NRPG: April, welcome.  Please feel free to jump in any time, the water's
fine and the dragons don't bite. (Except 'Vari, of course! :)  On to the
story.  --m

****
	Fights in the Dining Hall.  Dissappearing boyfriends.  Bitchy
dragons.  Almiron.  And the damn day still wasn't over with.  My normally
sweet and loving mother had done all my laundry, folded it, put it in
baskets, and left it in the living room-- along with the rest of my things.
Benna, of all people, was sleeping in the bed that had been mine since I
was three.
	I can take a hint, really.  Christalla had already expressed a
wish-- verging on an order-- for me to live in a more accessible part of
the Warren.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if my mother'd been in on the
plot, as it appeared she was.  And I can take a hint when it's presented to
me.
	Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a stupid man.

****
	Christalla caught my arm on my third trip across the Green.  "Leave
the baskets here, D'neor.  We've got something more important to take care
of."
	"You mind telling me what it is?" I asked, trying not to step on
her as we crossed towards the Dining Hall, and the knot of people near the
doors.  I gestured.   "What's all this about?"
	"Michel," she said darkly.  "We found one of his attackers--
hopefully, he'll tell us who the rest were."
	"Well?" I said, impatient for the name as we came up on the edge of
the knot.  "Or were you going to wait for me to hear it from 'Vari?"
	She opened her mouth to say it, thank the Gods, so I wouldn't have
to wait for 'Vari to decide when the time was right to enlighten me, and
was cut off by someone's thin, panicked voice.  V'rdeen's thin, panicked
voice, rising from the middle of the crowd.
	"I didn't mean to do it!  I never would have, unless . . . unless .
. ."  Trembling, he trailed off, scared eyes staring at me from beyond
M'ressan's shoulder.   Or perhaps not.  Frowning, I looked behind me--
nothing.
	"Unless what?" M'ressan pressed gruffly.  He took V'rdeen's arm...
his good arm... and held him away from Michel.  "What made you do it?"
	"I... I..." V'rdeen just kept looking over M'ressan's shoulder.
"I don't know what came over me.  I didn't have anything to do with
Michel's attack.  I fell in the fire and burned my arm."
	The lie was so lame that it left even M'ressan speechless.
	"I think the burn is enough evidence," Christalla said grimly,
pushing through the knot of people.  "It fits Michel and Aleta's
description exactly.  I've asked the Guild of Swords to put V'rdeen in
custody."
	Two of the great hulking guardsmen that the Guild is so full of
stepped up and bore V'rdeen away, his scarred arm clearing their path as
effectively as dragons' flame.
	"I can't believe it," K'wen said in astonishment.  "V'rdeen and I
go way back as friends.  I'd never have believed he was capable of it."
	Trust K'wen to be drawn to trouble.  "I know him too," I returned,
"But I'm afraid that I don't have the same confidence that you profess."
	K'wen smiled thinly.  "Must I point out that you were never his
friend?"
	As if that was some startling revelations.  I didn't have any
friends when I was a kid, other than Al'dairan-- still don't.  I laughed.
"Perhaps the distance has left my perceptions-- unclouded."
	He bristled, as I knew he would.  "Are you calling me a liar, D'neor?"
	"Not in the least bit.  I'm simply saying that you may benefit from
taking a few steps back from the situation, as it were."
	He lifted one slender, aristocratic eyebrow and laughed sharply.
"I would have never guessed you'd be an advocate of neutrality.   What's
the matter, D'neor-- has the Dragonlady got you whipped?  Did she sic
Evelle on you?  Or has that crazy queen of yours gotten to your brain?"
	I started to open my mouth, and bit back a scathing reply.  "Show's
over, people!" I called instead to the assembled crowd.  "Go back to your
daily lives now, everyone.  --That includes you, K'wen.  I'm sure you've
got a patrol to ride right about now."
	Without waiting for an answer, I stepped through the screen of
bodies and went back for my laundry.

****

	Gloves-- damnit, I'd forgotten about my riding gloves, again.
They'd been, on that long-gone awful night when my world fell apart,
ruined.  My brother's blood had soaked through the leather, and I'd never
had the guts to try and wash it out.  If there was one thing I'd learned as
a kid, it was the incredible stubbornness of bloodstains.  So I needed a
new pair, eventually-- but since I never actually had to use the things,
I'd never bothered.  One of the casualties of riding a dragon who's never
around to be ridden.
	But now, they were on the top of the last basket, and there was
really no excuse to take them over to the leatherworker's and have another
pair made.  This pair, maybe, I'd keep for the morbid significance of it
all.

	The fellow looked up as I strode in, and gave me a slightly less
than friendly look.  "I need a new pair of riding gloves," I said, dropping
the bloodied ones on his table.  "Made to these measurements.  Can you do
it?"
	"Of course I can do it," he said guardedly, eyes searching me for
the skies knew what.  "What's wrong with these?"
	"They've got blood on them."
	"It washes out.  Would be cheaper to just wash it out.  I can do
that for you."
	I scowled.  "I know that.  I don't want it washed out-- I want a
new pair of gloves.  Can you, or can you not, make me a new pair of gloves?"
	"I can," he replied, sweeping a broad hand across the table to
retrieve them, the faintest glimmer of annoyance hidden in his eyes.  "When
do you want them by?"
	"When can you have them?"  I grant it, I was feeling petty.  The
man was being snide, and for no real apparent reason.  Maybe if he'd been
nicer to me at first, I wouldn't have felt a need to get snotty.
	He grunted.  "Three days."
	I put on my best spoiled-brat face. "That long?  For a pair of gloves?"
	"Three days.  We're busy."
	I looked around.  "Awful quiet for being so busy.  You don't look
familiar.  What's your name?  How long have you been here?"
	"Darin," he said sullenly, "And I've been here almost four months,
thank you.  It'll be three days for the gloves, and if you don't like it
you'll have to go outside the Warren for them.  It's your choice."
	"I guess you weren't aware, then, that I can throw you out of here
with no questions asked," I replied with a feral smile.  "You can stay this
time, but in the future I'd be careful who you offend.  I don't often give
people second chances."
	Darin sketched a mocking bow.  "Of course, your highness.  It'll
still be three days."
	I shrugged.  "No hurry, really," and left the man's company before
he could annoy me more.  Even Almiron was preferable.

****

	<<Boy at the door,>> 'Vari told me, the sending tinged with sleepy,
lazy annoyance.  <<Walking up steps.>>
	The steps to my office.  Wonderful.
	Right on cue, someone knocked on the door.
	"What?" I shouted, yanking my feet off the desk.
	There was a moment of startled silence, and then: "Ah-- it's me,
Arden.  I wanted to talk to you about something."
	Every so often, I wish that 'Vari would lie to me, and say that
everyone was K'wen, or Christalla, or my brother.  It would make the truth
so much more bearable.  "Come on in, then."
	Arden poked his head cautiously around the door and slipped in,
that wilder girl Elswyth behind him.  "Sir?  There's something we think you
ought to know . . . "

*****
NRPG: Chris, I answered your Darin tag that I promised I'd do ages ago;
Kurt, you said you were cooking something up with Arden.  Now, you have no
excuse not to.  :)

-m

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