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 Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 6:57 pm
Viscal shuffled his claws. Something was wrong. Even he, a hater of humans, did not want the poor creature to be given to the Fallens, but why were no other dragons willing to bond with him? There were so many dragons here, and not one, other than Tarketh were willing to bond with the human instead. All they had to do was get a dragon to bond then search his mind for the information. What if the human really knew nothing. It would of ment nothing. What if...what if Tarketh already knew.
Viscal shook his head. To many "What Ifs". But still, some other dragon must be willing to bond. "Why is only Tarketh willing to bond?" he asked, finnaly voicing the thought aloud. "Why isn't anyone voluneteering?"
Grishmak Looked at everyone in surprise. So many wanted to give the human away. He sighed, even the nice blue dragon looking for Zera wanted to give away the human. He nestled closely to Viscal, who seemed to becoming a bit nicer. So many cruel thoughts were being thrown around. He shivered as Viscal voiced his thoughts aloud. He had a point...
"Have you over heard anything, Viscal?" The youngling asked hopefully, but was disapointed by the older dragons reply.
"Nothing thats important now," Viscal replied with a sigh.
Meanwhile, sitting unseen at the edge of the Genyeil Circle, was a black youngling with red swirls. Also, beside her, was a Jewled dragon, a gift from a paniced human she had found in the woods.
Azra and Zera. Human and Dragon.
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Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:39 pm
Asariel gave Viscal’s words a moment’s thought before shrugging slightly. “He’s an egg-thief; who would want to bond with that sort of filth? Most dragons only want to bond once with one human. Why waste a perfectly good bond on something like that? And his reputation would taint the dragon’s as well.” And it seemed to him that Tarketh’s reputation was already plenty tainted, at least from the grumbles of other dragons. “If Tarketh is willing to punish the egg-thief and he manages to find out some information while doing so, I see no reason why someone ought to stop him.”
Aaliyah snorted softly at the little blue hatchling. “Are you blind? Have you been watching at all? Lierce doesn’t trust Tarketh. Fam doesn’t trust Tarketh. I don’t think we ought to either. I don’t know what he would do with any information he could learn from it, but I rather that he not have it. There are other ways to find out these sorts of things besides trusting a Fallen to interrogate someone.”
Her older brother waited a few seconds before asking, “Such as? Can you think of any way, Aaliyah? A way besides bonding?”
“Well… no, not really…” she admitted quietly, shuffling a bit on her feet.
“So, you’re saying we should give up this sure way of finding out what the human knows because you’re afraid of the possibility that Tarketh might not want to share the information? Asariel sighed. He wasn’t the brightest star in the sky, but even he could see the difference between ‘certainty’ and ‘possibility’.
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Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:54 pm
Viscal glared at Asariel, "Some dragons do honorable things. They sacrifice things to protect others. To help others. Maybe someone would bond." Viscal quickly stoped arguing though, it didn't seem smart. Arguing would get them no where, though he did manage to add in one more little thing.
"Fam doesn't trust anyone," he muttered grumpily. His agrument wasn't very convincing. Viscal pondered everything for a moment.
"How do we even know he knows more, what if he's said all he really knows..." He thought he had said something like that before, but he wasn't sure.
Grishmak had zoned out of the debates. He was scanning the edges of the Circle. He could of sworn he'd seen someone or something out there. Then his eyes fixed on a Black youngling with red swirls. He gasped, and turned to Asariel.
"Black with red swirls!" The youngling exclaimed.
From where Zera was sitting, she knew she had been spotted. Nothing much she could do about it. She frowned at Flizz for a moment, then asked him to hide and keep watch over the Fallen.
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Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 4:16 am
"Yes, maybe Lierce doesn't trust him, but what has Tarketh done to make us personally distrust him? For the short time he has been here, I have seen him do nothing dishonorable or untrustworthy."
Rotar sat for a minute, mulling over the other questions. "We don't know that he knows more," the Hatchling started slowly, "but without a bonding, we may never find out. And perhaps another dragon does not want to bind with this human because in the end they may have to kill him, and they are afraid they wouldn't be able to do that?"
