Chapter 3: An Elven Night

 

The elf’s horrified scream tore through the cave’s stillness.

The deer carcass hit the stone floor with a wet, heavy thud, its legs splaying at unnatural angles. Blood pooled beneath it, dark and glistening in the torchlight that now lined the walls. The flames cast dancing shadows across the obsidian gateway, across the rough stone deeper within, and across the elf huddled in the darkness near the back wall.

She did it.

Barjuchne proudly stood over the fresh kill, her chest heaving from the hunt, her claws still dripping. She’d been planning this exact moment the entire way back. Playing it through her mind over and over. She would present the freshly hunted deer proudly to her guest to show she could provide for her and that she was safe here. They would talk and laugh about it, and then Barjuchne would prepare a proper meal. Something civilised. Something that would show she wasn’t just a wild monster.

She could do this. She could be a good host. Good hosts feed their guests.

However, reality doesn’t match the scenario she had been running on replay in her imagination for the last hour. Instead, she’d panicked the moment she stepped inside and saw those wide, terrified witchcraft-eyes staring at her from the shadows.

Making eye contact with her destroyed every single image she had in her mind up until this point. The elf froze, terrified. And so, like that, Barjuchne opened her mouth. The word that represents her entire delicately crafted scenario for tonight came out flat and cold.

“Eat.”

The elf pressed herself harder against the wall, her silver hair tangled around her shoulders. She should say something. Apologise. Explain. But Barjuchne’s throat had closed up, and all she could do was stare, perhaps menacingly so.

“I… I…” The elf’s voice trembled. “I can’t eat that. It’s raw.”

Oh.

Of course it was raw. What was she thinking? She wasn’t thinking. That was the problem. Her mind was a mess of instinct and panic and the overwhelming terror of having another person in her space. Someone watching her. Judging her. Seeing how utterly incapable she was of basic social interaction.

She needed to cook it. Obviously. Oh god, she’s blowing this.

Before the elf could say another word, Barjuchne sucked in a breath and exhaled fire.

The flames roared across the carcass in a wave of orange and gold, engulfing the deer in crackling heat. The elf screamed louder than before, throwing herself backward, her arms raised to shield her face from the lashing flames. The smell of charred meat filled the cave instantly, thick and smoky, and the deer’s carcass blackened under the assault, skin splitting and fat hissing.

Barjuchne cut off the flames and straightened, smoke curling from her nostrils.

“Eat,” she said again.

Why did she keep saying that? Why couldn’t she just talk like a normal person? Just say something kind. Something reassuring.

She was so bad at this.

The elf stared at the smoking, ruined deer. Then she looked up at Barjuchne, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

Barjuchne’s stomach twisted.

Oh. Right. The elf couldn’t just… tear into it. Barjuchne extended one claw and slid it into the carcass, carving through muscle and sinew with ease. She pulled free a long strip of tenderloin, the meat blackened on the outside but still pink within, and held it out toward the elf. It dangled from her claw, dripping.

The elf stared at it.

Then, slowly, she reached out with shaking hands and took it from her captor, who really did only mean the best.

Barjuchne watched her bite into it, chewing slowly, and felt a tiny spark of relief. At least she was eating. That was something. She still felt terrible, though.

Wait.

An idea sparked.

Just as the elf reached out hesitantly for another piece that the dragon girl held out her way, Barjuchne pulled her hand back as if denying her it.

The elf stood paralysed, her expression crumpling. “What… why are you doing this?” Her voice broke. Her ears drooped. She glanced around at the bones still scattered near the walls, her breathing quickening. “You don’t have to torment me too.”

Torment?

No. No, that wasn’t –

Barjuchne dropped to one knee and pressed her palm flat against the stone floor. She focused, reaching for the dungeon’s presence, and felt it respond.

 

 

The stone shifted beneath her touch, flowing and reshaping, rising from the ground in smooth, deliberate movements. A table formed between them, low and simple but solid. Then a chair. Then another.

She stood and slapped the slice of meat unceremoniously down onto the table’s surface, the wet sound echoing through the cave like a slap.

“I am not tormenting you!” she roared. Her voice came out harder than she intended, edged with a dark and commanding tone.

The elf flinched, still in terror.

Barjuchne gestured to the bones near the wall. “Eat. Or you’ll end up like them.”

It was supposed to be a joke. A light-hearted comment about the importance of not starving. But the moment the words left her mouth, she realised how they sounded. The elf’s face went pale. She sat down quickly like a prisoner at their last meal, her hands fumbling with the meat, and took a small, trembling bite, crying as she chewed.

Barjuchne turned away, pressing her clawed palms against her own face.

This was a disaster. She was a kidnapper and, far worse, an ungracious host. She couldn’t even manage a single conversation without making everything awkward. The elf probably thought she was going to be eaten. Or tortured. Or both.

She wanted to scream.

“There’s… there’s silverware in the cart,” the elf said softly behind her. “May I -?”

“- NO!”

The word exploded from Barjuchne’s throat before she could stop it. Her entire body went rigid, her claws flexing, her tail lashing. The thought of someone touching her silverware, her treasure, made something feral and possessive roar to life in her chest. It was hers. All of it was hers. Nobody could touch it. Nobody could use it.

The elf made a small, frightened sound.

Barjuchne squeezed her own eyes shut. What was wrong with her? It was just silverware. Just forks and knives. It didn’t matter. But her dragon heart didn’t care about logic. It only cared about ownership.

She needed to fix this. Say something. Make a joke. Anything.

This was a losing battle.

Without another word, she turned and stalked toward the pile of treasure she’d dumped near the cave’s entrance. The cart’s goods were still there, scattered and waiting to be organised. She began sorting through them, stacking coins, arranging candlesticks, and laying bolts of cloth in neat rows. The work was soothing. Methodical. It gave her something to focus on that wasn’t the crushing weight of her own social incompetence.

