just hard.”

  “Is your job going to be okay?” I try for stable, but I’ll settle for concerned. Her brief relaxation tells me that at least for a moment, I understand her.

  “They tried to tell me that my work suffered under my mentorship, but they had no data to back it up.”

  “But you did, you’re meticulous.” She smiles and pulls me backward so she can hold me from behind. I slouch into her, the affection feeling so good after her look of frustration.

  “Yes, yes I am.” She sighs. “Sorry, lover, I’m only frustrated that you carelessly poisoned yourself. Now I worry about you faring on your own.”

  I pat her hand. “I need to be better about feeding myself regularly. It wouldn’t have happened otherwise. That said, some interesting things happened after, but I want to hear about your days first.”

  “Over dinner? Then we can snuggle while we talk about some miracle shenanigan you found yourself in.” I narrow my eyes at her for ruining my surprise. Then sigh in that she’s known since the beginning that I have the luck of a Unicorn.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Dinner’s basically done, so I pour some wine that I found and serve the smoked pork and grotto-fare. She side eyes the pork, but as soon as she tastes the pickled grass salad her body straightens and her face brightens as she hums with delight.

  Note to self: Grotto greens are a hit.

  “So Gunther doesn’t know that I filed a spurious complaint grievance against him and the Guildmaster for the mentorship work deficiency. It might make a difference, but in all likelihood, it will sour my relationship with the locals, but allow me a non-fault transfer. I don’t know what that’s going to look like, but I’m . . . scared. If Veronica actually files a complaint against me, I’m sunk. But I hope that she’s just arrogant enough to blacklist you.”

  I wiggle as I agree with the pickled grass salad tastiness, “I see how that can be better, and as a foreign entity, I can weather the ire of the Guild slightly better than you.”

  “To some degree, yes. However, getting you registered for certain products without the Guild crying foul has become much harder.”

  “Platinum and aether dust?” she nods. “Alright. I have some other things we should discuss, but I feel your Guild issues don’t end there.”

  “And you’d be right. My overtime was horrendous. They decided to pay attention to the rule where time away from the desk didn’t count as service time, unless it could be accounted for, meetings not counting of course. So naturally . . .” She lets me fill in.

  Her letting me participate feels pretty good. “They called you into as many meetings as possible, under the guise of mid-rank administrator needing to see the more ‘specialized meetings’ or something.”

  Her head moves back a few centimeters and quirks to the side. “You are definitely not nineteen as a Traveler. No teen has been through that kind of meeting hell.” I chuckle at that, knowing that she’s right.

  “Not my turn lover.” I move the rest of my pickle salad to her plate and I get her to wiggle with excitement too. Heh, today is a success on that alone.

  “Your bribe is acceptable. In any case, I got them back by manning the night desk when the humans are too weak to have meetings.”

  “Elven meditation bullshit?”

  She nods with a smile. “That low-speed cart crash is ongoing, but I have hope because during my night shifts, I have been reading Guild regulations.”

  “Dear heavens, Melody, that is some hardcore vendetta commitment.” Her grin could almost be called feral.

  “It only works if I prove my worth outside of my receptionist duties.” She pauses and looks at me seriously.

  “I see. Your anger makes more sense now. As your lover and an asset that could gain you stability, accidently hurting myself worries you doubly.”

  She huffs and slumps to her elbows. “Thank the gods you get it. It’s not that I don’t care for you.” I grab her hand.

  “Melody, I get it, and I’m willing to help.” She brightens up, waiting for me to continue. “But, you said I get snuggles before it’s my turn, so you’re just going to have to wait.”

  She looks like she’s about to argue, but I can see that she remembers promising me to cuddle if I heard her out. I grin as I finish my meal and go to do the dishes.

  As soon as Melody finishes, she puts on some tea, sets two cups down and waits. When the tea finishes, she picks me up and pulls me down on top of her onto the couch. I wiggle up so my hips are nestled against hers, and my head rests against her shoulder.

  “I guess it’s my turn to share.”

  I mention Tanner’s handsome family and her buff, handsome, nubile cousin. Melody pinches me when I get to the part where she was offered as a sacrifice to me for my trip. I chuckle when I convey that I denied their offer outright, though teasing Melody was fun, she did not like the insinuation that I was tempted by the human that was my age.

