The Dragoness Queen

Epilogue:

Later, much later, Relma paced upon a hill in the old citadel of Alchara. The lands here were coming back to life, it seemed. Plants were growing more between the stones and the undead had been cleared away. Morning light peered down on her from above through the trees and the scent of death was receding.

Some of the temples had been restored a bit, pulling up some of the old grass from between the stones. But that was not what worried Relma. In all honesty, she wasn't really sure what worried her.

Over the past few days, messages had been going back and forth throughout the lands. Negotiations were being established little by little, and then time for deliberations. No waves of the dead, however, came to attack the river.

And, at last, the meeting place was chosen.

The decision to put it in the old capital of the Dragon Empire was severalfold. First off, it was not owned by any faction save in name. Secondly, the Road of Ancient Stone meant Lucius and Durag could open passageways. Meanwhile, its status as a domain of Alchara meant that she could act as a neutral agent.

Relma did not believe for a moment she'd be able to mediate the dispute fully once it got underway. Her only goal had been to make sure it happened and present herself as a figurehead. To that end, she'd suggested repairs be done to the old city.

The renovations were underway already.

"The repairs seem to be going well," said Relma, sitting on a stone.

She observed Evren moving a massive pillar out of the way. He then put up a pillar that had been repaired, rebalancing it into place. Estela looked at with some incredulousness, though this had been seen for some time.

"Yes," said Estela. "Too well."

Bryag, as it turned out, had a sense of vindictiveness after all.

He'd assigned the dragons who were in debt to him the task of clearing out the city. Even now, they were being used as manual labor to move stones and allow the more skilled work crews to go about it. Each one was assigned to a work crew that they had no control over. Bryag had disemboweled a dragon who'd tried to kill his supervisor. After that, there had been no more disobedience.

"I don't understand why there was no coalition," said Estela suddenly. "If most of the Dragon Lords were put up for this kind of humiliation..."

"Well, they would lose," said Relma.

"It doesn't matter if they'd lose!" said Estela flatly. "No Lord of Escor would ever accept this kind of humiliation! They'd form the coalition and fight to the end!"

"Well," said Relma. "I guess the manual labor is a lot less difficult."

"That's not the point," said Estela. "They should have rebelled!"

"Well," said Relma. "Human Lords often pay one another visits to reassure eachother of their goodwill. They marry into one another's families and regularly have to fight for their rights. So they're in the practice of fighting desperate battles.

"Most of the Dragon Lords haven't really done anything more than the bare minimum for ages. They also don't have any ideology besides 'screw you, got mine', and Evren at least doesn't seem to have any scruples."

"What's your point?" asked Estela.

"Maybe they're out of practice," said Relma. "They haven't faced a serious threat to their own rule in lifetimes. They could just conceive of the possibilities of Bryag moving against them. But Bryag moving against them with an alliance...

"Well, they probably couldn't even imagine it. And they have no precedent for dealing with this kind of problem."

"So they're cowards, then," said Estela.