One day – it had been perhaps months since I’d been travelling with the Orcs – I saw Jebediah about to speak up, with the now familiar glint in his eyes as he looked at me, the glint I learned to recognize all too well in my time alongside him, that let me know he was going to make fun of me once more.

I cut him off. “And you - You’re too proud, too conceited to accept that Elves may be good people too! You think you’re better than me, but where has your revolution gotten you? You make grand speeches, sure, and you rally people, but what have you achieved? You speak of a time past, of your people lost, but worry about the present for once! You think I can’t help you, you say you don’t need me in the revolution, but you’ve achieved more with me at your side here in months than you’ve done in years by yourself!” I yelled out, right in front of him and the council.

Jebediah looked at me for a moment, but he showed no emotion. He endured my words. Then he breathed in, and for a moment I thought he might lunge at me for my transgressions. Instead, he calmly turned to one of his friends and motioned for him to bring forward his musket.

“Are you going to pick it up?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you want to prove you have our interests at heart, that this is your fight too, then pick up the musket and join us fully.”

I looked at the weapon. It’s not that I’d never handled a weapon – I’d used a bow plenty of times before to hunt back in my homeland, but… a musket was a whole different thing.

Jebediah challenged my gaze.

“I thought not,” he said. “You claim you want to help us, you say you are on our side, but when it comes down to what matters, you would never die for us. You will go back to your cozy life in the glades, while we sacrifice our own down in the ditches. And that is why I believe you, but I don’t listen to you.”