> "Sarilyn, please stay after this class.  I want to talk with you."
> 
> "Yes, Sir."
> 
> "H'lie, please."  He looked down at her, as puzzled by her constant
> submissiveness as he had been aggravated by her previous arrogance.  "Are
> you okay?"
> 
> "What?"  She looked confused.
> 
> "I asked if you were okay.  You didn't look very happy with whatever it was
> that young man gave you."
> 
> "Oh...  I... it's...  I have to tell Lady Rhiannon something."
> 
> "Ah.  Well, come on, I've given the class an hour off.  It was important
> enough to give you that look, we should probably go right now."
> 
> They walked over to Rhia's office and H'lie knocked on the door.
> 
> "Come in."  Rhia sounded tired and somewhat sad, but that was nothing new. 
> Rhia always became melancholy as the winter festivals approached, her
> memories of her former life coloring everything around her.
> 
> "Lady Rhiannon?"  Sarilyn sounded scared.
> 
> "Rhia..."  She smiled, slightly, weariness instantly disappearing from her
> features.  "I remember telling you that the 'lady' tends to grate on my
> ears.  What can I do for you Sarilyn?"

  Sarilyn managed a small smile, and nodded.  "Yes, M'am..I mean Rhia.  I
just believe in trying to give respect where its due, and feel a bit
awkward calling you by your name is all."

  She glanced over at H'lie and actually shivered...not from fear or
anything, at least not of the trainer, more of sheer terror as she reached
into her pocket, and brought out a folded message...one with a broken wax
seal on it.

  "M'a...Rhia,"  Sarilyn shook her head in exasperation with herself..get
it straight girl!  "a messenger just interrupted class to bring me this,
and...and well...it's from my Father."

  Rhia and H'lie exchanged glances, both of concern and a bit of wariness,
then both watched the new rider.  She looked positively terrified, and her
hands shook as she unfolded the missive to try and read the thing.  But
her voice shook so much, she finally stopped, and simply let everything
out in a mad rush.

  "Oh blast!  May as well try to explain it than read it...you can read it
for yourselves if you want to.."

  H'lie placed a hand on Sarilyn's shoulder, and actually smiled.  "Calm
down, start from the beginning, and take your time..if it's important
enough to cause the reaction I saw out there, class can wait.  We won't
bite."

  Sarilyn flashed a relieved smile at the Trainer, and nodded...relaxing
only slightly.  "Thank you, H'lie."

  Then she looked at Rhia, totally seriously, as she explained.

  "All right.  Well...my father was at the Tellari estate, she'd
apparently invited him to be her guest..and offered him a place to stay
since he'd been banished and had lost his lands and such.  She took him
and...well...there were others there as well...he said, I *think*," and
she looked at the message again. "that Lord Lothar and his wife were
there, and Haedin?"

[NRPG: Lost the post with the who's there bit, please correct if
neccessary.]

  She shivered as she flipped to the most important part of the message.
"There's trouble coming, if not now, then very soon.  It seems that the
Tellari woman has a dragon secreted away...a red one with an egg...and
that the messenger that came here to invite people there...Daltem, is a
rider himself."

  Looking at both people with tears in her eyes, she went off on a slight
tangent.  "I know that my father isn't one of the Warren's favorite
people, and that you did what you had to do for the good of everyone, but
he sent this to warn you, and me.  The Tellari woman wants him to help
her..by using the one thing he has that she doesn't have...someone on the
inside of Xylian Warren...a rider...namely me. He got mad and left the
estate, to write and warn me."

  "She's planning some sort of takeover if she can get more riders and
more dragons..and if she has some sort of rogue queen, as my father says
she does...with an egg...only one but there could be more..."

  Sarilyn shook...passing the message with the seal of the Aelxirn name
imprinted in it to Rhia, as H'lie moved to read it over her shoulder.

  "I don't want to be a spy or anything!  I like it here!  But my father
and I made our peace the night he left...and I don't want him hurt either!
Please..I honestly believe he's telling the truth, really!  He sent his
ring to prove it...he's really worried...allright, maybe more about me
than the Warren, but that counts for something!"

  H'lie and Rhia glanced at the quite upset and shaking new rider, and
H'lie moved to sit next to her, trying to calm her down.  "Nothing is
going to happen to you or anyone else, Sarilyn.  So this is why you became
so upset out there.  You know, you could have come directly to me with
this instead of waiting for me to call a break.."

  "I know, H'lie..but..I needed to try and calm down, which I failed to
do.  There was no need to go into hysterics out there and have the others
upset.  This way, at least, it's private."

  Looking at Rhia, then back to H'lie, Sarilyn slumped, and almost cried.
"If they find out what he's done, they'll kill him.  He may not be
perfect, but he's trying to help..and even he doesn't deserve that.  What
can I do to help?  I just can't sit back and do nothing!  I can't!"

  She turned to hide her face as she finally started crying, more out of
worry and fear over what would happen next than anything else...not even
realizing that she was getting poor H'lie's shirt wet in the process.

  "I'm scared, H'lie...for you, for Rhia, my friends here, and my father."

[Tag:  Jill!]

-------------------

Jeanette
Sarilyn/Lunath * Xylian