Open Chronicles The Return Of The Queen

~THE QUEEN’S PLAZA~

Vel’duith blinked, tiptoeing to see the commotion just ahead of Zathria and her flame haired aperitif apparent. Was that Archmage Nimruil?! And openly mocking the Valsharess?!

Remembering the archmage’s profound importance to Vyx’aria, she swiftly concentrated on garbing him in something to preserve his life and limb- a regal raiment indeed, that would be fit for a queen if not for the belled jester’s hat and exaggerated facepaint. Her embeddings softly shimmered while maintaining the illusion, but she was small compared to those before her, and, she hoped, inconspicuous enough to maintain the illusion long enough to save him.

Kiyari said:

"Of course you should know these weaknesses of the new Queen to better guard her from their exploitation. To shield her in ways no others can. Only yours is the wisdom and grace to do so, my Mistress, for you are unequaled before our magnificent goddess."​

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In the Grand Temple

There was no way to tell how Hebemarri felt at this answer as she loomed in her holy garb.

“A fine response~” Hebemarri cooed, “gentle, even… how well my garden breaths that such a fine and gentle flower can bloom in the web of Zar,ahal.” At her command, the doors to the chamber then opened by magical means. “Come then, let us see the center of this web. To grant my shield to this renewed heart.”

Awaiting the high priestess was a precession of clergy, 500 priestesses strong. All were adorned in gold ornaments and obscuring silken robes, holding items of incense burning and sound making. Besides the priestesses were also Gloamkin of numerous shapes and sizes, from small imps who perched like gargoyles to hulking figures that bore shrines housing holy artifacts of the drow. Hebemarri took her place near the head of the formation where she beckoned for Kiyari to join her. And then the Temple doors were opened.

All along the path to the plaza, drow gathered to watch the march. Some dropped in prayer towards grand Maelzafan while others were merely enraptured to see the priesthood on parade. Those who drew too close were prodded away with long poles wielded by golden masked umbrals and a cloud incense formed around the priestesses as censors were swung in perfect harmony.

In the plaza. The priesthood was heard well before it was seen. They formed around the now complete statue of Maelzafan— standing no less then 70ft tall and adorned with all manner of earthly gemstones. Even Hebemarri was dwarfed in size by the space and the statue, and she took her place between it and the queen’s dias.

Silently and solemnly the priesthood stood, awaiting the queen apparent to arrive.

Theceran had partaken in the drinking, but abstained from Shrooms. He needed to be able to see straightish. So he followed behind the hounds before he was spun into a crowd by Slaine Aylwin. He looked back with a scowl before he was grabbed by some other dancing drow.

The horn caused everyone to pause and he realized what it meant. Slaine began marching off with the others, the. He felt the nudge and a low groan escaped him. “If I die because she does toast one in my honor.” He said dryly before slinking off, stumbling slightly but not to the same degree as his sister.

He caught up to her and bumped into her, as they seemingly both stumbled, “I’m more stable lean on me so you don’t fall.” He whispered to her as they continued up the ramp to the coronation.

Slaine Aylwin Zairyn Nyssiel

Half breed.

Vairos' jaw set. Some worm was speaking to him. Presuming to command him. A rush of anger surged through him. No one so beneath him was permitted to do so. No one. No one, except--

Vairos groaned as if in pain. A hand moved to his temple, umbral nails clutched at skin. His eyes wrenched closed, then looked around, wide, wild. He was...not where he thought. A banner above. A military one. A commander's, and a noble's. A house he did not know, but a house nonetheless.

A woman was speaking to him. A matriarch. Vairos had stepped to her, disrespected her as though she were a commoner. Why?

She ordered him to kneel. For her pet male.

"I...kneel before none but the queen..." he spoke as though it were a struggle. Why only the queen? He was also supposed to kneel before... "And the high priestess...Mistress Hebemmari..."

She had cast him to the earth and broken him. Vairos submitted to her.

"That said...forgive me. I was...disoriented. I meant no disrespect."

This he spoke truly. It was likely he could snap her or her servant's necks without so much as straining, but the kingdom's society demanded his respect. He did not know why, but he knew.

"You are right. I've duties to perform. If you'll excuse me..."

Much to do. Something about the queen. The new queen. The plaza. Vairos was in the plaza.

He dipped his head in something resembling a bow, the most his pride would allow him, and left. Back to his station, for whatever that meant.

