Arxet’s tears did not run out for quite some time. Her new family (though she wasn’t quite ready to address them as such) did not leave her side until she was good and dry. Once she finally calmed down, her eyes were so puffy and sore that she just kept them closed and stayed where she was under Amjazel’s wing. She didn’t have the energy to make a stink over the coddling and move.
Eventually Amjazel lifted her wing and poked her daughter with her nose. “Feeling better, dear?”
“...Yeah. ‘Better’.” She raised her head for a moment and squinted at the enormous, sparkly, purple head in front of her before slumping back down again.
“I came home planning to invite you out to dinner with Mother. She wanted a chance to check in with you and ask about you. She said she met you the night before your ceremony but wanted another chance to spend time with her newest grand daughter.” She stretched out and laid her head down on the stone as well but angled her head to still make eye contact with Arxet beneath her wing. There was a strange twinkle in her eye. She was enjoying this too much. “I can ask her to delay if you-”
“I’ll go. Just… give me some time to rest.” Best not to keep goddesses waiting. “I might lay down for a short nap first. I- I’ll get there myself.” She stumbled to her feet and shuffled out from under the pavillion-sized wing. How did her whole body hurt after just crying? It was infuriating. Emotions shouldn’t do that to you, it wasn’t fair to fuck with your head and body at the same time.
Luckily for her pride, Amjazel let her go without any challenge. She was already embarrassed enough about coming apart at the seams like that in front of everyone. She wanted them to see her as a capable and independent adult and this wasn’t helping her case.
She made it down to her bed and flopped onto the dragon sized cushion. It was probably the most comfortable piece of furniture she’d ever owned. Amjazel and Emren had been specific with her to make sure she understood that not only the room but all of its contents were a gift. They were hers. She could live here for as long as she liked, sell all her belongings, or throw them away. They belonged to her and it was her business what she did to them. It was such a strange feeling to have a place she knew she could call home.
All of this, honestly, was so strange. Thinking about it, she hadn’t really processed all the changes in her life. The training had kept her so busy that not all of it had truly sunk in.
She was a dragon.
For some reason she had the body of a girl dragon (not unpacking that just yet).
And she had people offering to join their family.
What in Tiamat’s name was she supposed to do with all of this?
Since she was cast out she’d never truly been able to consider what she wanted out of life other than comfort and luxury. Now she had it. What’s next? Get a rider? That was easy enough and coming up in only another few months.
She could learn more magic maybe. But magic interested her solely as a tool. The practice itself was not remarkably compelling to her. Eventually, she’d learn what she needed to know and be done.
She would need to get back to that jeweler and teach him a lesson once she had a rider to help her too, but that would only take a day or two at most to finish. There was getting revenge on her birth family in Tiskin, she wanted nothing more than to burn their stinking manor to the ground and tell them exactly why.
What then? Hell, she could live thousands of years. What the hell was she supposed to fill that time with? Basket weaving? Learning to sculpt stone? She supposed she could work with the ministry, fight monsters, defend remote villages, fly around helping out regular people.
Maybe she could be the dragon that focuses the most on helping out street urchins, especially the coldmarked ones. Tiamat only knows how many she screwed over before to give her an edge. Maybe she should make up for it now. It seemed like something more dragons should do anyway. It wasn’t a terrible idea. Maybe if someone had helped her out sooner she could have had a happier life. But… how would she help? Use some of the money Tiamat had given her for an orphanage? It wouldn’t last forever. She needed more cash for a task like that, and she was bad with kids. She’d probably need to pay someone to actually do the majority of the work, and that was even more coin. Honestly this seemed like the kind of thing a government that collects taxes should do, not her.
She could push the ministry to do something like that… in some larger cities they did hand out bread and cheese to people around their temples, but she’d always been turned away for her cold mark, and the newer generation going through rider/priest school weren’t any better. Unless Tiamat got off her pedestal to come help her give those stinking priests an earful that would be a huge time sink.
