House Aurenthin

"Tundar?"

"You call them Dwarves."

"The Duergar?" Beliza asked with a bit of a curl to her lip.

"Them, and others."

"Do you call us kin?"

"I do." Sargt enjoyed her expression a moment before going a far step more. "I've rutted both Elves and Dwarves before."

Beliza made a sound, and Jaush couldn't help laughing quietly before she slapped his thigh and the Dragon continued willingly.

"You are among the most passionate and fertile of races; my doing so doesn't harm the balance of things. But..." Golden eyes landed on Jaush. "You are the first I cared to take within my own home. Before, I only found you all on the Surface."

"The break with the Valsharess," Beliza seized on that, finally connecting many small hints she'd received over the months. "The Drow of Vuthra'tern were trying to return to the Surface?"

He winked, seeming happy with her figuring that out. "Correct, dear sorceress. There were no Baenar at all down here. Your very presence has changed many things in a very short time. The other cave-dwelling races are still reeling."

"And from what you've each said," Jaush spoke up softly, and the other two focused intently on the youngest here since he almost never interrupted them. "House D'Shauranti might've made the break possible but couldn't join Y'shir Matalai'ko with the others. The Valsharess split us up, and made us forget."

"Clever and ruthless," Sargt replied, "as she has always been."

"You knew about our Queen when she first brought the Baenar down here from the Surface?" Jaush pushed.

"How could I not? She is as powerful and insane as they come. I could claim a certain kinship with her as well."

That was sobering in its way as he glanced at Ilka, that the Drow Queen and a tiny shadow drake familiar might have something in common with him in Sargt's eyes. But the Great Drake seemed open to indulging Jaush, so he kept asking questions. Certainly he had more than earned the courtesy to ask without censure; whether or not the powerful male answered was a different matter.

"Why did She come down here? Why did She bring us to the Underdark?"

Sargt considered for a few moments as if he wanted to answer but still determined how, and Beliza did not interrupt.

"There was a large enough threat at the time that it was possible the Baenar would have been either exterminated or too-quickly altered to continue serving in their niche. They would leave a large void, a power vacuum, and both the Noldor and the Yun-gar would be the next to fall in their wake as outsiders would no doubt fill it. Your Valsharess sought to have her people survive, even in exile and in darkness, and serve their purpose."

"Which is?" Jaush asked.

"Something like what you are doing now, Jaush, but on a much grander scale."

"I don't understand."

"You aren't meant to."

When they paused, Beliza spoke. "You make the Valsharess sound far-seeing and wise."

Sargt shook his head. "She is far-seeing, but I would say more desperate. This one choice may balance all she has done before and after, or it may not. Certainly some, like yourself, sorceress, may always hate her for what she has done to you."

"But...you won't destroy us as a race for invading your territory," Jaush said.

"You have added to the Underdark, young one, and you have taken nothing away you did not already lose yourselves." Sargt smiled almost with appreciation. "The loss to the Surface is my gain, I am beginning to see, especially with you two warming my den and my hoard with mutual lust and life magic."

The younger male felt his face go hot as too many explicit memories returned all at once, and Beliza covered her abdomen at the mention of "life." Jaush noticed, looking at her as well, rubbing his hands together as he thought about what had come to him the last time he'd touched her bare belly with his hands.

"So," Sargt said with striking bass in his voice, "since we are sharing thoughts more fluidly at the moment, are you going to tell her, Jaush?"

"Huh?" He snapped his attention back. "Tell her what...?"

His stomach tightened as the Dragon winked but said nothing more. Beliza and Ilka both pinned him with expectant gazes.

Ah, damn it all...

Jaush breathed out and gave it a try. "I think I'm getting stronger. Some of my senses are sharper, too. I haven't so much as scraped my skin or bruised myself in weeks, though I still feel...everything."

He glanced up at his sorceress, testing her mood. She watched him with curiosity and concern, then looked at the Dragon.

"Each being responds differently to various pressures," Sargt added, almost looking smug. "He is tempering like a fine blade. In fact, that part about sharper senses, Jaush. Tell us what you have noticed."

Jaush glared at Sargt. You already know.

I have for some time. She still does not.

It's not fair to her.

