Yesterday I dared to struggle. Today I dare to win.

--Bernadette Devlin

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

--Ghandi

CHAPTER 3:

Compromise and Understanding

Weylin, Tamsin and Javyn had left early that morning after retrieving the sorceress's now fixed staff; Jiraath had heard them say something about cleaning out a forgotten tower so that it could not be used as an outpost for demon spawn. At that moment she was lying by the smouldering coals of the fire, flicking any beetle unfortunate enough to trundle past to its slightly sizzling doom. She heard the uneven footsteps of what she guessed was Kedar limping up to a nearby log.

'Having fun there?' He yawned; he had kept an eye on her for most of the night, being relieved only for a few hours by Weylin. Jiraath rolled her eyes to look at him in what she hoped would look like an expression of pure innocence. Kedar coughed a laugh into his hand and Jiraath assumed that it either worked or failed horribly. She tried to be optimistic.

A man in blue desert attire strolled up to them, Kedar had put a rabbit and some rice and raw vegetable on a plate and given it to Jiraath, and she gnawed at the capsicum with utter glee.

'So, Mister Necromancer, why aren't you going with the other today?' Warriv, Jiraath recalled his name over the hind leg of the rather tasty rabbit.

'I was injured while we were retrieving the Horadric Malus for Charsi, the bastard chucked one of his spears at me and I did not move in time. Frost enchantment imbued on it made my leg numb for the trip back.'

'Ah, well, I hope it does heal.'

'It's on its way; I just need to rest it.'

Jiraath finished chewing the skull of the rabbit into a nice paste and swallowed. She stood up and stretched, her wings strained against the rope around her middle that the rogues had insisted on keeping on her. Warriv inched a little further away from her on his log; Jiraath didn't bother sparing him a look and instead glanced around the campfire area, looking for something to fight off the Boredom. She stared back at Kedar in hopes that he would understand. Their eyes met, Kedar jerked sideways and jarred his leg, and he gripped his leg and looked again at Jiraath with an expression somewhere between curious and cautious. At that moment, Warriv decided that it was safer somewhere else so he got up and trotted off towards the blacksmith.

'You just…' Kedar was lost for words. Jiraath's ears dropped, she lowered her head.

What the hell was that? Did I do that? Instead of walking away like Jiraath had expected, Kedar stood up and limped over to her, he grabbed her chin and forced her to look up again and into his iridescent blue eyes.

'That makes no sense.' He limped around her, looking her over, 'No sense at all, I have never encountered this before.'

Wut?

He sighed and glanced back down at her, she watched him apprehensively. 'I suppose nothing can be done. You are bored are you not?' She nodded.

So very, very Bored. Struck down by the Boredom. She followed his gaze to a stick on the ground. I'm not a dog, I don't play fetch.

'Now, I am rather sure you would not play fetch.' He turned and observed the camp. 'The rogues would also prefer you did not roam the camp either.' He scratched at the white and black stubble on his chin. 'I could see if I could take you outside the encampment walls. A moment.' He stood up and walked to the edge of the campfire area. 'KASHYA!'

There was a moment of silence, then:

'WHAT?' As the red headed rogue captain appeared. 'Why don't you come to me if you wish to speak.' She sneered, Kedar simply raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

'Because I was to keep an eye on the dragon and not leave the fireside.' Kashya glared at him.

'What do you want?'

'm bored.

'I wish to take the dragon outside the encampment, I could use the stretch, and she's getting bored.' Kashya snorted.

'I don't care if it's bored, bleeding or tap dancing.' Now that I should try. 'I don't want it going anywhere that I or my rogues can't see it.'

'I will be able to see her.'

'And a fat lot of good that will do for us, Necromancer.' Kedar straightened and squared his shoulders.

'Which would lead me to wonder why you still do not trust me?' Jiraath could just see Kedar's face from where she was standing, it seemed blank but there were traces of incredulity and frustration.

'Why should I trust you? You and your kind have done nothing but wreak havoc and hell upon all other people!'

'Now that is just not true.'

