Marco shuddered.

“Why didn’t you leave?” he asked.

“We couldn’t. Our ship was destroyed by the first wave. We have the ability to build another, but not quickly. The commander is the only one of us with combat skills to consistently survive, and there just isn’t enough time.” The woman’s voice broke. “And he won’t listen to me.”

“Is he supposed to?” Elisa squinted in thought. “A commander’s word is absolute. Or at least, that’s what I’ve read about your people.”

“It is. It should be. But I’m… broken. I disagree.” In the distance, a few downed trees repaired themselves, growing straight up from the shattered remains of their stumps. Marco instantly tensed. “That’s nothing to be worried about. It was like that before too. The ring of trees will be solid again soon. The crabs are always impeded by the trees, just not enough to make a big difference.”

“Wait, is disagreeing bad?” Riv asked. “I do it all the time.”

“Worse than you’d think. At least for an elf.” Elisa moved close to the archer. “That’s over now, isn’t it? Did I understand that correctly?”

The elf woman nodded, then glanced at Marco’s confused face before freezing in shock.

“Did he not?” she asked.

“Marco? Not a chance.” Elisa patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry though. He’s a good man. It will turn out all right.”

“Does anyone care to clue me in? I’m the captain. I feel like I should know this.”

“She was commended to your care as a defect, Marco. The commander didn’t want her.”

“I heard. It was terrible.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately, it really was. That’s why I let this happen.” Elisa looked at the archer-girl and sighed. “Just tell him. I promise he would have made the same decision either way. Eventually.”

“Oh.” The archer looked worried and annoyed all at once. “Well then. I am Aethe, an elf archer defect, non-collectivist in class and raised in the colonies as such. I have been commended to your care. Permanently.”

“Permanently? That can’t be right. You are an adult.”

“Yes.” Aethe nodded. “As grown as you. Likely more.”

“You make your own choices. You have your own will,” Marco said. He was beginning to realize that Aethe felt much worse about this assignment than she let on.

“Yes.” Aethe winced. “The shame of it is known to me.”

Marco looked at his friends. Elisa was trying very hard to look like she wasn’t hearing the conversation at all, though Marco was sure she was picking up every single word. Riv was paying closer attention, but gave a helpless kind of despairing shrug when Marco looked to him for help.

“It’s not shameful to have choices, Aethe. Or free will, for that matter. You have to know that, right?” Marco said, trying to bring the conversation back into ground he was familiar with.

“I’ve certainly never heard anyone say it before. Either way, I’m bound to you now,” Aethe said.

She spread her hands and bowed her head slightly. Despite saying that having her own will was a shame, there was a stiffness in the bow that more or less convinced Marco that bowing was not on the list of things she enjoyed. Marco brought his palm to his forehead and brought his hand down in a single long rubbing motion over his face, hoping it would iron out some of his stress. It didn’t.

“And this is forever? What if we ditched you?” Marco asked.

“I assure you that you would not be able to in most cases. I’d rather be injured than neglect my duties.”

She’s saying she’ll fight us to be able to protect us.

“There has to be another way,” Marco said. “What if you wanted to leave?”

“I wouldn’t. You could…” It was now Aethe’s turn to look stressed. “If you simply must be rid of me, then find someone else to commend me to. You can do so if my presence is such a burden. For now, could I advise you to let me check on my people? I believe we lost several in that last foray.”

Stolen from NovelBin, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Oh. Yes. Of course.” Marco nodded. He needed the break, and he was ashamed he hadn’t let her go earlier. “Go. Please.”

Aethe nodded stiffly and marched off.

“Marco, I think you have a bit to learn about people,” Elisa immediately said after Aethe was out of earshot. “You couldn’t tell that being pawned off on you was already embarrassing for her? You had to immediately try to find some other way to pawn her off again?”

“I…”

“For elves, Marco, almost any deviation from what’s normal is seen as negative. They have uniform goals, they sink into groups. For someone who can’t do that, what would life be like? Do you know? She’s probably been passed place to place. And you do this,” Elisa said. “That’s not nice.”

“All valid, probably. Except for one thing, Elisa,” Marco countered.

“What?”

“You were hiding the entire time!” Marco pointed an accusatory finger at her. “You’re supposed to know things! That’s your whole job! Where were you?”

“Well, it was pretty awkward,” Elisa said quietly. “You know. The whole part about a person being commended to you. And a woman at that.”