Vyx'aria said:

​

She could have dismounted easily. The distance meant nothing to her. But tradition mattered here. Ritual was power given shape. And so she waited for the servant of a Maelzafan priestess to escort her.

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Such was Vairos' station. A duty bound to his very soul. The escort to the queen from her mount to coronation.

Others knelt and bowed and cheered. Vairos approached, silent, unreadable, mind clear.

"Your Grace..." he intoned, offering his hand.

Somewhere in the Queen's Plaza.

81 posts behind.

Definitely ten bottles ahead of everyone else though, hah.

"Mate, you've got it all wrong-" Grimn licked at his pinky finger and drew it slowly over a dark brow and then vaguely gestured to all of himself, "you can't improve upon perfection."

"All I'm saying," said a bodiless head presently tucked under his left arm, "is you could have worn your fancy belt."

Grimn looked down at his belt, something made of kelpie hide that gleamed between the deepest black with a sheen of aqua, evoking a sickening sense of angry ocean when one looked upon it too long. That same brow quirked over a hazey set of drunken, piss-hued eyes, "You're right."

The puca swayed where he stood, briefly embarassed for the state he was in. How could he come to a coronation without his fancy belt?

"Oh! You still got that doll?" asked the head.

"You can't have it," Grimn snapped with a suspicious pout.

"Not for me, Grimn, for your belt!"

Another moment of consideration, some squinting, a little stumble, "You're-" Grimn belched, "right! I must accessexuali - burp - accessorize!"

"Of course I am, give us your doll and we'll fix you up."

There was some fussing, a headless body in dull black armor with the insignia of the Goblin Market emblazoned in blood across the chestplate moved to jostle the puca about. When it finally stepped away again, Grimn's Little Doll was fastened to his belt, sitting directly over his groin like a queerly fashioned loincloth.

"Now there's perfection," said the head triumphantly beneath his arm, "how could the Queen possibly not agree?"

~THE QUEEN’S PLAZA~

Beksesha Suulet’jabar watched the procession of executions emotionlessly. They were the handful spared from her Tuin’Znar ghouls: the offspring and retainers of her enemies, the Myrlochars and the Tuin’znars whose clumsy machinations had denied her the throne in favor of Dalrithia, and the extra fortnight these sorry creatures drew breath was of no significance to the venerable matron either way.

She stepped forward with the crown upon cue, turned first toward Hebemarri for the dragon-priestess’s blessing, then toward Vyx’aria. And there she waited for the Most Exalted to bestow her Benediction upon the Valsharess to be. She still dared not look at what she held. Her eyes burned at Maelzafan’s cruelty but her expression remained impassive.

~THE QUEEN’S PLAZA~

Tyrnael’s eyes widened. Her younger sisters, Theriel and Nael, knelt first in line among the condemned. She gasped softly for each as they left. She had harbored such hopes for them on the ride back from Blaithirk Undercity! -only to be told upon her return that they had perished, and as traitors to the new Queen. Just when she thought her mourning was complete, to see them alive again, and then slain before her eyes mere seconds later. Memories rushed back - why, she had practically raised them after cadre, before she was committed to the Temple. She was suddenly thankful to be situated on the opposite side of the ring, to have a precious few seconds to compose the mask her face needed to now wear. She turned to her remaining house with a severe scowl, warning away any wailing or cries.

Even as her own crimson eyes welled.

For once, Ferzil made himself useful, offering her a drink from where he sat behind her, surreptitiously drying her eyes with his robe-sleeve. Tyrnael held it pale-knuckled as she awaited the formal toast upon the crowning.

Vyx'aria said:

“I am ready,” she said simply.

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In The Plaza

The cheers of the crowd were numerous from throughout Zar’ahal. The humming magic of the mages guild was now transmitting Vyx’aria’s voice, and what a speech to share with her people.

From behind her mask and veil, Hebemarri’s eyes flickered with fascination. Yes, there was the flame that would burn down the rotten through branches, there was the makings of a queen.

“Very well.” The High priestess said, and unfurled her wings with such force, that a powerful gale swept across the plaza. As this occurred, a pair of metal cylinders began to click and then let out blood curdling screams that quieted just as rapidly as they occurred.

The lights of the plaza began to dim as the sounds of the world lessened and muffled. Black tar oozed out from the metal cylinders and pooled around the giant statue of Maelzafan. As it sat a pressure could be felt from beneath the stone, both terrible and sublime.

