Chapter 7: A brief return
The smell of weed and elf was a permanent layer in the apartment now, a fog that clung to the curtains and settled in the carpet fibers. Marcus lay sprawled across the couch, a controller in his hands, the pixelated carnage of a fighting game flashing across the screen. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of sweatpants stained with old pizza grease.
The elves had adapted. They were draped around him and across the room like exotic, over-ripe furniture. Sylvaria was wedged beside him, her head in his lap, idly tracing patterns on his thigh with a nail painted chipping black. She wore a neon pink crop top that read ‘DADDY’S LITTLE SLUT’ in glitter, the fabric vanishing beneath the overwhelming swell of her breasts. Lianara was on the floor, leaning against the couch, her own top a strained string bikini that said ‘PROPERTY OF MARCUS’. The twins, Lyra and Nyssa, were sharing a single futon, both in tiny denim shorts that cut into the flesh of their asses, their matching ‘COWGIRLS DO IT BETTER’ tank tops riding up.
They were all staring at the TV, but not at the game. They were watching a compilation of their own scenes playing on a second monitor, their expressions ranging from clinical appraisal to hungry fascination.
“My hair looked fucking radiant in that light,” Lianara mused, taking a hit from a glass pipe.
“My ass-clap synced perfectly with the beat,” Nyssa said, a note of professional pride in her voice.
Marcus grunted, executing a combo. “You’re all naturals. Should get you an agent.”
It was then the air in the center of the room tore.
It wasn’t a sound so much as a pressure change, a sudden vertigo that made the empty cans on the table vibrate. A vertical line of silver light appeared, hovering a foot off the carpet. It hissed, then widened into a wobbly oval, through which a different air flowed—crisp, cold, and scented of pine and frost.
A portal.
Marcus paused the game. “The fuck?”
He expected panic. A scramble. Instead, a collective, weary sigh went through the elves.
“Ugh,” Sylvaria said, not moving her head from his lap. “Really? Now?”
“It’s probably father,” Lianara groaned, as if discussing a telemarketer.
Lyra and Nyssa just giggled, huddling closer together.
Through the portal stepped two figures. The first was an elven male, ancient and stern, with a crown of woven frost-covered branches—King Theron, Sylvaria’s husband. His robes were embroidered silver, his posture rigid. Beside him stood a younger mage, his hands still glowing with the remnants of portal magic, his expression one of immense relief.
“Sylvaria! Lianara!” King Theron’s voice was a ringing baritone, full of royal concern. “Thank the stars. The tracking spell finally held. We have been searching for weeks! Come, the court is besi—“
He stopped. His eyes, accustomed to millenniums of elegant Silverwood aesthetics, took in the scene. The filthy apartment. The sticky surfaces. The lurid screens. And his wife, his daughter, his twin nieces, draped in garish, straining human cloth, their skin glowing with a light sweat, their hair messy, their eyes hazy and red-rimmed. The smell that rolled through the portal wasn’t just foreign; it was an assault of pheromones, human musk, THC, and sex.
The mage wrinkled his nose in instinctive disgust.
Sylvaria finally deigned to move. She slid off the couch with a liquid, unconcerned grace, her fluffy slippers slapping the floor. She adjusted her crop top, which did nothing. “Theron. Mildor.” She acknowledged them with a flick of her wrist. “You can close that. We’re fine.”
“Fine?” Theron spluttered, his gaze darting to Marcus, who gave a lazy two-fingered wave from the couch. “You are ensconced in this… this midden! You reek of… of mortal effluvia! Where are your gowns? Your dignity?”
“In the laundry,” Lianara said flatly, not getting up. “This is easier. Doesn’t get in the way.”
Sylvaria strolled toward the portal, her wide hips swinging. She stopped just at the threshold, the pristine chill of her world blowing her platinum hair back. “Dignity’s overrated. Boring. I’ve got a new thing.”
“A new… thing?” Theron asked, baffled.
“A job. It’s awesome.” A bright, ditzy smile spread across her face, utterly at odds with her regal features. “I’m a content creator. Well, we all are. We make these little movies. For the internet. People watch them and throw money at us. It’s genius.”
The mage, Mildor, looked horrified. “My Queen… you perform… theater?”
