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"I was ecstatic, and so was she Children were as rare then as they are now, and we assumed everyone would be over the ood news It was only later I understood they weren’t happy about her being hueneral, a leader within our Territory, I was supposed to lead by exaenda That I loved her and that she was my wife didn’t matter--all that mattered was that she was human

"Of course I only understood this later At the tiht everyone was jealous of our fertility She definitely h, which is why I hateher

"But ere at war So as much as I wanted to be with my wife, I also wanted to be with my warriors No, that’s a lie As much as I wish I could claim I wanted to be with my wife as much as I wanted to be on the battlefield, the fact was that I wanted to fight lory I’d try to get back to nancy alone Every tier And yet when I ith her, I wanted to get back to nant when it all caot word that everything was falling in place for aon--an assassination, basically We could end all the fighting, take the lands, and create our neorld order, that sort of thing As I prepared to leave that time, my wife asked , in our entire , she just asked Of course I told her no, and she didn’t even argue…" Anyan’s voice broke as he said that, just for a second, and ained control

"So I went to battle, and on We won everything The other monarch was dead, and we had his territory We owned the East, just as we’d dreamed"

"Is this the battle that the cartoon in your bathroom is about?" I asked

"Yes," he said, his voice bitter "It was a very important moment for our people"

"And your wife?"

"She was dead when I came home, carried in on the shoulders of my warriors She was dead, as was my son" His voice was stone, but I could see pain in every lineament of his body, his face

"How?" I asked The one place a hu birth at that time should have been safe ith the Alfar and their healers

"They let her die," he said "I learned then that every tiiven food if she went to the kitchens herself, but that was it She took out her own chamber pots, cleaned her own rooone froht these people were my friends, my family, and they did that to one white with anger

"When she went into labor, she was entirely alone And she died alone, as did my son Almost anyone in that Coer, but no one did"

"Why?" I asked, co hu end of such prejudice ht Anyan would have been fine hat they did?

"For all the reasons I learned to loathe theine any others And because they can’t i, they can’t accept other ways of living So if they didn’t respect humans, of course I didn’t respect hus should exist, they assumed I didn’t really care about my human wife or our baby

"But I did care It was only because I was so heartbroken and exhausted that I didn’t go on ain our bed It was soaked with dried blood She looked like she died in agony…"