A thought popped into her head. Her childhood home in Tiskin was massive. It had about 30 guest rooms. That could hold a lot of kids. If she killed her birth mother and birth father maybe she could take it for herself? And obviously if they were dead who would stop her from just saying she was the new Countess of Nilim? The king? Fat chance. Tiskin was such a small country he would know better than to pick a fight with the ministry by attacking a dragon.
Unless she just went for the throne of all of Tiskin… A toothy grin spread across her face as she imagined all the creative ways she could have him and her parents executed. The three people who had caused almost all the suffering in her life under her control, begging for mercy… The thought gave her giddy chills.
That wasn’t even acknowledging the coffers that would be open to her if she did that… Tiskin was a relatively small and poor nation, but it was still a nation in its own right. The king famously enjoyed a lavish lifestyle in the palace, and when he’d visited Nilim he’d always been decked out in jewels and fineries. All of that could be hers if she just killed him…
Alright. That’s a goal! Become the que- the king! The king of Tiskin! She wouldn’t be a queen. That would be silly. She would just need to clear the plan with Tiamat over dinner. She wasn’t sure if that was allowed as a dragon. They had different rules, didn’t they?
Whatever. These were all questions for later. For now, she needed a nap.
A few hours later she crawled back out of her bed and returned to the surface. She still had a dull throbbing in her eyes and forehead from all the crying earlier, but she could get by. She’d been through worse before. As she exited the stairway out into the courtyard she was greeted by an unfamiliar tiger woman in a purple robe. “Oh there you are, dear! I was about to check on you. Did you still want to decorate yourself some before we go? I never put the basket of jewelry away.”
Arxet tilted her head in confusion at the stranger before things clicked. “Amjazel?”
“In the flesh.” She spun around to show off the robe. “This is the form I usually take if I want to go unnoticed, or inside a smaller building. I used to prefer lizardfolk, but Emren has really brought me around to cats.” She was absolutely massive even in this form. She was still small by Arxet’s new draconic standards, sure, but for an anthronoid she was huge, a slab of solid muscle on a six and a half foot frame.
“Yeah, you’ll definitely go unnoticed like that.” Arxet glanced behind her and spotted Emren with another lynx by the kitchen. “And that’s Rubis, I take it?”
“It is. That’s just about how she used to look when I found her, with some small tweaks.” She grinned at the memory.
“And you do know I can’t shapeshift yet, right? I thought I was years from that.” She started for the basket of jewelry. There was no way she was turning down that kind of glamour.
“Of course, dear!” Amjazel waved off the concern and followed after. “We’re going to a tavern at the edge of the ministry complex. It’s owned by a former rider so he won’t pay too much mind to you coming in. Most of the guests are going to be other riders, priests, even other shapeshifted dragons or dragons close to your size.” She began the work of digging out and untangling various rings and chains to compare to Arxet’s horns.
Arxet leaned down further so that the now shorter woman could reach her horns and begin decorating. “So riders can just retire? They’re not like… bound to you?”
Amjazel shook her head and began draping chains from the dragon’s horns. She seemed over the moon to be helping her daughter dress up for a dinner. “Oh, in a way, we are bound. But riders aren’t our servants or slaves. They are allowed to step down if circumstances change. I’ve had 4 riders in my lifetime, two of which have been my wives. Not every dragon is in a romantic relationship with their rider like I have been and am now either, even if it’s very common. It can be an intimate thing, living so closely and sharing the edges of your mind like that, and we do get very close, but people grow and change, mortals especially. Once dragons get to a certain age we can become very set in our ways, but younger dragons and mortals are always learning and growing and becoming new people. It’s only natural for us to sometimes drift apart.” She slid a few rings down over Arxet’s spines and pushed them down tight. “Sometimes the rider a dragon picks doesn’t work out. We aren’t infallible in who we choose, even if priests sometimes treat us as such. Unfortunately that usually falls on the rider. It’s almost impossible to find a new dragon if your first doesn’t work out. They usually become priests or just take the skills they learn and forge their own path.”
“Honestly I don’t know who I would pick out of my class. They all kinda hated my guts just for existing near them with a cold mark.” She huffed.
“Yes, mother did say you had a bullying problem, and Emren mentioned a fox coming into your room to harass you the night we were reunited.” She pulled a pair of long pink sashes from somewhere and began fastening them along the rings along Arxet’s horns and spines.
