Quick Authors Note : Well 2014 continues to kick the RainbowWriters in the ass and so we'd just like to make a quick apology for this and any delay in future updates. Unfortunately we've found ourselves in the middle of a time of family health issues and other worries so things are greatly impacting our time and our ability to focus, we apologize for this and want you all to know that we have no intentions of abandoning any of our works, we just may take a little longer in getting updates out there. As a small side bar to that note – do any of our readers have any experience with diabetic dogs – ideas for good diets for them or home made treats and the like? Any suggestions or hints would be very welcome :)
Disclaimers: All original property is owned by Showcase, and we do not infer that any characters, creations or the concept of 'Lost Girl' are our property and the following fan fiction has been written purely for entertainment purposes only.
Pairings: Bo/Lauren
Time-Frame: Set directly after Episode 3:02
Rating: M (Contains scenes of violence, sexuality and mild nudity)
Summary: Set directly after Episode 3:02, following an AU storyline of our own creation.. Distinctly Bo/Lauren centric.
"Lauren and Bo resonate." Zoie Palmer speaking about Doccubus in an interview on AfterEllen.
*****BIGGEST SHOUT OUT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD*****
To Robin and Lisa, the most wonderful and generous people in the world who have ensured that this and all our other stories will continue to be worked on and published by gifting us with a new laptop when they found out our old one had died and the tragic event was keeping us from updating.
~~~ Thank you Robin and Lisa ~~~
Heavenly Resonance. - Part Fifty-Two
By: The RainbowWriters
No matter how much everyone around Lauren had tried to rally around the idea that waiting until the morning to replace the dragon sculpture's tooth was the logical and prudent thing to do, she couldn't shake the image of Bo from her mind. The Succubus pouring out to her the raw terror she was experiencing at the hands of her father, the effect that his acts of violence and intimidation were having on her Resonant was undeniable and filled her with a sense of urgency. A feeling, that as the men around her finished the last of the stew Lobi had created for them, grew and grew as she stared from the fire to the statue and back again.
With proper lighting now, and a little effort from Dira and Raril, the gems and stones on the walls of the room gleamed and sparkled. The sheer effort and care with which the murals had been created marvelled the works of any master artist that Lauren had ever seen. All culminating to bring one's eye to the great dragon that literally emerged from the back wall to hang its head over the altar, peering back with bright red ruby eyes at all of them.
"Dyson, I can't do it." Lauren finally said the hushed words to the shifter who was sitting a little distance from her. "I can't wait, I have to know what replacing the tooth does, have to get another step closer to the dagger."
"Lauren..." His words were soft, as to not yet alert the others to their conversation. It was clear that he was about to start a planned out speech to re-outline to her all the reasons why they should wait but she cut him off before he could start.
"I was with Bo again... in the construct." Lauren turned her face to him, the firelight showing the shiny tears that had pooled in her brown eyes but had yet to fall onto her cheeks. The sudden change in her mood somehow being noted by the Dwarves around them, who stayed silent even though their eyes were now on the Echo.
"You were? But..." Dyson began to start an objection, after all even if the blonde had been telling the truth the first time, the experience had occurred at a holy shrine to the Resonants. To expect that whatever mystical influence that had played a part in bringing them together there had been able to work here in this forsaken basin, well that seemed at first thought a little too much to expect.
"She is my Resonant, I needed her and she needed me. I don't know how it happens, but I know why it happens." She met his look with resolute belief. "And it happened."
Dyson looked at her for a moment, seeming ready to say a number of things that came into his mind before he gave only a nod of his head.
"How is she?" The wolf visibly swallowed as he asked the question and reached to put his nearly empty bowl down on the ground by his feet.
"She's terrified, more then I've ever seen her be. Whatever her father is doing, he is systematically tearing down her strength Dyson, making her doubt everything about herself." Lauren closed her eyes and a single teardrop slid down her left cheek. "No, I know what he's doing... he's killing people in front of her, murdering them to show her how helpless she is. He wants her to become his daughter, his heir so they can rule the world. He wants her to believe she's a monster."
The impact of the words on Dyson was visible, his knowledge of the Succubus and her fears was intimate enough to know how much this idea haunted Bo.
"She's running out of time." Lauren put down her bowl and pushed up to stand, slowly she held her hand out. "Please, give me the tooth, I can't wait."
Dyson put his hand over the carved shape in his pocket, his face serious as he tried to make a rational decision in an irrational situation.
"Lauren, we don't have any idea what this might do." His voice was guarded and sombre. "It's the middle of the night..."
"You either give me it or I'll take it from you when you're sleeping and do it alone." Lauren admitted openly. "Do you trust me enough to have not slipped something into your stew?" She blinked at him stoically.
"Echo, is this what you believe you should do, right now?" Dyson tipped his chin up, not reacting to the blatant assertion that she could have drugged him and the others easily if she wanted too.
"I have to do something I can't do nothing knowing what she is facing, what she is going through." Lauren looked back at him. "I know the risks, I do and..." She paused and then looked not at Dyson but around at all of them, more than aware that they had all stopped and though were not openly listening to them, were paying attention. "I know I'm asking you to step with me into the unknown at what might be a ill advised moment, but..." She glanced up at the large sculpture. "The prophecy you believe I am here to fulfil and the journey I'm here to make, they matter more to me than an hours sleep or the supposed safety that dawns light can bring." She took a breath. "Beyond the Veil my heart, my Source is in danger and I... I need to do all I can to make her safe, just like she would if the tables were turned. She wouldn't wait till morning, or check the weather." Lauren actually stifled a laugh when she thought of her beloved Bo being anything other than brash and reckless. "She wouldn't have even given you the tooth." She looked at Dyson silently challenging him to contradict her.
"Not only would she not have given me the tooth, she'd have stuck it in before anyone knew what she was doing." Dyson actually had to give the blonde a brief smile, as he reached and pulled out the tooth pushing it into Lauren's hand. "And where you go, I go." He pushed up to get onto his feet.
"I follow the Echo." Lobi said instantly looking at her as if she'd just given the most uplifting speech she could have ever given.
"Aye, we all do." Raril stuffed his spoon into his bowl and stood up. "Unless any dwarf here be a coward and want to stay and wash the dishes?"
Lauren gave Dyson a quick smile as her hand curled around the carved stone, before she glanced around at her small army.
"Whatever this does..." She squeezed the white tooth in her hand. "No one can ever call into question your bravery, any of you." She said with a smile and a shake of her head as she moved across the rubble littered floor across towards the altar, her head tilted back more and more as she kept her eyes on the ornate carving above her head.
