The Lord of Arra (5/6)

Elder Tala tries fighting back with his bodyguards..., but it's all completely useless. They die together engulfed in flames.

The dust settles shortly after, and the calm, forest breeze carries away the Hawks' ashes.

As the little Felkin girl is carried away in her father's arms, she glances back at the blackened earth, and she wonders if she should feel bad for the Hawks. She was packed up with a wedding dress, and she was "apparently" going to marry some fat loser. Was this the Hawks' plan? What about the fake letter?

'Ah,' she realizes, "'he humans are the ones who packed me up with that letter, and it's the letter that convinced Father to kill the Hawks. But… why would they do that?'

This girl already knows about the Threshold, what soldiers are, the Rehkin racial traits that would have made assassination hard, as well as a thorough view of what the humans had done.

She has everything she needed to put together the humans' entire plan… If she had spent less time studying formulas and more time learning how to lie, cheat, and steal like her brothers, she'd have figured out the human's entire plan right then.

Alas, she's left to only feel hurt and betrayed by the humans she previously trusted.

This harsh experience only hardens her resolve, and it makes her much wiser after reflecting on it through the years. Eventually, she does escape on her own and make a name for herself, but for now, she can only feel hurt and resist the urge to cry on her father's shoulder.

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Shortly after Fheldin's massacre, Freyya feels that another battle happened near where Haalfrin is, so she rushes over as fast as she can… only to find charred ground and a bunch of Hawk souls. Haalfrin isn't here.

Sighing in slight disappointment, she quickly pulls out her spear and knives, then starts cutting their lingering spirit threads before carrying them away...

Now that the Lingering Attachment is cut away, the Fate Threaders in the Hawk Clan will no longer be able to deduce the events leading up to his demise. They'll only be able to assume that he angered Lord Fheldin and paid the price.

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Once his daughter is dropped safely off at the East Wing, Fheldin spends several hours searching futilely; he never does find any of the 6 missing children.

Of course, all of his kids are several hundred (or several thousand) years old, but in his eyes, 2 horned dragons and 2 winged phoenixes are still little, helpless children; he can't help but worry.

After giving up on finding them on his own, he goes back to the East Wing and interrogates the children he DID manage to catch earlier; they all testify as to how many children came with them.

As it turns out, Fheldin had missed 1 child in the air vents; they all complain about how "evil Fhulk" had shoved them all back, jumped out on his own, sealed the vent's exit, and escaped on his own like a selfish jerk.

Fheldin barely manages to withhold a tear of joy hearing that Fhulk did this. That was some quick thinking on Fhulk's part, and his daddy is proud of him.

The children caught in the waterway admit there were 16 of them down there, Fheldin only counted 14 there; that leaves 2 unaccounted for. Even worse, it was 2 of the youngest kids among them

Even after questioning ALL those 14 kids, none of them have any recollection of the 2 leaving; it's like… they just disappeared!

The one brother who saw his 2 siblings fall behind decided to be a good brother for once, and he doesn't snitch on them. Well, the morality of his decision to keep silent aside, he knows that if he had tattled tailed on them to Father, then his brothers would mercilessly bully him from then on out.

Oddly enough, none of the children mention the humans helping them escape…

... that is… until one little Felkin girl raises her hand. In her grip is an enchanted necklace. "Father… they said this necklace was enchanted to mask our scents. How did you find me?"

One of the Rehkin servants standing behind Fheldin takes a hold of it and says after a brief glance, "This is just a normal rock. The only magic in it is to make it glow faintly."

This doesn't seem to surprise the girl. Resolutely, she looks up and admits, "The humans helped us escape!"

"Oi!" one of the brothers shouts, "Don't snitch on someone who tried to help you!"

"Yeah, how could you?!"

"Traitor!"

The girl ignores them as she keeps talking, "I don't think the humans were really intending on helping us. Dad, why would they want us to get caught?"

