This bonus chapter was inspired by Along Came A Spider, a series of four bonus chapters for The Gods Are Bastards by D.D. Webb or Webbonomicon. TGAB has inspired Ironheart in a lot of ways- the working title was "TGAB Ripoff" before I came up with the title I have now- and I heartily recommend reading it if you're liking Ironheart.

  You can suggest ideas for future bonus chapters by commenting on the pinned post on my Patreon, or posting on any Discord server I happen to frequent- just be sure to @ me if you do, to make sure I see it.

  Joseph Ironheart was four years old. He was a devilishly clever young d, who soaked up knowledge like a sponge, and spoke like a three foot tall adult; many of the Ironheart family's guests had affectionately called him 'the Little Professor.'

  However, he was not, by and rge, a terribly social child. He much preferred a quiet corner where he could read books to the company of his peers; despite repeated attempts to foster some sort of connection and community with the thirty other elven children of his generation, he only seemed to like one of them.

  "Huh?" Joseph said, turning away from his book to look at Talia Jones, the one other kid he liked. "Oh. Do you need your mom?"

  Talia nodded wordlessly. She said very little, but seemed to understand both Hikaano and High Elven just fine; it was cause for concern to the adults in her life, but they assumed- or merely hoped- she'd grow out of it.

  To Joseph, however, it was the best thing about her. She was quiet, and didn't interrupt him while he was reading just to vent the contents of her skull. And in moments like these, when it came time for her to communicate, the fact she didn't say words wasn't much of an obstacle; they were both smart, they could figure it out together.

  "Miss Antiope?" Joseph called, standing up and walking towards the doorway into the kitchen. "Talia needs you."

  "Is something wrong, baby?" Antiope asked, already stepping away from the stove- magic kept the spoon moving and the pot stirring, and Joseph thought, not for the first time today, 'I want to be able to do that when I grow up.'

  Joseph turned his attention back to Talia, trying to read the signs of her posture. She had one hand near her stomach, so either she had to use the toilet or she was hungry. She was old enough to use the toilet on her own, Joseph was fairly certain- she was as old as he was, and he was old enough to do that- so he decided...

  "I think she's hungry," Joseph suggested, still looking at Talia, who shook her head. "No... Do you need the bathroom?" Talia nodded, and Joseph frowned. "Aren't you old enough to go by yourself?" Talia shook her head, and Joseph's frown remained as he turned to face Antiope. "She needs to use the bathroom."

  "Thank you, Joseph," Antiope said warmly, patting him on the shoulder- he'd only had to tell her once that he didn't like being patted on the head, and she never did it again. "Tim, can you take Talia to the bathroom while I finish up here?"

  "Sure thing, honey," Tim said, nodding as he set down the knife he was chopping vegetables with. "C'mon, doll, let's get you cleaned up."

  Tim scooped his daughter up and carried her off down the hall, and Joseph hummed quietly.

  "Precocious little tyke, aren't you?" Antiope murmured, mostly to herself, as she started chopping the vegetables Tim had abandoned.

  "Maybe," Joseph said, shrugging. "Talia is too, though."

  "...Do you know what 'precocious' means, Joseph?" Antiope asked, tilting her head to the side.

  "I act older than I am," Joseph said. "I'm smart. But Talia is too."

  "Really, now?" Antiope asked, in that tone Joseph hated hearing from adults.

  "She's not too stupid to talk," Joseph said, frowning at Antiope. "She can talk. She just doesn't like it."

  "Oh?"

  "There's rules," Joseph continued. "Talia takes the rules very seriously, when we py games. If there's something she doesn't understand, she stops, and she thinks, and she tries to understand. Language has rules too. She doesn't understand them, but she takes them seriously. And she never breaks the rules."

  Antiope stared at Joseph with wide eyes, her mouth slightly open- was she surprised? She'd heard Joseph talk like this before. Or... maybe she just didn't understand why Talia didn't talk until this very moment.

  "That's... very insightful, Joseph," Antiope said carefully. "I'm... Thank you, for figuring this out and telling me." She sighed, closing her eyes. "As embarrassing as it is that I didn't figure it out first... Thank you."

  "Can I ask a question?"

  "Of course, Joseph," Antiope said.

  "Why does my dad say Oren Rosewood is an asshole?"

  Antiope coughed sharply, and kept coughing for a few seconds, like she'd drank water the wrong way- apparently something humans did sometimes? Joseph had certainly never experienced it- before clearing her throat. "Your father should not be saying that word around you."

  "Why?" Joseph asked.

  "It's..." Antiope paused, considering her words carefully- like Talia always was, except with years of experience with the rules of nguage. "...It is a very, very rude word, that makes even adults angry, not just children. And... Don't repeat this in front of Mister Rosewood-"

  "Dad said that I should only say 'asshole' when talking to or about Oren Rosewood," Joseph supplied.