"Look alive boys, weapons and torches, and Lobi light rations if you please." Raril jumped to move towards his axe.
The younger Dwarf gave a slight double take as the robust Dwarven leader hailed him by his first name, causing a small smile to crease his lips as he hurried to his small cooking set up to gather just a small bag full of provisions. Dyson was already on the move after Lauren, the wolf taking nothing with him other than the sword on his back, his focus solely on the blonde and the sculpture that she was nearing with each second as she scrambled up onto the stone slab of the altar top.
"Lauren." He said his voice low as he came up to the altar placing his hands on the dust covered stone, his eyes looking up at her as she was studying once again the finely carved beast. "Whatever happens I stand by you." He said, his voice firm and resolute.
"Thank you." A slim smile graced the blonde's lips before her tongue passed over them very briefly in an attempt to bring some kind of moisture to them. Her hand was shaking more than slightly as she brought the carved tooth to rest over the hole in the lower jaw, where it so obviously fitted. Then with a quick glanced back at Dyson Lauren pressed the narrowed end into the fitted socket, pushing it down so that the obvious rim edge at the base of the tooth sat flush with the black stone jaw.
As black and white stone connected there came an almost impossibly loud clicking noise, but not from statue, the click that came from it was almost silent, and were it not for the fact that the movement of the great beast's bottom jaw dropping open about half a metre, made Lauren stumble backwards and almost fall from off the altar, any change in the sculpture may have been missed, mainly because the whole of the temple, or whatever the once great building was, was shaking. Trails of stone dust trickling down from the ruined ceilings and decaying walls as a low rumbling grinding noise accompanied the violent tremors.
Nimbly Dyson caught Lauren and held on to her, bringing her safely down from off the altar top, away from the now gaping maw of the beast, tucking her as best he could down under the ledge of the altar as more larger pieces of stone began falling from the still shaking roof.
"What in all the names is going on?" Sigba grumbled holding his hammer over his head, deflecting a chunk of rubble. "The tooth was some kind of damned trap?" He cussed and made his way towards Lobi, pulling the small dwarf towards him, sheltering him too.
"I've felt this kind of thing before!" Dyson tried to call to them above the growing noise. "Old wood and stone workings, some sort of ancient machine."
"The cub's right..." Manlo came out of the low crouch he was in and lifted his torch, peering around the dust filled room. "It's the sound of a mechanism, think brothers of all the times in the past we've tripped traps with the like, though this one's not been used in years." He encouraged his companions to stop cowering and look around. "The worst thing we can do is be take by surprise."
"Aye for the Echo's sake!" Raril cursed both himself and the others, his tone sharp as he stepped out from his 'hidey spot'. "Trap or not I'll not be taken out cowering like a child." Wafting his torch around, swirling the plumes of dust to sparkling in the dancing flames.
"It's not a trap." It was Lauren's voice that spoke above them all, full of conviction and authority, causing all the dwarfs and Dyson to stop their individual flailing and turn to look at her, or at least where she had been, quickly finding that she wasn't where Dyson had pushed her under the safety of the lip of the altar. The wolf panned his torch around, his yellowed eyes scanning the room until he found her stood in the wall where the Dragon's tail ended. In the wall being the operative word as where there had once just been wall, there was now and ascending spiral staircase. Holding her torch aloft, the dancing firelight highlighting bright gleams in her wide brown eyes Lauren was beaming the widest smile. "It's an invitation."
"An invitation into the beast!" Sigba grunted even as he pressed forward towards where the blonde was standing. "And I for one say it better be a good host and have ale." He made the joke with a wide toothy smile.
Raril and Sigba insisted on pushing past Lauren and forging ahead before Lauren could even take the first step, giving Dyson time to reach the blonde's side.
"You know Dr. Lewis..." The wolf glanced at her as he nodded for her to step up the stairs in front of him.
Lauren put her hand up and shook her head.
"Don't." She said with a smile. "We have no idea what's at the top." She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
-x-
Tamsin pushed open the door to the Dal, and pulled through the heavy chest she had picked up from Pandora into the bar. She appraised the interior with cool blue eyes and a snort as she came face to face with the still feather littered main hall.
"I knew there was no way I'd come back to wet dog smell, I've never been the lucky kind." She made the announcement in a grumble.
"You came back, I suppose we should be thankful for that." Eliyana glanced at her and looked away again knowing that this meeting probably wasn't going to be the friendliest in history.
"And with a bomb by the looks of it." Kenzi turned on her chair and fixed the tall blonde with cold blue eyes. "Back up plan or something?" Her mouth curled into something between a frown and a snarl.
"Did I walk in at a bad time? Did you two break a mattress during hard core lusting or something and Trick's making you count the feathers as you re-stuff it?" Tamsin offered dryly. "Because you know that's not my problem or my fault." She continued. "The two of you just need to rein it in. Rein it in... reins, frenum, Geist Master... get it?"
"Look I'm really bad at pent up anger right now, because I have a boatload of it on the go for Bo's evil Dad so I'm just gonna say this... no Geist Valkyrie bomb! Not happening, not now, not ever, not while I'm at the trigger, kapesh dude?" Kenzi strutted over to the tall Valkyrie as she talked.
The blonde looked at Eliyana for a second and then at Kenzi letting out a hard sigh as she did.
"What is it about girls who are in love with girls." She shook her head over and over. "You tell each other everything. EVERYTHING." Tamsin pushed her hand up through her hair. "How long did she keep it to herself, an hour? Twenty minutes? Had I left?"The Valkyrie rolled her eyes and looked at Kenzi evenly. "It was a last ditch, plan Z kind of deal. All else has failed we're knee deep in guts and Mikah has red saucer eyes and is floating kind of deal." She pointed out. "I wasn't suggest walking in starting the count down and spraying the Frost house in Eliyana bits."
"Look at me with the feeling better after that description." Kenzi rolled her eyes back. "Now, what is in the box?" She knew there wouldn't be any point in trying to make her point any clearer for the Valkyrie, the truth was she knew as long as she held the frenum then no one would be blowing up her Geist.
"A bomb." Tamsin replied, her face dead pan.
"Made of what?" Kenzi prompted her to continue, holding her own face dead pan as well.
"Okay it's not a bomb." Tamsin retracted her statement with a breath and moved to flick open the lock on the chest. "Unlike what you probably think I've not spent the last day or so getting drunk, fucked or high." The Valkyrie pushed the heavy lid back and let it fall back against its strong leather bracers. Gently she folded back the expensive material that Pandora had layered her armour in to reveal the sparkling breastplate that was closest to the top. "I was collecting and refurbishing this."