They were… strangely beautiful. Arxet’s chest burned at the sight. She didn’t usually like anything so feminine, but this all felt right somehow. And… dammit she was letting all that go through the link with Amjazel again. “Yeah, but I did manage to put her in her place before I left. Kinda. Leaving didn’t really make it stick probably.”
“I’m proud of you for getting even with her at least, shame it won’t stick.” For her part Amjazel gave no sign of hearing those particular private thoughts, she only finished up the attachments, stood back for a better look and clapped her hands together. “You look perfect!”
Arxet glanced back over herself, experimentally lifted her wings, angled her tail where she could see it, and shook her head side to side to feel the golden chains hanging from her horns jangle. The sashes and chains were carefully woven together and ran all the way down from her neck to the tip of her tail, with two additional sashes hooked onto the mostly vestigial thumbs sticking out of her wings. She spun around quickly to watch the many sashes sway and catch in the air. It was strangely satisfying. “Yeah. Maybe we try a different color next time. Pink and blue is… not my color. Well blue is, obviously, but pink-” She fumbled with her words as the embarrassment set in further. She really did look like a girl…
“Of course, dear.” Amjazel patted Arxet’s cheek. It was strange being larger than the dragon after all this time. Even if she was big for an anthronoid, she still only came up a bit above Arxet’s shoulder. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah, ready as I’ll get. If you could just do me a favor and grab a few of the coins that Tiama-”
“Absolutely not! Emren and I are covering your dinner.” She crossed her arms. “We have plenty of money. You need to save it for whatever you have planned after your training.” She turned away to signal the discussion was over. “Emmie, Rubis, we’re ready to go!”
The tavern, sure enough, was directly outside the eastern gate to the ministry complex. Arxet had initially mistaken it for a guard house or defensive structure with its location, the tower at the top, and the narrow windows that looked more like arrow slits. Though admittedly, no one was stupid enough to attack the home of a goddess and thousands of other dragons.
Tiamat was already waiting for them outside, appearing once again in the guise of Fatima Mattar. Amjazel ran ahead and picked up the ‘smaller’ woman into a bear hug. “We have to get together like this more often! Arxet’s been doing great in her training, even with some of the catch up.”
“Oh yes? You’ll have to tell me about it!” Once Tiamat found her feet on the ground again she approached Arxet and offered a hug. Arxet submitted, and Tiamat awkwardly hugged around her side. Even as such a young dragon, the human form could not properly hug her.
“Well, I’m gliding.” She mentally mumbled in response. This was just as awkward as meeting her ratfolk grandmother as a child. “Haven’t figured out fire breath ye-”
“You haven’t been able to breathe fire?” The goddess recoils in shock at the statement. “Arxet you’re two weeks in, this is serious. I’ve never heard of any of my children taking so long to breathe fire. It should be as natural to you as… well, breathing normally.”
“Yeah. I guess I’m just too cool. Can’t mess up my image.” She waited for anyone to laugh. Rubis did at least smile at it. Maybe she was getting rusty? “Can we please just get dinner and talk about something else?”
The goddess hesitated. This was not something to be ignored, but she could sense the unease in her granddaughter. “Yes, but we are coming back to this.” She gestured for the family to follow. “Come, I already arranged for one of the second floor tables to be reserved for us.”
There was, mercifully, a stairwell on the outside of the building. The first floor’s interior certainly had enough room for Arxet, but she could not envision a scenario in which she did not knock over about 20 delicate items, people, and walls passing through. The second floor was considerably more spacious, almost open air. There were even two other dragons inside. Each was notably larger than Arxet, a year or two into their transition rather than the meager weeks she had under her wings, but able to fit quite comfortably.
Amjazel pulled down a dragon sized cushion from a pile by the wall and set it out for Arxet on the side of the table closest to the windows before taking a stool opposite of her. Tiamat took a seat at the head of the table, and Rubis and Emren sat beside Amjazel.
A foxfolk man who seemed thoroughly unimpressed by the shiny blue dragon at the table approached them a minute later to ask what everyone would be having. “This place really is used to dragons coming here, huh?”
