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Description
Part of a series: www.deviantart.com/thedreadful…

The second time Sile Blessclaw stepped out of the workshop to vomit, her mentor Stella took note. Later that afternoon the older woman excused herself and wheeled over to her son's greenhouse. As always, young Byron was monitoring his plants and speaking with fellow botanists over a vox-set. He made quite the income growing and selling some strain of devil weed that was popular down south. Where he not a dwarf he would have been heavily taxed and censured for the act. He turned in his seat to meet Stella.
'Yes, mother?'
The old woman sighed and brushed her sweating brow. The atmosphere of the greenhouse was humid and tropical, a sudden shift from the alpine air just outside.
'I know, Byron, that you've been sharing a bed with my one and only apprentice.'
Her son blushed as he tended to anytime he and Sile were mentioned in the same breath.
'What do you mean? I haven't acted untoward or-'
'Hush now, Byron. I may be old, but I'm not oblivious. For the past year I've heard the patter of feet as she walked to your room at night. You're both adults, it's not a crime in this house.'
She turned her attention to one his potted plants on a nearby shelf and stroked the stem of an orchid.
'But now it seems one of your trees has borne fruit, and it's up to you to make the harvest.'
Byron looked back confused, until the metaphor sunk in and his eyes widened in shock.
'You've made a tidy living selling your plants. Now you must do right by this flower and see her wed, unless you wish to invoke the ire of every woman in town.'
Stella turned to leave, only pausing to hear Byron faint in his seat. The eavesdropping Sile made her exit as well, giddy with excitement.

~

Two months later, and four years after she first set foot in the Enclave, Sile walked in the grove of the Goddess. Wearing a headress of flowers, she strode forth in her ruffled dress between the audience towards the lady's statue. In it's shade stood Byron, dressed to the nines, while his mother Stella sat content in the first row. Everything was going to the old mistress's plan. When Aoife Ironbrand caught her drunken fiance burying his face in a half-elf maiden's cleavage, she cancelled her wedding in tears. Stella consoled the girl on her misfortune, then quickly snapped up her ceremony date at the grove. She pulled out all the stops by cashing in every favor she was owed by the rest of the town. The dressmaker, tailor, priestess, tavern-master, and grocer all were in debt to Stella. Sneakily, they'd been counting on her dying of old age before she came to collect.

As the priestess recited the wedding rite to the couple the clouds gathered overhead. Sile beamed a smile at Byron but couldn't help but notice the movement above. Mere seconds before the rite could finish and couple embrace, the sky darkened, and a woman's echoing voice boomed overhead.
It appears I have made a mistake. You are not the one we need.
Then from the heavens came a bolt of lightning that struck the bride. It all but vaporized her where she stood, leaving her dress that fluttered to the ground. Out of it wriggled a green kobold, appalled on finding itself so small and scaly. Byron froze with a dumbfounded look on his face. His mother closed her eyes and clutched her chest. Sile's friends, neighbors, and acquaintances all murmured to each other at the sight of the kobold.
'She's an impostor! The goddess has shown her to be an impostor!'
'I thought the green hair was because her da was an elemental?'
'I told you all she used to be a kobold, and everyone called me a pisser!'
'Shut up, you pisser! That's because you sullied a perfectly fine barrel of ale!'
An angry crowd descended on the kobold, and it fled from the grove in tears. Sile was never to be seen in town again. A depressed Byron kept to himself afterwards, and the family line ended with him.

~

That was how the moment played in Sile's mind as she twitched in her sleep, while Byron dozed peacefully next to her. In reality Sile was not struck by lightning, and the wedding went off without a hitch. Her babes came out healthy dwarves, her business as a smith of magic-conduits boomed, and her ma Stella passed away peacefully and content. It was just a niggling doubt that haunted Sile's dreams from time to time. The thought that her entire world could unravel in the same manner it had tied together. Some years on the town relaxed the rules against non-dwarves living there, and an orc-owned printer took residence. Then came the kobold union, and in time the Enclave prospered as a welcoming town since Sile and Byron's businesses necessitated open-trade. When Sile finally let go of the fear it could all be undone she at last was able to dream that embrace in the grove in peace.

*

Commission drawn by Fokk3rs .