'Such you would say, filth! You shall not see even an ounce of my trust!' Kashya was a storm of resentment; she snarled something quietly and listened to Kedar's equally spiteful reply, and then stalked away. Kedar watched her leave with a rather dissatisfied expression.

'Come, we can walk.'

Jiraath chirruped and trotted after him.

'I never thought I would see the day that a paladin was less hostile towards me than anyone else.'

I second that.

They pasted an empty tent, the flap was open and they could see a recently vacated bedroll.

'Ah, so Vorak has left us.' Jiraath looked up at him, recalling the name. Kedar noticed and grinned sheepishly. 'The one who clobbered you over the head with his club.'

Ah. The Barbarian. She made a grumbling growl sound under her breath and bobbed her head in remembrance of the bloody club.

'Yes, Vorak received a hawk late last evening, before you awoke; it was apparently calling him home to Harrogath.' Kedar shrugged and limped a little faster towards the camp gates.

-

Aaaahhh, grass. Jiraath dug her claws into the dew spangled grass and stretched; she looked over her shoulder at Kedar and saw him watching her, a dagger in his hand. She growled and spun, her crest of spines standing upright. You… Kedar held up his hands and shook his head.

'No, no, it's not like that. I simply thought it would be nice if you had the rope around your middle cut.' Jiraath relaxed, but not much; Kedar put his hands on his hips and raised an eyebrow. 'What? You think that I would have gone through all that with Kashya just to bring you out here and kill you?'

Well, no...but... She cocked her ears and turned her head to watch him out of one eye.

'Exactly, now, come here so I can cut that off, and you can go…frolic.'

Jiraath slunk towards him, belly down; he caught hold of the rope and cut it neatly with the dagger. The pressure came off her wings and she jumped back, opening them to flap.

'They are rather nice, aren't they?' Kedar commented.

What? She glanced at him and wrinkled her nose briefly.

'I mean, you have an interesting pattern on the back around the wing fingers, like the rings on a moth's wing.' Jiraath snorted happily, the darker brown of her back continued onto her wings only to be interrupted by three charcoal brown rings, one inside the other; they were her family markings. Only her father did not have them because he had mated into her mother's family. Jiraath glanced at the wide area around her and set off at a lope in a large circle around Kedar. He watched with his hands on his hips.

She opened her wings as she ran and flapped a couple of times, the ground fell away beneath her and she flew a few low circles before landing. Her pectoral muscles hurt; she hadn't used them since she had been reborn. Such a strange thought.

-

As evening began to fall, they made their way back into the rogue encampment. Kedar had replaced the rope around Jiraath's middle but had made it a lot looser than it had been, to his credit.

As they came into the campfire area Jiraath noticed a glowing portal, she nudged Kedar's hip and pointed at it with her nose when he looked down.

'That's the result of a town portal scroll, see the wall behind it? That wall has certain magic runes on it that are the same as some magic runes on the portal scrolls or the pages of the portal tomes.'

Ah, focus some magic and poof, a portal, yes?

'You just focus some magic on the scroll, generally say something like 'open portal' for focus and poof there's a portal.'

One day we will have to get over this repetition that we have going here.

Out of the portal came first Javyn, he turned and held out a hand as if to help someone through, but Tamsin smacked his hand away as she appeared on the town side of the portal. Weylin followed, shaking his head, a bag in his hand; behind him a built, blonde woman appeared, armoured in a red scale leather cuirass and holding a long bow. Jiraath hadn't seen her at the campfire the previous night, but she remembered the Amazon and her arrows. She hissed quietly and stepped behind Kedar for cover, he didn't notice; Kedar limped over to Weylin leaving Jiraath without anything to hide behind. She slunk back over to the fire and listened, her ears pricked to the warriors' voices.

'How was the tower?' Kedar asked, sounding rather amiable, Jiraath guessed he was speaking to the druid; the two older men seemed to be rather good friends.

'Dark, dank, and smelled of age old boots.' Javyn responded before Weylin could open his mouth. He shrugged instead.

'Something like that.'