Purple lights shone from the statue’s eyes and the clamorous voices of mortal life seemed like little more than a distant memory. This, was a feeling all those who stood beside Vyx’aria before had known to well. As well they did the words Hebemarri spoke with presence like a sea that had no shore.

“THE DARK MOTHER IS COME! MAELZAFAN IS COME. LET ALL LIGHT FADE AND ALL TRUTHS PROVE FALSE, AS THE OATHS OF QUEENS ARE SPOKEN AND SWORN”

It felt as if all in attendance were everywhere and nowhere. Whether this was the drow goddess in truth or some trick of dark magic, mattered very little.

“THY NAME IS VYX’ARIA? LAST KNOWN DAUGHTER OF HOUSE TOR’RAHEL, CLAIMER OF THE ONYX THRONE, WIELDER OF THE CHAPTER SWORD, TWICE RISEN CHILD OF ZAR’AHAL, CONQUEROR OF DHUNBOR, MISTRESS OF SHAY TIRLOC, SLAYER OF TRAITORS, BREAKER OF EXILES, SHE WHO WOULD WISH TO WEAR THE CROWN ONCE MORE.”

“DOST THOU CLAIM THESE TITLES YOURS? DOST THY AMBITION YET STILL YEARN FOR GLORY MORE?”

“IN THE FACE OF DROW KIND’S ENEMIES WILST THOU SLAY THE UNDERSERVING? CLAIM THE UNWILLING? PUNISH THE UNFORGIVABLE?”

~THE QUEEN’S PLAZA~

Vel’duith somberly watched the unfortunates dragged one by one into the center of the plaza. Unlike the helpless victim she remembered squirming atop the Black Altar at Vyx’aria’s last coronation, these were priestesses and warriors who had actually fought against her. One priestess barely looked older than an acolyte. She most certainly had had no say at all in which side she fought on. Perhaps that was why she went first. A small mercy shown. A token slaughter, no doubt, to appease the dragon hungering for blood to be spilled, to in turn appease the deceitful demon-queen.

Vel’duith readily recognized the expression on Vyx’aria’s face. She had seen it up close once before. The mask of duty. Unlike that unlucky novitiate, she had lived to see the same face show remorse for actions taken while wearing the mask. Vyx’aria could not create the better world she dreamed of without the crown. She could not be crowned Queen of a city still under Maelzafan’s sway without sacrificing lives for the ceremony. Nor could she risk steeling her many enemies by showing mercy to any who had defied her so publicly. Whether they had truly wished to or not. And so she had donned the mask of duty and shed their blood. Whether she truly wished to or not.

Vel’duith silently resolved to be there for Vyx’aria later. Her need to do so was rooted far deeper than repaying oaths.

She loved her.

For Vyx’aria had given Vel’duith something profound, something she had never before experienced: belonging without preconditions. She had offered her a place to belong before asking anything of her for it. She had become the protective sister she had never had, the caring mother she wished she had been born to. And Vyx’aria had trusted Vel’duith with the most sacred task imaginable: rescuing the egg of Neha the Creator Herself.

Like Neha, Vyx’aria was destined to create beauty all across Arethil. Neha had only turned to destruction after all she had created, every single manifestation of her boundless love had been destroyed. Vel’duith would do everything within her power to keep that fate from befalling Vyx’aria again.

PLAZA, SEVEN AGONIZING SEATS AWAY FROM ZATHRIA

Sazalam was glad when the defective half-breed left.

Now the future could begin and as he sat a few seats down from Zathria and watched with some satisfaction as each of the traitors died in perfect justice he found himself locking his fingers over each other and silently offering a prayer to the Dark Mother.

And yet even now his mind strayed to Zathria's own words which had left his heart swollen to bursting for her.

*hero of the Battle of Shay Tirlocc*

Even as he sat in the seat for him, second row, he could scarce imagine such honours even as they existed before his eyes. When he returned from the battle he had taken a few days rest and even then as he felt the phantom tingle in his shoulder he did not believe he could ever have so much yet here he was.
A decent, honourable and good hearted Mistress.
A new era, which he had assisted in though briefly by his own measuring.
It was more than he had ever had before and it made him afraid to lose it.