"Shiny!" Kenzi looked down at it, feeling Eli move over to look into the chest as well. "Is there one for each of us?"
Eli looked at the blue eyed beauty with a smile.
"There better not be, because I'm not ready to sign up for what THAT entails." The Geist shook her head when she saw she had her lover's attention. "That's Valkyrie armour Kenzi, fashioned and fitted solely for the Valkyrie intended to wear it... for life." She explained.
"Oh, I guess that means no touching?" Kenzi paused with her hand in the air.
"Technically only the armour smith who made it, the fabric worker who adorns it, my owner, my sword mother and my squire can touch it, oh and me of course." Tamsin admitted with a shrug, "But considering I don't exactly have all of those positions filled right now... Go ahead." She nodded towards the chest.
"And bring bad luck to this suicide mission before you've even started?" A voice that no one but Tamsin instantly recognized spoke clearly from the door behind them all just as Pandora let the door click its way loudly back to being closed.
Eli and Kenzi turned quickly to look at the door and the 'intruder', slightly surprised by the delicate brunette that pulled off a motorcycle helmet and stared at Tamsin with dark blue eyes.
"Pandora..." The name that slipped out of Tamsin's mouth did so almost as a growl as the Valkyrie turned slowly on her heel, her chest rising and falling with growing speed as the obvious anger she felt at the new comer's arrival built inside her.
"You broke my heart, you broke my spirit and you nearly broke me all those years ago Sin, when you did what you did, until Father told me. Told me what he'd said to you, what he'd asked of you." The slender figure walked slowly forward as Eli and Kenzi slunk back slightly giving the other two a little space. "Oh don't get me wrong I was still broken, and furious that you would do it, that you would chose him over me, let me be broken to somehow 'save' me..." Her laughter was a little hollow. "But I tried to understand, to move on." She took a breath as she stopped in front of the taller blonde. "And then..." She fixed Tamsin with piercing dark eyes. "Then I had to watch that monster tear out my father's eyes, and feed them to his dogs, sever my mother hands and sear the stumps closed with my father's tools and all because of you..."
"Pandora..." Tamsin's voice showed both the other women who could not see it how much grief it held.
"I was cast out and treated like trash for decades because of you." Pandora blinked her dark eyes. "And all that time Sin, I didn't once blame you." She shook her head. "Well no that's not true, I did and you know I did but I got past it because there was someone bigger to blame." She turned away from the blonde and drew the zipper down the front of the dark green motorcycle jacket she was wearing. "I was never an idiot Sin, I knew why you turned me down when I asked to be your squire in the King's court, I know why you turned me down when I asked to be the only one to share your bed, and I know who you're donning this armour to kill." She turned her face up again to look at the Valkyrie. "I even know why you refused again to make sure you were at least dressed right for battle." She paused briefly. "What I don't know is why after all this time, now sees you starting a war so long in the making?"
"I told you..." Tamsin began to try to answer but was suddenly cut off.
"Because she serves the Resonants!" Kenzi blurted the words out suddenly, overriding her own knowledge that they weren't supposed to tell anyone. But considering the story of Mikah's monstrosity she knew in her heart this Fae didn't have any fidelity to the Dark King anymore.
Pandora's dark blue eyes shifted from Tamsin to Kenzi and then slowly back to Tamsin.
"There are Resonants? Alive?" She took a determined step closer to the Valkyrie. "Sin!" She snapped when Tamsin didn't immediately respond. "Are there Resonants here, among us?"
"Yes." Tamsin pulled her lips tight over her teeth for a moment then breathed out. "And yes, I know they're supposed to be a fairy tale, I thought so too... until one pulled me back from Valhalla, saved my life."
"Where? Where are they? Sin, you know my father and I... we would pledge ourselves without question to their cause..." Pandora glanced down at the floor a frown pulling at her brow.
"Pandora!" Tamsin held up her hand and urged the other Fae to stop for a moment. "There is more you should know before you pledge anything." She took a slow breath. "One of them is the daughter that was stolen from Mikah himself."
"Mikah has..." Pandora backed away from Tamsin as if struck. "A daughter?" She managed to gasped the word. "A daughter who you pin your banner to... who you pledge allegiance to?" Her lip curled into a disgusted snarl.
"Hold on... her name is Bo and she only found out who her father was like a few weeks ago. She was raised by us, humans." Kenzi pointed to herself. "Hell she didn't even know she was a succubus until three years ago."
Again Pandora turned and looked at Kenzi her angry snarl turning back into a frown.
"You're human?" She blinked. "You don't read human."
"When one is attempting to tell a long and very complicated story to someone who is entering the story during the first parts of the final act, it is customary to offer them drink and a place to rest for the telling." Trick's voice suddenly called very calmly to them all from the bar as he began to pour drinks. "Pandora, daughter of Kefar I believe, welcome to the Dal Riata."
-x-
That the stairs the dragon's tooth 'key' had revealed in the crumbling ruin weren't in the greatest of shape, was the first thing that the small group of explorers quickly discovered after their ascent began. The next was that the walls that supported and surrounded them hadn't fared well though the years either, leaving large parts of the twisted stairway semi exposed to either long drops or the effects of the bitterly cold winds that had for years abused the solid rock face of the ring of Boen causing the ragged erosion that had masked them twisted almost vertical stairway from view. It was because of this that two of the much needed torches were lost early into the climb, their lights extinguished by strong gusts of lateral cross winds that simply snuffed out the strong burning wands like they were tiny candles on a cake. Heavy curses had followed from Sigba who took pride in his work and the care he took in preparing the torches in the first place.
Indeed the higher the group climbed the more exposed they became, with all vestiges of walls slowly crumbling away to just rock face, or worse, nothing, just stone slabs pivoting precarious around a central stone column, occasionally managing to adhere to a rocky out crop or a small plateau.
Lauren Lewis wasn't afraid of heights, at least she didn't think she was. Her exploits in Afghanistan and the Congo had put her in some fairly high places and some pretty precarious ones, and on occasion some pretty high precarious ones, but as she placed one foot above the other up the archaic semi-destroyed hidden staircase, she was seriously questioning her staunch resistance to a such a fear as to be honest she was scared. Scared as to where the staircase was leading, if indeed it was leading anywhere and didn't just at any moment just stop, the rest of it having crumbled away, a victim to years of buffeting by the seeming ceaseless wind. Scared that any second her foot might slip, tipping her back into Dyson, maybe catching him unaware, sending him backwards into Manlo and then Dira, creating a domino effect with potentially disastrous results. Then there was that wind, the notion that a strong enough gust might pluck one of them clean off their precarious perch. And of course at the heart of it all was her fear for Bo, of what her beloved was going through that she was unable to stop.