Description
Part of a series: www.deviantart.com/thedreadful…

The second time Sile Blessclaw stepped out of the workshop to vomit, her mentor Stella took note. Later that afternoon the older woman excused herself and wheeled over to her son's greenhouse. As always, young Byron was monitoring his plants and speaking with fellow botanists over a vox-set. He made quite the income growing and selling some strain of devil weed that was popular down south. Where he not a dwarf he would have been heavily taxed and censured for the act. He turned in his seat to meet Stella.
'Yes, mother?'
The old woman sighed and brushed her sweating brow. The atmosphere of the greenhouse was humid and tropical, a sudden shift from the alpine air just outside.
'I know, Byron, that you've been sharing a bed with my one and only apprentice.'
Her son blushed as he tended to anytime he and Sile were mentioned in the same breath.
'What do you mean? I haven't acted untoward or-'
'Hush now, Byron. I may be old, but I'm not oblivious. For the past year I've heard the patter of feet as she walked to your room at night. You're both adults, it's not a crime in this house.'
She turned her attention to one his potted plants on a nearby shelf and stroked the stem of an orchid.
'But now it seems one of your trees has borne fruit, and it's up to you to make the harvest.'
Byron looked back confused, until the metaphor sunk in and his eyes widened in shock.
'You've made a tidy living selling your plants. Now you must do right by this flower and see her wed, unless you wish to invoke the ire of every woman in town.'
Stella turned to leave, only pausing to hear Byron faint in his seat. The eavesdropping Sile made her exit as well, giddy with excitement.

~

Two months later, and four years after she first set foot in the Enclave, Sile walked in the grove of the Goddess. Wearing a headress of flowers, she strode forth in her ruffled dress between the audience towards the lady's statue. In it's shade stood Byron, dressed to the nines, while his mother Stella sat content in the first row. Everything was going to the old mistress's plan. When Aoife Ironbrand caught her drunken fiance burying his face in a half-elf maiden's cleavage, she cancelled her wedding in tears. Stella consoled the girl on her misfortune, then quickly snapped up her ceremony date at the grove. She pulled out all the stops by cashing in every favor she was owed by the rest of the town. The dressmaker, tailor, priestess, tavern-master, and grocer all were in debt to Stella. Sneakily, they'd been counting on her dying of old age before she came to collect.

As the priestess recited the wedding rite to the couple the clouds gathered overhead. Sile beamed a smile at Byron but couldn't help but notice the movement above. Mere seconds before the rite could finish and couple embrace, the sky darkened, and a woman's echoing voice boomed overhead.
It appears I have made a mistake. You are not the one we need.
Then from the heavens came a bolt of lightning that struck the bride. It all but vaporized her where she stood, leaving her dress that fluttered to the ground. Out of it wriggled a green kobold, appalled on finding itself so small and scaly. Byron froze with a dumbfounded look on his face. His mother closed her eyes and clutched her chest. Sile's friends, neighbors, and acquaintances all murmured to each other at the sight of the kobold.
'She's an impostor! The goddess has shown her to be an impostor!'
'I thought the green hair was because her da was an elemental?'
'I told you all she used to be a kobold, and everyone called me a pisser!'
'Shut up, you pisser! That's because you sullied a perfectly fine barrel of ale!'
An angry crowd descended on the kobold, and it fled from the grove in tears. Sile was never to be seen in town again. A depressed Byron kept to himself afterwards, and the family line ended with him.

~

That was how the moment played in Sile's mind as she twitched in her sleep, while Byron dozed peacefully next to her. In reality Sile was not struck by lightning, and the wedding went off without a hitch. Her babes came out healthy dwarves, her business as a smith of magic-conduits boomed, and her ma Stella passed away peacefully and content. It was just a niggling doubt that haunted Sile's dreams from time to time. The thought that her entire world could unravel in the same manner it had tied together. Some years on the town relaxed the rules against non-dwarves living there, and an orc-owned printer took residence. Then came the kobold union, and in time the Enclave prospered as a welcoming town since Sile and Byron's businesses necessitated open-trade. When Sile finally let go of the fear it could all be undone she at last was able to dream that embrace in the grove in peace.

*

Commission drawn by Fokk3rs .