Kill this “chosen one.”

“This woman,” you say. “Has tried to kill me.” you begin pacing in front of said woman. “She is also supposed to be some kind of ‘chosen one’ that will bring about the return of an ancient dead and defunct elf empire.” Shalia straightens her back and glares at you defiantly. “I cannot allow such dissidence in my empire.” You hold a hand out to a guard, and he hands you his sword.

Shalia’s eyes widen, and she headbutts her captor with the back of her head and steals his sword, but you react too quickly and run her through with your own. She coughs up some blood that hits the floor with a sickening splat and runs down her chin, threatening to stain her dress.

Sorisana screams in distress, but the guards hold her back.

Shalia continues to cough up little sputters, clinging on to waning life as she glares daggers at you.

“You have failed to kill me,” you whisper to her. “Just as your predecessor failed to kill my father or his father before.” You shove your sword deeper into her, eliciting a groan as you bring her closer. “You have failed to live up to their stories.” You release her and let her body crumple to the ground as her sword clatters on the hard stone floor.

Sorisana screams in agony as tears fall down her face.

“I expect you to do better in the next life.” you mutter as you watch the life fade from Shalia’s face.

Sorisana’s knees buckle as if under the increasing weight of sadness, the guards holding her arms up behind her as she sucks in **** breaths between hiccups.

You hand the guard back his sword and call an orc with an axe to cut off the hero’s head so you can deliver it personally to the elves outside.

The elves surrender unconditionally and are now under the jurisdiction of your empire. You grant all elves in your new territories full citizenship and every right associated with it under the law. While most humans showed disdain for the elves and kept them segregated, any faithful law-bringer would bring restitution to any elf who had been wronged. However, it was almost imperative for orcs and elves to be segregated due to their conflicting cultural behaviors. Elves have been mostly passive, and orcs (despite three generations of living with humans) are very much a violent kind (a majority of the adult orc population are in some form of military or enforcement position).

Despite your best efforts, short of sword-point and imprisonment, many of your citizens treat the elves as second-class. Human trafficking crimes have risen, and a disproportionate number of the victims are elves. Many elves claim to have volunteered to be trafficked in exchange for money; this became a loophole for many traffickers to continue doing their business while avoiding the full wrath of the law.

After a few years, the elves mostly keep to themselves. Most of the elf population stays in small villages where they are the majority, humans are a tiny minority, and sighting an orc in an elf village is akin to spotting a unicorn. The elves have adjusted well to obey your law, and some have taken occupations to enforce it, even in the more secluded elf-majority villages.

In one of those elf villages…

A little elf girl jumps up from her bed, screaming, her body shivering and covered in sweat.

An older elf woman rushes into the room. “Sweetie!” she shouts. “What happened?”

“Mommy!” the girl shouts. “Mommy! I had another bad dream!” She jumps out of her bed and runs toward her mother, wrapping her arms around her mother’s waist as if to keep herself from drowning in open sea.

The mother calms down a bit and kneels down to hug her daughter. “Oh~, there there, Allinia, it’s alright. It was only a nightmare. It wasn’t real. It can’t hurt you.” she strokes the little girl’s reddish-black hair. “What was it this time?”

Allinia sniffles as her teary blue eyes look into her mother’s golden ones, her bright red hair framing her face. “The same as always. A dragon. A big bad dragon comes down from the sky and breathes fire everywhere. It then eats you, and it eats papa, and it eats uncle Iefyr and…”

The mother shushes the girl from going too far into her description and distressing her even more. “That is never going to happen.” she says. “Do you know why?”

“Why?” Allinia asks.

“Because there are no dragons here on the Astineki Coast. And if there were, they would not attack our little village. They hoard gold, why would a dragon attack such a small village such as ours if we have no gold?”

Allinia sniffles again and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. She’s calmed down, but something in the back of her mind continued to nag at her about that dream. Still, she wanted her mother not to worry about her, so she nodded and smiled. “Right. Dragons are greedy monsters attracted to other greedy monsters and we’re not greedy.”