"Don't change your steps but I'm going to be tying some rope around you." Dyson's voice called to her through the wind suddenly, even though she could tell he was almost yelling it was pulled off by the hard gusts almost before it reached her ears.
"No..." Lauren weakly objected, glancing vaguely over her shoulder at him, regretting it instantly as the wind totally messed with the lay of her hair, blowing it into her face and temporarily blinding her.
"With all due respect Echo, it's a tether or I carry you." Dyson's hand came to the small of her back to steady her, even as her feet kept climbing on automatic.
Managing to get her hair back off her face Lauren turned it back into the wind in a position where it blew it free from her eyes, noting with a hidden smile that Sigba and Raril were already lashed together ahead of her.
"This isn't binding." She tried to make the comment light as she felt Dyson pass a cord around her waist.
"Technically it is but don't worry, we're not married or anything." The wolf gave a laugh into the wind loud enough that the strange brevity of it reached her ears.
"Haven't we done this before?" Lauren called back. "I think being here is bad for us." She angled her head down a little. "By the end of this if I call you 'brother' and call you for 'drink nights' I may just have to kill you, it won't be anything personal just..." She paused and would have flashed him a smile if it had been worth a mouth and eye full of hair. "After three years of rivalry to be like that would just be... wrong."
"We'll call it fight night instead of drink night!" Dyson continued to tease, knowing as he glanced sideways that keeping everyone calm and moving was their biggest ally right now.
"Kenzi would just be disappointed when there wasn't boxing gloves or bare knuckled cage matches." Lauren quipped in return. "Or maybe even mud wrestling considering the latest developments in her tastes."
"You and I mud wrestling? I don't know about Kenzi but I think a certain Succubus would enjoy that a little too much." Dyson gave another low laugh. "Face it Doc, the rivalry is over. How did it go in the movie Kenzi made me watch... you like me, you really like me!" He teased her.
"I don't know which of the myriad of equally terrible movies she likes that she made you watch that you are referring to but I admit nothing." Lauren flatly denied, but she was grinning out of sight.
"You know the Boys and I enjoy a good mud wrestle." Sigba called back obviously having caught snippets of the conversation from the wind. "Raril's quite the champion, he can pin like no Dwarf I've ever known."
Lauren practically choked and nearly stumbled as she tried hard to rid her minds eye of Raril in a bad bikini covered in synthetic mud straddling a similarly donned Sigba.
"Mind on your feet!" Dyson growled at her, but even the tone of it told her he had pictured something similar.
-x-
"You asked to see me." Mikah's eyebrow was quirked high as he watched Bo walk slowly into his 'office'. A 'small' room, well one of the smallest that the succubus had seen so far in the Frost mansion, that was decked out like a classic study, a little like the room Minette had taken her too only about half the size and without the heavy blinds and drapes. The large bay window in the room was without any covering of any kind. It was just left open, its view of the grand gardens left perfectly undisturbed.
The Dark King himself was seated in a dark green high backed leather chair. Dressed impeccably in a three piece charcoal grey suit, looking almost ridiculously like the epitome of a 'Victorian gentleman', down to the smart slippers on his feet and curved pipe in is hand.
"A fact and surprise that I can hardly express my pleasure at." He pointed his pipe at the floral chaise-lounge under the window. "Come, sit down, would you like something to drink?"
"Yes, please." Bo gave a small nod and moved over to perch on the chair, taking a moment while he prepared her something from the small bar cabinet to look out into the ornate gardens. "I had some questions, well..." She paused. "Some questions and a small request."
"Interesting." Mikah slowly carried the drink over and held it in his hand for a moment, standing beside Bo without offering it. "I'm not sure I am in the mood to answer questions or fulfil requests, I had a trying morning." He said, his tone flat or maybe even slightly caustic as he held the glass out.
"I would have thought you considered it a success." Bo turned her head to look at him and took the glass. "You broke a part of me." She looked back quickly into the garden.
"I publicly had to discipline my daughter in front of minions lower than dirt." Mikah's tone was positively caustic.
"And with everything of you flowing through my veins you expected me to just yield?" Bo challenged him.
"I expect you to learn, you should have already learnt that I control what happens here Eve, your welcome feast should have taught you that." Mikah snapped. "I should not have had to underline it a second time." He took a step away. "You think this morning I want to bring you in front of my Valkyrie, my handmaidens and have you humiliate me?"
"I assure you the looks on their faces didn't make me think they thought less of you, just that I didn't understand your greatness or their loyalty to you." Bo clutched the glass in her hand. "They actually looked pleased that they got to show off for me, show me what powerful warriors you command with a wave of your hand. But..." She took a visible slow breath and made herself swallow. "I learned..." She felt the words come off her tongue and had to actually stop herself from taking the glass and trying to crack it up the side of his head, Lauren's words running through her head to remind her this was a tactic, not truth. "That you do command everything, even life and death."
Mikah kept facing away from Bo for a long moment after she had stopped talking, but then slowly he turned and looked at her, his eyes seeming to burrow into hers.
"Really?" His voice was anything but convinced. "Somehow my darling Eve I doubt that, I doubt it more than I doubt that you wouldn't smash that glass against the very chair your are sitting in and use it to try and slice open my throat and kill me, if you thought it would work."
"Oh I would." Bo turned to look at him, letting the emotion play on her face before she let a sadness fill her eyes. "But I'm starting to believe there is nothing I can do to hurt you, to beat you..." She pulled her eyes quickly away. "I'm not saying I've had a dramatic change of heart... Father." She spoke the word slowly and carefully. "But I'm tired, and it hurts inside... I'm not used to all this death." She gripped her hand harder on the glass. "Which is why I didn't ask to see you to do anything to you, to try anything clever or daring." She finally looked up at him again. "I wanted to ask, please, if you might allow the one in the cage in my room to be cleaned up. I can't think to... not with her smelling like she does, of death."
Mikah seemed to hesitate for a moment, keeping his eyes on Bo before looking away to, as the succubus had done, look out of the window.
"Your mother likes them clean." He said as if he found the link or similarity interesting.
"The sway makes the illusion for them complete, but for us the senses can ruin the experience." Bo willed herself to continue playing along, some of the words and terms she knew she must slip and use something normally she wouldn't allow to come out of her mouth.