“I didn’t know!” Marco only kept himself from yelling with great difficulty. He could feel the aborted scream of frustration in his neck still. “We’ll figure it out. For now, we should see what we can do to help. Plus, if Aethe wants to join us, that’s her choice. If Aethe wants to leave at some point, we’re letting her go. Agreed?”

Both Elisa and Riv nodded.

Besides the several elves where were now missing, there were several more who were injured. A few elves with skills related to healing were moving among them, patching up injuries with bandages and magical first aid. Aethe was one of the latter, kneeling down by injured comrades and laying her hands on them. It was hard to tell how much good she was doing, but after a few moments with each, she’d move on. A few elves followed her, apparently feeding extra power into her efforts.

In the meantime, Marco, Elisa, and Riv did their best to be helpful. There wasn’t much they could do. Elisa at least was able to triage the patients, getting help to them in an order that maximized everyone’s chances for survival. Marco and Riv helped by being manual labor, moving the injured around as needed and following the directions of more experienced healers, but there wasn’t much call for that. After they had tapped out that need, Marco found the commander for a few words.

“We need to figure out a better way of working together. Otherwise, the crabs are going to get all of us,” Marco said. “You really don’t have any capabilities beyond that beam?”

“You noticed that. I guess you couldn’t have missed it.” The captain offered Marco a flask of water from the pouch at his side, which Marco took thankfully. “I can do more than that. Some of the others here can do other things as well. The problem is that we aren’t as effective individually. If any of us pull out of the formation, it’s more loss than gain. I would be safe, perhaps indefinitely. The crabs would overrun everyone else. Although it’s hard to see the difference sometimes.”

They both looked out over the wounded for a moment wordlessly.

“So how much weaker are you now?” Marco asked. “With your losses.”

“Much, but in this application it doesn’t matter. A single beam will still take out anything in front of it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll help my people.”

Marco decided that was enough of the conversation too and walked back over to his team. Aethe had rejoined them and was sitting with Elisa. He decided it was time to talk to her about their situation again, but that he would also like to avoid doing it in front of the others this time.

“Aethe, could I have a moment? Sorry to make you get up,” Marco asked.

“It’s fine. With the support I got, I could have healed all day.”

Aethe brushed herself off and walked away with Marco, who didn’t stop until they had cleared the field and broken stone walls entirely.

“That’s not something I knew you could do, by the way.” Marco spoke up first, starting with a subject that was a bit less controversial to ease into the conversation. “The healing. Is that your class? Healing and archery?”

“And a few perception skills, but mostly. I’m an Escort Scout,” Aethe replied.

“I’ve never heard of it. It’s common for elves?”

“Only in the defective. A scout is more independent than my people generally tolerate.”

“That seems inefficient,” Marco commented. “I think scouts are pretty important.”

“It is. It’s part of why your people are competitive against ours, despite being worse at many things. We work well in groups. On the other hand, each of your people is almost a town unto themselves. You could see it in our last fight. Two of your team were not suited for the situation, but you adjusted as a group to fill in those gaps. You were not as inflexible as him.”

“The commander? He didn’t seem that bad to me.”

“Because you are an equal. In the hierarchy of our people, you are both commanders of a force. He can accept your counsel. Whereas mine is worth less than nothing.”

“It’s not. Believe me, it’s really not. That’s most of why I brought you over here. Aethe, what do I do?” Marco was suddenly brutally aware of the stress that had built up in his neck and back in the last few hours. “You’ve been thinking about this situation for a while and from what you’ve said, you probably have a few ideas. Here’s my problem. I can’t just abandon your people. Our team can survive as long as your people are helping, but a few more rounds and there won’t be much help to get. At that point, we’ll need to hoof it back to our ship, if there is a ship to go back to.”

“That’s my judgment as well.”

“So what do I do? I can’t just abandon your people and escape.”

“Can’t you? It’s what most would do.” Aethe bowed her head slightly. “I would be compelled to follow you. You’d take no loss.”

“We’d take no loss, but you would. Wouldn’t you? Would you really be okay just leaving them like this knowing that they’d be whittled down four or five at a time?” Marco asked back.

Aethe blinked slowly at Marco.

“By the tree. You actually mean all this. You’d put your group at risk for mine, just because of how I feel? And you’d listen to my counsel, without any regard to rank?”

“There’s a limit, but yeah,” Marco said. “I would.”

“Remarkable. Well then, Commander.”

“Marco, please.”

“Then, Marco, here’s what I think you should do.”