Tiamat ordered a full banquet for the entire table, rightfully assuming that four dragons and a rider together would be able to finish whatever was brought out for them. Wine and beer arrived first, and Tiamat began with a toast, “To our ever expanding family, and Arxet!” She lifted her chalice and drank deeply. Arxet, on the other hand, simply looked on awkwardly, not about to inform a goddess she didn’t want to be related, and dipped her lips into the large bowl of wine placed before her. Drinking didn’t even work for her the way it used to. If her mouth was open she couldn’t really create a seal for suction. She had learned to simply close her mouth over some liquid, raise her head, and let it fall down her throat. If the liquid was deep enough she could stick her whole muzzle in, but any kind of drinking vessel with only one serving would be too small.
“Here, let me show you a trick.” Rubis scooted closer to her and picked up the bowl. “Hook it on your teeth juuuuust like this.” She placed it in Arxet’s mouth and guided her to close her jaws over the lip. “Just keep a good grip and take it slow as you tilt it up, it should pour into your mouth.”
Arxet capitulated and followed instructions as their dinner began to arrive and be placed before them. She wasn’t even much of a wine person, she didn’t know why wine got set in front of her in the first place. Beer was her drink of choice!
Tiamat watched on with patience as the newfound dragon struggled to take a drink from her wine. After Arxet was finished (and didn’t even spill a drop!) she extended a cup out to her. “Would you like to add a few words, my love?”
Arxet nearly dropped the bowl in the middle of gingerly setting it down. Instead she tried to catch it, underestimated her own bite force, and bit clean through. It shattered and exploded into pottery shards all over her food. “I- uh-”
Without skipping a beat Emren had already moved in and begun cleaning up after her. “Don’t worry, dear. We’ll have them bring more up.” She gingerly piled up the pottery-afflicted dishes into a pile.
“No!” Arxet growled and tried to pull them back to her in a moment of panic. In the process she got it all over her forelimbs and destroyed several more dishes as they fell off the table and shattered on the floor. Her heart was pounding again.
Emren seemed to be the only one at the table unsurprised by her reaction, including Arxet. “Arxet, dear,” She placed her hand over Arxet’s claw. “We’ll get you more, but these are full of pottery. It’s not safe to eat.”
“… I’ve eaten worse.” She couldn’t help but shrink down onto her cushion. Even the folks at the other tables were staring.
“Yes, I know.” The lynx swapped to mental communication, sensing how self conscious Arxet was feeling. “But you don’t have to anymore. It doesn’t help you or anybody else to eat dirty food, does it?”
“… No. It doesn’t.” She relinquished the dishes. It still felt deeply wrong, but Emren had once again made a sound argument. She hated how often it happened.
Emren gathered up every little bit of broken pottery off the floor and helps hand them off to the worker. Not a further word is said on the matter from anyone. Arxet couldn’t decide if it was worse for it to go unacknowledged or if she preferred it that way.
In an attempt to distract herself from the pervasive awkward silence she turned attention out toward the city outside the window. From her vantage she could see the walls of the ministry complex and the gate.
Hundreds of citizens roamed the streets, going to and fro from who knows where. Every species she could think of, not that she could really think of all that many off the top of her head. Each conceivable type of person was welcome here, except for one. Would that really change for her as a dragon? Was she really on top now or just at the very bottom rung of the top? Where did the net gain of the pros of being a dragon and the cons of having a cold mark really leave her?
Not even Tiamat could answer that really, she thought. There was no other dragon like her, was there? Would every dragon react to her with as much warmth and kindness as these three? What about mortals? Would they ever actually see her as deserving? Not even the other chosen did before they became dragons. They just questioned her legitimacy until Emren stepped in.
“She really does have my back… and Rubis strangely gets me. She lived on the streets just like me. Amjazel seems lost with me sometimes but Tiamat’s Tail she tries, doesn’t she?” A pit was forming in her stomach. Was she… feeling fond of these people?
Was there really something to what Amjazel said that night? She didn’t even feel like the same person she did then. What had changed so drastically? Had a small taste of luxury broken her of all her spite and craftiness so quickly?