So while he prayed for the kingdoms prosperity, for the health and wisdom of its new monarch and a lasting era of peace he also, rather selfishly, prayed that the proceedings would wrap up soon.

Zathria At'Arel Xunari Auceus

The Tower

Vyx'aria said:

She gave him a light shove back, head tilting as a lazy, almost cruel grin followed.

Then she turned away.

She cracked her neck once, slow and deliberate, then rolled her shoulders, muscles shifting beneath armor as she loosened the last vestiges of tension from her body. Tall. Grounded. Unshakable.

“Find yourself a nice seat in the plaza,” she called over her shoulder.

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She seemed ready. The moment did not allow for him to escalate her tease, to draw them moment out until it was a quivering bowstring, ready to snap.

He smiled and simply called after her:

"Find a seat? A shame I cannot meet you on your throne as you met me on mine."

A shame too that he could not be here as himself. Her closest allies who had followed her to the surface knew of him. Knew that Vyx'aria had claimed him through bold determination and betrayal.

She was right, unfortunately, the priestesses could not know of his presence.


The Plaza

Vyx'aria said:

“This,” she said coldly, “is how rot is excised. Not hidden. Not tolerated. Cut away, so that something new may rise in its place.”

The dagger fell again. Final. Unyielding.

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Azrakar smiled with each fall of the knife. He sat in a small group of lower males. Given their weapons and distance from the houses, he suspected they were mercenaries. The kind of disposable warriors a house would send in first in a conflict.

They did not ask many questions.

The last of the sorcerers who had dared to steal from his power were gone. His thoughts should have turned back to the surface, but he continued to watch in awe as she was to be crowned by a dragon.

Well that is simply showing off, he thought to himself. When he conquered Molthal, he was going to need a larger throne.

Zairyn was immediately swallowed by elbows.

“Hey-hey-watch it!” he barked as the crowd surged, boots skidding on cobblestone while shoulders slammed into him from all sides. He craned his neck uselessly, hopping once, then twice. “I can’t see shit. Is someone getting killed out there? Xsa oi, I’m missing the good part!”

A wall of bodies shifted, and suddenly Slaine Aylwin 's towering form loomed nearby, people parting around her whether they meant to or not. Zairyn squinted up at her and grinned.

“You know,” he said loudly, “you could let me sit up on your shoulders. I’ll tell you what’s happening. Fair trade, I might let you throw your legs up on mine later.” He winked.

He snickered at his own joke, then looked at her wimpy brother Theceran and jutted his chin. Zairyn’s grin turned meaner.

Stupid bastard, he thought. Must’ve had his balls removed the same day Slaine lost her tongue.

The press got worse. Zairyn swore, ducked, shoved hard, and shouldered his way through with the stubborn persistence of someone too drunk and too determined to stop. He finally burst into a pocket of open space, chest heaving, hair askew.

He blinked around, trying to orient himself as horns echoed and the weight of ceremony settled over the plaza.

“Well?” he demanded of no one in particular. “Did the dragon eat someone yet?”

Zathria was satisfied with the apology well enough, deciding not to push the topic of kneeling further as the male retreated and her muscles relaxed a little bit as she came to understand that violence probably wasn't going to happen. Still, she couldn't shake the sudden craving for a piece of darb root, knowing it was because her body had been conditioned to associated combat with the darb.

I'll find you later, she said, her hand briefly touching against Sazalam 's upper arm as he went to his seat and she sat back down in her seat, glad that she had worn her armor and full equipment for the day as it had taken all of twenty minutes for her to nearly be in a fight.

She turned toward Xunari Auceus with an unamused look on her face. This is why I can never just be happy and chill out, you know, she said and snorted amusedly.

The processions and its Queen reached the plaza moments later and Zathria felt herself filling with pride as she watched it. They had worked so hard for this, and there was a feeling of hope in the future for the first time in what had to have been decades.

A Queen she believed in back on the throne again.

The traitors were cleaved from life slowly and deliberately and Zathria found her mind returning to her sister. A familiar ache rose in her throat as she thought of it, but there was something right about it being her that had been the one to end her sister's betrayal. Not only for herself and her sister, but for the sake of her House.

