Snippet #2647500

Alasahe ignored the other riders as she waited for the Twins to begin the meeting. None of the others seemed to be quite as insufferable as Amir, but she wasn't quite ready to commit to getting to know them better until they proved that they would be useful to her. She leaned back into her throne, feeling a strange sense of comfort. Thousands of years ago, she'd been not much older than the Cerberus-Rider, a child with a adult's burden. But her former self had asked that this chair be fashioned for the ruler she would become. Even then, she never doubted the power she and Fiir would command together. Power to steer her kingdom safely through any storm. She stretched languidly against the wood and imagined she could feel the brush of the dozens of forms she'd worn over the centuries.

She sat up at the Twins' words. Languire shared a border with Melgrove. A roving Kelpie could prove devastating to her own lands, not to mention the effect it could have on trade with other lands if it went elsewhere. She rolled her eyes at May and Meg's casual tone.

"Faery wood will not be particularly easy to come by. The fae are protective of their trees. We would have to strike a bargain," she mused quietly. Her eyebrows shot up at the Twins' second quest.

"Could the rest of us expect the same should our monster die before us?" she asked mildly. She wasn't squeamish about the idea of killing the unicorn rider or about being killed herself. The knowledge that she would live on through her next incarnation was all of the comfort she truly needed. But it did seem oddly wasteful. Meg and May turned to her as one and leered an eerie smile.

"Your purpose, Dragon-rider, is to--"
"--maintain Mundus Alter," they said, one after another.

"That is not possible without your monster."
"That is not possible without your monster."

"And if you cannot do your duty--"
"--we will do what we must to fulfill ours."

Alasahe hummed and tapped her fingernail against the armrest of her throne. Fiir descended from his perch on the wall and wound himself around her, his tail curling around her feet, his massive head resting on the table to her right. "In any case, bandits cannot be made to feel that they can set upon a rider without consequence. They should also be disposed of on our way to deal with the rider."