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Toole got dragged into the kitchen and he looked around at the empty room. "Lisa I'm not thrilled to be dragged away from work only to find an empty kitchen." Lisa didn't answer as she did a quick look into the pantry. When she came back out she was not happy. "I told her I was coming right back..." Told whom what Lisa?" Lisa looked at Toole and coming over stuck her talon on his chest plate; "You are going to tell her everything about Quannah understand. She doesn't understand what you went through, and then to have that thing nearly consume you..."

Lisa eyes softened; "You need to let her go, open the room upstairs, and let the family have some of the things she had. Jezabelle really fits her dresses, and you can let her have that room instead of her sleeping in the cooks room."

Toole turned rather angry; "This is what you brought me down here for, you took her in that room, and let me guess Jezabelle went in there to hide?" "Toole calm down okay, she felt responsible, and its about time you got through it anyways. If it makes you feel any better Ailes is hiding things from you as well."

Toole shook his head; "When she is ready, then she will tell me, but right now there are people trapped that need my help." Toole walked out the back door and left Lisa standing in the empty kitchen.

She sighed; "I tried Ailes, but its in your hands since he no longer listens to us."

Toole diverted to a cuboard and poured himself a drink.

He came back and settled down at the table. "If I tell you this don't look down on me, or think i'm being over dramatic."

Toole took a drink and began. "I'll start at the beginning..."

"Quannah was perhaps my double, just older, and female. She watched me hatch out, and as i matured and she matured we looked practically the same except for the tell tale signs of male from female. We played together, learned togehter, we did everything together, because our personalites and abilites were much the same. My largest difference from her was i had a confidence problem, but when I was around her I felt confident and able.

When we finished our education and got settled into our full time work we got the same jobs to work together as a team. We always got our assigned tasks done early enough we had two or three days to ourselves to go do whatever we wanted. She could always make the sickest child laugh, even when they knew they were going to die, and when i couldn't manage to save someone she even made me feel better. It was this partnership that lead to the purchase of this house, and eventually we made a deal together that involved a promise. The promise was to watch each others back in whatever we did together.

However when word got out that the Mistress trials were about to start the lower fields became off limits to dragons not assigned to defense. We were support personel so us being down there was not allowed. However, Quannah really enjoyed the walk, the same walk I took you on when we first arrived Ailes, and we managed to go because we took vermillion with us who was authorized to be down there. That and he wouldn't say nothing since Quannah counciled his wife, and I gave a good review on their child post birth evaluation.

Merrils group attacked suddenly, Vermillion took the brunt of the first attack, and it crippled him. however, we retreated to just over a hill where we were covered from direct line of sight attacks. We could see Vermillion stuck out in the open, and the rest of the defense line was occupied with the other lighting demons. Merril's group made him suffer, a horribly slow death.

I told Quannah that it would do no good to go help him. However, Quannah couldn't stand to see Merril just making him suffer like that. She said that if we both attacked togehter they would be pushed back across the river. I advised her against it a second time, but she was already over the hill and going down to attack. I got to my feet and got over the hill, just as merril finished Vermillion off, and her counterparts began their attack on Quannah.

Quannah killed three men of the senior mistress before Merril and her group even got set to attack. I came under fire from a group who was hiding to support Merrils group, and that cut me off from helping Quannah. Quannah did not stop moving forward despite the attacks on her."

Toole paused to take a large drink of what he was drinking from, but it was very powerful stuff as a definite change in his eyes began to register.

"Quannah reached vermillion found that he was dead and began her retreat. She had stopped attacking and was simply running away. Merril gave chase, and for her outstanding bravery Merril killed her twice as slowly as Vermillion."

"She had attacked thining of the promise we made and here I had gone and borke it. I had taken all those years and let her down in a moment of cowardice. I tried justifing my actions of not helping her with the group that had attacked me, but it was just as it was. An excuse to try and make me feel better, but as the investigation that followed only pushed the fact no matter what we did that day we were in the wrong.

I spent a few more years at my job before i couldn't do it any more because it reminded me of how much of a failure i really was. So i swtiched jobs into something I felt made a difference, I gathered intelligence and prevented allot of attacks from making it beyond the river, but even with my best efforts people died.

A few years back I came across a mirror at my fathers place. I stood in front of it and was thinking about Quannah at the time. I went to turn away when I heard her voice speak to me. Sure I asked all the questions you would normally ask when someone you saw die was somehow talking to you through a mirror.

I was still not quite over Quannah, and to have her talking to me I felt as if there was a chance I could apologize to her. However, there were things she couldn't remember, so I filled them in for her, and sure enough she would remember and just smile back at me from the mirror.

I apologized for breaking our promise and she said that it was okay. That is when she came out of the mirror. I really freaked out, and out came the questions again. She assured me it was okay and then on more visits we would touch and hug, and otherwise have contact. However, her tail never left the plane of the mirror to seperate from.

On the last visit we were saying goodbyes when my father caught us, and the startle in me caused me to jerk back and I pulled her tail from the mirror surface. The mirror exploded outward, and what i thought was quannah began to suffer a horribly. She said that if i agreed to carry her soul that she would live until the mirror was repaired.

I foolishly agreed, because I would have done anything for the real Quannah at that point. What was learned from that is that the enity within that mirror was not Quannah at all, it was a evil soul torn from its body and sealed within a mirror as punishment. Never to rest, and never to partake in the pleasures of a body. Now with a direct line in my body it began to take over, and the search for a way to drive it into submission began.

It feed on my depression, and gained ground daily. In the following days when potions began losing effect in surpression i decided to leave this place and go find a place to die. I wouldn't let the enity take my body from me, and I wasn't strong enough to drive it out on my own.

