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Hang-overs...also known as Dragonsbane...were spectacular for Aerdonian Dragons. Their bulk did nothing to help them with the assimilation of alcohol into their system, they lacked one important thing, an enzyme to help break it down. Oh, sure, they had traces of it in their systems, but not near enough to help the rapid onset of intoxication and hideous nausea and headache the next day.
One Dragon in particular, the Emperor to be exact, was going to suffer horribly. He knew this as he stripped, dove headlong into the familiar, mineral-heavy waters of his own bathing pool. There beneath the surface the half-elven form didn't quite melt away, instead it seemed to fuse with draconian scales and wings, a perfect blending of the charming face that concealed the killer and the true Callan Blackthorn. Silver tinged, onyx scales feather out across his shoulders and heavier chest plates arrowed down to his abdomen and once again became scales. From his brow, a curved set of rams horns curled out from under the mop of dark hair...he needed a hair cut and had gone too long without one.
The steaming waters soaked away the soreness that had settled in him ever since being turned to stone and left him in an almost more drunken state than he'd been in upon his arrival. He'd not told a soul he had returned, lest he be pounced and interrogated by servants and Keep children alike. After what seemed like hours, and it might have been, soaking under the moonlit sky, Callan hauled himself out of the pool, wrapped a white towel around his hips and somehow stumbled into his chambers, tugged the doors to his sunledge open with a grunting yank, then stepped out into the warmth of the rising sun.
Ah...this...this he had missed. Golden light, warm and welcoming crept up the stone citadel and slipped over the arc of surrounding mountains. This he had missed. The white towel was flung off his hips with a wild flourish and fluttered off the ledge, drifted into the currents of mid-summer air and was gone. The black scale began eclipsing bare skin, and in short order, Callan stretched languidly in his full form. Sharp talons spread, cat-like, as his bulk shifted and twisted. Several grinding, audible pops were heard; he'd been in one form too long and his spine needed a quick realigning. That done, his black wings snapped up, spread wide and the entire weight of him flopped down on the granite ledge.
He was home...and here he intended to stay.
Agaru wobbled slightly as she burst from the Amazon created portal, tendrils of green Aethyr clinging to her great Crimson form as she swept towards the Keep. It was a massive structure, and from this distance she quailed for a moment, not sure how she was going to find Callan. A sharp mental smeck from Tay, and the dragon would have blushed if she could have.
Tuning into her fledgling bond to her mate the female adjusted her course, banking slightly to correct another wobble, the wing not quite healed yet from her ordeal with Haldanuru. A half healed wound still marred the gem like scales on her chest, welling with blood whenever was forced to beat her wings.
Which… was a little to often when a fluffy white towel hit her smack in the eye, blinding Agaru effectively on one side. Cursing and stumbling along through the air she grabbled around her eye, which brought her front end up, nearly slamming her into a immense ledge. At the last moment, she switched forms, sending An’Thaya running across the granite and bouncing off the doorframe. The resulting language would have made a Drow blush.
"HOLY MOTHER OF FIRE AND CHAOS!" Callan had almost immediately dropped into a deep sleep when Agaru had crashed into the Keep. Not quite sure if the Keep was under attack, he was back on Whispin or what, his head snapped up, flame licking his jaws...and was promptly beaned on the head by falling broken rocks and then...
"AGARU?" Stars exploded before his eyes, then he thought his head was going to explode too.
"Ooh...Oh...ssshhhh...Gods...hangover..." He whispered and carefully shook his head, then cracked one eye open, "You okay? Or do I need to call the healers out here? Though, I warn you, I was sorta glad to be here and no one know it."
Reeling about Agaru rubbed at her, or rather, An’Thaya’s forehead, still swearing under her breath. “Aye, its me. I’ll be fine I think. Gods dammit, are towels indigenous flying creatures here?” Said item was now tossed over her shoulder and the Amazon wobbled unsteadily, sitting down heavily on Callan’s tail.
“I hope you are not too comfortable. You have to come back; we need you in Nenlante again. Ow dammit… that smarts. Shadow has a plan to get rid of Samara and we need someone capable of working with difficult metals. My Amazon isn’t up to it at the moment and she feels you are the most logical choice for the job.”
