, Len finished the explanation of events to Astrid, via their bizarre little texting method.

The full recap hadn’t been entirely necessary, she supposed. Probably could’ve just summed things up with an ‘I killed a traitor and left the other one a cripple’, but she’d kind of wanted to get it all down. Not exactly to brag about the events, Or even to justify her activities, but she did have a strange need to share things fully with Astrid. She couldn’t quite explain it, but she couldn’t deny it, either and after the week she’d had, she just wanted to enjoy the experience of talking with someone interesting about her exploits for a bit.

Astrid’s priorities weren’t quite in line with Len’s, but she supposed that someone with the rank of Demon Lord was likely to not look at things quite the same way.

Len smirked. Tone was always tricky to read in text form, but she knew Astrid well enough to know that she was just being shitty here. Near as she could tell, the Demon Lord DID actually see her differently, though how good a thing that actually was still had some wiggle room to be determined.

There was a long pause, and Len began to wonder if maybe she’d overplayed her hand there. Astrid was a mercurial sort who didn’t always take things in the spirit they were intended and it wouldn’t do for her to misunderstand Len’s intent now. She’d almost given in to her impulse to say more on the matter when Astrid finally responded.

Len blinked at the abrupt topic shift. She’d sort of assumed that Astrid had forgotten about her outside of her role in the demise of the two hunters.

There was another pause, and Len wondered if she’d overstepped with snark on that, but blushed when she did get a response.

Keseryn, who’d spent most of the time Len had been chatting with the Demon Lord looking through the scrolls and books that occupied the one bookcase in the tent, caught sight of the crimson showing through in Len’s cheeks and cocked a curious eyebrow.

“Forget about it,” Len said, folding the letter up and putting it away. “So, kid, what exactly DO you want to do with yourself?”

“I’m still working on that. You’re… not what I expected based on what I’d heard about dark elves. You spared me. Hell, you SAVED me. You had no reason to do that, but you did it anyway. I think I want to learn more about you, maybe find a place here. I’m not looking for a new mother or anything like that, so don’t get any ideas, but you’re… interesting. Anyway, it’s not like I have a place with other humans anymore.”

“We could probably find a way to get you away from here and into other human territory.”

“Nah, I can’t be sure that it’d do me any good to do that with this brand and, frankly, I don’t see much reason to rush back to the people that left my parents and I in a situation where we could be killed off by a couple of rogue Orcs. No, I think I’m better off sticking with you for now and seeing where that takes me.”

“Well, like I said, the cot’s easy enough to come up with. Don’t think you’ll get away with just being a drain on resources. If you’re serious about sticking around, I’m gonna be putting you to work. Too much to do around here to have a layabout.”

“Of course,” Keseryn sounded offended at the mere suggestion. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”