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Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:57 am
"Still..." muttered Astalder.
The younglings in the group that supported Tarketh were making a fairly good argument, but all of this still made him really uneasy. He may not have heard the threat the large dragon made to his human friend, but he was just getting a good deal of bad vibes from him. Most of it was from some of the somewhat suspicious things that were going on, but there was something else that he couldn't quite put his claw on.
And a part of him wanted to reveal the lie, but doing so would put himself and Blade under the spotlight to some extent. So he just decided to suggest that may be the case instead.
"But... what if he's lying? Though... can a dragon even bind to more than one person in the first place?" he said rather quietly.
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Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 6:57 pm
Aaliyah realized she was losing the argument---and rather easily, which simply depressed her--- but she didn’t back down. “It’s just wrong,” she wailed a little. It was as simple as that. “The human didn’t actually destroy the eggs or anything…”
“He was going to give them to those who would,” Asariel muttered darkly. It wasn’t like him to be so morose, but this situation was giving him a headache. Besides, he missed Zera.
The white youngling wasn’t giving up. There had to be a way to find out without torturing the poor man… “We ought to find the girl,” she said with a nod.
Asariel paused and tilted his head to one side. “Girl? What girl? You mean Zera?” He was, at the moment, a little fixated on his lost friend. Or missing friend. She wasn’t here, so there wasn’t much of a difference to the youngling.
Aaliyah shook her head slightly, trying to remember the thief’s exact words. “No, the girl he mentioned. Um… remember? Right at the beginning, he said he was going to collect his pay and the girl said he was cursed. So, if we know where she is, maybe she saw the men who were going to pay the thief.”
That had Asariel silent for a moment. “There are a lot of people. And a lot of them curse at each other. What are the odds of finding just one specific girl, especially since we don’t have a description of her? Are you suggesting that we depend on the thief’s description of her? He would just lie! This just gives us more of a reason to give the man to Tarketh! And… ZERA!!” Promptly forgetting everything, Asariel blorted with delight and simply galloped towards his friend. Or tried, anyway… in some places, the dragons were closely packed, so he had to force his way past them, but he didn’t care. Zera was here.
Aaliyah sighed as her brother tore off; he had a point, he really did. She would never admit it out loud, of course, but… Tilting her head to one side, she regarded the dark-colored youngling. Could a dragon bind more than one person? Did Tarketh really not have a Dragon-Bound right now? “I… don’t know. If he is lying, then I guess he just gets another Dragon-Bound that will tell him things…whether or not he tells the rest of us is another matter entirely,” she added bitterly.
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Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:03 pm
"Wait......What do you mean 'bind more than one person'?" The youngling swished his tail in an annoyed manner, looking around at the others. "Didn't he say that he didn't have a Bound right now?" Rotar thought back, trying to remember exactly what Tarketh had said. "Didn't he...?" He asked to himself softly, unsure.
Rotar watched the dragons going to look for something called "Zera", and sat there, thinking. He was pretty sure Tarketh had said he didn't have a Bound, so that would eliminate the whole problem of that. But if he didn't, that would make things complicated. "He doesn't have one." He repeated to himself, more reassuringly.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 7:10 am
Zera made a purring sound from were she sat. She may have not wanted to be found before, but friends were always good. She lept foreward to meet him. Raac'd a greeting and then ran off in what direction she thought the group of younglings were in. Then turned around and nipped playfully at Asariels tail.
"Who's winning the argument?" She asked, refering wheather or not to give the human to Tarketh or not.
Viscal watched the going ons in confusion. Who was Zera? He turned his head to look at Grishmak confusedly and Grishmak watched Viscal proudly, he had found Zera for Asariel, and confused everyone else, which was quite fun.
"Heeeey! Viscal!" He said slyly, "Remeber Asariels baby question?"
"Yes...What about it?"
"Your older and all...so...you must know!"
"What!?!"
