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Chapter 39

The sharp slamming of doors against their frame was not how Narcissa had anticipated waking. At first, she groggily mused if the noise was simply a one-off occurrence, and she would be able to sink back into the comforting arms of sleep once again. It wasn't until the subsequent slam of another door –or was it something larger? –That drove her so far from her nightly repose that she could no longer simply ignore it.

She was circumspect to confess it, but the House of Gresham had proved quite soothing at nights, what with a light wind at night to create subtle humming sounds through the boughs of the coniferous trees, and the intensity of the dark night. Her weeks here had been restful at night, she found, despite that it was a strange setting for her and not her true home. This sudden and drastic change from that mollifying environment was a bit jarring so early in the morning.

To add to the commotion, voices had picked up as they ran back and forth through corridors, footsteps pattering all about in disruptive and ill-begotten noise. The Lady sighed and stretched as she began to open her eyes and work on unfolding her person from the warmth of her bed.

It didn't take long for her to attend to her morning toilette activity. Feeling refreshed and donning a clean dress from her armoire, she opened the door to take appraisal of the bustle in the hallways of the House.

Anticipating a brouhaha to be taking place in the hallways, she was surprised to find that following the disturbance from sleep, the corridors were entirely empty. Closing her door behind her she walked out in search of those responsible for the earlier clamor only to find that she seemed to be the only person present. And save for an overturned chair, which she herself turned to rights, there was no evidence of any person.

Descending the stairs downward, it was at this point that she again hear a disquiet of many voices, all speaking at once. Some over the others, and some without cease. As she neared the smaller of the two Halls –the one she was the private dining Hall for the family Gresham, the voices became clearer.

"-The fresher dried stores. I want each of them separately to have their own wrapping, and equal portions." A brief pause with a murmured response to the request. "A valid point. Perhaps more meat, then, for the boys that for Hermione." The voice was feminine, and of the familiar tenor of Ursa Gresham. "But do not short her. Female, she may be, she will still need the nourishment." She insisted finally.

Narcissa rounded the doors to the Hall to find the Lady Gresham bidding several domestics on their way, their arms heavy with bundles. Her dark hair pulled back haphazardly –an uncharacteristic display, given how poised the woman seemed to maintain herself. Her dress was of a dark bronze that grew mossy where the shadows struck it. Her brow creased with a thoughtful frown as she absentmindedly counted on her fingers, even though she continued to wring her hands.

The motion caught her attention, and Ursa Gresham caught sight of her House's guest, and her eyes alight excitedly. Her hands reaching out towards Narcissa impetuously as she approached her, taking up the fellow Lady's hands with her own.

"Oh! I am so thankful you have woken!" She said with her nervous excitement. Narcissa nodded hesitantly.

"Indeed, it seems that the House staff conspired this morning to see me awake before my time." She mentioned icily. Ursa seemed not to read into it all that much, however.

"My Lord Husband had them up as soon as Tyt'o and Hermione woke us. 'Round about an hour before the dawn." She squeezed Narcissa's hand as she spoke and Narcissa bit back the desire to pull her hands away, back towards the safety of her person. She could feel the corner of her lip begin to rise in a bit of a sneer at the unwelcomed, unendorsed contact. Lady Ursa, it seemed, was completely oblivious to her discomfort it seemed.

The Lady's bronze eyes, a color Narcissa herself had initially thought to be plain and common, she noticed were layered with subtle threads of gold. The same tone as the precious metal, to be certain, if Narcissa's ancestral heirlooms were anything to compare it by. They shone brighter than Narcissa had seen them before.

Breathless almost, Ursa smiled gently and squeezed her fellow Lady's hands in a comforting gesture. "It is time." She confessed. "The children have been Called."

Narcissa heard the words, but for the briefest of moments the meaning didn't sink in. Realization must have crept slowly across her face because Ursa responded in kind by deepening the connection between their hands, though the fellow Lady had forgotten her own objection now.

"Truly." She breathed in a statement, and not a question. Ursa nodded solemnly.

"Indeed truly." She agreed and nodded her head towards the exterior hallway. "The Staff have been preparing provisions for hours for the four." Ursa maintained the hold with one hand, leading Narcissa out from the empty Hall and into the corridor outside. "My Loren attends them in the lee of the Keep as Horses are saddled for them." Ursa's decorum as a Lady had slipped in her excitement, speaking of her husband in the affectionate term, rather than by his title, left Narcissa uncomfortable to a degree having had seriously limited interaction with the Lord as a Lady wife of another House. Not to mention a House with which they were not affectionately aligned.

