Shanterelle

[Kaelindra]

Shanterelle awakens to find that she has slept all day in the student lounge in an uncomfortable and awkward position. "By the gods, is it evening already? I didn't even know I was asleep!"

"I did," Agaliarept tells her from where she plays darts across the room.

"Why didn't anybody wake me or move me?"

"Hey," Gallie responds, "I was the one who suggested moving you. I nudged you in the belly and you didn't move."

Elle's eyes widen and she checks her stomach as if she believes Gallie could have harmed it.

"Sheesh, you are so paranoid! I didn't hurt it." Gallie shakes her head at the young elf's behavior.

"H... how did you know? About ... it?" Elle's eyes travel up to Gallie's face.

"What?" Rimas interjects, "What's going on?"

"Oh," Gallie informs him calmly, "Elle is expecting the pitter patter of little claws. So who's the lucky daddy Elle?"

"What? How did you...?" Elle is mortified to have half of her secret so calmly blurted to the whole lounge. "None of your business Agaria-whatever your @@$%%n' name is!" She tears out of the lounge in tears. Her dorm room door slams and loud sobbing is heard from within.

"Sheesh, I don't know why she thinks she's so special," Gallie comments, "lots of girls have been raped by dragons."

"Wow, now I feel guilty," Rimas mutters, "We took it too far, I'm going to go check on her."

Rimas knocks on Elle's door. "Elle? Can I come in?"

"Just don't let that Aga girl in!" Comes an angry response.

Rimas enters to find Elle crying, face down on her bed and Andlat, an elfin priest with long blond hair sitting in a chair next to it, patting Elle's back with a confused look on his face. "What is going on?" He asks.

"Are you okay, Elle?" Rimas asks her gently. "I'm sorry, we went too far." He sits down carefully on the bed beside her.

"No! I am very much NOT okay!" She bellows.

[Kaelindra]

At this moment, Agaliarept appears inside Elle's room.

"Get away from me!"

Freiya appears soon after by her side. "Angry little elf isn't she?" She nudges her friend.

"Well, hormones will do that to you." Comes the reply.

Andlat stands up, and Rimas turns toward the two. "She clearly does not want you here." Andlat can be heard to say. "Get out."

They shrug at each other and quietly disappear from sight.

"And next time, knock before you just appear in someone's private quarters!" He calls out as a parting reminder.

"Elle, baby? What's wrong? What's going on?"

She bites her lip, but realizing he should hear it from her before people like Gallie fill the University's population with lies, she puts a hand on Andlat's knee. "I'm pregnant, Andlat."

"What? But we never... we never even came close!"

She stares at him, through him almost. willing him to understand without her having to voice the pain.

"It's not possible."

"Do you remember Stormwind? that human!" She spits the word out like acid on her tongue.

"Oh my god, no!" He realizes what happened and envelops her in his arms. His embrace remains gentle as the ripples on a placid lake, while in his eyes grows a fury as angry as the windswept ocean.

[Kaelindra]

"Do you..." Andlat hesitates, "Do you know for sure?"

"Well," She thinks, "We should go talk to professor Lovely, she can probably tell for sure."

Andlat nods and stands, an arm around Elle's shoulders. "Come on, lets find out for sure, Elle." She nods dejectedly and moves out the door with him.

When Lovely lets them into her office, she closes the door behind them as they take seats side by side. "Professor" Elle shares, "I think I'm pregnant. Can you... is that something you can tell for sure?"

Without a word, Lovely kneels down beside Elle and rests a hand against her stomach. After a moment, she looks up and smiles. "Congratulations," She smiles at the two of them, "you are with child."

Elle hangs her head. "I take it this is not welcome news?"

"It's... human, Professor." Then after some thought. "Can you kill it?" Andlat's head pops up in horror at her words.

"Elle, humans are just like us, some are good, some are evil. I can remove it from your body, but then I would grow it in my lab. I will not kill a baby." She stands up and lifts her shirt up to reveal that she has no belly button. "I myself was grown in a lab, I'm sure I could do it with this child. But if you want me to take it out you have to consider it mine after that, I will do what I choose, train him to be an assassin perhaps." She considers the many possibilities.

Elle nods, herself deep in thought. Then she gets up, holding Andlat's hand and pulling him up after her. "Thank you Professor. I shall let you know my decision."

Back in her dorm room, Andlat has to ask, "Elle? You don't mean it, do you? You wouldn't really kill a baby?"

"Andlat? How can I let this thing inside of me be born and live? Lovely may be right, not all humans are evil, but this one has to be. The father was evil, it's beginning was violent and brutal, how can I be anything else?"

"But Elle, it will also be part of you." Andlat has tears in his eyes. "And if you let me, I would help raise it, we could make sure it doesn't become evil. I could be a... a father" he finishes, looking down, regretful that his hopes are already on something which is unlikely to come about.

Elle turns to Andlat and looks him in the eyes. "Could you kill it for me, Andlat?"