I had lost all hope, there was nothing left in my life worth value that I couldn't protect or wouldn't leave behind hurting. I was getting too close to you Ailes, because you were so much like Quannah was. However, i knew I was dying, and I didn't want you to hurt like have."

Toole finished his drink; "I wanted to sell this house for a long time after she died, but then again i felt it would be disrespectful. My councilers said that it would be best for me to limit the amount of things that would trigger a episode of despression. They also said that the best thing to do would be to think of the happier times you spent together. Hence the murals, the furniture, they are things she would have liked, but not really hers at all.


So take it how you want to, call me what you like, but that is what it was."

Lisa sighed; "Can we clean the room out and make it usable?" Toole stared at the table; "Do what you want with it."

(just so you know he is a dragon at the moment so probably hugging a forearm)

Toole looked at the dinning room door open and Jezabelle stepped in with the mended dress on. "Jezabelle, I've been convinced that you deserve all of Quannah's dresses, and that you can move to her room if you desire it.

Jezabelle wrote out a thank you. Toole sighed; "Ailes, i need to get back, the commander of relief operations is understanding, but he will not be so understanding if i go too long without doing my part in things."

Jezabelle came over and wrote out a note; "Ailes, rather then try to make something here lets go out to eat, i have more then enough saved from my years working here for a lavish meal. So can we go just us four ladies?"

Jezabelle shook her head, and wrote out another note. "I insist, the least i can do for making Toole better."

Toole smiled as he moved out the back door, and took off for his worksite.

Lisa grabbed a few things from the cuboard and stuck them in a small sack and hung them from her center wing joint. "Ready when you are."

Lisa caught up to them as Jezabelle wrote out; "Roo's is always open no matter what happens to the city. She sets up in the park, and feeds the workers free of charge with a full menu."

Lisa arched her neck to see what she wrote; "She's not in the park this time, her resturant was lightly damaged, so they are still operating within."

Jezabelle nodded and taking a deep breath gently led Ailes down the streets to a rather nice looking stone front buliding. Dragons and about any other kind of demon you could think of was going in and out in groups. The normal atmostphere of Roo's was disrupted by the large amounts of people, but the staff was trying the best they could to keep noise to a minimum.

Tables from near by homes and chairs were set up in free space, and based on size sat two to five dragons or 10-20 normal sized demons. They were shown to a table quickly and menu's were quickly brought around with ice water.

Jezabelle could feel eyes on her, and she brought out the deathgrip on Ailes's hand again. Lisa settled in comfortably; "You'll like this place Ailes, Roo was very interested in what Sorrow told her about Earth food. So there is a few selections on her menu now. What is a hamburger anyways? That a meat product or a vegtable product?"

Lisa frowned at the mention of vegtables on it; "I would try it if i didn't half to worry about the vegtables."

Jezabelle ate in here 3 times before and each time she ordered something inexpensive since she was not paying for it. now that she could have anything off of it she was looking at other cultures and had no idea of what some of the languages were much less what kind of food they brought. She stared at the menu flipping through it and let go of Ailes hand. She set the pad next to the menu and wrote out. "language ?, I understand only the arynia dishes and that's it, I like fish, milk, and some shellfish. I just can't read some of the fancier things in the other languages. However they look great, so ummm, help..."

Rodger was looking over from a table at the far end of the dining room. "Lady Isabella, did Toole ever sell any of Quannah's things, bcause I know for a fact i went all the way to enthelda for the dress that woman is wearing." Isabella humphed; "Toole wouldn't dream of it." Isabella slid out a bit and looked and Isabella stood up and Rodger got up and came around moving the chair out of the way. He quickly followe dher out of interest as Isabella came up beside Jezabelle.

Jezabelle felt a hand on the cuff of her dress and she freaked, he rhead snapping to the side to see who it was and sure enough she froze as the strange man who was feeling the cloth spoke up looking at Isabella. "This is Quannah's dress, unmistaken..." Isabella pulled Rodgers arm away from Jezabelle; "Rodger, I don't know how, but its not polite to touch other guests here without permission."

Rodger put the offending hand behind his head and scratched a bit as he apologized. "Sorry for disturbing you ladies, its just this fine dress here is something I went a long way for, and its nice to see it gracing the streets here." Isabella spoke up; "We'l head back to our table, but perhaps in a bit we can come over and talk about how you got the dress?"

Jezabelle set her previous note to the side and drew a question mark, and pointed it at Ailes and Lisa. Lisa nodded; "I don't mind, do you Ailes?"

Isabella and rodger returned to their table.

Jezabelle looked at Lisa who folded her menu up knowing what she wanted already. Lisa borrowed Jezabelle's pad of paper and wrote out a translation table for the menu and slid it over for both Ailes and Jezabelle to use.

Jezabelle circled on the pad what she felt would be very good and something she never had before. She slid the rest of the pad over for Ailes to read through so she could order.

Lisa showed the waitress when she stopped by to get their order, she seemed elated to get an order for some reason, and was copying the orders rather quickly. "You seem beside yourself despite the packed nature Anna, something going on that we should be aware of?"

"There is a beautiful new cook, she is working the Rodasian side of the menu and is very talented. She has very satisfied customers, and many want to come back if she is staying on full time."

Lisa looked at Ailes; "Well keep up the good work Anna, hopefully things slow down soon, and take a moment to breathe you look wore out."

Anna bowed formally and went to take their orders into the ktichen.

Jezabelle wrote out on a fresh page; "What was all that about, and i don't know where your mom went. i asked a question and when I looked to her for an answer after you answered she was gone."