"Working difficult metals? Aye...I can, but...how does that have anything to do with being rid of Samara..." Callan's black jaws snapped shut abruptly as a flicker of dream, a moment of lust, hate and temptation rolled through him and before he could quite get a finger put on the memory, it was gone.
"And yes. I'm comfortable. Your Amazon can find someone else to work metal, for whatever purposes."
“Oh,” Agaru growled, peering up at her mate from between Tay’s fingers, “so now you are an oath breaker too? You swore a blood oath to Y’Roden as his ally, and now you are going to turn your back on him when he needs you most?”
“Nevermind Agaruloki,” the Amazon’s voice filtered through, “Obviously he is just going to be his pig headed self and leave us all hanging, as usual. I have no idea why I even bothered to ask. Typical… just bloody frigging typical.”
"TYPICAL?" Callan bellowed, then immediately clapped his 'hands' over his ears, and in order to do that, it mean his long neck was wrinkled up and bowed out and up in a large, scaley hump, "Typical? Let's talk about typical? Is it typical, that she'd drag MY mate off into Hell and not give a DAMN," he winced, then lowered his voice.
"Nevermind. Its over, it doesn't matter." His bristled mane of spikes slowly lowered and topaz eyes rolled shut for a moment, then open again, "I don't think you quite understand the reason for my answer. I vowed to be his ally, yes. But what I don't think you get, Agaru, is that it wouldn't take but a nudge in the wrong direction for me to become his worst enemy. There's a fine line between that...being someone's blessing and their bane. Get me too close to Samara, ever. again. and that line might get crossed."
His claws tapped on the stone ledge for a moment, then his tail lifted the two-legger form his mate had borrowed into the air and curled around her in one fluid move. The delicate form of her was set down in front of his nose, "There. Now I can see you without craning my neck around." Loops of black tail unwound and released her, then began swishing lazily across the warm stones, like a cat's when it was content and sleepy.
His angular head lowered to those same stones, which left one gleaming topaz orb only slightly higher than her head, "Why can't someone else do this?"
For a moment, An’Thaya looked out at him, gazing up into never ending blue. In that heartbeat of time she looked incredibly vulnerable; the depths of her soul visible through the emerald panes of her eyes. Those faceted jewels fell away, studying the beige granite beneath her feet as the Amazon bemoaned the loss of her hair, which was not only a source of pride, but a curtain that hid unwanted emotion from prying eyes.
“I didn’t know,” she said in an uncharacteristically soft voice, “I’m sorry, I didn’t do it to hurt you.” Unsteady on her feet she settled down onto the hot stone with a soft exhalation of breath, then looked up. “Shadow needs two amulets made, one to hold Samara, and one to hold her own soul when she dies. This is intricate work, if anything goes wrong…”
Her voice trailed off and she shifted uncomfortably, feeling put on the spot and ready to bolt at any moment. “Oh hells, look… Callan, you know I wouldn’t ask you to do this unless I absolutely had too. There is no one else… dare I say it… that I trust to do this right. Shadow is my Ad’Vere, and I will not put her life in hands that are less than the best.” The redhead swallowed and spoke hurriedly on, “besides, we need your… what is it Mira called it… Rage? We intend to give Samara what she wants, in a lethal dose, and if Ghet and Ro could magnify what you give off, we just might have a chance.”
"Rage? Rage I have. Though, I think you should have caught me about two weeks ago, then I don't think it would have taken Ro AND Ghet to magnify it." Callan blinked slowly and gave something of a rippling, all-over body shrug, "I know you didn't know. It doesn't change what happened, but I know. Just...next time, don't surprise me with it, okay? There's...things...preparations...." He stopped there, he could explain it all later, but at least if he'd known he could have designated someone to prevent what had happened in the Temple. Gods willing, he'd never have to consider that again.
"So, you think I'm the one to do this? What exactly do you mean, hold her soul?" His head suddenly snapped up, "You're wanting an Illinsaad, aren't you?"
An’Thaya smiled, an amused tug of the lip that squinted one eye as she regarded the massive dragon. “I didn’t tell my own husband I was going. If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m not exactly a preparation kind of Gal. However, I give Agaru Carte blanche from now on when it comes to emergencies, all right? If she needs you, I’m not going to stop her. I haven’t exactly been accommodating in the past, and I know that has to change. Agaru’loki has as much a right to a life as I do.”