  "Napoleon!" Antiope scolded, apparently forgetting he wasn't in the building. "That- urgh, he's... Well, he isn't wrong. Mister Rosewood is a very rude and unpleasant man, who dislikes you specifically for bad reasons. What do you know about the Rosewood family?"

  "They all have red hair, and their grandpa was King Lysander," Joseph said.

  "They are the only elves with red hair," Antiope added. "Except for you. And Mister Rosewood-"

  "You don't have to call him Mister," Joseph informed her.

  "Joseph, someone has to teach you how to be civil with people you don't like, and your father clearly isn't doing it," Antiope said almost desperately.

  He nodded wordlessly, and Antiope continued.

  "Mister Rosewood," Antiope said firmly, "thinks that red hair should be a simple, clear symbol of royal blood- that the descendants of Lysander should all have it, and that nobody else should have it. And because you're Joseph Ironheart, not Joseph Rosewood, Mister Rosewood thinks you're a threat to that simple rule, because he doesn't think you're descended from King Lysander."

  "I could be," Joseph pointed out. "We don't know who Mom's parents are."

  "But unless he knows Ariel's parents were Rosewoods, then whether or not you're a Rosewood is complicated, not simple," Antiope said. "Mister Rosewood doesn't like complicated. He wants things to be simple."

  Joseph frowned as he considered this. He thought back to the process of learning to read and write, and do simple math- how it had seemed so complicated, but now he could read by himself whenever he wanted, and it felt simpler and simpler with every passing day.

  "...What a baby," Joseph said, finally. "No wonder he's an asshole."

  Joseph Ironheart was ten years old, and three days ago, he'd buried his best friend.

  "I'm sorry," Talia whispered, patting his arm.

  When Joseph Ironheart was six years old, just like every other High Elf, he was given a pet to raise and take care of. Unlike most High Elves, who got a kitten or a puppy, Joseph was given a rat.

  He'd learned a lot about rats before being given one; he knew rats were smart and social animals, smarter and friendlier than even cats were, and had already been led to the conclusion, pnted by his father, that a rat would be a wonderful pet.

  The one thing he hadn't quite grasped, even as a precocious six year old, was that pet rats had a lifespan of two to three years- the four years that Arthur had sted were unusually long, and due entirely to his father's skill as a Druid and a healer. When Joseph was six years old, three years was half his life- certainly the entirety of it that he remembered. But today, four years felt... insufficient. It wasn't fair. Arthur had been so good, so loving and smart and adorable- he'd been a wonderful friend to Joseph in their time together, and now, Joseph would never have that time again. He'd never get to come home from a long day at school, dealing with the other kids pulling his hair and ughing at his accent, and get to hold his furry little friend in his arms, feeling the patter of Arthur's tiny little heart as his friend crawled up his arm to nestle on his shoulder.

  It was a lesson, according to Dad. Nothing is permanent. The people you love will one day die, and you will never have another day with them. Don't waste time. Don't wait for no reason. Love your friends and your family every moment you can.

  And... don't be afraid to love things that won't st as long as you. Joseph wouldn't be mourning Arthur if he'd never gotten the little rat, but he also wouldn't have gotten to be Arthur's best friend, and... Well... It was a cruel thing to say, that you wish you'd never met someone. To say to Arthur that his love was not worth the heartache of losing him would be a betrayal of that love.

  Arthur would have died anyways. At least this way, he got to spend his days with Joseph, eating sunflower seeds and digging peanuts out of a tray of sand, knowing he was loved.

  He deserved nothing less, and Joseph wouldn't deprive him of that.

  "Hey Ears, I hear your little rat died!" John Courser said.

  As much as this lesson was transparently about the importance of letting yourself get attached to humans even though they'd die long before you did, Joseph found himself wondering just which humans he was supposed to be getting attached to, considering that they all hated him for the shape of his ears.

  "Go away," Joseph said firmly.

  "Yeah? Make me," John sneered.

  Joseph had had more than enough of this shit. He didn't want anything more than to be left alone by every kid who wasn't Talia- was that really so much to ask for? But if he had to insist, well. John would think twice before starting shit next time.

  "As you wish," Joseph said, before standing up, grabbing his chair, and earning himself a month's suspension from school, as well as a trip to the school Healer's office for John.

  Really, Joseph had done John a favor. He'd still had a few baby teeth left in his mouth, and Joseph had gotten them out for him.

  Joseph Ironheart was sixteen years old, and had been a practicing Wizard- and a dabbling Occultist- for two years.

  "You know nobody talks like that, right?" Jimmy asked.

  Joseph didn't have many friends. Arguably, he didn't have any friends- he had Talia, who was more than a friend at this point, and he also had a few friendly acquaintances. Of which, Carl and Jimmy were some of the most familiar- Jimmy, after all, was the guy he was getting his Occult stuff from.

  "Like," Jimmy continued, "that's some dime novel protagonist bullshit you just said."

  "I don't get out much," Joseph said defensively.

  "Yeah, I can tell," Carl said.

