Welcome to Gaia! ::

Kaelin thought about it for a moment and then glanced down at the child snuggled up to her. "When he grows up he will become valuable to the family as a whole and take his rightful place. His skills will not be your skills just as his looks are not your looks. It is too early to tell what worth he will bring to the family. If the answer is none, then something must be done. But that time is still far off."

She watched the boy and got the strangest feeling that he felt like crying. Reaching over, she tilted his chin up gently and gave him a smile. "It's okay to admit those kinds of things, though. It's not okay to throw a fit over them or cause a scene because of selfishness, but there is nothing wrong with wanting them here. What keeps them away?"

Zahara nodded, then lightly rubbed her hand along his arm. "Khaiver had a large impact on his life at a really young age and was the first one to really hurt him, aside from us anyway. But he learned a valuable lesson from that encounter, even if I wish it hadn't come quite that young..." But there was nothing to be done about that. "He's learning. Did you two resolve something else? I heard him hesitantly tell you he loved you." She chuckled, it was amusing that the boy had gone back to the phrase so often used when he was younger to communicate it.

"But it is important to live in the here and now down here. Anyone follows that logic...so by that, there' no need to wait for later because he's a burden now. One can always have more children." Going quiet for a moment before a shake of his head. "But no one should be looked at that way. It's just wrong."

"They're went on a vacation together. Needed a break from the stress of life." That was a mild way to put it he guessed. After all...they had indeed taken a vacation from life. A permanent one. "It's okay, I'll see them when I go home when tournament is over." Maybe those he'd met here would forget about him and then the problems would be gone.

"Still...just someone I'd rather keep out of everyone's mind." He should of killed him when he had the chance...but he had been too young then to realize that Khaiver was the enemy, not the mentor. "Let's just say that he's not as detached from me as he thinks he wants to be. Some thing Sweetheart are just meant to be between father and son."

"Okay you. Let's try to keep you occupied, hm?"

((Whee Switch because no one likes being hurt and there's evil afoot))

Two weeks....well, at least things were back to normal. Malikhai was up and about, Malik was back to his old self as well. She was just happy at the stress was down. Well not all the stress...but enough so that she could function and wasn't a pain in everyone's side. She hated it when she was like that. Currently she was outside...playing with Serino of all things. Apparently some sort of game of tag or something. Yup, still the same sweet playful Piper underneath it all. Helped keep her mind off of this 'horse thief' business for the moment.

Anytime now...all would be right. Just had to wait for the opportunity...Malik was never off his guard. Sevilin was never off his guard either and those extra runics over the weeks had made her chuckle...oh silly men. They thought they were keeping the predators out. Walls didn't keep her out....magics didn't keep her out....

Two weeks had come and pass and Galesen had an idea what had happened at the tournament, he saw the way Malik was after-wards the elf seemed like he gotten the s**t beaten out of him. Though still it seemed like nothing had changed since then. But now he was busy in the arena, he was holding a bow in one had while the other pulled back on the string that had an arrow on it, he was aiming at a target from 20 yards away. Still he never used a bow much but it didn't hurt to learn how so he was glad that Piper had taught him how to use one years ago.

Silence filled the room as he stood there aiming carefully. He waited, waited, and waited some more before he released the arrow. It whizzed through the air and a soft thump could be heard as it hit the target he set up on the barrel of hay. When he got close Galesen noticed that the arrow didn't hit dead center but got close enough. "Better than nothing..." He muttered and took the arrow out and walked back to the yard line he made for himself, time to do it again.

He had been monitoring it all for some time now, his son's distress as well as his wife's. Seemed she couldn't get the boy to calm down and was just getting worse off herself. But his attention was dragged back to his children as one screamed in joy and the other scolded. "Don't talk to your sister like that." Getting up to help his youngest daughter reel in her fish and make it seem like she did all the work. "Well...that's a right good job you did." A look to Faate who obvioulsy wasn't enjoying this...he didn't evne know why she had come. "Why don't we head home?" Poor Zahara needed some help it seemed. "Come on you two." Thusly heading off with them.

