Hammer and Feather Ch. 08-13

The large-eyed elf broke into a grin and made a gesture toward himself.

"You went into the lake?"

He nodded.

"And you keep going back to cross it in boats?"

Her incredulous tone made him laugh again and he nodded vigorously.

"I see why they thought I should be nesting in your trees. I'd like to hear how you got out of it someday."

The elf held out his hand and she took it with a smile. He squeezed it and released it. Syr drew her hand back and started to tuck the knife back into her sleeve. The child made a small sound of disappointment.

"You can have it, little one, but I suggest you never use it against a dwarf." She offered it and the child hesitated.

"Why?"

"Because they'd think you took it from a dwarf and treat you like an enemy. They tend to deal with a threat and then ask questions later. You wouldn't have a chance to explain that the Lady of smoke and flame gave you this knife."

The child swallowed and put their hands behind their back. Finwion reached out to run his hand down their back and a small hand timidly reached out to take the hilt.

"Thank you, Lady Smoke."

"Lady Rook, or you can call me Syreilla. I like children."

"T-to burn?" Their eyes went wide and she laughed.

"No! I'm the goddess of righteous vengeance and protector of gentle souls. The dwarves call me the Lady of smoke and flame. When I'm asked, I'll bring fire on behalf of a child, but I always bring a little extra for mine." She grinned as the child brightened.

"Will you bring fire for us? For me?" The knife dropped and the child tugged at their hood until it revealed mutilated ears.

She felt her blood run cold and then hot fury washed over her as she remembered the soldiers shouting to get their ears. Finwion grimly tugged his own back as she looked askance at him. His ears were cut the same way.

Syr lurched closer and reached for them but he caught her hands.

"I've never liked my ears and they'd look better on you, my friend."

He pulled her into an embrace and then clambered to his feet, beckoning to her.

"Why don't you like your ears, Lady Rook?" The child frowned.

"They caused me grief for a long time. Elves didn't like me and I didn't like them, but things have changed." She reached out and touched the little one's face. "I'll bring fire and vengeance to those who harmed you. I give you my word and you can rely on a Rook."

Finwion opened a door and stepped through, offering his hand. With a shiver and a gesture to Baduil to stay a moment, Syreilla took it and followed him through. She stopped well before they got to the shore and glanced at the large-eyed elf who offered a small, reassuring smile. He tugged his hand away carefully before rubbing it and cupping them both as if calling across and then gestured to her.

She broke into nervous laughter, taking a step back. "I don't think I want to try to shout across. I should have brought Baduil. Even being this close to the water makes my skin crawl, I usually burn the things that frighten me, you know."

He grinned and embraced her before making a placating gesture and taking her hand again. After a moment Bone White came into view on his stone boat with a pleased look on his face.

"Syreilla the Rook? I'm pleased to see you well."

"I'm pleased to be well. I needed to talk to you but..." She paused as the boat pulled itself onto the shore.

Nimphon came close with a smile and reached out a hand to touch her face peering into her eyes.

"I cannot leave my shores without my stone. I will allow you to address her betrayal." He smiled ruefully, "I know, thieving Rook, that you can use the power of the stones as you please. Be careful with mine."

"I'll do my best. She's got to burn, Nimphon. I gave my word to bring fire and vengeance and you can rely on a Rook."

"Send her to me." The white-haired elf's smile raised the hair on the back of her neck.

"I will." She glanced at the water again, "You'll forgive me if I let Finwion bring your stone back to you? I don't like your lake."

He laughed and traded a look with Finwion. "You wouldn't have come if he didn't hold your hand?"

"It lends a lot of focus, not being able to distract yourself by breathing, but for the rest of my life I'd like to stay far, far away from it as much as possible."

"Finwion may bring it to me." Nimphon smiled and touched her cheek. "Remain reliable, Rook."

*Nine*

Ezar felt it the moment the threads were no longer pressed down. It was an immense relief, but the keening that began at the edge of his hearing told him that Vedra had felt it as well.

He hurried down from the garden to inform Cyran, startling a few dozen of the waiting rooks from their perches on the stair. At the base of the Rook's Tower, as it was often called, was a small village of spectral priests and a home for both Imos and Cyran.