As Ursa hurried Narcissa alongside her, she began to feel a ball of unease fill her belly. What was it she should have expected? She wondered quietly as she passively allowed Ursa to continue to lead the two along. This was, after all, the endgame of bringing her son here, wasn't it? Uncharacteristically she found herself begin to toy with her lower lip between her teeth as her nervousness grew. It was time now, but what did that really mean? The Lady attempted to regain her composure with a sure voice, and spoke finally. "What is it that they must do now?"

Ursa didn't break pace as she spoke, nor did she release Narcissa's hand.

"Now they must go in search of the nest." She explained, and the rest of Narcissa's patience melted away. She scowled thoughtfully as she considered.

"Isn't the nest plotted?" Ursa shook her head in the negative.

"Nay. The Dragons build the nest when they retreat to roost. High into the highest part of the mountains they can go to find a desirable place, but there is no point in asking where they will go. No Dragon Sire would deign to speak of it." She smiled gently, so as to reassure her. "Dragon Sires are fiercely protective of their mates, and of their clutches. Once the female has settled and the eggs are lain the Sire might return to speak of the success. But that is all he will do. Beyond that, it is at risk of death that a man go in search of a nest before the Sires are ready to receive him."

The Lady Malfoy shook her head. "That seems odd to be so private when the Dragons are supposed to be so inclusive. Your family has rode them for generations; why don't they just nest here?"

Ursa nodded considerately. It was a fair question, after all. "I must confess," she said with unexpected shyness, "that in all my years as the Lady of the House, this is my first hatching. Everything I know, I know because of the tales Loren told me." She smiled sweetly as the pair had finally spied the group of four pupils, and her husband at the very end of the cavernous entry they approached. Ursa dropper her voice lower to keep her words private. "When we were first courted, I was so fascinated by their presence, and Loren was only too eager to tell me tales of Dragon lore." She chuckled. "I believe he thought it would help his suit all the more." Narcissa couldn't help herself.

"Did it, then?" Her tone was tinged with bitterness. It was no hidden fact that Ursa and Loren were besotted with the other, still after so many years of matrimony. Though she had heard whispers in her time there that things had not always remained so harmonious, she always noted the lingering glances, and when the Lord murmured into his wife's ear, bringing to her face a dazzling smile. She could compare nothing of her own experiences as a married Lady to such a display.

Not really hearing the soured tone as Ursa had only eyes now for the sight of her children, and her husband, she nodded offhandedly. "I suppose it may have." She said whimsically. Narcissa had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. A lady did not succumb to such debased gestures, and she maintained her composure.

"The staff arrange the horses now to bear the children as far into the mountains as they dare to take them." She continued. "It will save them energy until they can go no further. They'll take their provisions and continue on foot until they find the nest." Ursa gave a nod of her chin towards her Lord. "Loren is imparting his own wisdom to them for their arrival."

The two women had finally joined up with the motley group. Their appearances were rough; clearly woken at a start and prodded into dressing. Tyto's normal silky hair was ruffled as he combed his hands though the tresses that had grown past his shoulders, pulling it back behind him. As the four listened to Loren attentively, Hermione took over for him pulling it into a queue at the nape of his neck, removing a leather strap from her mouth as she focused her eyes on her father, wrapping his hair at the same time. When it was contained the pair switched their places and her performed the same favor to her as well.

From behind, Theo and Draco listened with rapt attention, their arms crossed over their chests defensively. Theo nibbled a thumb distractedly as he listened as well, while her own son stood as still as stone, his eyes glancing to her only once to acknowledge she had arrived.

Loren Gresham concluded himself with a smile to the four, and he reached first to Hermione and Tyt'o, cupping each of their jaws affectionately with one of his hands to each of his children. The skin at the corner of his dark eyes crinkled with his gesture and he looked at them each in turn before bringing them into his embrace; one wrapped in each of his strong arms like they were still the little children he wanted them to remain.

"You have made me so proud." He spoke softly. "Be not afraid. This path for your journey is in your blood. When the time comes, you will know what to say, and what to do." He released them, blinking back tears in his brown eyes. "Keep each other safe."

The siblings nodded solemnly as Tyt'o returned his affection with a perfunctory light slap to his father's shoulder. In their closeness, Loren felt himself taken aback at how, suddenly, his own son now stood taller than he did. How he had become a man while Loren had been busy attending to things he'd thought were important. How the babyish appearance of his son's face had all but melted away to reveal a handsome youth who burgeoned into that of a young man. He touched his son's cheek one final time before Tyt'o stepped back, and Loren looked to his daughter.

Her eyes shone with excitement, and anticipation. The color so familiar and completely identical to her brother, and he sighed before he took her cheeks in both of his palms and lay upon her brow a tender kiss. As she smiled he found himself fighting a growing constriction within his throat that threatened to open the flood of tears from his eyes, for she too had blossomed, it seemed, into a woman before he was ready for her to.

