Jamie was drowning his troubles in a mug of good ale. He’d already finished the chicken and greens that the Innkeeper had brought him without asking an hour ago, and that had truly hit the spot. But he was lonely, and tired, and he didn’t want to go home.
The scent of food and cedar was heavy in the air. He’d never been to this inn before; he was new in town and still getting acquainted with the local nightlife. It felt like something out of a fantasy story, without the modern conveniences of a jukebox or televisions on the wall.
But it was quaint and cozy, and the food was good enough to stand on its own.
He took out his phone and checked his email, but didn’t have a signal.
“Hey, what’s the wi-fi password?” he called to the Innkeeper.
“Don’t have one,” the Innkeeper said. “Sorry. Can’t figure out how that stuff works.”
Jamie sighed and put his phone away.
“This place is slow, with the quality of the food I would think you’d do better business,” he said to the Innkeeper.
“Oh, I do alright. Enough to get by, that’s all I need,” the Innkeeper answered, wiping a mug that was so clean the sides sparkled. “Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself? You look like you’ve got a story in you that you want to get out.”
“Yeah. Same story as everyone. My boss is an asshole and my girlfriend dumped me,” Jamie said. “Can I get more of this beer? It’s really good.”
“Of course,” the Innkeeper said, taking his mug and filling it from the tap. “Just because you think your story is common doesn’t mean you don’t want someone to listen to it. Please, go ahead. Let it out. Sometimes all you need to feel better is a sympathetic ear.”
The Innkeeper’s words were reasonable, so Jamie decided to play along. “I just graduated law school. I got a position in a law firm, but I didn’t realize how…how shit it would be.”
“How so?”
“I thought I’d be helping people. Helping them navigate their legal issues, helping them get out of trouble for their mistakes, helping them, I don’t know. But they stuck me in contracts and all I do is figure out ways for my clients to screw over the little man. Or that’s what it feels like anyway. I mean, the corporations that are paying us
our clients, but it’s hard to sympathize with them compared to the small businesses that—“
Jamie fell into a rhythm, talking about all the things that he hated about his chosen profession. His drink ran low, and the Innkeeper refreshed it without being asked.
It was good beer, and he felt just a little bit tipsy. He wouldn’t be driving home tonight, he thought.
“Hey, you got rooms, right?” he asked. “Mind if I sleep this off?”
“Of course,” the Innkeeper agreed. “I’ll put it on your tab.”
“I have a tab?” Jamie asked. “I haven’t given you my card yet.”
“Oh, I don’t worry about it. I start a tab for all of my customers the moment they walk through my door. And we settle up when they leave.”
“How much do I owe you?”
“My prices are quite reasonable,” the Innkeeper assured him. “We’ll settle up in the morning. But it looks like you have more to say before you sleep. You were talking about your girlfriend?”
“Yeah. Talk about cliché,” he said. “She dumped me because I was never home. Well, we’ll see what she thinks when she has to get by without my credit card for a few months—“
Jamie was beginning to feel better about himself, talking to this stranger in the little hole in the wall that he’d stumbled across, when the door opened. Not the one he’d come through, but another one. And in walked an Elf.
Jamie blinked in surprise; he hadn’t heard there was any sort of convention going on in town. This level of cosplay showed dedication. Idly, he wondered about her workout routine, because while she was slender and lithe, her muscles—prominently on display under her cosplay outfit which covered up about as much as a bikini.
He swallowed and turned back to the bar. He’d gone through a…a phase in high school, and the cosplayer was hitting all the notes to bring those memories back.
The elf-woman surveyed the Inn’s common room carefully. She pulled out a crystal from a pack at her hip, and she pointed it at the Innkeeper.
It did nothing.
“Not a mimic, then,” she said. “What manner of being be thou?”
“The kind that offers good food and drink and shelter in exchange for a story,” the Innkeeper said. “A story freely given, but true and honest and lived. That’s all I ask, that’s all I’ll take from you, Gwyndlylin of the Emerald Hills.”
“I could use shelter for the night,” she admitted. “If thou be fae, I call you to account. Will you give me guest rights and pledge my safety while I am within these walls?”
“This I pledge. Leave all thoughts of violence at the door, and you shall find that you be welcome forever more,” the Innkeeper said. He shrugged. “Or at least as long as you can pay your tab.”
“I ask for only a night’s respite,” she said. “In the morning, shall I be free to depart?”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“In the morning, or the next, or the next, I shan’t keep you bound, daughter of Elynquilith. Come or go, just pay the tab with truth you know, and let the words flow.”
She sighed and collapsed into the seat next to Jamie. Her regal pose vanished, and she looked exhausted. “I am not powerless, if you think you can trick me—“
“I would never think of it, Gwyndlylin,” the Innkeeper assured her. “I shall fetch thou food and drink, and when you have sated your appetite, you may speak your truth. I will prepare a room for you that is comfortable, warm and dry. A bath, if you want it. The same I offer all others who come through one of the doors.”
She nodded. “I accept the bargain, stranger.”
The Innkeeper departed for the back room, and Jamie began to clap.
“Wow,” He said. “That was intense. What was that from? You must come here often if you’ve got the Innkeeper playing along with you. Is this where you and the others hang out? I’m assuming you have a group?”
“I do, but we were separated in the fog,” she answered. “If you don’t mind, I will tell my tale to the Innkeeper when he returns, so wait until then. I do not wish to repeat myself.”
“Right, sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean for you to break character. I’ll just shut up and enjoy the show. It’s really very impressive.”
She stiffened. “My character is not so weak to be broken by idle words from a son of Adam,” she scolded.
“Right, of course. Sorry.”
