Black

A Night In

Lord kelwin was baring down on Tallulah, thinking that she had something to do with Atlas leaving the city of Aria sooner. Indirectly, perhaps, but she received no communication from him directly, and part of her was saddened, but the other part of her knew the terrible consequences if she were to contact Atlas and be found out.

She was close to being found out by Gareth, Benna had left her chambers one night and was caught by him, but when he found out she was of dragon kin, his interest turned to disgust. His interest in Benna made Tallulah worried for her sake. Gareth did not confront Tallulah after that interaction, but perhaps he was waiting for the opportune moment. In fact, Gareth had left her well alone after the incident in the library, for which she was infinitely grateful. It was only a week since then, and Lord Kelwin was in frantic haste to muster his men in order to meet Atlas on open field rather than being caught in woods or a town. During this time, Tallulah spent most of it in her chambers, not being allowed to assist and know what was going on. She was fine with this, for it allowed her to make her own plans with her ladies.

Once they started their march north, Benna and Aurora would contact other women who had been sent on similar missions by Atlas to gather allies in the cities and towns they would pass. Hopefully, this would muster enough of a force to bring down Kelwin's rebellion from within and end the fighting before true damage could be inflicted. It was only a plan, which could go wrong at any point, but Tallulah hoped it wouldn't.

Tallulah wanted to see her brother, Talon, again, but she could only guess about his whereabouts with all the time passed. This lime of thought brought her to Iris and Ladrin as well. She would have known if they were captured along with her.

Currently, Tallulah sat perched on her bed. Benna, Rika, and Aurora surrounded her as they leafed through the huge volumes Tallulah had procured from the library before Kelwin confined her to her room for the foreseeable future.

"What is the point of reading these? They are such a bore," whine Rika.

"Because," said Tallulah, "if I am to be queen, I need to understand our history as dragon kind,"

"We could teach you what we know," Aurora said.

"Even what you know may be paltry to what these books contain. Did you know that the fourth King, Anrath, had a feline concubine," Benna wrinkled her nose at this piece of information.

"No,"

"-or that his son and heir was actually a Bastard," Tallulah interjected, "His mother was a chamber maid," when she'd read that tidbit of information it really intrigued her, but scales never lied and Andoran succeeded his father at age 60 after he died from losing his mate in childbirth to a sister, who survived, but nothing else was mentioned about her in any other books.

"Now that is an interesting bit of information, but those were only speculations and could never be proved," Aurora said in reply. Tallulah knew in her heart, though, that it was true.

"These books were written centuries ago, Lady Tallulah, and without checking them against the record keeper in Aria, there's no way of knowing their sincerity," added Rika.

Tallulah couldn't help but hope that this was true. It would over turn so much that the dragons felt was certain in their society.

They sat in silence for a while thereafter, Tallulah perusing through her volume. As time passed, the other women became bored with theirs and started embroidering fabric that Lunea had brought them two days ago, before Kelwin confined Tallulah to her chambers.

While Tallulah was decent at needle point, she preferred reading because growing up, she was only taught her letters and was not allowed to expand her knowledge aside from reading the books of healing that her mother used. Having left the confines of Idris before and given the opportunity to read and gain the knowledge Tallulah relished in that freedom.