It was all a sugar coated omission, half-truth. Tay knew her time was limited now, and therefore, so was Agaru’s. Callan’s sanity would go with them, and no matter how crazy her made her; he deserved a chance at happiness before all went to hell.
“What is an Illinsaad?”
Callan snorted in reply, there were things she wasn't saying, he'd spent his life learning to discern fact from fiction, yet now was not the time to pin her down on it.
"I can't help but think, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but, I don't see Galain as the genocidal sociopathic killer sort, but maybe I've misjudged him." Callan's point was, he didn't see Galain going on a mass killing spree with An'Thaya leaving this universe for the next, "And, an Illinsaad. You know that pretty piece of jewelry my daughter used to wear on top of her skin? That was once mine. IT is an Illinsaad Renor Sar'da. An Amulet of Black Death...and only a handful of people know how to make them, let alone use them and control them. I am one of them, my sire's mate, Ina'htas is another. I'd tell you to ask you brother what it is, but then you'd be running to Whispin, then back here, and I don't think you've got time for all that."
“Have you met Galain?” Tay asked with a raised eyebrow, “Well, if you drop the genocidal part. I’m rambling. Yes, that sounds quite similar to what Shadow was describing, and I don’t think I’ll be running anywhere for a while. We were lucky to make it this far.” She hauled the towel off her shoulder, “by the way,” she snapped him on the snout, “this smells like you, so that makes this,” she pointed at her forehead, “your fault.”
She paused, “Whose soul does Mira have in hers? Or do I want to know? You use to walk around with someone’s soul around your neck?” Her eyes narrowed, “or souls?” The common name of the amulet didn’t bode well, “You do understand that Shadow has to be let back out of hers? You can lock Samara away until the universe ends, but I’d really like to have my Ad’Vere back, thank you. And Ro? How does he know? Nevermind, he gets around more than a two dollar whore."
A sooty blast and a short bugle of surprise and smarting pain was what An'Thaya got for her towel-popping. Topaz eyes watered up for several seconds as Callan's silver-tinged head shook side-to-side, then one enormous talon began ticking on the stones, "Yes...its my towel. Why don't you fold it up and and leave it in a warm place like a good woman?" His thoughts immediately turned to the Illinsaad, "Souls. Plural. Or, at least, a thread, of each and every sentient being I ever killed, for any reason. When Mira accepted it, she was being trained to assume my role as THE assassin for the Imperial House. Add all the souls, of everyone she has killed? Countless thousands of souls...and to the best of my knowledge, there is no way out, not without destroying the amulet...and that...I don't recommend."
“Oh I’ll cram it somewhere warm alright,” the Amazon growled, “right up your… What? Thousands? Well, I shouldn’t be surprised I suppose.” She sighed and rubbed at her face, shoulders slumping with exhaustion. “Alright… so… we are agreed then? You will do it? Gods… it is Zenith on Whispin, I need to sleep. I’ll just let Agaru have some time now ok? The two of you can… do whatever, you have six hours before we have to be back in Nenlante.”
As the Amazon faded and crimson scale and facet emerald eyes replaced the dimunitive half-elven form of An'Thaya, Callan's massive head lowered to wuffle his chosen mate on her shoulder, then pressed his enormous head against hers.
"Six hours...that's not much, considering, but I'll take it." A low keening cry carried on the prevailant breeze as the sun rose higher...with dawn had come yet more suicides, the sorrow in Corin and Nenalante had followed the Guard home. So many had lost their Randii, so many mourned and Raged and either took their own life, or allowed mercy killings to end their pain.
"Six hours our time, or Whispin time?" Callan's eyes were darkened by shadows of residual Madness that was burning away with the close proximity of his mate. The scent of her, so rich and familiar, the feel of his bondmark to her stirring and coming alive with her presence left him feeling not only like a drowning man that had been saved, but one that had just walked off the lifeboat onto solid ground.
"Why don't we blow this joint? I hear the Mother Sands are fabulous this time of year for sand baths...and frankly, my scales are looking a little dull."
It was time to introduce Agaru to sand bathing...and time to heal in a place distant to the echoes of what COULD have been his fate, had she not returned.
