Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [45]
“A family?” Killeen said, tilting her head at a curious angle. “All sylvari are a single family. We all sprang from the same source, the Pale Tree, but the Dream—our communal history and subconscious—binds us together even more than that. Perhaps that is why we treasure our individualism. When you have so much in common, the new experiences you have—those that separate you from the others—are what make you unique.”
A servant swept in with a roast suckling pig on a platter and placed it before the charr. Doomforge eyed it for a long moment, then set to picking at it with a single talon, slicing the flesh from the bones like a master butcher. “By that,” the charr said, “I mean that I already have a ‘family’ or ‘guild’ or ‘warband’ or whatever you wish to call it. I have no need for another.”
“You can always use another family,” said Killeen.
Having dismembered the pig, Doomforge stuffed it into her mouth. Piece by piece, its pink flesh disappeared into her maw. The way Doomforge’s jaws and teeth worked in concert to annihilate the pig fascinated Dougal. He could not look away, no matter how much Doomforge glared at him over the bones she picked clean.
“All right,” said Killeen. “Not a family. We can at least be a team.”
Doomforge scowled as she reached for a goblet of ale a servant had brought her while she consumed her meal. “You forget that I am to enter Ebonhawke not as a friend but as a prisoner.”
The charr looked as though she wished she could hack up that last word, spit it on the floor, and grind it under her boot. “This is not a wandering adventure. It is not a battle in some arena, for the sake of glory and recognition. It is a mission. I neither want nor need friends nor a family nor a team. I need only to follow my orders, and this I will do.”
“I see,” said Dougal. “And have you spent enough time with us to have fulfilled your orders?”
“No,” said the charr, and for a moment Dougal swore Doomforge’s features softened for a moment. “There is another matter. I came to apologize as well. To you, Dougal Keane.”
Dougal’s eyebrows rose but the charr just took a deep breath and pressed on.
Doomforge stared at the table as she spoke. “I acted rashly in the general’s presence, and I am to convey to you my apologies for doing so. As long as you do not provoke me, it will not happen again.
“Further”—Doomforge’s brows furrowed—“to allow a norn—even one as notorious as Gullik Oddsson—to slip past our guards is inexcusable. He apparently scaled the building and broke in through a window in broad daylight. Were he more competent, or less inebriated, he would have succeeded, and our mission would have become doubly impossible. I have spoken with the guards and it will not happen again. Oddsson has been sobered up, and I understand that he is facing General Soulkeeper’s wrath as we speak.”
Dougal waved off her apology. They were not going to be here long enough for any security changes to matter. “All I care about, Doomforge, is getting on our way before something like this happens again.”
Doomforge reached for her glass but did not pick it up. “Ember.”
“Excuse me?”
“Call me Ember.”
“Seriously?” said Dougal, trying not to smile at the uncomfortable charr. He tried to remember when he had ever been on a first-name basis with a charr, and came up empty.
“The general suggested I request it.”
“Are we supposed to be friends, then?”
“Not at all,” she said, and Dougal was certain that the charr smiled as she said it.
Dougal nodded. “Then call me Dougal.”
“I only have my one name,” Killeen put in with a helpful smile.
Riona scowled. “Call me Crusader, charr, and I will call you the same, out of respect for our order. But it is