- Negotiate the ‘swamp way’, by which you talk while drinking your beer.
His overalls were stained with the thick sweat of a day’s mudfishing. His boots, heavy and caked, eased his rocking chair in a gentle sway as Slim Jim tended to his clay mug of bog-beer. He saw the small canoe before he heard the soft paddle, kissing the surface of murky water, but made no movement which did not involve his mug getting to his lips. A dull, green froth mixed with the sweat and dirt of his thick mustache. He wasn’t sure if that improved the taste of the beer or not as he pulled the black hair into his mouth.
The elf found him still sitting on his front porch when the elegantly curved canoe brushed against the shore.
“We’ve had enough of you, Slim Jim!”, she shouted. “Your reign of terror ends here!”
The mug sat perched upon Jim’s bottom lip, and he slurped at the bubbly brine. “Who’s we?”, he half-spoke and half-belched. “You got a turd in your pocket?” The elf’s face scrunched. “I should have expected such manners from a madman. I am here on behalf of my people, the True Protectors of the Marsh, to put an end to your vile presence!” She said it proudly, her head held high, the moss and vines of her hair hugging her temple like a crown.
“Oh, you mean the swamp elves.”
“We are NOT swamp elves!”, her composure slipped as her anger sent a tremor through her canoe, “We are Fen’dorei! Guardians of the Mire! Children of Peat!”
“Harassers of a man minding his own business”, he added while dabbing his mouth with the torn remains of a ruined shirt.
“You grow fat on the bounties of the mire and offer it nothing in return! You disgrace her with every clumsy trod of your boots, every crocolisk you skin, every pail of mudcrawlers stolen from her bosom! We are tired of your games of playing at royalty in our swamp. This is not your kingdom, human. This is our home; the mire is our caretaker, and we her’s in turn.”
“I reckon I’d be more impressed if, somehow, despite an entire race proclaiming themselves her protectors, She didn’t ask me to take care of Her. Seems funny’s all.” He slurped another mouthful of beer. “Even facing your just demise, you proclaim your blasphemy. Is there no end to your arrogance?” “Well, I don’t right know what ‘arrogance’ means but it sounds like a word a girl with an arrow knocked on an unarmed man ain’t got no business of usin’.”
“And I might be fat, but at least I got the decency to make sure the crocs get their fill whenever I finally keel over. Reckon if a skeeter landed on you for more’n an hour, it’d starve to death. ‘Guardians of the Mire’. Feh.” Jim spat a brackish gob onto a lawn that was more moss than grass. “Y’all couldn’t guard a turd from the flies. You wanna shoot me? Fine. Ain’t easy tendin’ ta this whole marsh on my own. I’m a tired, fat, bald old man. But at least y’could gimme somethin’ a bit quicker than yappin’ me to death.”
“So be your last words, then. May the next life heap upon you the reapings of injustice you have sown in this one.”
She drew the arrow back in a smooth motion, the string no louder than a serpent’s sigh. The bow curved, her left arm steady, the sheen of venom upon the arrowhead grinned in the thin rays of light fighting through the canopy above. Her form perfection, her speed without equal, her aim sure as Death itself–any of her people would sing with pride of that single moment.
The crocolisk beneath the boat was much less impressed, and took the elf into the muddy depths with one bite of its iron jaw upon her right leg. Her arrow flew high, ricocheting off the shack’s chimney, and she disappeared with a gurgled scream. Ignoring the canoe’s violent turbulence, Slim Jim would have never guessed an elf ever stood there.
He glanced at the long hunting knife dangling from a loop on the nearby wall, his blunderbuss on a rack behind the chair, and the half-drunk glass of chilled beer. He’d hoped for one quiet evening with his lawn. Of course, that was still on the table, but he could already feel the burden of Her Calling weighing on his shoulders. She would not approve of inaction.
After all, She had enough arrogant children to fret over.
![:smiley:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=6" ":smiley:")