"I will allow it." Mikah nodded. "Do you have a preference? Your mother likes the water to be scented with lavender or rose. What about you? Does that little blonde you like have a scent?"
"Coconut..." Bo let herself seem to be in thought, even though she knew in fact she hated coconut. "She uses a body wash that smells like coconut."
"Then coconut it shall be." Mikah nodded. "You know for a while when getting my most loyal metal smiths to create your pet cage I had trouble envisioning exactly who to create it for..." He glanced at Bo again as he moved to the window and eased up to perch on the slightly protruding window ledge near the bottom of the chaise-lounge. "I could have fashioned and then gilded in gold to set off that beautiful raven hair of your little pet, or I could have gone for platinum for your blonde... it was such a hard choice." He glanced again out of the window. "Now you've seen the thing, ahead of schedule I will add, you know which I chose, but I will again stress it was a hard choice." He looked at Bo and chuckled. "To be completely honest I thought the pet would last longer, less chance of you eating her."
"You guessed right, I have a rule with myself that I don't taste her." Bo just couldn't bring herself to say 'pet'. "I've never seen anything like it, the cage." She made the honest admission.
"Oh my darling Eve, I can honestly say there is no memory in my head that does not have a cage like that inside it somewhere." Mikah replied mysteriously. "They are handy little things." He went on. "If you're a good girl I might even give you the key." He smiled. "And depending on how well you do with this little charge, I maybe inclined to hurrying along to a later stage of your 'development' than I had planned. To show you that I can be reasonable and lenient." He pushed off the window sill.
"I think in time I'll see everything that you can be." Bo made the somewhat honest statement. "Which is why I had questions." She turned to follow his movement. "Trick has told me some things but..."
"YOU DO NOT..." Mikah spun on his heel. "Speak the name of that venomous gnome in this house, do you understand me Eve?"
"Yes." Bo sat back in response to the unexpected outburst. "I just... I wanted to hear the..."
"There is no just. There is no but." Mikah walked closer. "Never, not even under your breath. You do not." He snarled at her.
"I understand, I won't speak it again." Bo nodded letting a little of the fear she felt be visible. "I wanted to hear about the past from you." She clarified what she had been going to ask.
"The past is over, it is gone. It made me who I am, who you are. That is all. It is the future we need to think about, to focus on." Mikah shook his head. "The lies you have been taught, the stories you know are the history that you have, it matters little what I say or tell you. Your head and heart have already woven their patterns..."
"He can be a liar, and selfish, he didn't even tell me who he was until I'd known him for two years." Bo showed the honest side of her questions about Trick. "He almost let the light destroy me."
"Your grandfather is the man I made a king and he repaid me by tricking me and by taking from me that which was rightfully mine."
"Me." Bo put forward what she knew she should understand about the situation.
Mikah looked at Bo for a moment his eyes seeming to almost shine slightly.
"You and so much more..." The Dark King shook his head. "I never asked for this..." The older Fae panned his hand around the old room they stood in. "All of this death, this darkness. But he, he took so much from me. Even this, this room, this house, this land belonged to one of my most beloved..." He stopped. "Something else he took from me too. We are creations of circumstance you and I Eve. Puppets in a King's court. I cut my own strings, all I seek to do now is sever yours." He came back to the chaise-lounge and actually knelt down on the thick carpet by it. "I want to free you from those fears that are inside of you Eve. The ones that people who had no right to mess with the daughter of a King put there."
"I've never thought of myself as a Princess." Bo gave a soft quirk of her eyebrow. "But I am one, aren't I?"
"You are." Mikah pushed up again and moved away. "You are many things." He added. "Like I said before." He moved back to his high backed chair. "And if you truly want a history lesson or two then I will indulge you some time." He sat down. "But not today." He shook his head as he crossed his legs and adjusted his pants to lie smoothly. "I have a lot of business to deal with today."
"Of course." Bo stood up and moved to put the glass back on the bar. "Would it be okay if I go and spend some time with Minette?"
"No." Mikah shook his head not even pausing for thought in his answer. "As a little of my work load of the day is down to you, I think a fitting punishment would be for you to put it right." The Dark King looked up at the brunette, his features unreadable. "I had to slaughter my entire hall guard this morning, over twelve good, highly trained and trusted Fae to ensure word of your..." He paused. "Weakness stays within these walls. I want you to chose their replacements." He leaned back into the leather behind his back. "Go back to your room and I will have the files delivered to you."
Bo had been very worried as to what he was going to suggest as her 'punishment' but when it came down to looking over some files and picking some equally sick Fae to replace the ones her father had slaughtered, she started to feel lucky.
-x-
It was fair to say that she didn't have any real idea as to what exactly awaited them at the top of the seemingly endless stone stairwell but as Lauren tipped her head up a little to look at more than the step directly in front of her, her breath literally caught in her throat and her footstep stalled. Built into and on top of the rock pinnacles where the spiral stairs ended was an large flatten expanse of stone, almost like a deck or a balcony. Slabs of carefully flattened and patched obsidian created a perfectly even surface that stretched between and over minor undulations in the mountain tops. The natural ragged tops had been left at the edges to keep the visage even to once again hide the whole area from any casual view, even with the aid of magnified vision.
The wind blew across the odd plateau in gusts that though were strong, lacked the savagery of the ones that had buffeted the ancient staircase, but in the dark of night it did nothing to add a sense of security to the place, indeed it rather made you feel that at any time you could be just blown off the strangely smooth surface and tossed down into the basin below or dashed into the rocky ring of the Boen.
Lauren recovered from her initial surprise and pressed up the last few steps out onto the platform, holding her lit torch up, squinting into the darkness that surrounded her now, her torch flame being tossed around by the battling winds. Dyson matched her movements perfectly, only partially because of the tether around them.
"What manner of things is this?" Sigba grumbled as he began a slow trudge around the large perimeter.
Lauren watch him for a second before turning back to look at Dyson for a moment, only to look away again when Raril began to walk out the perimeter going the opposite way to Sigba so they would cover the distance in half of the time. To be honest the blonde didn't know where they got the energy or strength from. She was exhausted by the long climb and the constant fight from the strong winds and the lower concentration of oxygen that they had begun to encounter at the higher altitudes.
"Maybe it's part of a battlement." It was Manlo's voice who offered the opinion as the Dwarf moved from behind Lauren to begin looking for somewhere to tether a torch to.
"We've seen no other signs that the settlement here had any kind of defences." Lauren shook her head, a soft frown creasing her brow at the idea. "And to have the entrance to it hidden..."