The mother smiled. “That’s right. Now, let’s get back to bed. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.” and she left the room.

The thoughts of her nightmare did not quiet as she approached her bed. If anything, her anxiety continued to worsen. Then she heard shouting.

Then she heard a roar. A dragon’s roar, followed by the crackling of buildings becoming set on fire.

Allinia’s anxiety reached a fever pitch as she looked to her mother. “Mommy! I heard a dragon!”

The mother rushed back into the room. “Allinia, quick. We need to ru-” the wall explodes from the **** of a dragon’s red-scaled talons reaching through.

The **** knocked Allinia’s mother to the opposite wall, the rubble opening wounds everywhere on her face as Allinia, safe from the worst of the impact, shied back and hid under her bed.

The dragon’s claws dug into the stone floor as it retreated, and a large, sulfur-yellow, slitted eye peered into the open room. It snarled and spoke in a guttural language Allinia couldn’t understand. It then grabbed Allinia’s mother in its massive claws and brought it closer to its face. It said something again in its alien tongue to the mother.

Allinia covered her mouth to keep herself from screaming and attracting the attention of the dragon.

“P-please.” Allinia’s mother said pitifully, barely above a whisper. “Don’t kill me.”

The dragon growls, and its brows furrow in anger as it opens its fang-filled mouth wide and clamps down over the injured woman, severing her body in half at the waist.

Allinia moved her other hand over her mouth, almost trying to suffocate herself to keep herself from making any noise, though she could feel her throat shaking from the attempt and going raw.

The dragon then consumes the lower half in one bite, glances back into the hole in the side of the house, then turns away. As it does, its tail carelessly swings wide and smashes into the house, collapsing it thoroughly.

Later…

The sun hangs high in the sky as you and your men make haste on horseback as you approach the smoldering ruin that was once an elf village in your territory just yesterday.

“We’re too late, my lord.” one of your captains says, taking in the sight of smoldering structures. “That dragon’s mighty hungry and must’ve eaten every elf in this village. I don’t think there will be any survivors.”

You narrow your eyes at a pillar of black smoke rising from the ruins and take a deep breath, extending your senses through the spirit of the bear you’ve conquered. “Start searching,” you command softly.

“Fan out!” The captain snaps, and the others follow his order without hesitation. He turns to you. “My lord, what do you hope to find?”

You sigh. “That’s just it. Hope. My grandfather started the unification of the old tribes through blood. My father finalized that unification through iron. Now here I am with a completed nation, and I’m afraid it’s going to fall apart because of one stupid dragon who strayed too far from home. I just want to see something survive its wake of destruction without being irrevocably altered.”

The captain nodded. “That dragon has been a thorn in your side ever since the elves surrendered all those years ago.” he then scowled.

You look to your captain. “Don’t tell me your one of those who believes the elves summoned this dragon as ****.”

“Well, why not?” he snaps.

You narrow your eyes.

He straightens, “My apologies, your highness. Permission to speak freely?”

You soften your gaze and let him stew in silence for a second before granting him permission.

“It can’t be a coincidence that the dragon started terrorizing our nation five years to the day the elves surrendered at the capitol.”

You dismount from your horse. “You don’t believe in coincidences, Captain Ragisson?”

“Oh, I believe in them.” he dismounts and joins you. “I just don’t trust them.”

You smile and place a hand on his shoulder. “That’s why I hired you.”

“I found an elf, my lord.” a guard shouts from the rubble.

You turn to hear a little girl scream and struggle as she is held roughly by the arm, kicking at the soldier’s armored shins. When the soldier reaches you, he throws the girl at your feet. She looks up at you with wide blue eyes and a trembling body. Her clothes are dirty, ragged, and slightly singed. Her reddish-black hair is a ragged mess, and her face is covered with dirt and soot.

“What should we do with it?” he asks.