15.4

"Of course it would be if they were all dead," Fenrir said as his ear twitched. Silence fell between the two, and the wolf's fur prickled on his neck. He could feel her now narrowed eyes borrowing into his, and out the back. He could feel the mana around them tremble for a single moment before everything returned to normal.

"What happened?" Her voice was no longer lazy and disinterested. It was cold and smelled of anger. "Everything was fine when I left, you remember, right? You were an AI when I did it, though, obviously, you're not now. I figured you would have looked out for things here."

Fenrir sighed. "I tried to do that, but I am only one wolf. I was considered no more than your pet to most of them. Am I your pet?" Fenrir asked.

"No, you're my best friend," Cyril answered immediately. "You should also know this."

"I do, but I wanted to confirm. Live long enough with others telling you otherwise, and you begin to doubt yourself." Fenrir gave a brittle smile. "However, as you can see, we're all more than just numbers and codes now. The high-elves were quite arrogant and believed themselves better than everyone else. If only for the fact they were created solely to tend to your mountain. They believed themselves to be your angels."

"Psh," Cyril rolled her eyes to that. "More like I just wanted some pretty dudes tending to my mountain. Prettier than... You know who." Cyril looked away. Jax had offered to keep his avatar as her eternal sentinel. She loved that man with her entire being, but after... What he'd done... It felt wrong to let him do that. Even know, the pain cut as she thought about him cheating on her. But she understood.

She understood more than anyone else what laid in the future with her. It was best they had cut where they did, least she'd keep him chained to her in the grave. She didn't want that, but... She did want that at the same time. A love that'd follow her in her death. Hindsight proved that it'd been for the best. They still held love for each other, but neither was locked into any false notions...

"Anyways!" Fenrir pulled her back to the present. He saw the black lines begin to crawl even so slightly more as she was pulled into the past. "At first, the three elven races - and every other race - lived in peace for the first few hundred years. However, ever slowly, the high-elves began to think of their stations of more than just pretty gardeners."

And so, racial tensions began to bloom Fenrir explained. It started with minor things, such as the high-elves sticking their noses high over the others. To which, no one had any real problem. The fact that they'd been the race created to tend to his mistress's grave hadn't been lost upon the others as well. No other races had been set in her garden and none after.

"So," Fenrir continued. "Little by little, the high-elves' ego had inflated well past any reasonable size, and they'd declared themselves a Kingdom rather than neutral territory as they've all agreed upon."

"They made me Poland?" Cyril asked.

"O, yes. Just, without any foreign forces trying to ruin you," Fenrir gave an amused huffed. "But in all seriousness, it'd been everyone's fault, to begin with. Even us, your precious three." Fenrir lowered his head apologetically.

"How so?" Cyril asked. "How could any of you three be responsible for a race war? It's not like you guys knew what I wanted, so this falls squarely on my shoulders." Because it did. Cyril hadn't thought about the consequences of making a single race to tend to her digital grave. In fact, the thought that any of this becoming really hadn't even crossed her mind. Well... The hope did, but no real thought had been given towards that hope.

"I and Akyryss had allowed it to happen," Fenrir said. "Glynii had tried to get us to act, but neither of us would. So for the next few hundred years, things shifted around, and before we knew it, the high-elves had numbered in the millions. They were magically blessed and most people believed them to be the 'superior race'. Eventually, they'd conquered everything short of the Endless Wastes of the south."

"And what stopped them from taking that?" Cyril asked, feeling like the worst for not thinking about any of this. Of course, this would happen. Given her luck, she would cause a massive race war with one careless move.

"For one, you laid quite a lot of magical monsters in the desert," Fenrir smiled. "Not to mention a bunch of nonsensical geographical placements. With all that, it wasn't worth the amount of blood they'd have to spill to take it. Most of all, you left a fucking Terrasque in that desert. Even Akyryss stays well away from that, and she's supposed to be more powerful than me."

Cyril's eyes went wide as the apple in her hand went still, a mere centimeter from her lovely pink lips.

"Yes," Fenrir restated. "You left us with a Terrasque."

"How are you all not wiped from the world already?" Cyril's chest trembled as she held back a laugh. As adorable, and sexy as it was, Fenrir couldn't share her mirth.

"I don't see how this is funny," Fenrir stated, his laugh slipping away. "That Terrasque has been terrorizing the southern hemisphere for quite a long time. Several demi-gods and gods themselves have already perished by its fangs." The only reason Alistair was the only god to survive this long was that he wasn't stupid enough to try and kill it. As much as that peeved Fenrir and Akyryss, it also a breather as each god it killed made it stronger.

"Only a few?" Cyril gave a wicked smile. She did find it odd that it was funny to her. But she couldn't help it, her little middle-finger towards Jax had turned into a menace for everyone else. It felt just all the same to her.

"Yes, only a few," Fenrir said. "I've had my paws busy killing more up-coming gods before they could throw this world into more chaos. Though, this Terrasque had found its way off the southern continent after food stopped coming its way. Afterward, it tore apart the land from the southern time of this one to Fable's End itself. It cut across the highlands and killed nearly half the Errol Realm's army."

"Errol Realm?" Cyril asked. "What kind of stupid name is that?"

"Not sure," Fenrir gave a cute wolf shrug. The last of his ribs left untouched as he explained. "But it was the name the high-elves settled with for their empire. Afterward, the cracks began to appear. By this point, the high-elves had become so full of themselves that they saw all the other four races below them."

"Four?" Cyril asked. "Wasn't there like ten?"