  “So the mushroom that should have killed me, they had a hallucinogenic affect, that ended up giving me an Aether Sense.”

  “Silly Troll bullshit?”

  I nod and say, “Traveler too. Anyway, I followed my nose and the visual pretties and fell into a collapsed cave. My explosive-trained impact resistance kept the fall to a long rest, and then I woke in an aether-rich grotto with a ridiculous verdant expanse, a sparkling spring and the kind of pond that shows up in dreams of deities.”

  “And that’s where you got the food that I want to eat for the rest of my days in Marcrest.”

  Surprise must be evident on my face.

  “Zhan, seriously? There is no nearby source that is known to have that level of aether saturation in food. Anything else you find up there? Some secret to the meaning of life? A touch stone to let mortals speak to Alaris? Why are you not laughing with me?”

  I roll over and capture her arms against her body with my legs. “I have another thing, but I don’t know what it is?”

  She sighs, not struggling at all. “Just show me, dear. I may swear and laugh depending on how ridiculous your gift from the Goddess is.”

  I shrug and pull out a bottle of the water I took from the bubbling spring and offer it to her.

  She holds it, looks at it from may angles, then pulls out her sexy receptionist glasses and looks at it again before turning pale as a sheet.

  “What did I do!? Are you okay?”

  “No. Baby, no.” She pulls me close and glomps on with all of her limbs, easily overpowering my hold on her. “Did you inspect this since you collected it?” I shake my head. “This is vitality water, or the water of life. By itself it heals all wounds over a period of a day. All wounds, period. It is the only widely known component of resurrection, and that because it is so insanely rare outside of the church that it has been pushed to folklore. And you have a fucking liter of it, in a substance that is supposed to be extinct.”

  “Shit, and I thought I just found something cool.”

  She growls and flips us. Pinning me to the couch. “You did, but I need you to swear to me, upon all we mean to you, and the Goddess Alaris, that you found this in serendipity and have not escaped some Church-fueled nightmare.”

  She searches my eyes as I search hers.

  “Would you abandon me if I had escaped?”

  She growls, punches a cushion and sits back. “No. I would send you elsewhere in hopes that you could disappear for a decade while I had friends infiltrate different networks to keep this manageable.”

  “Aww, you care about me.” I heard her say dire things, but all I really heard is that this crazy lesbian probably wants me to move in with her and keep me to herself. I do a sit-up and kiss the catastrophizing Elf.

  “Was that not obvious?!” She grabs my head and follows me down to the couch and pulverizes my lips in the most pleasant way.

  “Now,” I say, pushing her back slightly, hyperventilating with arousal, “How about we think of a way to turn this crazy stuff into worth for you, so you can change jobs and I can be rich enough to provide for the people that want a change?”

  “Lover, this isn’t get rich resources, this is get chained in a dungeon for all time kind of resource.” Her face is so serious.

  “Sure sure, but I’m a Traveler, and keeping me permanently is difficult. Also, Troll Rage is a trip, and I fucking dare them.”

  “You’re level ten, Zhan, I’m level thirty two and the palace guards are like fifty something.”

  “Sure, but, I will tear my own arm or leg off and bleed to death on purpose, before I allow myself to be a permanent prisoner. And since I’m a Troll, there is no power on the planet that I am aware of that will keep me from being a danger to myself and others.”

  Fear infects her eyes as she searches my face. “Goddess, you’re serious.”

  “I want to help this world prepare for the arrival of more and more Travelers, but if they want to test why they should be afraid of them, I will teach them.”

  Melody surges up to kiss me, then rolls us off the couch onto the floor before she pulls away. “Do you actually have long-term plans? Or is this just you sounding hot in vengeance?”

  I buck my hips, causing her to moan as she grips my arm so tight I want to squeak. “I want to develop a community of crafters, skills and artisans, but I’m open to side missions.”

  “That, I can help with. Please let us focus on that instead of your Martyrdom.” She shoves her thigh between my legs and I growl with lust.

  The rest of the evening devolves into a semi-polite vying for dominance as we trade orgasms and semi-violent acts of arousal and appreciation.