Jamie continued to drink from his half-filled mug of ale, unaware that it had been half-filled for a while without emptying.
“You’re very beautiful, you know,” he said. “I’d love to see you out of costume.”
She turned to him, scandalized, and he realized what he had just said.
“I meant in regular clothes,” he clarified. “Not—you know, I’m just going to shut up. I’m drunk. Please, don’t take anything I say too seriously.”
Gwyn studied the young man in front of her. She had pledged to leave violence at the door, and that included punishing him for his drunkenness. She did not know exactly what she had stumbled into while searching for a safe haven in the fog, but she knew that this place followed rules. Old rules, older than her. Older than her People. She didn’t want to know what would happen if she violated them.
“I forgive you your slip of the tongue,” she said. “But I suggest that you stop wagging it until you are sober once more.”
“Right,” Jamie agreed, drinking from his perpetually half-full mug of ale.
The Innkeeper returned with a plate of steamed vegetables, nuts, and venison. He set it before the Elf, served her wine from the shelf behind the bar, and then stood back, patiently cleaning a mug that was clean while he waited for her to sate her appetite.
She was not a dainty eater. She ate ravenously, having not had such fine fare since she had left her mother’s court six years ago. When she was sated, she sat back, sipping her wine glass that did not empty herself, and looked to the Innkeeper.
“That food was real,” she said. “This place, it is not an illusion. What are you?”
“A little Dream made Real,” he answered.
Her eyes narrowed. “Is that so?”
“Will you tell me your story now, or before you leave in the morning?” the Innkeeper asked.
Gwyn sighed, then leaned back in her chair. She stretched, her arms above her head, acutely aware of the way the son of Adam was looking at her as she did it. He had a loose tongue, she thought. Perhaps she might make him repent for his careless words with the careless silence of his tongue later. He was handsome, and if she was to spend the night, there was no reason to do so in a bed warmed only by herself.
She liked controlling men with her beauty. She liked pleasure. She liked not being alone at night.
And she had been lost in the fog for so very, very long, that she had forgotten what it was to be touched by a lover. Even if he was only a son of Adam and would wither and fade by the end of the season of her youth, a single night’s pleasure wasn’t too much to take from him, and give to him in exchange.
She could smell his arousal, and it amused her.
But first, she had to pay for her room, and her food, and the very fine wine that she was drinking.
“Where to begin?” she said at last. “I am the daughter of Elynquilith, handmaiden to the Queen of the Emerald Hills of Avalon. My earliest memories were of playing with the prince of the court, who was two years older than me. By the standards of our people, that means we are effectively the same age.”
She added this for the son of Adam, as she wasn’t certain it would be the same for him.
“I have many a tale of childhood I could feed you, and many a tale of coming into the bloom of adolescence. But it is a single night I ask from you, and to tell all the tales that I have to tell would take me months. So I shall simply tell you the tale of how I came under this roof, if that is acceptable?”
“I shall tell you if you have not paid your tab,” the Innkeeper promised.
“Very well. Prince Quarth, he that holds the key to my heart, married another suitor. This was expected, but it still pierced my heart like an arrow from heaven, and I could no longer stand to walk the halls where we had played together as children. So I left in the quiet of the night, leaving behind only a letter for my mother and my father to explain why, and that I loved them still. I took with me what I thought to be enough coin to live comfortably for a few years and traveled to one of the human cities, where I established a small estate and spent three years entertaining the nobles, informing them of the latest trends in the elven court and such.”
She paused to drink from her goblet of wine. “I ran out of money.”
She sighed. “And I erred. I tried to maintain appearances. For another six months I got by on promises of payments and lines of credit. Finally, the banks and the nobles who held my debts had enough. They took my estate from me and kicked me out into the streets.
“Cold and alone, I stumbled into a tavern, where I met a dwarf, who asked me if I had learned the elfish arts while I was a child at court. I answered honestly. I am a sorceress of minor power at best. But compared to what is common outside the elven courts, I am a rare talent. And thus began my days as an adventurer.”
She paused to drink again from the goblet, which never emptied even as she drank. Uncanny, but only to be expected in a place like this.
“That has been my life in the two decades since then. I have something of a reputation, and can select my party from among the most famous knights errant and rogues and soldiers in the kingdom. But three months ago, I erred again. I thought to venture into the lair of the Mist Dragon Neir-ho-no-mo. The dragon discovered us.
“He devoured the mighty knight Calinthor, and the rest of us were scattered into the fog. I have not seen them since, but twice I have heard the screams of voices I recognize. I thought that it would only be time until the dragon descended and I battled it for my life. Alone.
She sighed. “But then I saw your door, and in my desperation I opened it and stumbled inside. I would never have done such a thing under normal circumstances, but, well, here we are. Is this story sufficient for my debt?”
“It has settled your debt, and then some,” the Innkeeper said. “Make yourself at ease. You are safe here. The dragon shall not find you, and in the morning the door you entered into shall open into the city of Calin-tokal.”
“It shall?” she asked, hope entering her eyes.
“Yes,” he answered. “You are both welcome to remain as long as you wish. I shall let you know if your tabs begin to run low.”
The Innkeeper left the common room then, leaving Gwyn alone with the son of Adam, who was smiling stupidly at her.
“Do you have a mate?” she asked abruptly. “Or are you free to warm my bed tonight?”
He blinked. “That’s a little blunt, isn’t it?”
“I’ve been wandering the wilderness for months. I am lonely. I could use the touch of a man.” She eyed him. “Alas I see only you. You’ll have to do.”
Jamie flushed, and he was suddenly grateful for his father’s insistence that he always keep a condom in his wallet.
It wasn’t until the morning after when he realized her ears were real.