Fheldin pauses – seeming to be deep in thought. "Before that, can you tell me where my 3 unaccounted for children are?"

She breathes in deeply, thinks for a bit, but ultimately folds her arms and refuses to answer.

"Answer me, Rina." Fheldin commands.

Rebelliously, Rina curtly says, "I know where they are, and they're safe. That is all." She certainly doesn't want to be the reason her sister and brothers are caught.

Despite Fheldin's calm face, the black smoke pouring out of his mouth like a chimney betrays his frustration.

Alas, he can't bear to hit his daughter or yell at her, so he turns on his heels and heads straight for the dungeon. It's a good thing he locked those humans up, just in case!

Still, with the humans locked up, Fheldin decides to look for the 3 children who disappeared in the air vents and waterway first.

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After the dragon lord goes back to the other side of the air vent, where he KNOWS Fhulk exited from, he follows the scent trail as much as he can.

Unfortunately, the scent trail is significantly older now. Even worse, it seems that Fhulk had the good sense to crisscross his path over a river several times to wash away his scent trail; even if Fheldin manages to find Fhulk's trail again, Fhulk is sure to enter the river, then exit at random points.

Thinking that his son's trail MUST begin again somewhere along the riverbank, Fheldin follows along patiently for many, many miles.

…What Fheldin DOESN'T know is that Fhulk (instead of jumping out of the river in a random spot), used his magic to dig a tunnel, then sealed it off to avoid his scent leaking out. He then dug several thousand feet away rapidly with his strong magic, surfacing too far away for his father to pick up the scent. With his trail effectively cut off, Fhulk runs free – this time for good.

What's left now is the 2 children who were supposed to be in the waterway (but mysteriously disappeared), as well as the 3 children who followed Haalfrin, which are still unaccounted for.

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After he wastes far too much time trying to find Fhulk, Fheldin decides to go find the children who escaped through the waterway. He goes to the lake and circles the perimeter several times… but he finds nothing.

Considering that the missing son here is only a 1 horned dragon, he knows the boy isn't strong enough to tunnel his way to freedom, so he and his sister must have erased their scent somehow on their journey away from the palace.

So, he circles the lake in wider and wider arcs – hoping to pick SOMETHING up. Alas, he still finds nothing.

Then, Lord Fheldin has the bright idea to check the waterway itself; what if his son and daughter chose to stay behind in an attempt to throw him off?

When Fheldin enters the tunnel, he tries sniffing around the water – confident he'll find them. After all, all water in these carven tunnels flows towards one place – the exit. No matter where they are in the water, their scent will flow toward their daddy.

Unfortunately for Fheldin, his clever daughter had realized the same thing.

So, shortly after she fled into the tunnels with her brother, they'd found a random entrance into the tunnels – a square grate at the bottom of one of the large, communal baths that the Rehkin servants prefer.

If Fheldin had time to search each and every tunnel for his son and daughter, he'd have found his 1 horned son latched onto the metal grate upside down with his 4 clawed limbs, while his sister is comfortably resting on his belly.

(In the sister's mind, she did all the thinking, so she convinced her brother to do the hard work by holding them both above the water. Strong bodies are supposed to be a Drakin's strong suit, anyway, right?)

Since the brother and sister pair aren't actually in the water, none of their scents reache Fheldin at all. So, the dragon lord does a cursory search of the tunnels before giving up; searching each tunnel would take several weeks, and he's not even sure if his children are still down here.

Of course, Fheldin could've had his thousands of servants help check the waterway entrances, but a child's adulthood ceremony is a matter between the parents and children; as a matter of pride, he can't let outsiders get TOO involved.

So, he gives up and decides to think of his other 3 children who are unaccounted for…

Not knowing who else to ask, Fheldin decides that now is a good time to interrogate the humans; he'll have to be quick about it since he only has a few hours left until the children have been gone a full day.

Once they've been gone a day, then tradition dictates that they're completely free.