She has had plenty of time to consider and will not break under a bit more pressure herself, young one. She desires to bear your offspring but is still too proud and knowledge-hungry around me to confirm it. Give her a nudge. You have more than earned it.

Jaush rubbed his hands again, and Beliza asked, "What? What is it?"

The young male swallowed. "I...can feel the magical aura in your belly when I am touch you and pay attention. That's...never happened to me before. And the last time I put my ear against your middle..."

She nodded; they'd been lounging in afterglow after he'd only had the energy to crawl half-way up after helping her cum one more time with his mouth. His arm around her waist, head resting on her belly, her fingers combing his hair... He was nervous when he said it.

"I heard two heartbeats, Beliza. There are two babies in your womb."

Beliza uttered a cry of shock, lifting her hands to cover her mouth as the sound faded in the cave. She stared at him with widened eyes, and oddly...Jaush couldn't tell if either that sound or that face was one of denial or...

Or something better. Something hopeful.

Sargt chuckled in deep amusement. "So...if House D'Shea and House Aurenthin has come back together to breed anew, does that mean House D'Shauranti is risen from the ashes?"

"Not yet, and not like before," the sorceress murmured, holding her belly with both hands, her eyes bright with too many thoughts as Ilka shifted feeling her mistress's excitement. "But...if I bore them..." She looked at Jaush. "How would we...?"

There was the next step Jaush hadn't spent a lot of energy thinking about until the sorceress uttered it. How would they care for not just one infant but two, entirely alone but to be tolerable servant-guests of a Dragon?

"You aren't interested in raising a Baenar family, right?" Jaush asked Sargt directly.

The Dragon shook his head in amusement. "Not in the least, my delectable little slut."

Jaush nodded. "Just checking."

*******

PART THREE

Y'shir waited for the Dragon to come again, wary of acknowledging hope it itself, but grateful for the scent of change all the same.

As far as the oldest male Drow in Vuthra'tern had ever known in the last five centuries since his people had settled here, he was the only one to lay eyes upon the Great One while he was awake, and that first meeting had stirred some of the elder male's deepest memories outside of his magic. The first in a long time.

Though some of his current Priestess-Matrons claimed to meet with the Dragon in occasional reverie or rituals—since all the stories claimed that his den was close and odd, unexplainable events of magic did drift through at times—the Blade Song Grandmaster did not openly doubt the Priestess-Matrons but did so privately, given how they used this detail for petty and short-term control.

Even Ishuna hadn't claimed alliance with the Black Serpent, in part because no one at House Ja'Prohn or House D'Shauranti would allow that claim to stand without proof. Not when they had at their backs Xala Ja'Prohn, the General whose strategies had taken the Great Underground Cavern from the Dragon, and his own Mother, Lizabet D'Shauranti, whose disciplined sword and sorcery had won the Drowh their new home in the first place.

Then Xala had passed away with surprisingly little violence, unlike his easily impassioned Matron. The General who had been the last Drowh who had still been able to talk grounded sense to their visionary Mystic-Queen was gone. It had been a slow decline at first as Y'shir himself had grown into one of their elders, having always looked up to the General and the Sorceress Supreme, aiming to be as wise and strong as them. Male though he was, no one had mastered Blade Song as well as him.

Y'shir knew now, looking back it had only seemed slow because he'd not been able to see what had been brewing just beneath the altars within the Priesthood.

When it all came to a head, the demands of the Spider Queen were not to be denied. As frightening and terrible as Ishuna's deceased sister had become to their people in the last Surface Reign, Ishuna herself had eclipsed that when She released the Driders and the Draegloth both upon Her own People. Up until then, these gifts from their Goddess had been the defenders against the rest of the Underdark after chasing the Black Serpent out, holding firm the Drowh borders with the rest of the Houses until the Dark Elves were well established, stable, and would not be expunged. They were safe and would not be eradicated, as their Queen had promised.

But the promises didn't last.

Perhaps he had been too old even then, too tired to fight anymore when the Matrons of the Break had come together as Priestesses of Lolth to carve out new borders for Vuthra'tern. He understood their weariness, at least. Their smaller population had been constantly attacked since their escape; none in the Underdark were willing to leave them in peace or let them find a way out back to the Surface. They were preceded by their Valsharess's reputation at every turn.