Her spiral of self reflection was suddenly broken as a new incident began to unfold below her through her vantage out at the gate. Two of the special guards for the complex were dragging out a woman kicking and screaming. “PUT ME DOWN! I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING YOU PIGS! I’LL LEAVE YOU ALONE JUST LET ME GO!”
Was that Idami?
She moved before she could even think. The guards were fucking with someone she knew, and someone else with a cold mark at that. She might as well test how much she can get away with now.
By the time anyone at the table could react to her leaving the table she was out of the building and pouncing down next to the guards. Her wings were splayed and her teeth were already bared as she slammed onto the bricks next to them. She may still be young for a dragon, but she weighed two tons, and the stone shook at her impact. “What do you two stooges think you’re doing?”
The guards gripped their head and reeled. She could sense the disorientation from the two of them as the alien voice rang through their minds. She’d almost completely forgotten how distressing mental communication can be for the uninitiated, but only almost.
In their moment of confusion Idami slipped free of their grasp and ran behind the dragon. She at least seemed to realize that Arxet was there to help, even if she probably didn’t recognize her.
“W-we were simply ejecting her at our mistress’s wishes.” One of them stumbled to his knees and prostrated himself before her.
“Ooh. I like that. More of that please.” She ruminated only to herself this time. She assumed that she could only push the guards so far before granny had something to say about it, more mental communication and aggression was off the table. Instead she took a step forward, growled again, and angled her nose at the gate back into the complex. The message was clear, ‘get lost’.
Luckily, some messages truly do transcend words. The two bolted back for the walls of the complex, their armor clattering frantically as they retreated.
The weasel behind her sighed in relief. “Thanks, Arxet. That’s you, isn’t it?”
The dragon reeled in surprise. Idami recognized her? The coldmark was in the same place, but come on!
“Yeah, I knew it. Don’t worry, I’m in on that little dragonblood secret. You can also talk with me mentally if you want to.” She winked and grinned up at her oh so smugly.
“How do you-” She started.
“Idami!” Tiamat was making her way down the stairs with the rest of the family in tow. “What in the world happened? Don’t those guards know who your mother is?”
Arxet looked between the two in confusion. Tiamat knew the coldmarked weasel she had met in jail by name?
“Miss Mattar!” Idami bowed as the woman approached. “They know, ma’am. My mother was the one who had me removed.”
“No, no. You don’t have to use any of that ‘Miss Mattar’ nonsense, Tia is fine. Come, join us. We have food to spare. It’s been too long! How long has it been actually? Time can just run away from you when you’re an old bitty like me.” She gently took the girl by the shoulder and lead her back up the stairs.
“Ohhh about ten years I want to say.” Idami followed along with the goddess. She seemed almost as surprised as Arxet to be invited along.
Arxet was left back on the street below completely baffled. What just happened? After a moment she scaled back up the stairs to rejoin the group. Emren had pulled another stool out for Idami and set it down to Arxet’s left, directly across the table from Tiamat.
“Now, Idami, dear. What happened?” Tiamat poured a cup of wine for her and passed it across the table. The replacement food for Arxet also began trickling in between two of the workers delivering dishes in tandem.
“Well…” The girl swirled the wine in her chalice. She was hesitating. Arxet knew that look. Idami didn’t to get someone else in trouble.
“Just tell me. My guards should never be handling anyone like that unless they’re an active threat, and I can tell that you aren’t.” Tiamat stared Idami down over the meal. There was anger simmering just beneath the surface that she didn’t want to let out on the poor girl. She needed to save it for the one who actually deserved it, but first she needed all the facts.
“I just wanted to ask my mother for… I don’t know.” The weasel avoided eye contact. “A little money. Some food. Maybe to be able to stay with her until I get on my feet again.” She seemed very different than how Arxet remembered her in the pit. She was far more reserved and formal, as if she were accustomed to speaking with important people. “It’s been rough. I was in jail for a few months. I only even got out because a dragon and a rider came to break Arxet out.”
