Worse Fates

Fantasy meets the Wild West

Created on Midjourney

Somehow, the pointed ears poking up against the rim of the cowboy hat made the Elf seem more menacing, not less. Amber had been tempted to laugh when he first stepped into her saloon. At least until she had caught sight of his expression. Hers sobered immediately.

“You’re really going through with it?” she asked, pouring a glass of house white and sliding it across the bar to him.

Mandor lifted the glass to his lips and drained its contents in one long swallow before setting it back on the bar. “Another,” he said, dropping onto the stool directly in front of Amber. He watched her as she poured a generous portion of the golden liquid into the glass and set it down in front of him.

Only after he had finished that and gestured for her to pour another did he answer her question. “What choice do I have?”

Handing Mandor a third glass and setting the bottle down in front of him, Amber said, “You could say no.”

“You know I can’t do that,” he answered, shaking his head, but not yet reaching for the glass. “Pour yourself one too.”

Amber didn’t usually drink at work, but she made an exception for her Elven friend. Besides, it was her tavern and she sure as hells wasn’t going to fire herself. “You can, you know.”

“I can’t. Solya has only just allowed me into her life. I can’t alienate my daughter.”

Solya was Mandor’s daughter with a human woman. A woman who had fled when she realized she was pregnant and assumed the Elf would shun them both. Elves, as a race, were not fond of their half-breed children.

But how Audrika could have believed this of him was beyond Amber’s comprehension. She had known the Elf for nearly half a century. He eschewed the haughtiness of his kin, choosing to live here, in the mixed settlement. His friends came from all races. His friendship with Amber was a case in point. Tieflings, were, after all, neither the most respected nor respectable of beings.

But, despite Mandor’s general open-mindedness, he did tend, sometimes, to take himself a little too seriously. As he sipped on his current glass of wine, Amber hazarded a chuckle. “There are worse fates, you know.”

“I know,” Mandor sighed. “But why would she choose a cowboy-themed wedding? And why do I have to wear this ridiculous outfit?"

“Because,” Amber answered, coming around the bar to sit beside her friend, “she loves the frontier where she grew up and because you love her.”

“Both are true,” Mandor conceded. “I suppose it’s just one day.”

Clapping him on the shoulder, Amber said, “Wait until you see what she picked out for me to wear.”

As the Elf smirked and a raised an eyebrow, Amber drained her own glass, then disappeared into the back room to bring out a dress and bonnet, both of which clashed with her blue skin. “How in the hells am I going to get my horns through this thing?

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I wrote this story based on a prompt from Reedsy: “Write a Western-inspired story in a new genre or setting (e.g. a space western, fantasy western, etc.)” I’ve already written a science fiction Western, so decided to go with fantasy.

Dungeons and dragons is a fantasy tabletop role playing game that has multiple realms, even a science fiction based one. So I decided to do a fantasy/DnD mashup.

I also liked the idea of starting out with a forbidding-looking Elf and completely twisting the story. I hope you enjoyed the result!