"Makes no sense." Sigba agreed with a grunt as he kept pacing around the very edge.
"Place of sacrifice?" The offer came from Dyson. "You said the altar in the Temple definitely wasn't used for that, maybe here was?" He gave a shrug and handed his extinguished torch to Lobi who had already re-lit the other.
"Possibly." Lauren took a few tentative steps towards the inner edge of the platform, squinting more as she looked out. There was no doubting that in the daylight the vantage point they were at would give a view of everywhere. The whole of the basin could easily be mapped and seen from here. She turned, the frown still deep on her face as she looked around the now rather well lit and very empty flat stage like area. "But there's nothing here." She stepped back towards the centre. "Literally nothing." She continued. "No pillars, no posts, no tether points..." She looked at Dyson hoping he was catching on to her meaning.
"Nothing to restrain the sacrifice." He caught on immediately.
"Exactly. Any animal, I'm not even suggestion one with an idea of sentience, when faced with being eaten to death say by a large dragon, and just running for it, even if that means off a cliff, if they can will choose run. Fight or flight." She took a breath. "Unless it were tied down, all sacrifices have a tendency to run." She lowered her torch a little and panned it around. "And there's not even traces of something having been here." She walked a little bolder around a larger area. "Nothing broken off, or eroded down."
"Echo!" The call came from Raril making everyone turn immediately towards the Dwarven leader.
The Dwarf had made his way around the inner edge of the platform and was quite a way forward in a still dark part of the inner edge. Lobi immediately hurried forward towards his location with a small torch to provide more light, as Lauren and Dyson followed.
It soon became obvious why Raril had called them over as where as else where the natural edges of the rocks and cliffs had been left intact as a cover for the platform, where the Dwarf was illuminating, they had been hew down, flatten creating literally a metre wide flat drop off point into the basin below, the sides of which were marked by short stone obelisks, no taller than half a metre. It looked a little like an odd marked gateway, but one that literally led nowhere, other than to a plummeting death into the basin below.
"Just in case it was making sense." Dyson smiled and arched his eyebrow at the blonde, who rolled her eyes back in frustration.
-x-
Bo turned from where she was sat at the large oak desk in her more than an palatial room, to the door as it opened unable to stop the vague smile that crept onto her lip as Victoria slipped through into the room, wrapped in a very fluffy deep green bath robe, her wet hair trailing over the dark material. When the Succubus had returned to her room, the human had been gone from the cage and for a moment she had been worried even though her father had made promises, so the smile was more from relief than anything.
"Hi." Bo said gently, trying to remind herself that even with the small comfort of being able to clean up it was unlikely that the woman held anything but hatred towards her.
"I don't understand you." Victoria pushed her hands into the deep pockets of the robe as she moved further into the room, her tone was cold as her eyes came up to look at Bo. "All of your bullshit earlier and now this." She shook her head as she pulled her hands out of the pockets and in a fast and simple move she unfastened the simple knot in the tie at her waist and shrugged the robe off her shoulders leaving her naked in front of Bo. "Clean enough for you?" She said caustically.
The succubus turned her head a little as if she'd been slapped, the emotion of the angry retort enough to override any 'stimulation' she might feel from the naked woman's body.
"Please..." Bo finally made herself stand up and moved behind Victoria, picking up the robe and moving to put it over her shoulders again. "I did this for you, not me." She whispered when she was close to the other brunette's ear, unsure that there was monitoring equipment in this room as there had been in the other 'cell'.
"For me?" Confusion filled the young woman's face as she moved to push her arms back into the thick robe. "I don't..." She shook her head but stopped speaking and wrapped the tie back around her slim waist. "Thank you." She let her own voice drop to the whisper that Bo's had been.
"You're welcome." Bo gave a soft smile. "There's fruit and lemonade if you're hungry." She pointed to the coffee table in the small area that was filled with trays of options, clearly provided for the Succubus as she undertook the challenge of picking the new guards. Her father was a myriad of contradictions it seemed, but Bo was far beyond trying to out think things like the danger level of a fruit tray.
"Are you really doing paperwork?" Victoria actually smiled as she stepped a little closer to the trays and looked over to the large desk that was filled with the files that Bo was looking through. "Princesses have to do paperwork?"
"As punishment yes." Bo gave a nod and moved to sit on one of the chairs that matched the deep green of the couch perfectly. "For my show of defiance earlier."
"Why did you do that?" Victoria looked up from the table into brown eyes. "Even if you aren't like him, were raised as you said by humans..." She went on shaking her head slightly. "The Lord is..." She paused again. "What you did was stupid." She summed up with a snort. "I mean what I did was more so but I have nothing to lose I'm a dead woman walking, but you... you have everything to lose." She shook her head again. "I don't understand."
"The thing I'm most afraid of losing is myself." Bo looked at her with an honest expression. "When I chose to become unaligned, when I rejected being Light or Dark Fae, it was because I chose your side, Team Human my best friend calls it." She smiled as she thought fondly of Kenzi. "I knew I probably couldn't stop what was happening, but I couldn't just let it happen, I had to stand up, stand with you and tell him he was wrong."
"You need to understand, we're not human, we're food." Victoria looked at Bo as she spoke, shaking her head gently. "Any human you see in this house... you can't fight for us." She frowned softly and let out a soft breath. "So what is your punishment?" She changed the subject and looked back up towards the desk.
"I have to pick who will be his new guard." Bo glanced over at the desk and frowned. "It wasn't just humans who died because of what I did this morning."
"Eve!" Suddenly Minette's bright voice broke the soft exchange of near whispers as the bedroom door swung open and the young Siren breezed through the door. "Father finally let me come..." The young Fae's voice petered out and her eyes widened as they came to rest on Victoria. "Is this your pet? Did Father bring your pet already?"
"Minette..." Bo couldn't help but smile at the exuberant entrance. "No, this is Victoria." She cringed inside at the word 'pet'. "Who I think probably wants to use the private bathroom to finish freshening up." She looked at the human who had stalled still with a piece of kiwi in her hand. "We'll find you some fresh clothes when you're ready."
"Oh is she from the farms?" Minette smiled brightly at them both and then resumed her confident stride over to Bo's large bed climbing onto it and flopping down on it.
"Yes Lady Minette." Victoria bowed her head deeply. "Mistress." She bowed to Bo before retreating to the restroom.
As soon as Victoria had slipped out the young Siren sat up and beamed at the Succubus.
"She was pretty." She enthused. "Is she your new friend?" She asked with a grin.