'The Countess was an eyesore. Demonic energy had been keeping her alive for long enough that the blood she bathed in had made her skin red.' A sound of disgust emanated from the general area of Tamsin who was washing demon blood off her hands in a rather conveniently placed bowl.

'Lovely.' Kedar.

'Rather.'

Indeed.

Tamsin turned and dispelled the portal and Javyn continued, 'There was a lot of discarded weaponry, but some of it looked like it had been there for centuries. Oh, Kedar, you'll never guess what we found.'

The necromancer's hands went to his hips. 'A conspiracy theory?'

'Yes. They want to steal everyone's boots to make a boot monster. Also, we found your sword that was knocked into the river way back when we were cleaning up the graveyard.'

'Ah, excellent.' Kedar retrieved the longsword from Javyn's outstretched arm; there was a blue stone inset into the pommel, a similar colour to his eyes.

Jiraath reached up with her hind leg to scratch behind her ear, the movement must have caught the Amazon's eye because what followed was less than pleasant.

'What is the lizard doing untied?' No one looked particularly surprised in return; Kedar went to offer an explanation. No, it's 'What is the DRAGON doing untied?' Really, you people.

'She's not a th-'

'I did not ask you necromancer.' Jiraath just heard Kedar mutter an 'oh dear' under his breath. Weylin stood up, every six and a half feet of him, actually managing to tower over the reasonably tall Amazon.

'She is no threat; you were not at the fireside last night, so you, Kiyana, would not know that; for that you are excused. However, we all would appreciate it if you directed a little more respect to our necromancer companion.'

Kiyana glared at both of them, muttered something about men knowing nothing about hidden and subtle threats, and stalked off towards a tent that she presumably occupied.

'Thanks you lot,' Tamsin sounded off-put, 'I have to put up with her tonight.'

Is everyone going to see me like that? Jiraath snorted, some floating soot went up her nose and she sneezed. No. She comforted herself, trying to think of her mother, she couldn't picture her. There are others who are not hostile towards you. She coughed. What are four against four hundred? Her ears drooped, how she wished for another dragon to talk to, or even just to lie by.

Weylin cleared his throat, 'Everyone get some good rest tonight. We are going to need everyone tomorrow.' Jiraath saw the Amazon emerge from her tent to stand in the half light of the fire, listening. His voice dropped, 'We begin our assault on the monastery tomorrow, we leave at dawn. Prepare yourselves, bring all the healing and refreshing potions you will need, also bring some antidotes; the demoness Andariel is a powerful poison mage. We must defeat her in order to continue towards the East and avenge those who are dead.' The mood had become sombre; a few eyes glanced at Kedar. Poison. Death. Necromancer.

To them he represents everything they fight against. Jiraath shook herself, her wings rubbed against the rope around them.

-

Jiraath lay back down by the fire. That was rather sudden; bam! and the druid announces that they are attacking Andariel. She paused and stretched out on the ground. Or not that sudden. They have been here for a while. I'm the one who doesn't belong here. She huffed; the sound of bare feet on the dirt approached her from behind. She tilted her head and saw Weylin looking down on her.

'We are supposed to keep an eye on you so you will be sleeping in the tent that I am in, for tonight.' Jiraath rose and followed him; she knew that any rogues watching would think that she was just like one of the druid's wolves, an animal that did his bidding because it trusted him.

She just desperately missed the company of her clanmates.

---

I feel for some reason that this chapter may be jumbled. It's an aggravating thought, because I know that more could be in there, or less and written better but I can't be buggered to change anything.

Also, to the Phrenologikal Cat: Yes, Jir tends to be a bit like that, she is a dragon after all, she doesn't get all the fussing. Nor does she like it. Also, the stew they serve in that camp is not that good. Kedar is bluffing. (not that you mentioned the soup.)

Squishy and pink? Oh my. I may have a place for that exact quote.

AlsoAlso: Grimm Gun: )8=: Amazon no likey dragon. Reason why yes. Rogue no likey dragon, reason why no. Preejuuudiiiccce.