“All too often, wars are caused less due to righteousness, or other moral reasons, but are instead fueled by greed. Whether it be greed to claim more land as one’s own, or greed for people to control under their thumbs, or even just for the spoils one could get from plundering the conquered lands, greed tends to be the root cause of all too many wars in history.” - Ishak Norden Qeunia-Rez, Scholar of History and anti-war philosopher, circa 692 FP.

The Bloodfangs quickly settled down on the plains near the forest, positioning their encampment upstream of the forest, near the great river that ran through it. While at first Aideen had mistaken Orica’s term of “long-ears” as a tribe of short-lived therians she was familiar with, she soon saw what the orcish warchief meant once a welcoming group from the Greentusks came out to greet them.

It was Elves.

The Greentusk Clan were predominantly people who exhibited mixed orcish and elvish blood, with some pure-blooded orcs and elves around them, all of whom stood together like one family. It was a bit of an odd juxtaposition between the bulkier, brutish-looking orcs and the tall, slender, at times almost ethereal looking elves, but from the way they talked casually with one another, Aideen could tell that these elves were much like those she was familiar with from Ptolodecca.

People who had abandoned their ancestral ways and sought out a new way of life elsewhere.

In fact, a quick chat with an elvish elder - he was fluent in orcish while his dialect of elvish was strange and different to the southern elves, so they had conversed in orcish instead - confirmed to Aideen that it was indeed the case. In fact, the elves who first abandoned their ancestral homes further to the east of the continent was that elder’s grandparents’ generation, and he still recalled the tales they had told him vividly.

Their old legends stated that they crossed through dense, dangerous forests - much like the sort that covered most of the central part of northern Alcidea - only to emerge from the plains, where the orcs had naturally viewed their kind with obvious suspicion. It was only after further travels and discovering the small grove in the middle of the prairie that they settled down.

Meanwhile the orcish Clan of Woodtusk were the people who traditionally counted the forest as part of their hunting ground, and before a year had passed, the Clan met the newcomers and confronted them. Perhaps it was the mutual love for the grove that sustained them, or it could be other reasons, nobody was certain, but what was known was that the Clan had allowed the elves to inhabit the forest, in exchange for defending it from others who might attempt to lay claim to the land.

As decades and centuries passed, the Clan grew closer with their new elvish neighbors, who were content with remaining at the grove. The two groups grew closer over time, and as was only natural, the occasional case of love bloomed between them, with the resultant offspring possessing the good qualities of both parents. After a few generations many of those half-breed offspring had matured and grew to a position of power within the Clan, which led to their later merger.

When they merged as the Greentusk Clan, the orcs also settled down by the grove, where Aideen saw the first sign of actual agriculture in the plains. The orcs and elves both tended to great fields of grains and vegetables, on top of orchards where they grew fruit. Since the land was near a great river, it was fertile and quite ideal for such agriculture indeed.

“The Greentusks are a peaceful bunch generally, and most tribes traded for food with them. They’re not ones to shy from violence when needed, though. One time a tribe tried to raid them for their food stores and only came home shorn and starving instead,” said Orica when Aideen asked her about it. “You’d be surprised how vicious those long-ears could be when called upon for war. Honestly, I think they impressed just about everyone with how they dealt with the Greylegs back then.”

“Oh, I can certainly believe that,” said Aideen, who was all too familiar with just how savage tribal elves could be. All considered, it was nice to see these ones find a peaceful living even if it was amongst another people not their own, though. The elves she saw amongst the Greentusks seemed like kind people, who helped carry a welcome present of fresh fruits and vegetables from their gardens to the visiting Bloodfangs.

Not too long after the Bloodfangs arrived - in the evening of the same day, even - came the Featherclaws, a tribe that Aideen had seen a couple times before, as their lands was further south and west compared to the Bloodfangs, practically neighbors, so to speak. What caught her attention however was the noticeable number of injured orcs who traveled with the tribes.

She was not the only one who looked at them with some worry and caution, as while armed conflicts were not that rare in the prairie, they usually kept the conflicts small and avoided involving the young and the old in it. Some of the wounded from the Featherclaws were their old and young, which had not escaped the notice of the watching orcs.

After a short discussion with Orica, Aideen walked over with a shaman from the Bloodfangs to introduce her properly to the Featherclaws, as she offered them healing as a gift given freely. The clan had looked at her with obvious caution, and hostility in some eyes, before they seemed to regain control of themselves and thanked her as they welcomed her aid.

Their reaction had not escaped Aideen’s notice, and sure enough, as she talked with the orcs she healed and others in the clan who had minor injuries that she similarly took care on the spot, her suspicions proved to be correct indeed. The orcs had indeed been attacked when they were on their southern territory earlier that month, and they were not attacked by another clan, or even neighboring goblin tribes from the forests.

They had been attacked by humans.