Ranshee watched as another Hunt left; she had come a scant minutes too late and the cursed gold fox stopped her from joining in despite her tardiness. With a smirk on her muzzle, Kin sent her back to her quarters. "Better luck next time," she's taunted. Biting her tongue to keep from biting someone else, hands balled into fists to keep from lashing out with them, Ranshee walked away, refusing to snarl despite her desire to bite and tear, narrow golden eyes turned into hotly glowing slits in the dim light of the Aerd's tunnels. She was furious with everyone, including herself.

Although the Aerd-Lady permitted her and her slowly growing pack to remain in the snow-encased dragon-home, the half-breed's early suspicions that she was still unwelcome and certainly disapproved of only gaining proof at every turn. Forgotten once, ignored again, and now, she was blatantly banned from going! She was chased away from the launching patio, forced to retreat with her tail between her legs, showing throat to someone she could have torn apart if she but had the courage and the opportunity. But every time she had the opportunity, she had no courage-- and whenever she had the courage, she had no opportunity.

This time... this time her name was on the list; she knew because she was there when Noiku signed her up, squinting at the strange marks that somehow represented her name. Nocol had promised he would remind her, and Nocol didn't forget: he was given the wrong information. A faint black thread of thought from the black beast tingled her mind and she brushed it away; it was apology and she was getting tired of hearing it. Awareness of his thoughts slipped away from her, tinged with hurt, but she ignored it.

Finally deep enough in the Aerd's labyrinth to scent her own home ground, Ranshee stalked up to the Pack's communal den. The multiple-dragon lair had been her original territory, only she and her Pack had enlarged it to fit all six of them. They had spent one exciting day tearing down walls between lairs, so that now they inhabited one large room with various niches for each of them, and room for plenty more. Cleaning up after their exuberance had taken longer, but now the communal den was clean and clear of rubble.

And empty. Ranshee swung the door open and was greeted by only one of her Packmates. Kyverh darted in the air, agitated, but despite her irritation she refrained from snatching him and his mind out of the air to still them both. "They left and said they'd be back. Hunting, I think. For food." His voice was halting, nervous-- and he was lying.

Ranshee stopped, glaring long and hard at the dipping, weaving form of the red-black dragon. "You tell truth now!" she growled, stamping a foot and resisting the urge to drag it out of him by force. Kyverh dropped to the floor at the force of her spoken rather than sent words-- if she'd sent, she might have hurt him, as delicate as he was and as angry as she was-- curling up in a tiny ball.

"He told me not to tell and I won't, I can't, because he'll hurt me!" the tiny mini-dragon cried, covering his head with a wing and both his forepaws. Ranshee scowled-- someone was threatening her lowest-ranked and much-loved Packmate? She would tear out their throat, whoever it was-- "And I've said too much now and he's coming and--"

::Silence.::

She didn't hear the silent wingbeats of some great beast, hidden by the sound of the storm beyond the single open gate-- and by something else. She didn't sense the steady approach of something that was utterly tremendous in size, distracted by her own anger and by Kyverh's fear-- and by something else. All of it escaped her, concealed from her, until she finally looked just beyond the balled form of Kyverh and caught sight of a glimmering white paw, unfamiliar, and her gaze climbed up further. And further. And... further.

"What you do here?" Ranshee demanded, showing remarkable resolve even though fear quivered in the pit of her stomach like a small animal, weak and telling her to run away. She could never battle this intruder and win-- not with her body-- but she ignored the terror, because Ranshee, when she went down, would go down fighting. She bared her teeth in a warrior's fierce smile, her talons flexed. In the back of her mind, she pulled at the multi-colored threads of her pack-- fiery red, steady bronze, unfailing orange, timid green, adoring gold-- tried to call them, but felt the strands slip from her grasp. Almost panicked, she tried again-- but again failed. Something was horribly wrong.

::Nothing is wrong, Ranshee. Everything is right in the world.:: The gleam of teeth followed the reply, the furred dragon offering a smile-- but the emotions behind it were fuzzy and faint. His mind was open, but radiated nothing. ::And now that I have found you, there is nothing that your pack cannot accomplish.::

Unwilling to use her telepathy, unwilling to answer him on his own terms, she settled for glaring at him, biting her tongue despite her anger. When she answered him with silent rage-- for his intrusion, his condescension, his mistreatment of her Pack, his icy calm in the face of her challenge-- the dragon lowered his pale head, his dark crest flattening slightly and his silvered mane brushing the ground. Submission. Slight, but there. Golden eyes peered at her; similarly golden eyes looked back.

"I shall speak this way, then," he murmured in a smooth, silken voice, but she refused to be soothed. Not yet. "You are the one that I've been looking for. I have heard much from my kinsman, and I think what you are doing is far more noble than what she is doing." It wasn't too much of a leap for Ranshee to figure out which "she" he was speaking of, and she uttered a low growl of wary assent.

"So, I have decided to join you of my own free will. Search my mind and see that I speak true."

He was the first to speak of such things, the soul-baring that Ranshee insisted any member of her new pack submit to, rather than simply and silently offer, or refuse until she demanded, and her mental step fumbled for a moment before she sunk mental talons into his mindscape and took a good, long look around. Staring into the mind and soul of the feather-winged dragon, Ranshee was first unsettled. The first impression of blankness and ice was totally confirmed: his mind was a sensation of a broad, icy expanse, open to her-- open and yet devoid of anything particularly interesting at first glance. It was like she stood on a snowy plain, with not even a hill or a crack to break the monotony. How could anyone be so... bland? So emotionless, passionless... lifeless?

So she looked "down", beneath the surface of that featureless plain, delving further with determination to find the real mind, the real drive, behind this intruder who had offered himself so confidently. And then she saw more than she had ever expected.... He kept his demons well encased, frozen in a state of perpetual coldness, chilled by that icy calm that he shrouded himself with-- but those demons, those emotions, those passions... were still there, manifest as twisted, unnatural shapes beneath the thin ice of his mindscape. They were exposed-- but still safely locked away even as they roiled and screamed in the frigid darkness. Momentarily, she could see what might happen if those beasts were released and his calm broken, and she felt fear again. A moment later, staring into the seething mass and noting how it focused on her... she realized it wouldn't matter, because he was hers, and would be hers, even then.

And he offered her his name, a binding oath wrapped up in sounds that merged and joined up oddly. "Maraelth." The word stumbled from her mouth with some difficulty, so she said it again, testing it, tasting it, settling it in her mind with the tarnished silver of his mental voice and the icy scent that wafted from him.

He nodded his mighty head, light glimmering along his mane like liquid silver. "Ranshee. I will protect you and yours. That is my oath."

A slow smile touched her lips. She might have been banned this time, but she had still managed to gain another Packmate. Now, they'd be unable to block her; Maraelth would see to that.

Chapter Eleven

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