Nevertheless, there they were; his two precious children, at the final precipice of their adulthood. And here he stood at that moment to give them one last gentle push into the beyond at the onset of their greatest odyssey.

Stepping away, he closed in on the two wards he had accepted, most begrudgingly, into his Home, and into the private lives of his cherished family. For despite his misgivings and the various fallouts he had still yet to overcome, they too had become fond to him.

His gaze steady and serious, he offered a hand first to Theo, who took it without hesitation. Though he felt surprised at the gesture the Lord offered him, and looked unexpectedly to Ursa for permission as he did. What he saw then caused his heart to skitter in a way he could not identify, for her beautiful bronze eyes shone with tears that had welled up there. Her hands gripped in front of her face as the pride she felt for all of them simply could no longer be contained.

He smiled then. First to Ursa, and then to Loren, who returned the gesture with a praising expression. It had not escaped him how his wife had taken the young man beneath her wing. How he saw her care of him evident in the conversations they had. In years past, he might have misinterpreted the gestures she offered, perhaps assumed it to be of an impertinent nature, or an impropriety. But the way Theo smiled to his wife had never been laced with lust or with a love he felt should have been suspect. The young man had never known a mother to call his own, and being immersed in a motherly affection had given him encouragement for his a part of his personality to surface where before he had been so hesitant and doubtful.

It was then to Draco he turned, his hand extended in an overture never presented before and the young man squared his shoulders as he accepted it and thus completed their goodbyes. Ursa had finally released Narcissa's hand at some point during the display and as the Lady Gresham inserted herself into the small group to bid her own goodbyes, Draco turned to face his mother.

He smiled softly to her, almost shy to express himself while under scrutiny from his companions and the Lord and Lady. She extended her hand to him to break the hesitation that had built between the pair and she squeezed him encouragingly. She smiled genuinely at him.

"You have done so well." She whispered and he returned her smile. There was so much she wanted to say to him; truly there had been almost no time that they had been able to spend with the other exclusively with the rigors of training and practice since his mother had arrived. And while she did not begrudge any of it, for in all truth as she witnessed herself it had been hard work indeed that he toiled through. Thought now as she faced him at the onset of his journey into the wilds of the mountains, she felt herself begin to panic.

Seeing the rise in her emotional state, Draco took a small step forward to close the gap between them and drop his voice low. "I will be safe, mother." He promised. "For all the things we thought they would be-" He glanced back to the four Gresham's who huddled together with Theo included, all speaking quietly. "They have prepared me most meticulously." He took her other hand as well and squeezed them in his own, his eyes meeting hers. "We will all keep each other safe on the journey."

While Narcissa stared at the face of the child she had undoubtedly given birth to, as he stood now as a man, she realized that the last vestiges of his spoiled and petulant youthful attitude had all been stripped away to reveal in its place a man of conviction and loyalty. A man she found herself unconfident that she knew fully, but that one who seemed eager to make her proud, and do what was right. And for that she was still thankful. She cupped his cheek delicately with her hand and conceded a final smile.

"Such a surprise you are, my dearest one." She whispered, and reached up to kiss his cheek. "I know you will succeed."

He gave her hands one final squeeze as the families grooms had brought up four large and sturdy horses. Each were adorned with packs which attached to their saddled, filled to their brims. And each a blanket cover about their bodies that lay beneath the saddle. A flap extended over the top of each leg that was loosely tied towards the inside. Each animal seemed to sense the eagerness of their rider, for each of them made their own little noises in anticipation of being brought out from the barn for use once again. These cold winter months had proved more sporadic when it came to horseback riding, and the mounts had gotten a bit restless in that time.

Each of the four mounted easily, now all familiar an unafraid to set out by themselves. The morning sun had finally begun to make its ascension earnestly over the mountain tops, as it peeked its dazzling rays into the valley of their Home.

As Narcissa watched her son mount his horse with the same kind of ease as his peers, sharing smiles and easy conversation as the four of them made to begin their exit from the safe walls of the Bailey, and the House of Gresham, she felt a sadness begin to seep into her. The long years she had lived since the day he was born flashed by in her memories. Holding his bundled little body when he was a mewling newborn, crying for her breast. How his delightfully tiny arms would scissor when his running was still only really a series of controlled falls. The first baby tooth he had lost. The last time he had come to her bed when he was afraid of the darkness in his room. His first successful transfiguration by magic. When she was able to finally look him in the eyes without looking down to him anymore. All of it came crashing in all around her mind, and she chocked back a sob by covering her mouth.

There before her was the fruit of every labor she had ever labored for, and it was both glorious and heartbreaking.