Viscal glared at Grishmak. Atleast he had lightened the mood a bit. Viscal pounced onto his brother and bit onto his tail. Then he got up, realising he had just lost his hardened mask of indiffrence...actually he lost it a while ago. He coughed and watched everyone closely, while grishmak made a giggling sound.
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:28 pm
The discussion about the room started to quiet down and a handful of dragons started to trickle up towards the front of the room, each speaking briefly to Master Lierce. Tarketh watched the proceedings with a half-smile on his face. Nina turned to the assembled younglings.
“We have a count,” she said, “Who wants to be the one to carry it up to Master Lierce?”
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:42 pm
Ithiel perked up; he'd been ignoring the arguments, knowing that he wasn't gonna change his vote no matter what. "I'll carry it up," he said. He wanted to see Tarketh up close, and this really did seem to be the best way to get there without actually seeming like a fanboy.
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:51 pm
Nina assented with a nod towards Ithiel for sheer virtue of being the first to speak up.
“Just go up there and report that the younglings have voted 12 for giving him to Tarketh, 11 for not giving him to Tarketh,” she said. She looked worried for a moment and her eyes grew distant. “My dragon says the numbers for Tarketh are much higher among the older dragons. This shouldn’t be so.”
She sighed heavily and gestured for Ithiel to continue on.
“Bow when you reach the base of the dais,” she said idly, “Master Lierce is someone you should show respect.”
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 4:05 pm
"He did do something horrible." Ithiel trotted over to the dias and bowed, idly swishing his tail as he did so. Bowing to anyone was not something he wanted to do often, so he straightened fairly quickly and climbed up to Master Lierce. "We younglings voted 12 to 11 for Tarketh," he said, though he gave Tarketh a curious look rather than keeping eye contact with Lierce. The white dragon waited for confirmation of the fact before going to rejoin his age-peers.
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 4:13 pm
“Very good,” Master Lierce said, seemingly distracted by something, “Your help is appreciated.”
Nearby, Hammand gave Ithiel a grin and nodded back towards the younglings, effectively dismissing him. Off to the side Tarketh caught the youngling’s glance for a second and he half-closed his eyes lazily. There was no doubt that the Fallen had noticed Ithiel’s curiosity and he did not seem displeased by it – on the contrary, he appeared quite smug.
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 4:28 pm
Dayum, but Tarketh did look fearsome up close. Ithiel turned and dismissed himself back to the others, looking perhaps a little more self-assured and definately more arrogant than he had going out. In his head were vision of himself as a Fallen- definately more frightening than himself as an Ascended, and if he could scare dragons... maybe he could scare humans too?
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 6:06 pm
When all the dragons had brought the results of their vote to Master Lierce he once again called for the attention of the gathering. His shoulders were hunched and the grave disappointment was written on his features. Even Hammand, who had managed to be upbeat for the most part, shared in his master’s dejection. Tarketh couldn’t seem to be more delighted, or more smug.
“It has been decided by those gathered here that the human shall be given to Tarketh,” Master Lierce intoned and the thief gave out a choked sort of cry. “That matter is now resolved with the understanding that we will be informed of what the Fallen can discover and that the human will eventually be punished with death.”
“Eventually,” Tarketh agreed smoothly.
The Dragon-Bound Knights moved aside as Tarketh walked forwards to claim his prize. The human cried out, backed away, and begging for those around him to help him. But the knights only looked aside and Tarketh half-turned, whipped his tail around so that the snap of it resounded through the air and the whickt of the barb puncturing into the human’s thigh was clearly audible. The human screamed in pain, convulsing, and Tarketh ripped the barb free. For a moment the only sound was the panicked gasps of the human and then slowly, they subsided and he slumped to the floor – unconscious.
“I have no more reason to be at this gathering,” Tarketh said as he stooped and with one forepaw eased the unconscious man up onto his back, between the wings, “I will inform the meeting when I have discovered anything from the human.”
“The matter of what the humans wanted with the eggs will be put off until later, then,” Master Lierce said quietly, “This meeting has been in session for long enough. Are there any pressing matters to be discussed before we dissolve until tomorrow?”
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