"Yes, I hope so." Bo reached and picked up a chocolate coated strawberry. "So what did Father have you doing that kept you so busy?"
"Oh he said you were busy." Minette scrunched her nose up. "But I made a promise not to interrupt you if you were."
"Well I do have to go through all of those files." Bo pointed to the desk, it clear that her Father was as likely to tell lies to Minette as he was to her.
"Can I help? What are you doing with the files? Are you sorting, I'm good at sorting." Minette scooted to the edge of the bed and sat up peering towards the desk.
"Unfortunately no, I have to decide who out of a group of candidates would be good additions to his guard." Bo shook her head softly, and took another piece of fruit randomly.
"Promotions." Minette's smile was bright as she dropped off the bed and hurried over to the desk. "Pick the pretty ones then we get to look at them all day, we don't have to stare at the weird looking ones." She rummaged through a few and selected one, holding it up and making an 'ick' face at the green haired rather lopsided fang faced photograph on the corner of the paper.
"I take it you've done this sort of thing before then." Bo got up and moved over to the desk, taking the file from Minette and skimming over the information that came with the picture. "He seems very qualified though."
"Well yeah but that's because he's like a shade away from underfae." The young siren argued. "The only reason he qualified at all was because he filled in the questionnaire and didn't eat it." The young Fae's eyes sparkled.
"Really? I thought Father would have had a better system than that." Bo gave a bright laugh. "So you'd say yes or no?" She held up another file that held a picture of a very feminine looking man with light hair and blue eyes.
"Oh yes." Minette didn't pause before answering, wiggling her fingers for the paperwork on the newest candidate. "What is he? I bet he's a nymph..." She paused for a second. "No maybe a Dryad or a wisp."
"A wisp." Bo read the information. "You're good at this." She smiled at Minette. "Why don't we take these over to the couch and make two piles, qualified cause they're pretty and qualified because they're qualified?" She gave a soft laugh and began to pile up some of the files.
"Oh can we make a third pile, I usually do, when I can." Minette frowned for a brief second and almost checked over her shoulder but the motion was quite obvious and her voice quieter than her usual brash jubilant one.
"Why a third one?" Bo settled down on the couch with her pile.
"Well..." The young Siren crossed over to the couch slowly, her face creased in a conflicted frown. "I know this is wrong of me, and Father tells me that I need to grow out of it and I will but..." She blinked her large eyes at Bo. "Some of them are fathers, to the children in the farms, the ones I play with..." Minette looked down quickly. "I... I put those aside."
"Why would that matter? Don't they get to still be fathers when they're not working?" Bo asked the question softly, a look of confusion on her face. Both because she couldn't understand why exactly having 'children' would matter, but on top of that she was a little baffled that her Father let any Fae 'consort' with the 'food'. Her mind tried to push out the idea that on top of everything else he let his guards use the 'Farms' as free grounds to get out their sexual frustrations on helpless women, though her logical side argued back that it seemed exactly the kind of thing the heartless soul eater would do.
Minette's features crumpled into a look of complete confusion at Bo's question.
"All of Father's Guard's are Soul Bound to him Eve." She shook her head at her sister frowning. "They remember nothing from before the binding but their training, they know nothing but to serve." She explained. "They leave the lives they had and join us here at the house, well at the hall."
Though she heard what the younger Fae was saying, Bo's brain had stalled on two simple facts. The first was that her Father had slaughtered the original guard for witnessing her transgression even though there was no chance any of them would 'gossip' about her defiance to anyone and secondly that she was filtering through files to pick out candidates who would literally become brainwashed thugs for the Dark King. Their lives, loves, fears and memories striped from them so that only an automaton would remain to serve her Father. Their bonding to him somehow occurring on a level so deep that Minette had used the word 'soul'. All together the reality crushed down on top of her and made her feel suddenly sick to her stomach, the acidic juices of the fruit she'd just eating seeming to burn deep inside her. Soul binding, murder, rape, orphaned children, farming humans for food; all the sins of her Father were becoming too much to bare emotionally or mentally.
"Then we have to have a third pile." Bo nodded running her hand over the cover of the top file in the pile on her lap.
-x-
"Well anyone else really not expecting that?" Kenzi let out a soft breath as she eased the door to the guest room in Trick's private quarters closed and walked over to where Eliyana was already sitting on the double bed.
The young Geist had suggested they give Pandora and Tamsin a little space after Trick had summed up years of history both recent and ancient, in what had seemed like the longest recap in the world. His lengthy words had seen the blonde Valkyrie down more expensive whiskey than Kenzi had ever seen, which considering how drunk she had seen her, was a lot, and had seen Pandora just sit neutral faced, listening as revelation after revelation was laid upon her. Only once did she reach for the crystal glass Trick had placed in front of her, and even then all she did was swirl the melting ice cubes in it around in a slow circle before settling it back on the small mat she had taken it from.
"Can't say I was." Eli said honestly as she tucked her hand behind her head and watched as Kenzi sat on the edge of the mattress near her feet. "That having been said, it looks like we're one up."
"One what though?" Kenzi asked putting one hand up in a questioning gesture. "I mean can she fight or is she just able to touch the shiny armour? Because that doesn't really give us a lot."
Eliyana smiled brightly as she looked at Kenzi with soft light brown eyes.
"Well at best guess, from her eyes, features and just little cues I'd say she was an Ellefolk." The Geist arched her eyebrows in a quick move. "Which means that feasibly yes, she can fight."
"The one sad plus is she has enough hatred for Mikah to make her a good ally." Kenzi leaned to put her head in Eli's lap looking up at her lover. "Those things she said he did..." She gave a visible shiver.
"My worry about that is that like me is it all too personal." The young Fae was honest as she left a soft sigh escape her lips.
"Bo always says to make it personal, that way you fight with everything you are." Kenzi reached and took Eli's left hand, holding it to her body between her breasts. "Almost every one of us has a direct personal reason to hate Mikah; you, Tamsin, this Pandora. He has Bo so for Lauren and Dyson it's game on too, Lauren especially now."
"And what about you?" Eli looked down at Kenzi.
"I have a whole list." Kenzi said honestly. "He's kidnapped my best friend, tried to frame me for murder..." She brought Eli's hand up to rest under her chin. "And he hurt you, your mother, your father, your brothers and sisters... I want to make sure he knows that Clan Frost is a big part of him getting his ugly ass killed."