"Ezar?" Cyran met him at the edge of the village. "I heard the rooks take flight."

"She's-her threads are no longer pressed. My Syreilla is-"

"She's free of the lake?" Cyran broke into a grin. "Father will be pleased to hear it. Have you told Grandfather?"

"No, I-"

The rooks began to scream and chatter as they received and spread the news. Nearly two hundred of them blackening the sky as they flew around the tower in anticipation.

"Cyran?" Imos, looking aged and weak, came from one of the houses. "What are they upset about?"

"Syreilla is free of the lake, Father."

Ezar saw a handful of years drop from the god's face.

"If anyone can steal back our stones it will be your cousin."

"She has to stay." He glanced up toward the maelstrom of birds as they tried to crowd the audience chamber. "These souls have to be-"

"They've waited this long, they can wait a little longer." Imos put a hand on his shoulder drawing his attention back. "Other matters are more urgent."

"She'll find Uncle Odos first, before she returns, and Grandfather will explain things to her." Cyran's relieved certainty was mirrored by his father.

"Be prepared to be summoned. They may not send her into her chamber until other matters have been dealt with. My niece doesn't like to shirk her duties and she'd try to take on all of them at once."

"But she has to come, I can't leave the chamber." Ezar could feel the anguish beginning to churn. He was no longer Vezar Edra, if she chose to walk away from him, from Vedra... the keening at the edge of his hearing grew louder.

"Would you allow her to leave to fight against-"

The roar that reverberated in his skull took him to his knees.

Cyran was kneeling at his side in an instant. "She will return to be with you again, but there are pressing matters."

That they didn't view his pain as pressing felt like a ripping knife along a raw edge. Ezar managed to pull himself from the ground and turned his eyes toward the audience chamber. Duty would draw her.

He made his way back up the tower and chose one of the finer robes his grandfather had given him. There was nothing to do but wait. After a time the rooks settled and some seemed to lose interest in the vigil. Ezar remained in place staring at her throne and envisioning the golden goddess on it, trying to will her into place.

How long he spent he wasn't certain but he felt it the moment she entered the chamber. It was as if the sun had been shrouded and suddenly broke free. Her raven flew to its accustomed place and then she was there, eying him curiously and moving to her seat.

"You're not my Vezar."

"No, but you are my Syreilla."

The rooks began to clamor for attention and she grinned, lifting her hand. They fell silent.

"I once promised those who jobbed for me a place in the realms of sunshine and green fields. If any of you are willing, I'll keep my word. All you've done in life will be forgiven. I need an army of rooks to be eyes and ears to help some friends of mine. There may be sneaking, theft, and danger involved. Does that sound-" She laughed as the cacophonous agreements from the birds filled the air.

Waving her hands again, she quieted them, "I've never been fond of elves, but I'm less fond of those who try to murder me and my kin. Those who want to help me will follow Baduil Rookfriend as he goes and attach yourselves to an elf. Keep them alive if you can, while you do as you've been asked, and I'll see if I can arrange a little something personal in your paradise."

Syreilla stroked the raven and gave it a warm smile, "If you're ready for more tasks, dear Baduil? Once you get them settled, wait with Nali and Edun."

The bird seemed to bow and then launched itself from its perch. The rooks followed him in a rush of wings. After a time there was silence and the tower that had been teeming with birds was now empty of them.

"Ezar is what you're called?"

"Yes." He stared at her, finally in her wished-for place on the throne, unable to look away as she gave him a rueful smile.

"You look like Vezar if he'd been born human, but I've spent twenty years missing my dragon. It's strange to return and only find a part of him."

"Vedra will be pleased." He tried not to let his shoulders slump, "Though I had hoped..."

"I will have you whole again, Ezar. I'm not whole without Vezar Edra and if you've broken into two, I need both halves."

"We haven't fully separated. We... you were split cleanly in two, Vedra and I tore apart in anguish. Threads connect us like strings of flesh."

She dropped gracefully from her tree. "I'm sorry that I couldn't come back. I was on the doorstep when I was waylaid." Syreilla offered him her hand. "I'd like to apologize to both you and Vedra, at the same time if I can. I've never liked repeating myself and we're all short on time."

"You have more important-" Ezar stopped speaking as she dropped into a crouch in front of him.