When she finished, she climbed onto the pile and lay down on top of it, like a cat having found a warm stone.

The coins pressed into her back, cool and solid and perfect. The tension in her chest eased, just a little. This, at least, made sense. This, she understood. This feels good.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think about the elf sitting alone at the stone table behind her.

Well. She wasn’t alone. She had the smouldering carcass.

An ant crawled over the pile of gold.

 

---

 

The days blurred together.

Barjuchne hunted. She brought back food. She cooked it with varying degrees of success, sometimes managing something almost edible, sometimes reducing it to ash. The elf ate without complaint, though her eyes never lost that wary, haunted look.

Barjuchne tried to talk to her. She failed every time.

 

---

 

The skeletons bothered her.

They were everywhere. Piled in the corners, scattered across the floor, a constant reminder of failure. Of death. Of the hundreds of others who had tried and died in this very cave to do what she is doing now. The elf’s gaze drifted to them constantly, her expression unreadable but tense.

She for sure thought that these bones were other victims of the dragon girl. It’s a fair assumption.

Barjuchne couldn’t stand it anymore.

She started carrying them out one by one.

The work was slow but steady. She lifted each skeleton carefully, cradling the bones in her arms, and carried them out into the forest beyond the obsidian gateway. The elf watched from the entrance, her off-nightshine eyes following every trip, but she didn’t speak.

Barjuchne dug graves in the soft parts of the mountainside. Her incredible strength made it easy. A few scoops with her claws, and the hole was deep enough. Not very deep, truth be told. Shallow and rough and hastily made. But it was better than leaving them inside.

She laid the bones to rest and covered them with dirt.

By the third day, the cave was empty of skeletons.

 

---

 

The system chimed softly in her mind that night.

She was lying on her treasure hoard, the elf asleep at the stone table with her head pillowed on her arms, when the window appeared.

 

 

Barjuchne stared at the screen. She needed more. The treasure she’d taken from the bandits wasn’t enough. She needed to find something bigger. Something valuable.

And maybe another princess.

Quietly, she rolled her head, looking at the ant princess she’s been feeding. The inside of the ant prison is filled with sticks and leaves and dead bugs. She didn’t actually know what it was ants ate.

Her gaze drifted to the elf, still asleep in the corner, her silver hair spilling across the floor she slept on in a bundle. The dragon girl stared for a while. Then Barjuchne closed her eyes and tried to sleep herself.

But she couldn’t.

She opened her eyes again.

The cold crept into the cave at night, seeping through the obsidian gateway and settling over the stone floor in a damp, clinging chill. The torches helped, their flames crackling and casting warm light across the walls, but they weren’t enough. Barjuchne could see her captive shivering in her sleep, curled into a tight ball with her arms wrapped around herself.

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Barjuchne stood over her treasure hoard and stared down at the rugs.

They were beautiful. Thick, woven wool in deep reds and golds, soft to the touch, clearly expensive. They were hers. Part of her collection. The thought of anyone else touching them made her chest tighten and her claws flex involuntarily.

But her guest was cold.

And her guest was also hers. Technically. The elf was a part of the hoard. Like the coins. Like the candlesticks. Two gold coins rubbing together didn’t diminish their value or bother her, did it? This is the same concept.

She grabbed the fabrics and carried them, stopping for a second to look at the sleeping elf again.

Barjuchne stood there for a moment, staring down at the elf as she covered her and then turned and walked away before the urge to take the rugs back to the pile became unbearable.

They both managed to sleep after that.

 

---

 

The next day, she reshaped the cave.

The dragon girl pressed her palm against the far wall and felt the dungeon’s power respond. The stone flowed beneath her touch, carving inward, creating depth where there had been none. A doorway formed, smooth and arched, leading into a new chamber beyond.

She spent hours on it. Shaping the walls until they were smooth and even. Creating a bed frame from solid stone, then softening its surface with more of the rugs she’d barely managed to part with. Every tiny thing she carried away from her primary hoard felt like one of her own children she was setting out on the stoop, even if it was literally just one room over. A nightstand. A small table. She pulled books from the cart and stacked them neatly on the table’s surface. Then, with every ounce of willpower she possessed, she retrieved exactly one plate, one fork, and one knife from her hoard and placed them on the nightstand.

One of each. That was all she could bear to give.

The stone responded to her palm the way she was beginning to expect it to: a slow, yielding surrender, the mountain letting her have her way. She pressed deeper, feeling the dungeon’s awareness spread through the rock ahead of her like roots pushing into soil. New chambers took shape in her mind before she carved them. She already knew where the walls would go.

Then the resistance changed.

Not harder. Just different, in a way she couldn’t quite name. The stone ahead of her palm held a faint memory of something worked into it long before she arrived, not carved by the dungeon’s magic but shaped by something else entirely. She pushed through it anyway.

On the far side of the newly opened wall, set back into the stone at roughly knee height, was a tiny alcove.

She crouched and looked at it. It was roughly the size of a bread loaf, its interior smooth and deliberate, clearly intended to hold something. Whatever had been stored there was long gone. But the frame around the opening was decorated. Spiralling lines cut into the rock with extraordinary fineness, the kind of detail work that required very small tools or very small hands. The pattern looped and folded back on itself in a way that felt purposeful, almost architectural.

She studied the curiosity for a moment. Then she pressed her palm against the opening and filled it in. It was likely a leftover from a previous inhabitant of the cave.

She needed the space.

When Barjuchne finished, she stepped back and examined her work. The standalone room was beautiful. It was far nicer than the rest of the cave. Almost civilised.