Andlat turns quickly away from her. "Elle! Don't ask me to do such a thing! Please!"

"If it's going to be done, I'd rather you be the one."

"I'll do it!" Gallie appears again in the midst of the room, a delighted grin on her face. "I'll do it now even! This is really going to hurt!" She comes at Elle with a dagger drawn, Freiya appearing just behind her, giggling as she watches.

"Gallie! Be careful when you cut it out of her! I want to have a little pet dragon!" She calls out.

Elle screams, Andlat stands immediately between her and Gallie, but Elle is already running out of the room.

She pounds past the student lounge, Rimas who has returned to the lounge, sees her and starts to run after her as does the orc hunter Bankotsu. "Elle wait!"

Out in front of the school, Rimas catches her and stops her. "What is going on?"

Elle stops and lets herself burst into tears. She then heaves and throws up on the sidewalk, and lays her tired body down a few feet away. Rimas kneels next to her, one hand on her shoulder. "Try to catch your breath, it's okay."

Bankotsu, his wolf by his side, watches the proceedings, concerned. Andlat soon comes running down the stairs, "Where is she?" Rimas steps back to show him where Elle lies.

"Elle? Are you all right?" Andlat lifts her small frame into his arms.

She curls into his protection. "Andlat, take me away from here. Take me away from that horrible girl. I'm never coming back here."

He nods and starts to head into the forests, Rimas and Bankotsu following in his wake, watching behind them for signs of Gallie or Frieya.

Deep in the forest he sets her down. "Maybe we can stay out here for awhile."

[Kaelindra]

"I have a tent and some sleeping bags back at the school, I can fetch them and you two can stay out here for awhile if you need to." Rimas opens a portal back to Silvermoon and steps through.

Meanwhile, Andlat holds Elle in his lap and runs his fingers through her hair to calm her down. Elle rests her head against his chest. Bank keeps watch, standing guard. None of them see the bird hovering just above the treetops.

There is a sound, Bank turns, but it is only Rimas returning with the camping stuff. As he and Bank start to set up the tent, Andlat starts to talk to Elle in a soothing voice. "We don't have to... I mean, you don't have to decide anything right away, you still have time."

He closes his eyes and steels himself, "I think i could kill the baby without hurting you." tears start to come to his eyes and he pushes them away. "I could... crush it's mind within you. You would have to birth it after, but it would be gone."

She looks up at him, amazed by his words. "And would you do that? For me?"

"For you..." he steels himself again. "For you, I would. If it's really and truly what you want."

She looks at him with grateful love in her eyes. "Thank you." she smiles weakly, "but I still have time right?"

"You do."

Just then there is a crash from above and a huge elf falls to the ground to stand before them. "You would allow another human to come into this world, brother?!! After what they did to our family?" Andlat's brother, Draumr, lifts Andlat up by the shoulders of his robes, dumping Elle unceremoniously to the ground. She throws up again and crawls off to the shelter of some bushes.

[Kaelindra]

Draumr tosses Andlat aside and then goes after the girl in the bushes. He reaches one hand into the bush and pulls Elle out by her hair. He draws a dagger from his belt. "I will not allow another human to be born in this world if it is in my power to stop it."

"No!" Andlat shoves Draumr to the side before he can harm Elle and picks her up in his arms. "You will not touch her!" Draumr gets up, eyeing his brother angrily, starting to circle them.

Rimas now dashes in, "Andlat, let me take her, I'll bring her to safety." Rimas takes her into his arms and makes a portal back to Silvermoon. "No!" Elle reaches weakly back toward Andlat as he takes her through the portal. Seeing her worry and fear splashed across her face, Rimas leaves the portal up so that they can watch through it and see what happens.

Bank sends his wolf after Draumr, Gallie and Frieya who have followed Rimas back to them, make themselves visible now, a delighted audience to incoming carnage.

Andlat turns to Bank, "No! This is my fight!" Nodding, Bank calls his wolf back to him.

The brothers begin to circle each other. [[god, I can't remember fights! LOL maybe I can get someone to write this for me, Draumr is a 70 be paladin and Andlat a 70 holy priest, who does not even defend himself. Anyway, I remember the ending:]] Andlat is flat on his back on the ground, Draumr has his sword pointed at his throat.

"No!!!" Elle screams, trying to drag herself back through the portal, but Rimas holds her back.

The brothers' eyes are locked, it seems as if they are larger than life and that the world spins completely around them. Finally, Draumr throws his sword to the ground. "I can't do it." He walks away but turns back, his eyes spitting hate. "You are no longer a brother to me, Andlat. I never want to see you again." Then he whistles for his mount and takes off into the sky.

Rimas finally lets Elle go and she crawls back over to her Andlat. He smiles when her face appears above his own. She touches him gently, taking in his many wounds. "I'll keep the baby, Andlat. If you would endure all this to save me... I'll keep the baby."