"There is nothing more important to me, Ezar. I'm pulled in more than one direction, it's true, but the core of me, my heart, resides here with my dragon. I need you."

The golden goddess in front of him caressed his face and he lunged at her, trying to take hold to be certain she wasn't a dream. Her laughter as he tackled her to the ground felt like warm water. After a long moment of holding her tightly and letting her kiss his head and stroke his back and shoulders as he felt her hands on his threads, Ezar reluctantly released her.

"Vedra needs to see you."

"Let's go see him."

He gazed at her, taking her hand and walking toward the door. Vedra couldn't be argued with. Sweet Syreilla would be angry but she would not abandon them again.

°°°°°°°°°°

Vedra waited impatiently. He could feel she was close, she had returned to her chamber when he had expected her not to, but a nagging doubt in his mind told him she would not come to see him. He waited to be proven right, to be given a reason to unleash his fury.

Instead, his audience door opened and Syreilla entered with a rueful smile and Ezar holding her hand. He let them approach until she stood before his throne and then he inhaled deeply.

A low rumbling growl escaped him. "My treasure, you stink of dwarf."

"Dwarves don't stink, and you have them to thank for pulling me out of the black lake, my dragon. I wanted to apologize to you and to Ezar-"

"You told us you were returning and you did not, Syreilla. Ezar sees things made pure and new, I punish. Twenty years of agony has felt like a thousand. You..." He lifted his head as she dropped Ezar's hand and approached with a growing smile.

"I spent twenty years unable to do anything but think, my dragon. Trapped in that black lake, I have made plans to see vengeance done and I have ached to see you and speak to you. I need you. I need all of you so that I can be whole.

"Let me take your punishment, my dragon. And let me ask you to bring your punishments to bear on those I judge in need of them."

She reached out, running her hand up the side of his scaled neck and he impulsively wrapped her in a wing.

"Your punishment, my treasure, is to never leave us again. I will bind you to us."

"I am already bound, my dragon. Come with me."

"We cannot leave." Ezar's quiet words made her turn.

"I'll fix that first."

"Our tasks bind us in place."

"In twenty years you haven't found a way around that yet?" She grinned at them both one after another. "You can't stay away forever, but if I'm not mistaken, Uncle Imos is waiting here. He can drag a chair in to sit on while he sorts people into your punishments. You'll get them sorted properly when we all come home."

Vedra pressed his face close to her and inhaled, something on her smelled strongly of dwarf. He pressed his nose to her and found the scent wrapped around her on leather belts.

"What do you carry?"

"Orsas made talons for me and sheaths for them."

He felt the fury bubbling as he growled. "As payment for the child you gave him? The one that should have been mine?"

"I didn't give him a child. Not that way. I blessed a young girl, a sweet, mischievous girl, and gave her a feather. She's mine, and she's family, Sirruil claimed her as his daughter."

"Why would you do that? You hide things from me Syreilla. You went to him to thank him for the bird and instead you gave him too great a gift. I did not know of your sigil, I was kept blind!" He roared out his anguish pushing away from her and shuddered as he felt her spring into place on his back clinging tightly.

"There was no intent to hide things from you. I thought you knew where I keep my spare kit, and I didn't know he would ask for me to bless a child. I would have discussed it with you. Perhaps I should have made him wait and come home to discuss it with you first. But I was waylaid on the doorstep, my dragon.

"If Nali Rookfriend hadn't been given a blessing and a feather to summon me to her side should she need me, I would still be trapped. That was the only time I've ever made the token myself."

Vedra shuddered again and sank back down. "Where is your spare kit?"

"Above the bed in my chamber, tucked in the tangled roots where Baduil sleeps. He found my kit and made a nest to help hide it."

"Badwill?"

"Ba-du-il. Orsas told me to give him a good dwarvish name. It was the first that came to mind, Baduil Rookfriend."

"I am not permitted in your chamber and you are not permitted to leave me."

"I'm bound to you and to Ezar, my Vedra. When I came out of the water I reached for my Vezar and found the threads badly tangled, but they were not cut."

He turned his head back to look at her as she pressed kisses into his scaled hide.

"You will share my chamber."

"We will share a chamber. The three of us. I was warned there isn't a great deal of power to be spared at the moment but I think Grandfather will let me make this change."