“Not theater, dumbass. Porn. Really, really good porn.” She jerked a thumb at Marcus. “That’s my director. And my co-star. King Marcus. He’s got a cock that would make a dragon weep with envy. Seriously. It’s like, this big.” She held her hands a frankly absurd distance apart.
Lyra piped up from the futon. “It wrecks you. In the best way.”
“Life-changing,” Nyssa nodded sagely.
King Theron’s face had gone from pale to ashen. He was staring at his wife as if she’d sprouted a second head. “You… you whore yourself for this… this human? You abandon your throne for filthy recordings?”
Sylvaria’s ditzy mask slipped for a second, revealing the ruthless ancient beneath. “That throne came with a centuries-long subscription to your disappointing little acorn, Theron. The subscription is cancelled.” The mask snapped back. “Anyway, gotta run! Videos won’t film themselves!”
She stepped through the portal, brushing past him. Lianara and the twins followed with languid ease, as if crossing from one room to another. Marcus, curious now, got up and shuffled over, peering through into a breathtaking courtyard of gleaming white stone and crystalline trees. Elves in elegant attire were gathering, their faces alight with joy at the return of their queen.
Sylvaria strode to a marble balcony overlooking a vast, elven city. The crowd below saw her and a cheer began to rise—a sound of pure, silvery music.
She raised her hands for silence. The crowd hushed, expectant.
“My people!” she called out, her voice magically amplified, ringing through the spires. “I have returned! Briefly! I have seen another world!”
A reverent silence.
“It’s disgusting!” she announced with glee. “It’s filthy and it smells weird and they eat absolute garbage! It’s amazing!” She leaned over the railing, her colossal breasts threatening to spill completely from her top. “And the men! They have enormous cocks! Like, you cannot even imagine! It’s awesome!”
The silence from the thousands of elves below was absolute, brittle with shock.
“So!” she continued, businesslike. “I’ll be back. Maybe later. If any of you wanna ditch this frosty, repressed fairy tale and come get properly ruined, be ready. Sluts only! No prudes!”
She turned her back on the utterly stunned populace and walked back to the gaping King Theron and the mortified mage. “Alright, Mildor. Open the portal back. We’re done here.”
The mage, trembling, stammered. “My Queen, the dimensional strain… it requires hours of prepara—“
Sylvaria didn’t let him finish. She lifted a leg, her fluffy slipper aiming with brutal accuracy, and kicked him squarely in the groin. Mildor crumpled with a high-pitched shriek, his magic sputtering.
“Useless,” she sighed. She bent down, yanked the thick, rune-inscribed spell book from his belt, and tucked it under her arm. She looked at Theron one last time. Her former husband’s expression was a masterpiece of shattered pride and confusion.
She gave him a bright, vapid smile and raised her other hand, extending her middle finger in a perfect, learned gesture.
Then she grabbed Lianara, pulled her close, and kissed her daughter deeply, messily, on the mouth in front of the entire court. Breaking the kiss, she nodded to the twins.
“Come on, girls. Let’s go home. Marcus’s bong is probably getting lonely.”
She held the stolen spell book aloft, squinted at a page, and muttered a few words. The portal, which had begun to flicker, solidified with a new, more stable intensity.
Without a backward glance, the four elves walked single-file back into the apartment’s warm, stinking embrace. Marcus stared for a second at the scene of elven royal catastrophe, then shrugged and stepped back.
The portal snapped shut, severing the view of the crystal city, leaving only the familiar, stained living room wall.
Silence.
Sylvaria tossed the heavy spell book onto the coffee table where it landed with a thud beside a half-eaten bag of chips. She flopped back onto the couch, snuggling into Marcus’s side.
“Well,” she said, reaching for the controller. “That was tedious. Your turn to pick the game, my king.”
Lianara was already re-lighting the pipe. The twins were whispering, already planning their next costume.
Marcus looked at the book, then at the elves, then at the paused game on his screen. A slow grin spread across his face. He hit resume.
“You guys are fucking crazy,” he said, admiration in his voice.
“You have no idea,” Sylvaria purred, pressing her ‘DADDY’S LITTLE SLUT’ chest against his arm, her gaze already fixed on the pixelated battle. “But you’re gonna find out.”