~THE QUEEN'S PLAZA~

Vel'duith's heart leapt at Vyx'aria's promise to unite the drow, to act together for the good of all their people. She had so long lamented the wanton, wasteful squandering of drowish lives, thrown away recklessly on petty plots, waspish whims, feckless fancies, and supercilious schemes, backstabbing, taught young to mercilessly tear each other down and forever jockey for precarious positions and ephemeral elevations in a seemingly endless, purely pointless race to ignominy and oblivion. She thought of that dwarf banner she had nearly died to retrieve, that Linthil had died for, at barely eleven years of age. She remembered the ambush by fellow cadre mates that she and Orebith had been fortunate to turn the tables on. She thought of the hundreds of deadly missions she had survived to fuel her mother's ambitions - an incident she had recent cause to remember had found her stumbling home wretching, nearly blinded by venom, lucky to not have been killed by any of a dozen dangers, just for an archmage to have a coffee-table book that accented his decor just so, for the reward of a tiny pouch of perhaps a dozen coins and some eye-catching bauble to wear at the next social event she was to be shopped around at. She remembered how stunned Orebith had been when Vel'duith had saved her from that hook horror at the bitterest moment of their rivalry, and how potent they became relative to their peers just by merely cooperating. Even silly Kre'thil became a potent magical threat with the three of them working in tandem. And the both of them were spuriously slain just as they were coming into the ripe part of their first centuries, the age of growing into potency and taking up a profession, and all because her mother took offense at their boy-child being named in her honor.

The waste of male lives and the stubborness of the ramparts enforcing gender and social roles was another problem she hoped Vyx'aria was truly serious about fixing. Why should most the potential of the drowish people lie undeveloped or forced into unsuitable roles? She had met shrewd males who would make potent priests, but instead carried polearms. She had herself been forced to study liturgy and ceremony while evidence of her arcane talent literally floated in the air around her, and only the combination of her older sister's elopement and the very dire threat of her being sacrificed in her very first year forced her mother to reluctantly withdraw her from seminary and enroll her at the Suulet-jabar cadre. So while she had managed to learn crafts she had talent for, it was truly an exception that proved the rule. And there were doubtless many more undiscoverd Orebiths among the anomymous sea of Shebali crowding Lowtown.

The irony was delicious as Vyx'aria talked about rooting out the enemies of the drow people, the dividers, the wastrels, the schemers, right to the very avatar of the very wellspring of drowish division, waste, and scheming, the all-devouring demon whose power rested on the drow people's feverish drive toward self-destruction. While her meager century and a half had given her ample reason to doubt that the Temple could ever be dismantled and the Statue toppled, she still dared to hope that her eyes might one day witness it.

Her thoughts turned briefly to Sigrun, to Karskgorak, Voe, Melfa, and Warden Sionoma as Vyx'aria spoke of making the surface tremble. Perhaps it was a slather of rhetorical sauce to sell a meal of tough-to-chew meat and staled, rubbery mushrooms. For she had seen the way Vyx'aria had exulted in the Allirian breeze, and heard of how she had apparently befriended the young little bard Ispir Sione whom she herself had so briefly met at Croghear Keep. The crowd was already thrumming, applauding, roaring its approval. Vel'duith smirked, thinking Vyx'aria could probably honestly say anything right now and be cheered.

Somewhere nearby the plaza, beyond the reaches of the crowds of nobles, atop the flat roof of someone's empty dwelling, a trio of inquisitive eyes watched the ceremony from beneath a halo of horns. A heavy tail swished lazily through the air, two lesser tails flicking behind it.

The umbral set down the trinket she'd been toying with, deciding the clockwork device was not worth her interest for the time being.

"War-conquest, so soon. The new queen chooses this as her fundament. Dangerous, the underways are to become. Hhmmmmm..." she sighed a long hum as she thought aloud. She had always enjoyed doing so. Made thinking that much easier, and she enjoyed the feeling of resonance in her core that making sounds with her voice caused.

One of her three-digited hands snaked its way up towards her mask-like face, beneath the veil of her hair, and she rested her face upon its palm.

"Very well. Not ideal...some good-finds will become pebbles beneath landslides, but not all. No, not all."

She stood onto her hindlimbs, largest tail acting as a kickstand as she stretched her upper body, all four arms splaying in different directions as she prepared to go. Then suddenly she sprang forward, her lower set of arms acting as another set of limbs to walk on as she scurried from the building top, down into the alley below and out onto the busy street. There was much to do, much to see, much to find.

"Many others will be made easier to take. And where Curio can, Curio shall."

