Snippet #2450848

When Karliah had her sit on the bed, she sat next to her friend, on her right, one leg crossed underneath her so she was facing her. She was going to learn more about the dragons! She was excited, though she had no idea how much time it would take up. That didn't matter, though; anything took time, especially explaining about an entire race to someone who was so new to the idea that they even existed. She had always been a little curious when her parents had told stories of them, but had figured, since they didn't have the answers, it didn't matter, since they didn't exist. She listened intently to the story her friend told.

She found it odd, really. Their version of everything was very different; she could only assume that someone, most likely another elf, had created it to explain something. Besides, their story hadn't made sense; if the elves had been created to promote peace, then why were they involved in a war in the first place? Surely they would find another way. But this story, about the Great One creating the dragons, and then the Asaldi, and then the Hiralru. She couldn't understand, however, why the elves and humans always seemed to hate each other. All she had known for most of her life was the war between the two; nothing about how or why it started. But it seemed they were natural enemies. They fought over the dragons attacking; rather than seeing in as dragons trying to survive and attacking everyone, they blamed each other for the dragons anger. It seemed a senseless conclusion.

And then, when the dragons ruled, they started governing humans and elves. But this couldn't have been the intention of the Great One; the dragons being forced from their homes, and the war between humans and elves starting all over again. Why, then, had the spell been cast? Why would she allow such a thing to happen, if it would only spark another war in the Lower Lands? Everything just sounded so much more complicated when the story was added to what little she already knew. But she knew little of what governed a society, in general, so she wouldn't be able to understand unless every little detail had been explained out for her.

Her story ended with Rhitarion's grandfather, the dragons being granted immortality, and then a strange thought; what would have happened if some other dragon had been chosen to rule? What might have happened if another dragon, one that didn't care for the other races, had been chosen to rule instead? The thought was a little disturbing. So she had to assume the Great One knew what she was doing after all. But still...for the dragons to be removed from Ialeos, and the war to start all over again; a war that she had never heard of, one she doubted any other elf knew about. There was a lot to think about, a lot to put together, and too much to try to understand in just one sitting.

Karliah added in a few facts about the dragons in general; males breathe fire, females breathe ice, height showed size, hair color showed scale color, and then the dragons rage. If an elf got mad, the most one had to worry about was perhaps cold silence, mean words, possibly a few hits. But for a dragons rage to have so much affect...she imagined that an angry dragon was probably the scariest thing she could imagine dealing with. She hoped she wouldn't have to...but, if she stayed with Rhitarion, Tithender was likely to show up again, meaning she might have to. Her thoughts were disrupted when Karliah asked if there was anything else she wanted to know. She let her thoughts go over every question she had; she didn't want to rush and ask too many questions at once, like she had done to Rhitarion when they had met.

"Well...quite honestly, this is more than I thought I could learn in one sitting! But... and this probably seems like a stupid question...but I'm assuming the eye color stays the same in both forms? If the dragon is so strong when they loose their minds, when they revert back, how exactly are you expected to be able to kill them? ...When we ran into Tithender the first time...he said something about Rhitarion not being a red dragon...like it was something significant...but Rhitarion said something about no longer following the Ancient ways of the Throne. I don't understand what that was about in the slightest. I was hoping...you might know?" She had paused after the first two questions, to wait for an answer from her friend. That way, she was only asking one question at a time, and not rushing her friend, and giving her time to think on each question. When she started the third, however, she was hesitant. She could barely even remember that much; she did her best not to think much about those encounters with Tithender, but she had been curious about that particular exchange.