To answer one question: Yes, Rut is about two years younger than Dan. You can make your own judgement calls on that.
Occasionally I write a story that takes a little while to get into full swing, so please bare with me here, as I believe this might be one of those stories. Rut still has to go through all this elf stuff... so until then, please sit back and be patient. There will be all the maliciousness you expect from me later on, I promise.
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“Are you aware of the consequences for entering a Shadow settlement uninvited, Master Wilson?” the High Officer of Law asked coldly.
“No, I am not.”
“Look at me when I speak to you. You are not a woman,” the High Officer snapped. Wilson looked up.
“No, I do not know the consequences for entering a Shadow settlement uninvited. Please enlighten me,” he growled.
“Do not be snappy with me, Wilson,” the High Officer hissed, “or I will personally see to your lashing.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” said a cold voice from the entrance of the hive. The High Officer looked up.
“Bloodroot. What do you want?”
“His son,” said Dan, pointing to Wilson, “is promised to me. He is my family, as of last night. You should know better than to cross an ambassador, a Bloodroot, nonetheless.”
The High Officer glared at Wilson and muttered, “You’re free to go.”
“Come with me, sir,” said Dan, and she led the way out of the hive. Wilson followed her into yet another hive, where she told him to sit at a low kitchen table and offered him something she called ‘evergreen wine’.
“Why did you come out here, Sir?” she asked. Wilson found it hard to look away from her bright green eye. “You should know better than to wander on elf land.”
“I wanted to call this partnership thing off,” he stated. Dan shook her head.
“You can’t do that. I was promised a partner-- your son-- and I just saved you from the whipping stake over him. You can’t take him back now. I want Rut, and I’ll have him if I have to burn your house down and take him.” Her eye took on a searching look, as if she was probing into his mind. Perhaps that is why open fear struck Wilson’s heart when she said very quietly and with a cold look, “I might even bring your wife back to Drake with me.”
Wilson jerked. “Fine. Whatever you want. But after this, you have to promise to leave me and Cass alone.”
Dan smiled and sipped from her cup. “I can do that.”
Rut gently stroked the neck of the young mew he was leading, crooning to it songs about the ancient tribes. It was a lovely lioness mew with a grey coat and the faintest of striped running along her backbone and down her oddly thin tail. She half-closed her eyes and a purr vibrated in her chest. Rut chuckled.
“You like my songs, mew-baby?” he said quietly. “Do you remember my songs when I leave?” He ran a hand over her smooth head and smiled. “You will be my mew-baby. Da will not take you because you’re different, but I will.” The purring continued. Rut kissed the lioness’s neck and pulled her next to him when he sat down on the grass.
“We had visitors last night, lovely. Elves, I think,” he mused, and stroked her shoulders. “I don’t know why. The elves never visit us, unless they need mews. It must not have been good, though, since Da was so upset that he went into the woods.” The mew nipped at his fingers and he stroked her cheek.
A shadow fell over the lioness’s tail, and she growled at the young elf woman who stood watching Rut.
“What is it, my mew-baby?” he asked the growling mew, watching her face. He was startled when the shadow spoke.
“Rut…”
The voice was soft, tentative, almost misplaced in its body but mirrored in the dark green eyes. Rut looked up to see an elf dressed in honey-yellow and dark grey watching him, her dirty-blonde hair cut short and swept to the side and her tunic belted with a deep red sash.
“Can I help you?”
The elf was quiet for a moment, as if lost, and then she sat beside him with her legs folded before her and her eye searching his. Rut tried again.
“Do I know you?”
The elf’s countenance took on an almost hurt look. “You met me, once. When you were little… you wandered into the woods and we played together before your father came and took you away.” She reached out and gently touched the darker area of his face. “Your mark was lighter then.”
“I remember that. We played in the brook. Mother was so afraid I would get sick…” he laughed a little. “I never got your name, then.”
She was still watching him. It was a little disconcerting. “Dan Bloodroot.”
“Well, then…” The mew nudged him in the back. “Right, sorry, lovely. This is my mew-baby. I’m Rut… I suppose you already knew that.” Dan nodded.
“My beautiful mew-baby,” he crooned softly. “I love my mew-baby.” He rested his forehead against the mew’s and stroked under her chin. Dan smiled to herself.
“I have something to tell you, Rut,” Dan said quietly. “And I rather need you to pay attention.
“Your mother, even though you can’t tell, is a shadow elf. The Shadow gene skipped over her… it does that sometimes. Anyway, this means that you’re half elf.” She reached up and touched rut’s birthmark again. “That’s where this came from,” she whispered, and Rut felt a distinct longing in her gaze, and a strange twinge where she had touched his cheek. “In about a week, I’m going to come to your house, to take you to Drake with me.” She paused, watching his face with that oh-so-attentive deep green eye and, even her shadow seemed to writhe with the attention and the emotions being held at bay, emotions that Rut faintly recognized but could not label. “I’ll train you… to be my partner…”
“And that’s why you were at my house last night,” he said flatly.
“Yes. We had to get your parent’s permission first.”
“You are aware that I’m only fifteen.”
Rut saw longing in her eye when she replied, “But we have to train for a full year before we can leave. You’ll be sixteen. I myself am only seventeen.”
Rut studied her intently, his right hand tracing lines in the lioness’s fur. “And my parents agreed to this.”
“Your mother did.”
“I see.”
There was silence between them for several moments before Dan said quietly, “I have to get back to Drake. I hope,” she said, looking at the grass by her feet, “that you won’t resent me for choosing you.”
They both stood, Rut to see her off and Dan to leave. She leaned forward and planted a light kiss on his cheek, on his birthmark.
“I’ll be back next week, Rut Wilson. Goodbye, until then.”
Then she walked away.
Rut put a hand up to his birthmark and wondered at the odd tingling sensation spreading through it. | 
