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Chapter 1: An impossible problem to solve.
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"In short, you are tasked with solving the Elf Maiden problem," says the Chief Procurator, bringing his twenty minute monologue to an end.
"I was under the impression that General Wang was attending to that matter," I reply.
"He was. As was Lord Grenville and Justice Fallow before him. All failures. Men whose brains are in their cocks. Which is why I'm giving you the task. You are eminently qualified."
"What qualification are you referring to?" I ask.
"You are friends with the Emperor's daughter, so the Emperor might at least consider whatever you propose without rejecting it out of hand."
My brief platonic relationship with Cassandra while we were studying history together under Professor Hans hardly gives me a gateway to the Emperor's favour. But the Chief Procurator isn't going to listen to any argument on that point. Both he and I know that I'm being given this hopeless task because he regards me as a threat to his position.
The obvious solution to the so-called Elf Maiden problem would be to return the elven women to their homeland. But that's too simple a solution for the rulers of Thurn. The Emperor is reputed to have a harem of thirty Elf Maidens. I suspect that he has no interest in parting with any of them. It's a miracle his cock hasn't worn down to nothing.
The whole issue is one of biology. The continent of Thurn enjoys a pleasant temperate climate for most of the year. But the bitterly cold winter storms are brutal, and deadly for infants and the old alike. Over the ages nature has adapted the reproductive clock of Thurnian women so that they are only fertile for three weeks in summer. Babies are born in the spring so that they have a much greater chance of survival during the following winter. But nature didn't just alter the reproductive clocks of women. A male Thurnian can only have an erection when he detects the pheromones of a fertile woman. It has been nature's way of ensuring peace and harmony for centuries. Except, of course, in the short rutting season, which is when men get territorial and possessive. During those three weeks or so, normally docile men get aggressive and fight over the right to ram their cock into an equally eager woman.
The well established life-cycle on Thurn changed fifty years ago when the southern continent was discovered. Unlike Thurn, the southern continent has a tropical climate, and there's food in abundance all year round. At first the explorers thought the continent was uninhabited, but deep in the jungle they discovered a nomadic race of people the explorers called 'elves'. Of course, they weren't the elves of fairy tales, but the name has stuck. To look at them they appear identical to any Thurnian man or woman. Except for their ears, which are slightly larger than those of the average Thurnian, and explains why the elven race was so named. The southern jungles are home to several species of large predatory animals who hunt by stealth rather than speed. Sharp hearing is essential to survival in the jungle, and consequently nature has adapted the 'elves' over the centuries.
Another difference between the two races is the strong body odour of the elves. Their body odour deters wild animals from attacking them. Many Thurnians, women in particular, find the elves' odour repellent. The derogatory term 'stinking elves' is commonly used, even in the presence of Elf Maidens. Thurnian men are more tolerant of the elves' odour but for a completely selfish reason.
The most important discovery from the initial encounter with the elves... at least for Thurnian men... is that elven women are fertile for ten days every month. In the rich miasma of the tropical forests, the pheromones an elven woman emits are particularly strong. The explorers suddenly discovered their cocks were standing to attention, and more than one elven woman was happy to make use of what was on offer. Reputedly the erect cocks of Thurnian men are massive in comparison to those of elven males.
The discovery spelt disaster for the elven people they met. The now rampant Thurnian men rounded up as many elven women as they could find and transported them back to Thurn. A few elven men objected and they were promptly killed. The rest of the elves fled into the jungle. It was probably one of the most inglorious episodes in Thurnian history.
Over the last half century more has been learnt about the elven women. Originally they were classified as domestic animals and were required to wear a collar and leash. Over time laws have been passed to give adult elves a place in Thurnian society, albeit a very lowly one. The requirement for them to be kept on a leash was revoked, but the need for them to wear a collar still remains for some illogical reason.
The discovery that an elven woman can become pregnant after copulating with a Thurnian man meant the elven population in Thurn quickly increased. However, the child born from such a union is always female and an exact clone of her mother. It seems that while a Thurnian male can trigger an elf's gestation, his seed plays no part in determining the features of the child.
Although adult elves are no longer classified as animals, they are effectively second class citizens in Thurn. They have few legal rights. Furthermore, they may only live in designated ghettoes, and work in particular trades. Because of their strong body odour, they are banned from being indoors when they are away from their ghetto. Not that any man seems to mind when an Elf Maiden is in heat. The stronger the smell the harder his cock becomes. And an eleven woman is equally helpless to the effects of nature. When in heat she craves for a man's cock as much as any man wants it inside her.
The law defines an adult elven woman as an Elf Maiden, and that the population of Elf Maidens mustn't exceed 2,000 throughout all of Thurn at any one time. The annual census of the eleven population is an approximation at best. It is common knowledge that more and more Elf Maidens are being secreted away in the harems of powerful Thurnian men, and no census includes them. The Emperor may have the largest known harem, but he is by no means the only wealthy man who has one. Even the Chief Procurator is reputed to have three Elf Maidens kept on his estate. The tally of adolescent elves never makes sense, unless scores of them simply disappear each year. Which is possible, given the wretched conditions in which adolescent elves are expected to work, and the reluctance of employers to report fatal work accidents. Fortunately, the brutal winters and the occasional cull of adolescent elves ensures the elven population is kept under some form of control.
So, how am I expected to solve a problem that no Thurnian man wants solving? The reality is that despite the overall increase in population, the indigenous population of Thurn is declining. Behind the smoke screen of blaming Elf Maidens for the problem, the fall in the indigenous population is the actual issue of concern. In part... a substantial part, to my mind... the decline in population is because of the increase in male aggression which has triggered more than one bloody war over the last few decades. Wars which have directly or indirectly ended the lives of many hard-to-replace indigenous Thurnians.
Unfortunately, the casualties of war are dismissed as irrelevant by the sages and scholars who have the ear of the Emperor. Their collective wisdom holds that the cause of the population decline is because Thurnian men are too busy fucking Elf Maidens all year round, and breeding more elves, to mate with a Thurnian woman during the rutting season. Their hypothesis is that the pheromones emitted by an Elf Maiden in heat are so much stronger than that of a Thurnian woman, that male instinct diverts his attention towards fucking as many elves as he can. It's a theory that facts prove to be false. There has been no decline in the number of babies born to Thurnian women each year. It's simply that in recent years, the annual number of Thurnian deaths exceed the number of births for the first time in living memory.
I face a seemingly impossible task. If there was some way of allowing men to enjoy the pleasures of an Elf Maiden without triggering the unwelcome side effect of their macho aggression, then a solution might be found. But I can't see that ever happening.
The Chief Procurator gives me three months to come up with a solution. Clearly repeating the ideas of my predecessors on this thankless mission would be pointless. My first step is to review what my predecessors proposed. Justice Fallow had come up with the obvious solution of returning the elves to the southern continent. That idea met with the predictable lack of enthusiasm. Lord Grenville must have been drunk when he wrote his report because it is twelve pages of gibberish. I doubt anyone understands his report but nobody was brave enough to tell him so. General Wang's proposal to execute all pregnant Elf Maidens was rejected as being too callous and cruel.
My next step needs to be learning more about the lives of Elf Maidens, and elves in general. I've never set foot into one of their ghettoes, nor have I been to the farms and mines where many of the adolescent elves live and work. It's something I must now remedy if I am going to have any chance of finishing my mission.
The next morning I set off for the city's main elven ghetto to the south of the city walls.
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