Six hours later, the protesting, reluctant portal spiralled open. The wards weren't happy about letting this one through, and to prove it, the portal snapped shut like some hungry wolf almost before Callan Blackthorn was completely free of the vortex. Topaz eyes peered over his black t-shirt clad shoulder, then up the airdock. This was exactly the dock he'd arrived from Tenobrous on... and much like then, a party of people stood, watching him.
"So. Do I get a last request? Or do I just tie a blindfold around my eyes and hope not a damned one of you can shoot for shit?"
“Just let me get out of the way first,” Agaru said chipperly, “I’ve had enough holes put in my hide for the month, thanks. Well, not that this is my hide, but… yeah, An’Thaya says she has taken enough abuse from and around you lately.” The Crimson batted the Amazon’s lashes at her mate before her persona faded away into Tay’s. The Amazon stared at the Dragon for a moment, looking a little horrified over the way she had found herself looking at him.
Well, not her, Agaru, but all the same.
Her gaze turned toward the end of the ramp, taking in the sight of her gathered children, and the redhead sighed.
“Is this really necessary?”
Mel looked from Callan to An'Thaya. "Well, it's either this or I could just do my damnedest to kill him, like he almost did to Amilyn." Grey eyes flashed with anger and a sense of betrayal. For centuries, she'd defended Callan, trusted him with her very life, owed him that same life in fact. She wasn't even sure what she wanted to say, but the fact that her baby sister couldn't even walk down that hallway in the Palace made her spine stiffen with resolve.
“Oh?” the redhead’s eyebrow shot up as she eyed her adopted daughter. “So… it is blood retribution we are looking for, is it? From a mad man… dragon, whatever, even though most of us here owe him our lives for one reason or another. Sounds fair.”
The dagger barely had time to reflect the light of the dual suns as it released from the holster on Tay’s wrist and fell into her hand. A twist of her body and she drove the blade upwards at a sharp angle, piercing the heavy muscle of Callan’s left shoulder. Perhaps she had been aiming for his heart, and was just slightly off her game considering the circumstances, or, perhaps she was just making a point. Then again, maybe she was just being An’Thaya.
“There,” with a grunt she yanked the blade back out and casually wiped it on her shirt, “you have your blood. Happy?”
“Well,” Cully muttered, “it would have been more entertaining had you let Mel do it. Can we all take a turn?” It was bound to turn into a twisted game of pin the tail on the dragon at this point.
Callan had tried more than a few times during the ensuing squabble to get in a word edgewise, and everytime clacked his jaws shut. There was no sense trying to talk when the Amazon and Melaina held the floor, he'd learned that, if not anything else over the past few decades.
He'd quit worrying about the angry people facing him and was studying his nails with complete lack of concern and seeming boredom when the dagger slammed home in this left shoulder. A surprised, gutteral yelp of choked back pain followed by a sharp intake of breath through clenched jaws and a blind swing at the dagger wielding red-head came next.
"SONUVABITCH! What the HELL was that for!?" Hot blood poured down his chest and stained his shirt a darker shade of wet black, then seeped to the waistband of his jeans.
"This is a NEW T-SHIRT TOO!" He paused his yelling at An'Thaya and eyed Melaina and the others, despite the pain that was clearly writen across his features.
"Alright. Fine. Turns it is." He shoved past An'Thaya and reached behind his back, pulled a simple, adamantine dagger from a sheath that stayed in the back of his waistband, "You want blood. Take it, but you better damned sure get enough to make you feel better. I won't give you a free shot ever. again."
The dagger was extended, hilt-first to Melaina.
"Let's see if you're as big a bitch as you'd like to think you are. Then, when you've had your moment, I'll explain."
Mel watched An'Thaya and then eyed the dagger Callan held out to her.
"I think you missed the or in there, Atara'amin." Grey eyes shifted, more pain showing than anger. "I'd rather hear the explanation first." Her hand closed around the hilt anyway. "But I'll hold onto this, just in case." Most of her anger had faded, after a few discussions with Y'roden and a lot of soul-searching. But that nagging sense of betrayal just wouldn't go away.
Glory had remained silent, not truly angry, but more questioning. When his mother drove the dagger into Callan he blinked and shouted a protest, but it was unheard. He shook his head. He'd come here only because he wanted to hear why Callan had acted as he had. If nothing else, to just cement certain feelings he had. The man had his reasons.
