Welcome to Gaia! ::

Master Lierce allowed for the chatter to continue for a good amount of time among the various dragons. Each clan was speaking among itself and even the Fallen were conferring with their leader. Shadine was merely listening with her eyes closed and the human that was sitting with the younglings was distracted by mentally communicating with her dragon, somewhere else in the gathering.

“Tarketh!” The cry was loud and high-pitched with surprise. By one of the entrances the young dragon Fam practically threw herself backwards as the large Fallen dragon brushed past her and into the room. Then she glanced over at where the younglings sat, a guilty look on her face.

“Pardon my late arrival,” the dragon said with a smile, stalking across the open floor as conversation died down, “But really, nothing important ever happens at the start of these meetings.”

He glanced at Lierce and the Dragon-Bound Knights noticeably went for their weapons. Tarketh only chuckled and walked into the center of the room, near the foot of the dais. One of the knights moved between him and Lierce and for a moment they traded glares, Tarketh swishing his tail as a veiled threat.

“I’ve been eavesdropping from outside and must admit that I find it very amusing that it took younglings to realize the most important matter lay before us today. Doesn’t speak very highly of you, Master Lierce.” He glanced up towards the back of the assembly. “Shadine.”

“Get out,” Master Lierce finally growled, “You have yet to contribute anything useful to our kind.”

“Anyone is allowed to speak. Your rules, Knight.” Tarketh glanced down at the captured egg thief and smiled more, his eyes narrowing. “Give me this one. I have no Dragon-Bound right now and greatly desire a new one. You have killed dragon thieves before this one and surely everyone here agrees he deserves death. I will grant him this – eventually – and perhaps even find out why he was hired to steal the eggs in the first place. I have… my own methods for discovering information.”

His tail swished again.

“Give him to me. His fate will be done with and you can go back to deciding how you’re going to discover what the humans want with Ascended and Fallen eggs.”

“Yes, that’s her,” the man said gently to Alter. He glanced up at Chresto and frowned, his hand gently touching the sword at his waist. The look on his face conveyed the meaning – don’t try and interfere.

“Where did you see her? Is she nearby?” he asked.

Both Asariel and Aaliyah shut up as soon as Tarketh entered the room. Neither of the younglings had ever seen a dragon like that before! The female Fallen, Lania, didn’t even come close to the male with the barbs. He resonated with a sort of latent power. Aaliyah, being the observant little creature she was, couldn’t help but notice Fam’s somewhat apologetic look at the younglings. That made her a little nervous… just who was this Tarketh, anyway? Clearly, he was a powerful Fallen, but… then again, that was all it took, wasn’t it?

Asariel listened to the white-striped orange youngling. He vaguely remembered seeing him before when they were hatchlings; it had been rather fun playing with him, so Asariel was inclined to agree with him anyway. Although he didn’t like the idea of giving a human---even an egg thief---to Tarketh, he disliked the idea of that human keeping secrets even more. “It seems reasonable… he wouldn’t be able to hide any information if he was bound to a dragon,” Asariel said with a slight nod.

Aaliyah snorted and tucked her tail neatly around herself. Without really thinking, she blurted out, “But the dragon in question would hide the information from everyone else…” She wasn’t quite sure where that thought had come from, but it seemed likely enough. There was obviously bad blood between Tarketh and Lierce; no doubt, the Fallen would enjoy taunting the knight with hidden knowledge.

She considered Eyal’s words carefully, thinking about everything she had learned of humans and Dragon-Bound. “I don’t think that a human could bind a dragon… as far as I’ve heard, it’s always been the other way around, hasn’t it? A Dragon-Bound can’t even disobey its dragon.”

“… maybe they are trying to find a way,” Asariel suggested after a brief pause. “They took away the power of flight once. No dragon saw that coming. Anything can happen, right?