And whack....that would be the ground as he tripped and fell hard against it, laying there stunned a moment before a soft nose nuzzled at her hair and nipped at her clothing along with accomanying noises of question obviously. Ow, that hurt. Distraction still made her trip and loose her footing even after all this time. Surface elves would always just trip in the underdark."Hm? Oh he's not happy still. It's downright unbearable some days." Using the horse to pull herself up before mounting up and giving him a little kick. "Come on, let's go check on the boys." Riding off to where she knew the two teenage boys were goofing around...sure it was good to keep an eye on them but couldn't keep them locked up all day. A little frown though as her nose twitched. "You smell that?" A nicker back and a little tug on the horse's mane to change his course. "Smells like...pine?" That didn't happen down here...they didn't grow down here. Yup that was....definiately...pine....Piper's expression went mellow....before a snort and she shook her head, blinking a few times. Wait...it just smelled like pine a moment ago...Okay maybe we were crazy. "Come on Serino." Another kick to move on, coming across the boys. "Boys! You're too far out now. You know right now isn't the best time to be wandering off by yourselves." Teenagers.

Piper wasn't the only one watching the boys. draconic eyes monitored their every move. While Tier'dal made up all of malik's mage and most of his military forces, the Droag had become the families personal guard, the Ogres his law enforcers and Breakers. but this droag was not intervening because it's duty was to protect, not to monitor distance. but it heard Piper, and a twitch of it's wings as it stayed hidden from sight.


Malik got himself a glass of wine, before marching down to Broog, who was somewhat less than eager to see him.

"I'm not angry with you, Broog. what happened was beyond your control. however I am here to see our progress, how do you think it's coming?"


Broog relaxed and rummaged through his things a moment.

"Mes not been able to doos much wit da thingies. making dem purty make da thingies hard to works wif."


"pretty isn't a primary concern. though it is a nice gesture, I simply want them ready in a few days, can you do that for me with what you have? or should I get more made?"


Broog nodded.

"Broog can do dat wif what hes gots. but if dey not purty, den broog no think dat dey will wears dem like yous wants."


"They'll make do. they know that not everything can be pretty all the time. not to mention Malikhai and his roughhousing makes pretty things hard to keep pretty."

Malik went back upstairs, giving the commands to get food ready, having the records for piper's work and his brought to him to compare with notes on recent attempts or success on horses being stolen to see if there were any particulars about what breeds or bloodlines they were after and what those might mean.

"Very little."

glancing over at Galesen and taking a seat with a glass of something probably stronger than wine to make sure he didn't throw the books through the wall.

"the bloodlines that seemingly are targeted are specifically bred lines. some are bred more to be hardy warhorse type mounts. the kind we've been selling topside to deal with the still unforgiving enviroment. the others are the ones like Zykariel's Destyny. bred for grace and speed."

taking a drink.

"This, combined with our earlier finding, says that thier trying to mount some kind of calvary. heavy and light mount, but that kind of thing is all but useless without infantry, magi, or archers to back it up. and that size a force we haven't even seen an inkling off. which leads Sevilin to think that it's a bandit group, trying to improve itself through higher quality weapons and mounts for speed."

closing the books.

"But the other related issue is still as big a mystery as it was. someone was able to manipulate Broog mentally and get this original orders placed. the book keeper's time in the breaker room gleaned nothing more than we already knew. and he'd have talked, he has no tolerance for pain. in fact, we had to replace him. there was very little mentally left. Sevilin has put up new runics, but found nothing."

drumming his fingers in agitation.

"Malvolence has been unable to find anything, and my own magi have had no such luck. My guess is either it's someone working through an extensive network, or someone who isn't on this plane, using some kind of connection to do thier deeds. and I don't like either idea at all. I may have to swallow some pride and deal with Sathir and try to purchase a drolvarg."

Quietly he listened, seemed like Malik had a lot of pressure on his mind. Some times it was situation like these he felt sorry for the guy, the man must have enough pressure trying to rule over his large kingdom and now he has to deal with this threat that he cannot identify. So when the blue drow finish the elf looked down at his cup, it was almost empty, so he asked for it to be refilled then turned to Malik. "Whoever is doing this knows way more than what is being let on, though you probably already thought of that. These bandits though seem to be thinking smarter than any kind of bandits that I know of, maybe they are doing this to divide your attention, trying to keep you distracted while something else is in play. If that's so then what could it be? And who really?"

A small pause as he grabbed his drink and took a sip before sighing lightly. "Still this person must be pretty good at concealing themselves and have strong ways in magic if the runes and Malvolence cannot find them. Though could it be possible that somehow they know about the ways of Sevilin's magic and your sword? I mean I don't know if it's true but still to be able to manipulate Broog and still stay out of sight..." Galesen paused for a moment before he shook his head. "They must know what they are doing, they could of planned this for years. Going over every angle and studying the possibilities. Though the big question is why." Another pause and he finished off the rest of his drink before looking at Malik. "Think this may lead to something worse?"