Callan's fingers released the dagger into Melaina's hands and a half-way malicious grin twisted up one corner of his mouth. It was an infuriating, arrogant grin that invited an attack and at the same time had the effect of making most women want to try to get his name and phone number...if he'd had such a thing. It was also the kind of smile that said, I knew you didn't have it in you...
"Now... kids... are we all here?" His eyes roved over the small crowd, paused at Glory and for a moment, no more, the arrogance dissolved. Melaina he could keep the routine up with, An'Thaya, hell... all of the women here, but Glory? His eyes traveled next to Cully, his face so much like Glory's, yet not, then to Anelain, the one called Mena, then Vanyalin, "I don't really want to start this and get halfway through only to have someone stumble out here and go, Wha? and I have to start all over again."
His fingers strayed to the seeping blood at his shoulder and prodded the wound, causing it to bleed even more for several seconds, and his leer shifted to An'Thaya... she might be Agaru's skinwalker, a shell of a creature that his mate dwelled in, but that didn't mean he couldn't piss her off every chance he got. That same look he gave Melaina was passed to the Amazon, he'd enjoy the day she finally nailed him where she THOUGHT his heart was... it was always fun to see the reaction on a person's face... and in most cases, it was the last expression they managed before they lost their head.
"Well, since I don't hear anyone complaining or asking me to wait, I'll tell you." He sucked at his teeth a moment and folded his massive arms across his chest.
"It's called Grieving Madness... and..." Callan Blackthorn stopped abruptly, gods, what should be a simple biology lesson was making him feel like he was offering excuses. If it had been just Melaina, just Glory... or both? He could have told them. But here he was facing people he honestly didn't know a thing about, and saying, "I couldn't help it," wasn't what they wanted to hear.
Flickering shadows dimmed his topaz eyes for a moment, the attitude of arrogance and supremacy dropped away, yet no one here could have seen it, he'd lowered his head just so, at just an angle so that his true feelings were concealed. When his head lifted again, his smirk was back in place, "Fuck it..." His eyes met Mena's then Vanyalin's and Anelain's, "I'm just a bastard. I wanted back what was mine, and I'd have killed every damn one of you if I'd have had too, just to make your mother's life a little more hellish for taking what is mine away from me."
Glory's brow furrowed at these words, but he just didn't quite buy it. In fact, he wouldn't, but he remained silent.
A shrug of his heavily muscled shoulders later, Callan shouldered through the mob with no further explanation. There wasn't a one of them here that would get the truth out of him. He'd rather hang in his father's Gardens a hundred times over, were Nargus still alive, than admit the loss of his mate had left him helpless with grief, enRaged at having lost something so precious, then, in the end, sliding into a pit of agony and sorrow that most of his kind never dragged themselves out of... for most the only way out was to cut their own throats and do everyone a favor.
“You’ll get no argument from me on that one,” An’Thaya said brightly, “oh bastardly one. Do you mind telling them the whole truth now? And nothing but the truth? So help you Xraden? Not that I care about any potential damage to your person, but I’d hate to have any of them feeling guilty for killing you only to find out later that you couldn’t help yourself.”
She grinned a little madly. “And who can blame you. Uncontrollable biological urges or not, Agaru is pretty damn hot. Any Dragon worth his salt should be willing to commit mass murder to get her back.”
Gods... he hated her. Absolutely. Hated. Her. Right now especially. Sure, he could be civil... if his arm was twisted behind his back and a knife was at his throat, much as it had been at the Keep immediately prior to coming back here... in a manner of speaking of course. Callan stopped, mid-step just beyond the crowd he'd pushed through and felt every eye turned on him.
"Shut up." The two words were grated out along the Speech, in a low tone that would be off anyone else's 'radar'. Slowly, he looked over his shoulder, his eyes sparking a dangerous shade of brilliant, ice-blue.
"I will not offer excuses. Let them think what the WANT to think."
A delicate crimson eyebrow shot up and a slight gesture of her hand stayed Cully from making a move that surely would have got him killed. The Amazon had never needed anyone’s protection, and she sure as hell wasn’t starting now, especially not from Callan Blackthorn.
