Secrets and Lore

Gayther and Marelyn's Story

The village didn't really need her. Not need her, as in, they couldn't do without her for a couple months. It was spring, the snows were melting, and the mountains were populated with stupid, young things that any inexperienced hunter could bring down. And with young Jicayl left in charge, she fully expected things to be better than she left them, when she returned. He was a competent boy, and could organize the hunters and hold her place in council without causing trouble.

All of that, of course, justified Marelyn, the huntmaster of the goprin village of Calling Rocks, slipping away from her duties very early one morning to follow the scholar Gayther as he started on his way back to the odd place known as the Lodge. Well, it justified it to her. She doubted the other Elders would see it quite the same way, but she didn't care. Marelyn had always done what she pleased, and damn anyone else's opinion, and this time "what she pleased" was finding out more about the Kilandaian dragons and what kind of threat or benefit they might pose to her people, and investigating this Lodge of Mykha's and what kind of threat or benefit it might pose to her people. It was, of course, all for the greater good, not her own curiosity.

Mostly for the greater good and not her own curiosity.

Though she had to admit, curiosity and greater good aside, her last visit to the Lodge had left an odd taste behind her teeth: it concerned her even as it drew her, that place, though she could imagine no reason for either feeling. The dragons did not seem like they would be terribly beneficial, arrogant and disdainful as they were. The best she expected out of them was an agreement not to hunt in the same stretch of ridges, much less the actual protection and cooperation Mykha had promised them, and even then she expected it would be a fight all the way, one littered with cutting smiles and insults veiled as compliments. It would be a delicious battle, she expected, and one she was looking forward to tackling as cleverly as possible.

But Mykha herself could possibly be an ally of some worth. Marelyn looked forward to a dialogue with her for different reasons, and had no intention of antagonizing her during the course of it, at least. Trade and mutual non-hunting agreements with the Lodge would be much more easily obtained than those with the dragons. If she was lucky, in fact, agreements with Mykha would have to be adhered to by the dragons, but she wasn't going to count on it.

So, all in all, she was very pleased when Gayther left to carry the Elders' decision on their alliance with the Lodge-- a tentative "yes" but with qualifications that Marelyn didn't much care about, since only the hunting contracts were of interest to her-- and she managed to track him all the way across the mountain range, back to the Lodge. Otherwise, she might never have found the place.

Perhaps she could have gone openly, but at the moment, Marelyn wanted to keep her presence at the Lodge unofficial at least, and unnoticed at best. Before she entered into any of those risky dialogues, she wanted to know as much as possible about those she would be dialoguing with, she wanted to know as much about the Lodge as she could learn, and she wanted to know why thoughts of the place made her teeth itch. That was only common sense. She would, of course, bring back all the information she gathered for her village to use in their negotiations, but if she had tried to get their blessing to go, it would have taken even longer to get it, if they gave it at all, and then she would be unlikely to learn everything she wished to. People present in official capacity never could get to the really dark and dirty secrets, and it was those Marelyn was most interested in.

It was really a shame that her family had never appreciated her interests and talents, or she could have put them to use for them instead of her wild village and her own curiosity.

So she waited for Gayther to be invited in, settled, and get busy with whatever he was doing before approaching the front doors of the Lodge. The people there were helpful and friendly, as if she really were the wandering goprin she claimed to be, stumbling across their warmth and hospitality. Her charming smile got her smiles, in return; her demure, feline attitude got her friendly advice; and her promise that she would either move on soon enough that she would not be a bother, or find her niche and work to support the Lodge, got her a room and a brief tour.

Then she was left to her own devices, and she drifted around to see what she might see, keeping clear of Gayther, Naoryn, or Mykha, who would certainly recognize her. There was more than enough room to keep her distance from those three, after all, especially when they were all quite busy.

Unsurprisingly, she wound up drifting in the direction of the Bonding Society and the dragons. They were a larger mystery, she could sense it, and they had so many secrets that she just had to investigate.

However, she did know better than to try talking to Catrice, the lady-dragon in charge, or Sylira, the shrewd water dragon she crossed verbal swords with during their initial meeting. Those two, she made a point to avoid, because she needed more information before confronting them. Otherwise she might make a mistake, or alienate them without meaning to-- not that she expected to become best friends with proud, superior dragons, but it was wise to never burn a bridge one might someday wish to cross.

So it was that, after two days of unobtrusively wandering around and exploring in the general vicinity, she found herself in conversation with the red dragon Kasaopeia, who was, she quickly gathered, the least of the Bonding Society, at least in the eyes of the dragons themselves.

"There, there," she soothed the weeping dragon, patting her back with a sympathetic paw. She had found her curled in a corner of the big bonding chamber-- thankfully alone-- and crying to herself, apparently over something one of the other dragons had said. Marelyn had a bit of trouble making it out around her tears and dramatic sighs, really, but she'd made appropriate noises and curled herself beside her and let her cry into her fur. She was getting a bit more coherent now, at least.

"None of them understand!" Kasaopeia sobbed. "None of them have lost children like I have!"

Well, neither had Marelyn, but she wasn't about to point that out. The little red dragon-- well, all right, she was taller than Marelyn herself was, so she wasn't exactly little-- obviously needed a bit of love and a sympathetic ear. She was also, Marelyn expected, likely to spill all of her complaints if that ear was sympathetic enough. Marelyn made sure she was sympathetic enough for anything.

"Catrice is always so cruel," Kasaopeia sniffled. "She talks about me as if I'm not even there, sometimes! And she yells at me!"

"How terrible," Marelyn murmured.

"She talks like I'm silly and-- and stupid," the dragon continued around a hiccup, encouraged to get out her resentment. "I'm not stupid! All right, maybe I'm a little silly, but I'm not a halfwit!"

"Of course not," Marelyn agreed. That sounded like an accurate assessment, from what she could tell: definitely silly, but not entirely thick-headed and obviously not without feelings.

"She demands so much from us," Kasaopeia moaned. "We're supposed to stay fertile all the time-- as if there's a male coming any time! As if we ought to just-- just take a male, if one did! What if he was cruel? Or-- or ugly?"

"Skies forbid," Marelyn said solemnly, though she privately found it amusing the order that came in: cruel, or ugly, as if ugly was worse.

"And now? Now she's going to uproot us all!" Kasaopeia seemed to think this was the worst thing of all, considering the dramatic way she'd announced it through her tears.

"Uproot you?" Marelyn repeated, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"We're leaving the planet," Kasaopeia whimpered. "To a star city. What do you think that might mean? A city in the sky? In the stars? It's just wrong. I don't like it, but I don't have any choice. If I don't stay with the Society, I have to go back to the Council after rebelling with the rest of them, and... and I don't think I can do that. I'm not strong enough for that."

"It's all right," Marelyn soothed again. "It'll be all right."

"I hope so," the dragon sniffed piteously. "I really do. ... thank you. What was your name, again?"

"Joserlyn," Marelyn told her, the same name she'd given the fellows at the Lodge doors, her long-dead mother's name, and wiped her cheeks with the tip of her tail. "Let me know if you ever need a shoulder again, hmm?"

She was rewarded by Kasaopeia's tremulous smile, and she left her then to go groom the salt out of her fur and have a good, long think about whatever a "star city" could be, and why Catrice wanted to take them all there. It was a secret again... another secret. And she was going to find it out.

Chapter Three

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