The Dragon's Rogue

Chapter 12

"What we really need is to see what you look like beneath all those blanket, I can't get an idea for a style that will suit you without gauging your...assets."

The woman that spoke to me was a little older, nearing forty perhaps, with heavy chestnut curls that she piled artfully on her head. Her face was one of beauty and energy, her smile lighting the green of her eyes almost as much as the eyes of a Dragon Lord. She wore a simple, but magnificent gown of pale yellow that hugged her body and somehow pushed up her ample cleavage so that I feared her breasts might fall out at any moment. However, she had been talking and waving her arms in an animated manner for several minutes so I guessed that they were somehow secured within the fabric. Both her, and a smaller, olive skinned woman with a flowing mess of raven hair crowded into my room suddenly after Cillumn had left, and they hadn't stopped talking since. The littler one intrigued me, she did not wear a gown, as would be expected. She wore a black fitted top, with a great deal of embroidery, that looked as comfortable as it was beautiful, and, to my shock, a pair of pants. Not borrowed bottoms, like those I had taken from Scet, but perfectly fitted, as if made especially for her. Two sheaths with daggers hung on a band about her hips. What type of woman was this.

They didn't require much input from me, they seemed happy to study me like some new specimen they had found and then discuss the likely fits that existed in their wardrobe. Apparently I would be borrowing something until the next market day.

I scowled at them from beneath the billows of white blanket. I didn't want to borrow clothes, I was fine with what I had. I felt like a cross between a poor street child that stumbled upon a benefactor and a bone torn between too many hounds. Honor tore at me, if these women gave me dresses, would it not be them I owed? I couldn't create so many debts, what would mother say?

That thought sunk my emotions even lower. Mother. She would have woken by now, felt the sting of my betrayal.

But at least she is alive.

"Can't I just borrow something old that you don't use any more? And I really only agreed to one dress..." I began mulishly.

Both women turned my way, eyes open as if surprised that I had spoken.

"Something old..." The green eyed woman mouthed. Of course they had given me their names as they came in, but focused as I was on getting them to leave once more I had quickly forgotten them. I wasn't there to mingle with the Lords and their Ladies. It was getting hard to remember what I was still doing there at all. I should have been scouring the forest for Adda.

But Cillumn thought he knew someone, or something that might help. And I wasn't so illogical or impulsive to dive into action without some sort of a plan. I knew the glyphs drew the creatures, and I knew Adda was alive, and I had a suspicion, based on some calculations I had done, that she was somewhere in the west, near the base of the mountains. But as far as information went that was precious little. Not enough, likely to make a true rescue attempt.

But there wasn't much time. Certainly not enough for laying around while these silly women fought over something so simple as clothing.

"Yes, something old, I will not take anything else. I shouldn't even be here, the only reason I am meeting your Archon and Alpha at all is to see if they have information that can help find my sister. I don't need to impress them."

"Are you sure she's even a shifter?" The darker haired woman questioned, eyeing me speculatively but ignoring my tirade. "There is certainly nothing passive about her."

"Maybe it is because she is rouge," the first woman responded.

My scowl deepened, they certainly didn't seem inclined to take me seriously.