“Ass,” she snapped. “All right children, play time is over. The big bad dwaggie apparently has an ego to match his fat head. Class dismissed.” Along the Web her maternal ties to her children tugged like reins, a silent order to stand down as she herself stalked through the pack of D’Riel-Alcarin’s
“He’s right, he is just a bastard, a complete ass that has to take his rage out on defenseless children to get his jollies. Now that we are all clear on that, I have more important things to deal with.”
Melaina stayed where she stood, watching Callan as she turned the dagger to offer it back to him, hilt first. She was remembering a time when she'd defended him to someone who was grieving and nearly lost her life for it. Grey eyes searched his face, looking for whatever hint of truth she could see behind the arrogance. She absently scratched at the mark on her wrist as she watched him, 'Loki stirring in her mind, her eyes flickering between the grey and faceted silver.
What is it you're not saying, Rax? I need to know why... I need to understand... Perhaps he heard her, perhaps he didn't. Mel wasn't even sure the words were really spoken, they may have just been thought between her and her dragon.
Ice-blue, phosphorescent eyes seemed to leech out even paler and nearly seemed cut glass illuminated from within, "WHAT did you expect of me?" The words were spit out, "What do you want from me now? Do you all want to hear how it GUTS one of my kind? To lose a mate? How, once a bond like that is severed, for whatever reason? We lose our minds? Is that it? Gods DAMMIT!" He turned and stalked back to Melaina, "WHY? Why do you need to know so damned bad? What difference does it make? HOW can it POSSIBLY matter to either you or 'Loki?" His fingers of one hand went to the bridge of his nose, pinched it, then both sets of fingers went to his temples.
A deep breath later, he shook his head and lowered his hands, "I cannot explain to you, any one of you, what it's like to have the ground open up under you and slide away, and feel everything that's remotely good and decent in you be swallowed by misery, grief and hate so deep and black it leaves you filled with nothing but Rage. I cannot explain to you, the high we get from finding someone to share our souls with, or the 'coming' down off that high when they're gone."
"What more do you want from me?" His eyes flicked from one person to another, "Another excuse? I won't offer you one. I'm a bastard. Plain and simple. Take what anchors me in sanity away, and THAT, my dear Melly," Callan's eyes riveted back onto the blonde, "is who I am and who I was and if we're all extremely unlucky or your mother is extremely rash again someday, I will be again. She not only has my Randii's fate in her hands, but mine as well. Everyone happy now?"
Emerald green eyes framed by crimson lashes were riveted on Callan, their expression unreadable as An’Thaya listened to his outpouring. A rush of emotion twisted her stomach and made her blood run cold.
How she utterly despised Callan Blackthorn. Not only for the grief he often caused her, but for loving Agaru the way he did. It made her sick to think that her death would plunge this Dragon into grief stricken insanity, dragging him down with her last breath. And the Elf she loved more than life? The time he would spend mourning her passing would be but a brief flicker in the eternity laid out before him… with Ghetsuhm.
The twists and turns of fate were bitter, ironic, and cruel. An’Thaya knew for a fact that Galain would not grieve overly long, at least, not what she considered grief. Sex seemed to be a grand consolation for the loss of a wife in the Elen Prince’s eyes. The Amazon immediately chastised herself for the thought, swaying back and forth between one emotion and another, a dangerous thing in her fragile state.
“Gods I hate you,” she snapped. The words may not have been directed at Callan, but for all outward appearances… Turning on her heel the Amazon bolted for the Rose Gardens, seeking the solace of privacy to hide the oncoming tears.
Melaina did not move, just watched, perhaps looking more like her mother than she'd care to be told.
"Because that was what I needed to know, Mellon'amin. I needed to hear you tell me it wasn't your somewhat sane mind that did that." Her words were quiet still, her mind still absorbing what he'd said. 'Loki was still in her mind, the two minds acting as one. Everyone's world has been shaken, my old friend, this one has lost much that held her steady, and the fear that she'd lost her oldest friend... Well, it made her a little mad herself... Sometimes, that dragon was really too wise for her own good. Without her willing it, Melaina's wrist shifted, both showing the old bondmark as well as the mark from where her dagger had cut before Cully and Glory had stopped her.