His chamber shook as the air rippled like water.

"Come to the bedroom, I want to make sure things look the way they should." Syreilla slipped from his back and gave him a wide grin as she reached out for Ezar.

Entering what had been his private bedchamber, Vedra felt prickles of desire on seeing the way she had joined hers to his. The nest bed was large enough for him, the color of the wood that stood in what had been her chamber was still golden and the rest was black. The division was sharp in the chamber but it was open and they had become one.

"Your door, my treasure..."

"Your door is now my door. Anyone who wants to come and go has to pass through your audience chamber, into mine, and down my stairs. Unless you allow them into our bedroom."

"The door of my chamber is not large enough for me." He couldn't help but return it when she gave him a wide smile.

"Either it will be made large enough or I'll draw you through one of my own doors and we'll avoid the threshold entirely, my dragon."

Ezar touched their tangled threads and Vedra tore his eyes away from the grinning perfection in front of him. His human half was leaning against the opening of the bed. She needed both of them to be whole and the memories of the last time she had demanded wholeness swirled in both of their minds. Neither wished to rejoin the other but to please her, to be atop his treasure once more... First we will be whole.

"Agreed."

"We will need a new name."

"I would have a dragon's name."

"Why do you need a new name?" Syreilla looked between them curiously.

"We will become whole again for you but our threads are too knotted to become who we once were."

"If that's what you want, but I can learn to live with two husbands." She gave them both a mischievous look, "As long as you don't start getting ideas about multiple wives."

Vedra pushed her toward the bed, "One husband would be simpler. We ache to be with you. Do you remember the weeks after our last reunion?"

"I do, with two husbands I may get to do some of those things twice." She laughed as Ezar wrapped his arms around her and began pulling at her clothes from behind.

"You've rarely had me this way..." Vedra focused his will to make himself smaller, a task far more difficult without the human half that had always limited his size.

"I enjoyed it when I did."

The way she stroked the threads of desire made him groan and focused him more clearly on changing his size. To be on top of his treasure, welcomed this way...

She turned away to kiss Ezar and he growled, feeling a surge of jealousy. "We need to be whole."

"I seem to remember being promised perversions and-" She laughed as Ezar yanked at her clothing, the dwarf made belts causing him difficulty. Syreilla unfastened them and dropped them next to the bed. "We will be whole, all of us. I know that your threads are tangled and I understand if you want to take time to feel untangled and settled before you choose. I will love you both if you choose to remain separate and I will learn your new name if you choose to become one again. There is no rush to choose, my beloveds. I would have you both be certain."

Ezar stripped her pants from her and knelt moving his hands over her hips as her fingers curled in his black hair, "Vedra? If she does not require it... I have no desire for a dragon's name."

"I will be neglected-"

He reached out, bringing his claws lightly down her back, and felt the rush of desire from his Syreilla as her hand shot out and caught his.

"No, my dragon, you won't be. I promise you."

The loving and lustful look she gave him made him grin and forget about the human half of himself kneeling in front of her.

*Ten*

The difference had been felt when she entered and when she left and now that the rooks had gone as well, the chamber felt unsettlingly empty. Cyran looked to Imos for an explanation. The silence and lack of birds seemed profoundly wrong in this place. His father was smiling.

"She'll use them. An entire army of spies on wings, no doubt."

"Grandfather will allow them to leave?"

"I suspect he'll allow her to do as she pleases. Her eye should make her vision clear. That she was allowed to return to her chamber surprises me but she must have been awake to consider plans in Nimphon's black lake."

"Twenty years compared to-"

"With a few years of preparation, she destroyed the temple of the goddess of war and stole more stones than anyone could have-"

"At least three were Odos' doing, Father."

"With my brother's aid, she can accomplish anything." Imos smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. "We'll be free soon enough."

The air around them rippled and the ground shook for a moment. Syreilla had reentered the chamber.

"Father?"

"I don't know." He closed his eyes. "Ahevhethrah, Father, may we speak with you?"

"If Syreilla has returned..." Cyran looked upward. "I could go speak to her. My cousin-"

"Wait to be asked. She will need to speak to Ezar and Vedra. The matter will be delicate."

"I help with delicate matters, Father."