  Carl and Jimmy Freeman were twin brothers, born in Greenwood Vilge, and delivered by Napoleon Ironheart. Like most of Greenwood's human inhabitants, they were bck, with thick coils of pitch bck hair and bronze highlights on the tops of their cheeks and the tips of their noses.

  They both dressed a bit nicer than Joseph did; Carl wore a smartly professional-looking outfit consisting of a powder blue button-down shirt and ste grey scks, while Jimmy emuted the Bards of Greenwood Vilge with a colorful suit and tie, with broad shoulderpads and baggy pants that gathered at the ankles. Carl was studying to become a Merchant, and Jimmy, a Bard.

  Joseph, who understood intellectually that what he wore was part of how he presented himself, nonetheless could not be bothered to put on anything more effortful than a pair of sturdy blue jeans and a pin undershirt that was only tucked in because otherwise Master Armstrong would yell at him about workpce safety regutions.

  "Look, man, I know this is hard for you, but you don't gotta put on an act around us," Jimmy insisted. "You don't have to wear the mask." A sentence loaded with Occult meaning, which Joseph only somewhat understood- he'd read it pretty recently in one of those Bard books that Jimmy had loaned him, and which he'd copied, but he hadn't properly understood the passage when he read it and he understood it less now.

  "Yes, I absolutely do," Joseph said stiffly.

  "And why would that be?" Carl asked. "What have I ever done to make you feel like you can't be yourself around me? Why can't we meet the real you, when you're not trying to pretend you're someone else?"

  "Because this is new," Joseph said. "I'm starting to realize I can't just go through life coasting off Daddy's connections and having other people be charismatic for me. I realized, pretty recently, that I have got to learn how to actually talk to people in such a way as to actually get what I want."

  "Then-"

  "So that's why I wear the mask," Joseph said. "That's why you can't talk to the real me. You've met him, and you decided you didn't like him."

  Joseph thought that was the end of that, and turned to walk away, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

  "Talk to Frederick about it," Jimmy whispered, knowing Joseph could hear him anyways. "He'll help you."

  Joseph considered that, nodded fractionally, and then walked away.

  Catherine Ironheart was eighteen years old, and lying on the couch, her head in Emily's p while Emily idly pyed with her hair.

  "So, you mean to tell me there's like thirty other elves your age in that neighborhood-" Faith began.

  "Twenty nine other elves," Talia corrected her. "The whole cohort was thirty one, and we're not counting me either."

  "-and I didn't get to meet any of them, because you didn't like them?" Faith asked.

  "That is more-or-less the case, yes," Catherine said, nodding.

  "What happened to the smooth-talking people-person I saw on the ride up here?" Faith asked.

  Talia barked a bitter ugh. "That," she said, "is a recent fucking development."

  "This all must be new to you, then," Emily said.

  "Kinda, yeah," Catherine said, nodding. "I mean, not the part where beautiful bck and/or Irish girls fawned over me- I was six foot two and knew how to cook. But the part where I was good enough at navigating social situations to thread the needle to end up in an actual retionship, rather than an awkward conversation or, on one memorable occasion, a kiss-and-grope behind the shed, well, that is new, yes."

  "As someone who doesn't like men, despite my best efforts for a few years," Faith said, "you were pretty hot as a boy. You're just a lot hotter as a butch, is all."

  "Literally nothing has changed yet," Catherine said. "I look exactly the same."

  "Sure, but now you've got the full confident swagger of a butch, rather than that little timid edge of a 'boy' who knows, deep down, that she isn't," Faith said. "Also, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and now I know for a fact you're a woman, so..."

  "Ugh," Catherine grunted.

  "If it makes you feel better," Volex began.

  "Where is this going?" Catherine asked.

  "Talia's Druidcraft alone should make you about as curvy as she is in just a few years," Volex said. "It took her four years to get here, so I'd say that's a reasonable minimum. Considering how long elves live, that'll be barely a blink of an eye for you."

  "Also, I am a Wizard, and can learn to do organic transmutation," Catherine added. "Which is, incidentally, one of the courses I'm taking this semester, so..."

  "Oh, then you'll have knockers in no time," Volex said dismissively. "Faith, do you want bigger boobs while Catherine's at it?"

  "I'm good, thanks," Faith said. "I'm happy being a butch who doesn't have to wear a sports bra just to walk down the stairs."

  "Hey!" Talia and Emily protested in unison.

  "I'm gd I finally found more people I can make a happy life with," Catherine mused.

  "I'm gd I found you too," Emily said.

  "And I'm gd you still love me even after a zy boob joke," Faith added.

  "It's part of the life," Catherine said, closing her eyes. "Mmn... I can rest easy, now. All is right in the world."

  AnnouncementAs always, if you like Ironheart and want me to keep making it, the best way to do that is to leave a comment, here or on my discord server.

  And if you've got an idea for a bonus chapter, chuck it in a comment on the pinned post on my Patreon.