"Clan Frost." Eliyana smiled repeating Kenzi's words as she looked from blue eyes to across the room her smile dissipating as she did. "Kenzi..." She said her voice lowering as she did. "If there are..." She began but stalled again. "If he has other Frosts..." She took a breath. "I want to try to save them." She made the statement before looking down again at her lover. "I've been thinking about what you said. About a lot of things..." She licked her lips and pushed her free hand up through her hair.
"Of course we're going to try to save them." Kenzi pushed up and moved her body to be kneeling in front of the Geist. "If he's brainwashed them or just screwed them up, we're going to try to fix it. That's how Team Unaligned works, we don't punish the innocent just for being caught up in something they couldn't control."
"So you're ready to be a parent with me? Wow that went smoother than I thought it would." Eli's lip curled into a smile.
"Whoa, I guess I wasn't exactly thinking..." Kenzi's look became a lot less confident.
"Easy..." Eli eased her hand out of Kenzi's grip and rested it on the brunette's shoulder. "I wasn't serious." She shook her head. "There's a lot of more important realities to face before thinking about possibilities like that." She refocused them both.
"There is but for the record, we'll take care of them, we take care of family besides..." Kenzi's smile returned. "The Resonants would probably love some babies." She winked.
"Oh they can make their own." Eli winked back.
-x-
Lauren paced back and forth beside the perilous drop that was the only distinguishing feature of the obsidian platform the group had arrived on after their long walk up from the Dragon temple before.
"We're missing something." She grumbled to herself for the hundredth time, her Dwarven companions had taken cover behind the tallest rocks at the side in an attempt to keep out of the buffering wind. As had Dyson though he was sat nearby close to her, refusing to unto the tether between them with the looming drop. "But what?" She stopped and crouched down to get a moments relief from the worst of the winds.
"A wind breaker?" Dyson offered with a half smile as he turned squinting slightly as he looked sky, his eyes adjusting to the lightening sky. "A hot air balloon?" He gave another ridiculous suggestion. "Airborne cab service? Jet packs?"
"At this point I'd take something as pedestrian as a bridge." Lauren gave him a lopsided smile, his comments no matter how ridiculous breaking her intense concentration that was going no where.
"Well..." He pushed out of the shelter and crossed towards her. "Maybe there was a bridge here once." He squinted more and leaned forward slightly. "See..." He pointed straight across the basin. "We're right across from the Roost." He nodded. "More or less opposite it, if the bridge were just wood and rope..." He turned back and patted one of the two short obelisks. "Fastened here..." He nodded back across the vast expanse. "They would have rotted out, maybe decades ago."
"Begging your pardon Cub." It was Lobi who had made his way over to the pair, holding out a rag wrapped piece of jerky to first the Echo, who refused and then the wolf himself. "We Dwarves don't tend to make things we will need for years to come out of things that will not last for those years. If the people who inhabited the houses below actually wanted to get back and forth to the temple, the bridge would have been made from the same obsidian as this plateau. No amount of wind would harm such a creation."
"There goes the bridge theory." Dyson tore off a hunk of jerky and chewed it then pointed the rest of it towards the Perch. "How about a landing pad?" He offered. "Stick a few all be it very tiny torches in these slots..." He dug his fingers into barely visible slots on the front of each pedestal. "As markers for a near sighted dragon to land." He shrugged.
Lauren until that point had tried to stay a healthy distance back from the drop off edge, but at Dyson's mention of 'tiny torch holes' she had instantly moved forward, trying to put her body as close to the pillar as she could without getting too close to the edge.
"Lobi do you have something malleable? Soft bread?" Lauren leaned down peering into the small holes, which thanks to the wind was filled with small grains of sand and rock. She took Bo's dagger out of its sheath and tried to use it to clear out the debris but the hole was too small to dig out more than a small distance inside.
With a quick nod Lobi unfastened the pouch at his waist and soon came up with a spongy like scone which he held out to Lauren.
"Echo?" He asked confused by her request.
"If I can clear out the debris." Lauren reached out to Dyson who was still close by, using the skin full of water he had attached to his sword belt to clear out more of the small stones with a splash. "I can get an impression of what the hole is like, I think it curls a bit." She worked diligently to stuff a portion of the scone into the cleared space, it taking a few attempts to actually pull back out a 'cast' of the indent. "While tiny torch didn't really make sense, I don't think this was used to hold anything." She held up the small tapered and curled shape.
Dyson frowned for a moment and then moved even closer to the pedestal he was closest to, taking the water skin back off Lauren with him as he did so. Splashing the contents of it over the stone the shifter worked his hands around the entire top and side's of the object, his fingers carefully tracing over the weathered stone. A smile coming to his face for a moment as he moved his hand back slightly over an area again and again.
"Watch the Cub, I think he's gone mad from the height." Raril called seeing the odd expression on Dyson's face which had made him come over too investigate.
"They're perches." Dyson stepped back shaking his head. "There's a hole in the back too." He looked at Lauren. "Look at it." He pointed to the shape of the mould in her hand. "It's a claw."
"A claw..." Lauren's eyebrows furrowed for a moment in puzzled contemplation as he talked and then with a certain amount of clumsy quickness she pulled out the leather thong around her neck and fished the Ryialmurk talon out from within her armour. "A claw like this one." She held the two up together, showing everyone who by now had come to investigate. Without another moment of hesitation, she slipped the necklace off and pushed the claw into the hole she had just cleared finding it fit perfectly. "I need to borrow everyone's claws."
In just seconds Lauren had her hands full of the trophys that just days ago Raril had handed out amongst them and passing some along to Dyson she began slotting the slender claws into the slots carved into stone. No more than a millisecond after the last claw was fitted into place a strong hard breeze, that in no way felt natural, coming not from above, or even the side, but from almost below and across, thrust up from between the two short pillars, and with it a billow of rock dust and then a loud solid 'cluck' as literally it seemed out of no where a block of obsidian a metre square but just a few inches in depth seemed to lock itself onto the what had been the plummeting edge of doom.
Then a heartbeat later another similar sized block adhered itself to the end of that one. Gathering around the edge the small group watched in amazement as block after block grafted onto the end of the line creating a black span across the divide. The last block coming to connect to the plateau Dyson had seen on the other side of the basin at the front of the Roost.
"That's impossible." Lauren said taking a breath.
"It's not more impossible then the fact these Dwarves must have kept Ryialmurks as trained pets." Sigba made the gruff observation.
"He's got a point." Dyson looked from the appearing bridge to Sigba and then to Lauren and gave a soft shrug. "Are you ready?" He asked of her turning again to look towards the very looming destination of Erindal's Roost across the Basin's rim.
"For anything." Lauren nodded. "Anything that will save Bo."
-x-