After more than a century of nomadic existence, the Matrons had needed to use the same tactics used on them, and someone had listened to the promises of Lolth. They began bearing and using demon-bred sons to enhance their magic and status over those they ruled, receiving unique gifts never seen before, and causing more than enough fear and misery both within and without to finally set those borders into eternal iron.

Y'shir knew now he was trapped, expecting die here, and that the purpose of the rebellion against the Valsharess—which no one seemed to recall anymore—had failed at last and could never be rekindled. Even the great House Ja'Prohn which he had joined at the expense of his own family was irrevocably changed. They were now among the cruelest and the worst of them tainted by the Abyss, and it caused him more sorrow and regret than he felt he could bear some cycles. The only relative blessing he could hold aloft was that there were no Driders here, no Drider Mistress in Vuthra'tern. Sacrifices for Lolth were made, but none of their children were condemned to become twisted, half-living monstrosities no longer functioning as Elves.

So Y'shir had waited over a year now for the Dragon to return. Perhaps he could trade for some answers, some understanding, though it would be yet more knowledge which may only die with him, as it had General Xala and, later, the commanding Daughter he had left behind in that last battle.

*******

"Grandmaster! Grandmaster, come and see! You're being summoned!"

Y'shir acknowledged the summons formally, even to the excitable, young girl-child as was her due. "Yes, First Daughter Mikiri. I am coming."

House Dar'Prohn had captured something very interesting the Underdark, the whispers were saying. Something that could work in their favor to remain the First House, as was their right.

"No one with our lineage and history is more qualified or entitled," their Matron often muttered. "Why any would challenge it is beyond me."

The elder male, his hair changed to a solid gold by now and kept in a very long braid, walked unhurried where the child led him, expecting to be brought to the dungeons. They turned to the left wing, the one which kept political prisoners away from the criminal or bestial, and heard the raging and terrified screaming of a female, Y'shir altered his expectations to wonder now who House Dar'Prohn had taken this time, instead of what they had found out in the wilderness.

At the prison door, he soon discovered both his questions were equally valid.

Who...?

"Let me go!" she shrieked as three guards and two mages struggled to place her in restraints to both further suppress her magic and so she couldn't harm herself. "I'll kill you, I'll kill you all for what you've done!"

This was a Drow he could swear he had never seen in Vuthra'tern before. She was very heavily pregnant as well, probably carrying twins. Their city was overall small enough that there was no way this gossip would not have made it to House Dar'Prohn and his own ears. Drow twins were rare enough, and add to that her aura flaring powerfully and her strange accent, and Y'shir knew this was a Noble sorceress from the Valsharess's City.

What is she doing all the way out here?

"You see it already," his Matron smirked in satisfaction behind him. "Not getting dull in your old age, Grandmaster?"

He bowed his head to her. "She is of those serving the Unnamed Queen, is she not?"

"Yes."

"Where did you capture her?"

The Matron Dar'Prohn nodded to her Head Guard, allowing her to fill in the blanks as she observed their captive losing the struggle inside the cell but now without making a second guard cry out in pain.

"Sentries caught their trail toward the waterfall," Head Guard Berus told him, "and scouts tracked for weeks before I finally had to go out. We caught up with them, rounded them back closer to here before trapping them. They didn't know where they were."

Them?

"There were more?" Y'shir asked.

"One more, a serving fighter," the Matron said dismissively before Berus could speak, though the Head Guard nodded and picked up the thread from there.

"Her bodyguard, as far as we could tell. Wouldn't stay down and wouldn't surrender, we finally had to shove him over a cliff."

"A pity," the Matron said. "I would have liked to interrogate him before placing him on my altar."

The pregnant mother heard that and screamed in such mournful agony—a particular pitch and tone he had not heard since the nomadic days of their population— that it caused a lancing pain to shoot through his chest. They quickly and viciously gagged her, and Y'shir swallowed. Not just a bodyguard.

"And...what do you need from me, Matron-Priestess?" he asked respectfully, bowing to each. "Head Guard?"

