Acropolis

Parting with the Enemy

Judge Danika took each judge from every town in for an emergency council.

"We suspect a traitor in her rightful place." After a long pause and sideways glances, Danika continued, "Acacia is accused of taking from the treasury."

"How can this ever possibly be when Mother watches over us!" spoke NaidaDoris.

"Yes, perhaps just once, we can suspect Mother?" Borkoborna asked sarcastically.

"Medora's treasury was first taken but put toward feasting!" Velibor added. "Our weaponry was fed with feasts and spent on feasts. First given, now stolen upon our recent regret!"

Danika attended the masquerade dressed in secrecy the night of the feast. She nodded in solemnity, masking her nostalgia. "Oh, so Velibor, now it is stolen since it's not going toward frivolity?"

"Danika, Acacia may never return," NaidaDoris apologized with gravity. "Even Daphne is worried for her. I've never seen her worry."

"Why, of course, she would be worried," Borkoborna said bluntly, "but we can't be worried! The only solution is to confront."

MiricaMirza saddened. "Ah, but we can't confront unless we have the weaponry, and I say, even if we shall, no weapon can ever confront this."

"Then I propose we go to Mother, make her our weapon. In agreement, council?"

"I cannot propose your agreement."

"We haven't cast our vote yet, and I must defend myself too—no one can ever gather any evidence if we don't march to the dome. Mother has been overdue for a sacrifice."

This outraged Mirza, "Separation of state is in order!" The fellow council members were petrified at her break of silent character. "We don't have much evidence to go for another move on the playing board!"

"So, is evidence just to come by us? Acacia has been evading far long enough, even since she was last received in Medora," Velibor spoke coyly.

"Then leave your posts once again, sisters and brothers; I hold mine."

Danika knocked her gavel. "Then once again—I propose we find evidence. Stay here and guard the empty treasuries, say 'nay,' or brave the truth, say 'aye.'"

Mirza flipped over a table after the consensus of the ultimatum. Secretly she regretted her turn of temper for she may have sooner flipped her vote around. She walked down a winding staircase of the council tower, once again in silence.

Jason arrived at Mother's dome. Her nest should have been guarded since the happy incident but most villages were too ready preparing for war and too occupied with Jan.

He juggled between the thoughts of whether or not he should allow the Alexander's into the nest. He prepared them in their short journey with know-how of the serpent-bird and weapons of wine and spells to battle their way in and out.

He struggled the more he juggled in his mind but his struggle strengthened with time when finally, he had to make the easiest decision, the one from the beginning: I let them enter in place of me. The modern weapons may be stolen with Acacia but we'll be rewarded once Mother is raided clean. It didn't take much to spy on them.

The Alexander's found a wheezing noise coming from the tunnels. It took hours waiting outside the dome behind crags before that tortured whistling echoed ever so slightly and by then, the sky blushed a rosy twilight. Carefully they picked the tunnels for weapons they could find and they were tempted by the jewels and coins stolen from pirates to kings. Their imaginations wound in and out of all the treasure and what it could offer Domain: scholarships, advancement of the fishery, and recompense for Daphne's staged funeral, and more adventures and nicer adventures. However, the Alexander's and Jason took only what they could load.