"No, I’m not the Sovereign," I said. "Do I look like I can set things on fire with my emotions?"
The Guild official blinked. She had three quills, two scroll tubes, and the expression of soone who desperately wanted this to be soone else’s problem. Unfortunately for both of us, it wasn’t.
"I’m Quicktongue," I added, a little sharper. "Acting Voice of Ashring. Diplomatic lead. Coordinator of external negotiations. Also the only one who knows how to file without swearing at the paperwork."
She nodded like she understood. She didn’t.
Since the Sovereign left, I’ve been doing everything except breathing on schedule.
Which is fine. I’m used to overwork. I’m good at delegation. What I’m not good at is Guild bureaucrats arriving with flaproof folders and asking if we’ve selected a national bird.
We haven’t.
I told her it was probably going to be the soot-lizard.
She wrote that down.
The population’s holding.
We’ve got around 170 kobolds on record. A little fewer if you count the ones who’ve wandered off to "pursue subterranean spiritual developnt" or "test independent infrastructure models." I’m choosing to be optimistic and assu those are real phrases.
The goblins are still allied. Our periter nets are holding. The inner fla node is stable-ish. And no one has challenged my authority in three days, which counts as a win.
That doesn’t an everything is fine.
It just ans we’ve gotten better at hiding panic under piles of paperwork.
The Guild rep’s na was sothing long and vowel-heavy that I didn’t catch. She introduced herself with a small bow, then handed a stack of parchnt and a polite demand for a "Statent of Fla-Based Autonomy."
I had one ready.
It was the fourth draft. The first three either sounded too desperate or too poetic. This one was grounded, with just enough myth-weight to sound legitimate without risking a divine flag.
She read it silently. Jotted sothing. Nodded.
Then handed a new form.
"Territory Pre-Recognition Asset Declaration," she said.
"That’s not a real docunt," I said.
"It is now," she said.
I smiled through my teeth. "Do I need to submit a second one if our outer trench collapses again?"
She looked at the trench. Then back at .
"...We’ll file an addendum."
I signed it.
Not because I wanted to.
Because that’s what the Sovereign would’ve done. Grouch about it, glare at it, call it cursed—then do it anyway.
If we want Ashring to be real, soone has to act like it already is.
Right now, that soone’s .
She left eventually, scrolls tucked away, notes scribbled down, boots dirtier than she liked. She didn’t say goodbye. Just walked back toward the main tunnel fork with the speed of soone who wanted to be aboveground again.
I didn’t watch her go.
I turned back toward the command tent and exhaled through my teeth.
Three more reports to write. One ration inventory to rebalance. Two golem pathing requests waiting in my inbox vine.
And the firepit to check before dusk.
---
The firepit had stopped flickering weeks ago.
Not because it burned out. It still breathed—deep, quiet, alive in a way only fla attuned to myth could manage. But no one fed it unless they had to. Not out of disrespect. Reverence, maybe. Or superstition.
Or guilt.
I brought it a scrap of salted mossbread and placed it on the edge like a ritual I hadn’t admitted we were doing. There wasn’t a na for this. It wasn’t a real ceremony. It just felt right.
If I’m being honest, I started doing it the night after she left.
A Sovereign fla doesn’t just go out when you leave. It echoes. Every ti it flares—when soone argues too loud near the forge, when a baby cries at night, when the golem tracks misalign—I think for a second it’s her.
Then I rember I’m still here, pretending to be enough.
The night reports were surprisingly light.
No new monster incursions. Goblin trade caravan still delayed, but not missing. Mosscrete wall patch held through last week’s tunnel shift. Golem engine No. 3 still unresponsive. We’ll probably have to scrap it and repurpose the core for Embergleam’s relay experint.
Stonebite keeps telling we’ll need another forge soon. I keep nodding and not writing it down.
The truth is we can’t afford it. Not in labor, not in materials, not in the bandwidth of a barely-holding-together bureaucracy held by a kobold with no actual qualifications beyond being too tired to say no.
I’m not the leader.
But I am here.
That seems to be enough for now.
The system ping ca after I finished my reports.
[Ashring Recognition Thread: Continuing]
[Authority Status: Stabilizing]
[Diplomatic Influence: Expanding (Local Guild Node)]
[System Observation: Ashring maintains structural narrative integrity in Sovereign’s absence.]
Well. That’s good.
I think?
I’d be more comforted if the system didn’t treat us like a story trying not to unravel.
By morning, I’d already run three etings and threatened to demote two logistics apprentices for trying to budget our rations using an "aspirational harvest model."
That’s not a term anyone taught them.
They said it ca from one of the goblin ntors.
I’m choosing not to follow that up right now.
Hoarder arrived without a sound.
One mont I was making fire-tea, the next he was next to the coals, eyeing the kettle like he suspected it of espionage.
"You’re early," I said.
He shrugged. One shoulder. Still stiff from his last patrol.
Then he handed a sealed bark-scroll. Nothing on the outside. Not even a sender’s mark.
I opened it.
Map notations. Trail fork signs. A stamp of unfamiliar mud-seal with half a glyph I didn’t recognize.
I frowned.
"From our outer-scout line?"
"No," he said. "Courier loop. South pass. Said it was urgent."
I waited.
"He said the Sovereign’s team passed safely. Mostly."
Mostly.
"And?"
"He said the elf camp’s intact. Open to further contact. They’re observing."
"Observing?"
"They don’t interfere. Not yet. But they’re watching everything."
"Everything?"
He nodded. "They’re worried about her fla."
I swallowed.
They’re not the only ones.
I passed the scroll to our archivist team. Embergleam’s apprentices will want to pull the pattern glyphs, and maybe Stonealign can figure out what region the mud ca from.
We catalog everything now.
Even suspicion.
Even taphor.
Night again.
The outer fla node fluttered as I walked by.
I paused. Not because it was strange.
Because it wasn’t.
Too calm.
Too quiet.
I reached the top ridge of the trench to check the ward lines personally.
That’s when the sentry beacon flared.
Three pulses.
Not a threat. Not a raid.
Arrival.
One contact. Single heat signature. Known tag.
I moved without thinking. Down the ramp, past the checkpoint, Bitterstack’s voice calling sothing behind that I didn’t process.
And there he was.
Trail-dusty. Lean. Dried blood on one boot.
Scout.
He stepped over the last line of the periter and stopped.
Didn’t kneel. Didn’t collapse.
Just looked up at and nodded once.
Didn’t say a word.
He was from Ashring.
The fire behind pulsed as he raised one hand and pointed westward.
ssage unspoken.
Warning understood.
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