Zairyn said:

Zairyn was immediately swallowed by elbows.

“Hey-hey-watch it!” he barked as the crowd surged, boots skidding on cobblestone while shoulders slammed into him from all sides. He craned his neck uselessly, hopping once, then twice. “I can’t see shit. Is someone getting killed out there? Xsa oi, I’m missing the good part!”

A wall of bodies shifted, and suddenly Slaine Aylwin 's towering form loomed nearby, people parting around her whether they meant to or not. Zairyn squinted up at her and grinned.

“You know,” he said loudly, “you could let me sit up on your shoulders. I’ll tell you what’s happening. Fair trade, I might let you throw your legs up on mine later.” He winked.

He snickered at his own joke, then looked at her wimpy brother Theceran and jutted his chin. Zairyn’s grin turned meaner.

Stupid bastard, he thought. Must’ve had his balls removed the same day Slaine lost her tongue.

The press got worse. Zairyn swore, ducked, shoved hard, and shouldered his way through with the stubborn persistence of someone too drunk and too determined to stop. He finally burst into a pocket of open space, chest heaving, hair askew.

He blinked around, trying to orient himself as horns echoed and the weight of ceremony settled over the plaza.

“Well?” he demanded of no one in particular. “Did the dragon eat someone yet?”

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"What's happening?" Grimn pulled a face as he was jostled about by countless pointy-eared elves pushing through. He didn't care to have a front row seat, but at the very least if there was entertainment, he wanted to be entertained damnit.

"Oh, oh, lift me head up-" said Harleth the head under his arm. Beside Grimn, Harleth's body was attempting to stand on its tiptoes to see over the crowd despite the fact that it had no head to see with.

Grimn looked down at the head. It looked back up at him, waggling it's brows.

"Ah-" said the puca, delightfully amused by the idea, and grabbed Harleth the head by the hair, tossed it lazily into the air above him and caught it with his long fingers curling around the back of the skull.

"Left-" said the head from above, "more left. No no Grimn, your other left. Steady on - oh! She's got a shiv!"

"A wot?" Grimn raised his brows and plunked the opening of his hipflask into his mouth for a glug, "what's she doin with it?"

"She's shankin' people. Spillin 'em all like party streamers!" Harleth hissed down at him with a cackle.

Several drow standing around Grimn gave him a nasty look.

He could smell the blood on the air. Grimn couldn't rightly see everything, but the fact that he knew the Queen had made sacrifices on her crowning day was quite alright by him, "My kinda gal," and he raised his hipflask to cheers the Queen from way back in the crowd, spilling it down his front as he was jostled yet again by another arrival.

"Dragon?" Grimn blinked, looking around through the throngs of bodies for the telltale silhouette of said scaly serpentine.

"Over there-" said Harleth's head, queerly gesturing with its eyes in the way a head attached to an actual body might nod. When Grimn found her hulking form toward the front, mostly cut off by the masses despite his own considerable height, he squinted, "You sure that's a dragon, mate? It looks like my aunt Morta."

Zairyn

~THE QUEEN’S PLAZA~

Beksesha stoically kept her level expression throughout Vyx’aria’s speech, looking straight ahead in her ceremonial crown-bearing pose, though her dull ruby eyes glowered somewhat at the rambling length. She took her exercise religiously and was still physically strong, but her joints did not care to be bent for so long under the weight of a fair lump of gold and adamantium. She smiled inwardly at the prospects of additional wars. Why, Zar’Ahal might soon decide she is just another Dalrithia…. Her elbows creaked a little less already.

The declaration of intent was made and Zathria sat at the ready. She was prepared to follow through with the expansion of the Drow. It would be their destiny to become greater than all their predecessors before.

This, however, proved too much for Ispir whose sudden voice in her ear made her jolt slightly in surprise, head moving to quickly identify where the halfling was sitting, looking pale and horrified. Realization settled on Zathria as she put all the pieces together. Of course, he was horrified by this and of course he hadn't listened to her. She had tried to warn him but it was too much, it seemed.

He was too far away for her to respond. She would have told him not to leave and that after all this way the least he owed was a conversation with Vyx'aria, but he was already getting up and leaving. Zathria's lips pressed together and she shook her head ever so slightly, but he was gone.

She hoped he wouldn't be eaten on the way out, but he didn't even give her a chance to make sure he got back to the surface alive.

Ispir Sione