As each of the younglings moved farther away on their strolling horses, she continued to mentally commit herself the resolves of her purpose. For now that he was gone, she was utterly alone in this House. A House that was no friend to her own, and certainly not to that of her Lord Husband.

She managed a smile when she saw how her son slowed his animal down to walk astride the Young Gresham girl. Such a plain thing Narcissa had thought her when she first lay eyes upon her. But as the girl beamed at her son, Narcissa saw a radiant excitement that was unshielded and pure. That affection and love for her son was without consequence, or agenda.

While it still felt as though her heart would surely break once more with him absent for her days, she breathed slowly as she fought to compose her expression and put to rights her mental state. It was still early in the day, and she would have to write a letter to her Husband to mention something of this. She smiled deviously. Or at least she would within a few days. Certainly it seemed that a little delay should not have any real ill effects.

Loren and Ursa stood together with their backs to Narcissa, their arms wrapped around each other in a most tender and exposing fashion. One that was absolutely considered improper for nobles of their status. They spoke in softened tones, and used words of affection to each other. When Loren leaned to his wife's cheek to kiss a lonely tear that had appeared, Narcissa found that she could take no more of the distasteful display, and turned to make her leave.

As she returned from the direction in which the Lady Gresham had pulled her along, there, leaning against the stone wall watching the whole scene as it had unfolded, stood the Master Rune Mora.

The Lady pinched her lips together as she approached to pass by, and yet Rune's eyes had met her own and refused to break the gaze. Unwilling to back down first Narcissa kept walking until she finally passed her by. She stiffened uncomfortably at the way the woman looked at her. How she dared to stare at her, just as boldly as she would were she a man.

She could hear the Masters footsteps behind her own, and she glanced back in annoyance to see that the woman had fallen in step behind her. Rune smirked at her briefly and Narcissa scoffed and looked ahead again as she made her way back in through the halls and towards the main stairs to return to the family Hall in hopes that some food might be present. Despite the abrupt change in company for the day, her body still needed sustenance.

As she'd entered the Hall, Rune had followed as well. Her steps light and there was no conversation that the Master offered. The presence made her wary, and Narcissa was growing irritated. Though for what reason exactly, she wasn't even certain.

With great fortune the domestic staff had concocted a few dishes that were brought to the table soon after, and Narcissa pointedly refused to look up at her table companion. The events of being disturbed the other night still living in her consciousness. She unreasonably over-examined that night several times since that point as well, desperate to know whether or not the renowned Master had heard her outburst from the outside Hall.

She wagered a flickering look towards her to see that Rune was not looking in her direction, but instead attending to her plate calmly. Though as Narcissa's eyes darted away, Rune sensed the change in atmosphere and too glanced to her dining companion.

Back and forth the two danced as such for a moment or so before Narcissa finally let out an exacerbated noise and lay her cutlery to each side of her plate with a slight noise. "What is it that you want from me?" She demanded.

Rune froze in place, a bite of food still on her fork that had not made it her mouth yet. She raised an eyebrow in question at the woman. "Not sure I understand what you mean, Lady." Narcissa had had enough, and rolled her eyes most indecorously.

"I have had enough with your little smiles, and your polite nods. Your little glances. All of it." She sat up straight, in a commanding pose. "Leave me be and stop bothering me."

The Master very carefully replaced her fork upon her plate as she listened to Narcissa's chiding tirade and plucked up a hot brew which had been provided for the meal. She leaned back into the chair as she'd watched the Lady work herself up through the little outburst and she considered her words carefully before she spoke.

"I know not of what you speak now, for you made yourself quite clear. I have no designs for you, for I am no fool. I am not such that I pursue that which shows no interest." Narcissa made to scoff as she gripped her napkin, but Rune continued. "I will not apologize for myself. I am who I am, and I look upon women the same way I do men. If you are discomforted in being treated as an equal, I cannot help that." The Master shifted in her seat, allowing her forearms to come to rest upon the edge of the table in a brazenly masculine gesture as she leaned forwards. "I am no bastard of a man who would haunt your every step until you surrendered to him."

The Lady Malfoy flinched at the statement, affronted by the implication and began to sputter out a biting reply. Rune held her hand up as she set her drink down, and rose to her feet. "No matter Lady, I will take my leave as it is clear you cannot stomach quiet company." The Master's blue and gray eyes bore down on her from where she had stood. "I bid you a good day."

Walking out with no further statement, Narcissa was left at the table alone and in a now-silent room. Rune's words swimming about in her mind. Had she imagined it? Was it truly nothing for her to take offense to? She seemed to have deeply offended the woman, and though she knew she shouldn't ponder on it, she found that she too had lost her appetite.