As for Glory, he was more than tired of this entire scene. He simply turned away when his mother made her retreat. For a moment his eyes locked on his youngest brother's face and the elf was surprised. Mak had been a relatively disinterested party in all this, merely raising his eyebrows when he'd learned of what Callan had done to Amilyn, what he'd threatened against An'Thaya's children. Mak's expression was veiled and he turned away, disappearing swiftly. Glory shot a look toward his twin and then turned back to eye Melaina and Callan.
“So that makes it alright does it?” Anelain glowered at both Callan and Mel, “He has a biological problem, so its ok that he takes out our entire line? Pardon me if I still happen to have a problem with it. We have had enough troubles with Tallin and Samara, we don’t need betrayal coming from those who are sworn allies.”
Cully’s callused fingers closed around his elder sister’s shoulder, squeezing in a warning manner.
“None of this is getting us anywhere,” he said calmly, “Amil told us to back off, I think we should. Mr. Blackthorn here doesn’t give a rat’s ass what we think anyway, so I suggest you all go argue with the wall. You are bound to get a better result.”
Callan's eyes had watched An'Thaya leave with burning Rage, "Join the masses, bitch..." was growled at her before his attention shifted to Melaina. Not a trace of softness showed on his chisled features, not one spark of relief or caring. Instead, his eyes flicked from her and Glory to Anelain and Cully, "No...No...it doesn't make it okay. Which is exactly the gods damned reason I didn't care to even try. And while we're talking about things being...okay?"
The Emperor's massive frame stalked up to the pair, but his next words were directed at Anelain, "Let's discuss this? How. many. died in Corin? How many of MY kind died so yours can be free? Why don't you try that attitude with the surviving mates my House Guard? I don't know a thing about you, but I'll tell you this, next time you think you've found the bottom of sorrow? The depths of despair? Felt your heart break and your sanity slide because of love? Talk to those who stayed behind for the sakes of their children, for the simple fact that their will to live was too strong to let them cut their own throats. Talk to person who gave them the mercy and severed their spine. Save your judgement for AFTER you've walked that road, and if nothing else? At least had a long talk with someone who has. And KISS my ass, if I ever try to explain this to you or anyone here, ever again."
He slowly straightened and turned to leave. Gods...how he hated that red-headed, Amazon wench right now.
It would have been far easier for everyone and far more of his pride would have remained intact had she not goaded him into telling the truth. Lies were always easier to believe, easier to tell, and easier to hide behind.
Melaina looked to her older sister. "Anelain, it might never really be ok, but since we can't go back and change what's happened, understanding it is the best we can ask for." Grey eyes fell back to her old friend, as she continued to hold his dagger out to him. Stay, Mellon, I will not have any more anger between us... She'd lost far too much in the last weeks to lose her best friend with it.
“What? You don’t think any of us know about loss?” Anelain snapped, “have you not been paying attention the past month or so? Do you not know anything about this family? About our Amil? Now there is a woman that could damn well tell you about loss, so just damn well bite me Blackthorn.” Throwing off Cully’s arm Anelain whirled around and stared at her little sister. “Mel… honey, you have piss poor taste in friends. You would do better to stick that between his ribs.”
Turning on her heel she brushed past Callan and followed the trail back up to the Rose Garden.
A low, grunting snarl followed Anelain's departure, "Just like your mother..."
His eyes flicked back the remainder of the group, some who were impassive, others oddly polite, some just perfectly silent and unfathomable...it was like facing a stone wall...with one exception.
"Keep it, Lainey'Loki. It's dragon-steele...you may need it someday." Callan's topaz eyes met Melaina's, "You know? I wish I'd never crawled out of my Keep. I wish I'd never gone to the Dryad, never sailed the Lisse Nwalme, never let love corrupt my soul."
"I'll be here." His eyes shifted to Glory then Cully, "I can't leave. Apparently, despite being as popular as Tallin Modar, they still have their...uses..." the word was coated in sarcasm and he shifted his gaze to Mena and Vanyalin, then Makilnar, "for me."
"I'm a convenience...and as long as I'm useful, I'll be here."
Without another word, Callan Blackthorn turned and stalked off the air-dock. Somewhere in the place, there had to be strong drink, he knew it and planned to find it without anyone's help.
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