"There's a drake that wouldn't leave us alone and followed us here," Berus said. "We injured it but we can't trap it. Keeps slipping free no matter what we do, yet doesn't go away, it's like her own damn shadow." The calm female shook her head. "Doesn't make sense to me. What about you? Heard of it before?"

Y'shir stared at them a moment, looked in at the prisoner again as they set and strengthened the magical restraints holding her to the soft bedding laid over the stone and padding attached to the corner walls. At least they didn't lash her down onto her back; the sorceress-mother could sit up or lie down on her side as needed. He felt a tinge of bitterness thinking that was the most kindness he could expect any more from the House he'd once fought beside, for whom he had given up everything.

Careful. These thoughts have been too long buried to bring them up now, old male...

He cleared his throat. "The sorceress cast an animal-companion spell on the drake. It is compelled to stay with her. I imagine she wanted a pet, and a useful hunter and forger of the wilderness at that. Given enough time and separation, the spell will fade and it will fly away if the compulsion doesn't get it killed first."

The Matron nodded. "What I thought. Very well. Put it out of its misery if it continues to harry us in any way, Berus."

"Yes, Matron."

Cold and calculating crimson eyes returned to the writhing, powerless prisoner. "How close to birthing is she, would you estimate, Y'shir?"

Despite being one of her eldest weapons masters, somehow over the years he had also taken on side-role of healer and appraiser for any of their female warriors who became pregnant. Ironically, he had more experience in this matter than any of the much younger, leading females here. Every generation, his current Matron-Priestess seemed more and more youth-like to him.

"I would have to examine her more closely, Matron," Y'shir said honestly. "It isn't as easy to tell when there are two and she is already under great stress. This could trigger the contractions early if we don't calm her down."

Matron Dar'Prohn tapped her fingertips eagerly together before catching herself—a childhood habit she was still trying to break—and nodded. "Twins. Excellent. Good, I'm glad you see it, too. Do what you must, Grandmaster."

Those were exactly the words he'd hoped to hear.

*****

Though he had needed to use a very small amount of sedation potion to prevent the foreign sorceress from going into labor that very cycle, Y'shir broke his visits into many small ones with minor updates that first eve, hoping to glean as much insight as quickly as he could about this matter among those involved. He heard many unusual things in addition to the pestering drake that made him reconsider whether they had heard the last from the sorceress's protector.

"I'm telling you, he didn't bleed, Grandmaster," one injured soldier told him while confined a cell block meant for interrogations. "This fucker...I got him! Dead by right! Sword tip square in the gut! Fucker took it full and grunted, didn't spill a drop that wasn't sweat when his intestines should have been at his feet!"

"Wild story," another in a different cell commented.

"You weren't there!" she shot back, her heart pounding with insult.

"Probably just a stone-skin spell that would wear off with enough hits, you just didn't get lucky enough. I'd think the Matron and Head Guard would be on higher alert if you really met an invulnerable Drow sent from the Valsh—"

"Don't say it!" the first fighter hissed. "Her agents will find us! It's bad enough they dragged that swollen sorceress here, ready to pop out the Abyss knows what! Could be a sick trap for all we know!"

Y'shir at least had a strong idea why this particular soldier was in prison, if she didn't know enough to shut her mouth. Fear like this would spread to the other Houses overnight, and the other Matron-Priestesses would be demanding the strange sorceress's execution and sacrifice along with her babies as soon as may be. Maybe before they were even born, although that hadn't happened in a while.

It also told him that the Matron intended—mostly likely—to quietly incorporate these twins into her House. Something about this had triggered greed over security, and the other Matrons would make her pay handsomely for it if they knew about it. The Matron would want one example—this soldier, who would be dead very soon in a private ceremony—to convince the others to take the "gag potion." They would never talk about what they'd seen out in the wilderness, or whisper where these children had come from.

The fourth time he visited the pregnant prisoner, having gently removed the gag for her when she agreed to be quiet, she managed a grip on his wrist as he examined her belly. Her eyes blazed and glistened with tears as she stared up at him afraid and desperate for herself and her unborn, and she finally spoke past the sedative.

"Wh-who are y-you?" she whispered, and the accent was very similar to how he remembered his Mother's.