6.2 - To Warn the Shadow
#7 of Darzarath
[Part of a contiguous series]
Knowledge can be power if used correctly, and there's no greater power or knowledge than being the one who contributed to centuries of technological progress.
She stepped into the ruins, her heavy armored boots causing her steps to reverb off the weathered stone.
It had been a long time since she had last been here. Centuries, if not millenia ago. She looked around. She stood in what used to be a small market place, when the ruins were still a living city. The sheer desolation of the ruins let her mind wander to memories of older times. She recalled back the smells of the market. Spices, fruits, cloth, freshly cut wood and fresh fish.
"Darzarath the Inventive, I am pleased to see you accepted my summon." Darzarath snapped back to reality as she was called out.
She could now notice the old man that looked at her from what remains of an old balcony.
"It was unlikely I would've refused." She replied. "The fact that you doubted such hurts me, Councilor Sivos."
"It was not I that doubted you, Darzarath." Sivos said as he began walking off the balcony, down a flight of stairs that led him right to her level in the square.
"Let me guess." She mused as she began her own approach to him. "The Council wants to object to my activities. Again."
"Yes, and no. It has recently been decided that your... approach to dealing with mortals has proven far more effective than what we originally believe." He said.
Sivos was now barely an arm's length away from Darzarath. He donned the disguise of an elder man, with white hair and a thin moustache. He was wearing a fairly elaborate cobalt blue robe, decorated by strips of white silk and pendants of diamond and blue topaz gems framed by white gold and silver. He carried himself well, with a straight back and a sure step, a far cry from the form of a frail old man he was using.
"Is that so?" Darzarath asked, leaning in closer. "And what exactly happened to sway the Council's decision so drastically and so suddenly?"
"Nothing." He said.
"Nothing? What do you mean by 'nothing'?"
"Exactly that, Darzarath. Nothing. Nothing catastrophic happened in instances where you had exclusive interaction with the mortals. At least, relatively to others."
Darzarath stared at him in silence. She wasn't sure if he was trying to test her wits or just fooling around with her.
"I can tell from the look on your face that you find that hard to believe, and I must admit this amuses me greatly. Truly, it takes something so simple to befuddle you?" Sivos joked. "Yes, the Council considers even your past 'incidents' less impacting on the greater picture than the actions of others of our kind with lesser finesse. The mortals that surround you have learned to see you as a trustworthy figure, someone they can trust without a compromise on their life. At least on the surface, isn't that so, Darzarath?"
She remained silent. She began pacing around him, her eyes low but focused on him.
"Sivos, I've known you for a long time now. I know that you don't bring up a certain subject without having more to add to it." She said. "You want to make a point that the Council didn't make obvious for whatever their reasons would be. Speak your mind, or I'll be on my way back to where my presence would be more urgently needed."
"Of course, my friend." He replied, a slight grin marking his mouth briefly. "The subject matter of the Council's attention, is you. Your progress and advances in the mortals' technology. Your ability to stubbornly focus on the material, in spite of your shortcomings in the immaterial. After all these years, you've finally got their full attention."
"And what? Doing what I do is a full time occupation. I have no time to spare the Council's whims." Darzarath blurted out while crossing her arms.
Sivos snapped his eyes right into hers. Had she been any younger or less experienced, she might have even been intimidated.
"You forget that the Council's whims is what afforded you your peace of mind for the past one thousand years." Sivos scolded her. "As easily as they granted it, they can take it back."
"My time, knowledge and influence are not negotiable at the Council's leisure." She retorted, stomping her boot closer to Sivos. "I offered them multiple times what they now aim to take by caprice. They were blind to the extent of what I offered back then, I have no reason to believe it would be different now."
She turned around and started for the exit of the ruins, her boots leaving small gashes in the stone underneath with how strong her steps where being.
"Leave these ruins now, and the Council won't be there for you in the future." Sivos called to her.
She stopped right where an old stone arch marked what used to be an old gate to the market square.
"They've set their offer. Walk away from it, and no more will be given. Forever." He continued.
She stood there, her back towards him. It was not the first time they tried something similar, and they always relented, however this time she knew something was off. They had sent Sivos, who they knew was very close to Darzarath, and a very smooth talker, for a dragon. They wanted what they asked from her very urgently.
She slowly turned around, and bore her eyes into Sivos'. He was determined to not let her go just yet, he wasn't finished.
"Do you even know what they want, Sivos?" She asked. "What they want is beyond my goodwill. I cannot in good conscience give them what they seek just like that."
"No, I don't know what they want, but I do know that you won't turn their back to them like this. Please, my friend."
She still stood there. He trusted her, she could feel how he was hanging off her words. Darzarath knew what the Council wanted. Although Sivos didn't know, this was not the first time the Council attempted to sway her, and everytime she had refused their offers, whatever they were. She was ready to make this time no different than the ones before it, but then she remembered one thing that could give her the leverage that she needed.
"Fine, Sivos. But if they want what they require of me, the terms shall be mine to dictate." She said. "Refer to them, that I'll be waiting them at my estate in three moons. Take or leave."
Sivos was about to answer, but she quickly crossed the arch, leaving the ruins and him in solitude once more as she resumed her true form and took off to fly away.
He watched as her colossal form disappeared off to the horizon. Pondering on the words exchanged in this encounter, he wasn't sure what to make of Darzarath's behavior. He was used to seeing her planning things on-the-go in the past, he has seen her distressed before too, and he also witnessed her being angry, or at least what he interpreted as being angry. This was something else, she was so on the defensive that he didn't know how to intrepret it.
With one last sigh he turned and left the ruins from the opposite direction Darzarath went. He had many questions, but he'd have to wait to satisfy his curiosity. The Council waited for his return.