Of Houses and Packs - A Nerian Story - EQ1 Phinigel Server

[Kalese]

Of Houses and Packs, a Nerian Story

        Neriak's Foreign Quarter, most Teir'dal avoid it unless they have business with those who reside there.  Inhabited mostly by trolls and ogres, the refuse and waste strewn about the streets and shops makes the smell overwhelming.  Jalese Moonshadows, a very young Teir'dal who is not even of age in Teir'dal standards, tip toes through the streets.  As she passes the troll pens, she screws her nose up in disgust.   It is damp and the streets are filled with muck making her hike up her deep red dress.  She winces every time she hears the tell-tale squishing sound which makes her swear on how stupid it was for her to have worn her fine black corset heels.  She turns down an alley just past the troll pens.  Four doors down she pushes open a cracked half broken door.  Sitting on a straw mat, which Jalese figures doubles as a bed, is another Teir'dal.  Older, and if she was in a better setting she could possibly be quite beautiful, however, in her current state and local she looks as disheveled as her surroundings.

        Startled by her daughter's abrupt entrance into her home, Caya drops her dinner.  The mushroom and lichen soup she was half eating half drinking is strewn all over the floor as she instinctively grabs her hammer.

        Caya hisses at her daughter. "Why are you here?  Come to gloat? Or has my mother sent you to finally do me in?".

        "Grandmother has given me no orders, I am here of my own accord.  Though now I wonder why I even bothered."  The disdain in Jalese's voice is unmistakable.

        "Then get out!" Caya screams at her daughter as she throws some of the refuse off her floor splattering the front of her daughter's fine red dress.

        Jalese's fiery eyes narrow in hatred and she quickly speaks an arcane spell.  Thorns and briar vines spring forth from the floor and wrap around Caya's body making most of her immobile.  "Do not tempt me mother.  I am far more powerful than you are now.  How does it feel knowing that your life is in my hands?  Perhaps I'll just snuff it out."  Jalese pauses for effect.  "No I think I will make you live this life for quite a while longer."  A grin spreads across Jalese's face as she basks in her revenge.

        Caya spats at her daughter. "You have no power over me daughter.  The Lodge of the Dead no longer has power over me.  I have found a.. " she stops in mid-sentence lost for words on how to describe her new found peace.  Teir'dal by nature are dowsed in chaos, peace is an experience very few Teir'dal ever get to enjoy.  Yet every time Caya thinks of a certain Vah Shir she cannot help but remember the songs the Vah Shir plays.  They calm Caya, as much as you could actually calm such a violent race.  Caya especially, as she is the epitome of hate.  The songs she hears in her head now, even here, start to calm her hate. " a Vah Shir, she is my sister."

        "So it is true then?  You have made yet another blood pact?  Will you never learn?"  Jalese shakes her head in disbelief.

        "I have made no blood pact.  I belong to a pack now.  Basti, the Vah Shir of the House of Saga is now my sister, and I hers.  I am in her pack.  Just as she is in our House." Caya hisses.

        "A pack?  Like a wolf?"  Jalese looks around.  "Well you certainly are living like one."  She stifles a giggle.

        "Laugh all you want.  She will help us put Queen Cristanos on the throne and destroy the House of Thex!" Caya states defiantly.

        Jalese squeezes her hand together as if trying to squeeze the life out of a small animal in her hand.  In response, the bonds about her mother constrict considerably.  Caya winces in pain.

        Constraining her anger, Jalese asks her sternly. "What have you told this Vah Shir?  If you betray us, you will suffer immeasurably."

        "I will not betray our people or the House of Moonshadows, I swear." Caya squeeks.

         "Be sure that you do not."  Jalese spins on her heels and walks out the door.  Her mother slumps to the floor.  Her deep red eyes, filled full of hate, follow her daughter's shadow down the alley.