[right][h2][color=white]The Elven Supremacist[/color][/h2][@spiral origin][/right]

[color=808080]The bartender listens, unhurried, polishing a glass with a cloth that has surely seen a thousand nights like this one, and there is no rush in him—he is old enough to have seen and heard it all.

[i]"History rarely gets the details right,"[/i] he says, and behind Aelvira the low murmur of conversation continues, the clink of cups, a burst of laughter from somewhere near the hearth. [i]"Stories get simplified, embellished—the uncomfortable parts smoothed away until what remains is only the shape of what happened, and none of the weight."[/i] He sets the glass down and reaches for her empty cup. [i]"They forget how hard the child 'with but one season of combat experience' must have trained to defeat a champion of forty-seven years, even if she was naturally talented."[/i]

The older elf refills it, and the Evermead catches the lantern light, honey-gold and slow.

[i]"Or why the child entered the tournament at all."[/i]

He slides the cup back toward her, and lets the unasked question settle between them.[/color]