The room had once again burst into chatter. The younglings weren’t the only ones shouting that the human should or shouldn’t be given to Tarketh. And the woman that had settled in with them was listening carefully to the speculation and quietly relaying it all to her Dragon-Bound, somewhere among the adults.

“You wouldn’t aid us,” Lierce growled, low so that only those in the front rows and Tarketh could hear.

“You? Of course not. I would sooner rip my barbs through your chest and leave you to bleed and die than help you. But my concern for what the humans want with the eggs is greater than my dislike of the Knights. So I will help dragonkind. But not you.”

Lierce sighed heavily. Hammand put a hand on his dragon’s shoulder and the two conferred mentally for a moment. Then Lierce spoke for a moment with the nearby Dragon-Bound Knights.

“The issue of the human needs to be resolved so we can move onto more important things,” he said. At which point the human woman with the younglings cleared her throat significantly and nodded at the dragons sitting around her. Lierce flicked his eyes over and then continued addressing the meeting as a whole. “Clan leaders, please gather a vote among yourselves as to whether or not to give the human to Tarketh, one of the Fallen. Nomads, either create your own groups with a representative or come up singly. Be quick about this – it is the least of our concerns today.”

And he settled back to wait. The human woman turned to the younglings as the room grew noisy again.

“You guys are smart,” she said, “I’m Nina. What do you want to be done? You’re dragons, you get a say in this. We’ll have someone take it to Lierce then – no – you can’t go. Let someone new.”

The Lierce-worshipper sat down before even being able to speak with a disappointed sigh.

For a moment, the two glanced at each other, shifting a little from uneasiness. Both knew perfectly well that Tarketh did have a Dragon-Bound somewhere around here. And while neither really knew much about the dragon community, there had to be some reason why he lied about something like that.

But either way, it must have meant that a dragon could be bound to more than one human. Though perhaps it was just looked down upon or something along those lines.

In any case, something was definitely on that big violet dragon's mind. And the two young ones just weren't all too sure if that something was going to be a good thing.

Hopefully, Tarketh wouldn't hear about who voted for what exactly.

After receiving a nod from Blade, Astalder crept closer to the group of younglings, as well as the human female that accompanied them. Most likely, with the way he was moving, not many would really notice the extra presence until he spoke quietly to put in his opinion.

"I don't think we should give the human to Tarketh... He makes me nervous..."

Asariel was stubborn in his mind, despite Aaliyah’s words. “We’ll never find out who wanted the eggs unless the human tells us. And we’re not going to find that out unless someone binds his soul. Tarketh is the only taker. Besides, the little snot deserves it for what he did! He stole dragons’ eggs! How would you feel if you were the ones who had been stolen? He didn’t much like the idea of giving someone to Tarketh who looked very… scary, to say the least, but it was the best way to get the information. Or at least more information than what they had now. It was perfectly obvious to him that the human must know more than he was saying. Maybe… what about his friends?

After all, the dragons had already agreed that the humans were working together in a group this time. Who had hired this one? His memories held the key to that, and once that was known, the dragons would help wipe out this new threat. The plan seemed flawless to Asariel…

His sister was unconvinced though. Aaliyah shook her head slightly. She had to agree with the black colored youngling on this one. “I don’t trust him,” she announced, despite the fact that she didn’t know him. He didn’t seem nice. And Lierce obviously didn’t like him. Although she didn’t know Lierce either, Aaliyah knew a little about the Dragon-Bound Knights. If their leader took such an intense dislike of Tarketh, there had to be a reason… “There’s no proof that he’ll tell others what he finds out,” she said. “Sure, he says he will, but what proof do we have of that? We ought to look beyond the punishment for now and…”

Asariel snorted. “Aaliyah, have you been eating dirt again? This human needs punishment for his crimes!”

“Shut up, Asariel; go ask Lierce where babies come from again…” Aaliyah stuck her tongue out at her brother before maturity settled once more on the female youngling. “We need some sort of proof that Tarketh will tell the others what he finds out. Something a bit more concrete than his word.