“That would be me and Jiru.” Rubis raised a hand as she slurped up a bowl of soup. “Jiru decided to just let most of the prisoners out.”
“Yeah, lucky me.” Idami rolled her eyes, a small crack in the formal and professional facade she had put up for Tiamat. “I got out and found out that what little savings and belongings I had were gone, and I’d lost my apprenticeship with the stonemason. My master always hated me anyway...”
“So who are you? Who is your mom that Tiamat knows you?” Arxet interjected. She was still absolutely lost.
“Idami’s mother is the head priest of all of Fellrock. She is not my high priest, but she does preside over the very center of my worship, which is why I find it so concerning to see her treating her daughter like this. Family is everything.” She sighed and set her chalice down. “Idami, has your mother cast you out because of your coldmark? I know this is probably hard for you, a simple yes or no will do.”
Idami hesitated, but eventually nodded with her ears flattened to her head. “Ever since it appeared six years ago. She didn’t just cast me out, but she stopped being my mother.”
“That is all that I needed to hear, thank you. Please, relax. Enjoy the meal, I’m going to be calling her in for answers.” Tiamat sipped from her chalice again. When she placed it back down again the metal around the handle had been completely crushed and warped so badly it toppled over. “Oh dear… I’ll need to pay for quite a few damages tonight, won’t I?”
Idami nodded and bowed again. “Thank you, Tiamat. It is an honor.”
“Now now, none of that.” The old woman took a deep breath. “We were just enjoying a casual family dinner to celebrate Arxet joining the family. Just think of yourself as a friend of Arxet that she invited. Right, Arxet?”
“Yeah, sure.” Arxet was still dumbfounded by this all. The hot annoyed weasel she met in jail was the daughter of a high priestess?
“Right, thank you for the invitation then, Arxet. And for the save. I think one of those guards shit themselves.” Ah, that was closer to what Arxet remembered from her.
“Yes, I was quite impressed with you, my love.” Tiamat leaned across the table to pat Arxet on the forepaw. “Try not to use telepathy as a weapon too often, but it is effective.”
“Don’t mention it. I have to throw my weight around now that I can. A lot less people fuck with a dragon with a coldmark than a rat with one.” She grinned and continued to dig in. Emren shot her a warning look and she tried to slow down some and pace herself again.
“And what about me? I helped pull you out of that pit last month, didn’t I?” Rubis winked.
“Yes, thank you too. I never got your name.” Idami tipped her goblet to her.
The table continued their conversation and dinner for some time. Tiamat even had to order another entire banquet for the family as the dragon easily tore through the meal in good time. After nearly an hour an older weasel ascended the stairs and stopped short as she laid eyes on Idami sitting over dinner with Tiamat.
This weasel was dressed in fine priestly garments decorated with golden threads, silk sashes, and embroidered waves over a golden sunset-lit sea. It screamed importance as much as a person’s garment can. She bowed her head for a moment and finished her ascent. “Madame Mattar. You called for me?”
When had she even done that? Could Tiamat just communicate mentally with people that far away? Arxet’s range was only about as far as she could yell as a rat.
“Yes, sit. We have something to discuss.” Tiamat’s tone was sharp and to the point, the warmth she normally displayed had dissipated and left nothing behind but her cold anger.
The priestess seemed to sense the goddess’s mood and quickly moved to sit. “I do not see another chair for-”
“The floor.” The goddess instructed, to which the weasel dropped down where she stood onto her knees on the hard stone floor. Tiamat took a moment to collect herself before continuing. “Miveri, remind me. What is my first tenet?”
A beat passed before she responded. “Honor your children so they may honor you.” The woman’s voice trembled. Realization seemed to be dawning. “B-but my goddess she-”
“Silence. I am speaking.” Tiamat stood from her seat at the table to tower further over the priestess. “Why have you chosen to break this tenet?”
“Be-be-because your radiance, she- she-”
“Because of my coldmark.” Idami herself cut in. Her tone was as sharp and deadly as Tiamat’s.
Miveri could only nod. She seemed to realize exactly what she had done wrong and could think of no further words to defend herself, groveling was all that was left.
“Look upon my newest grandchild.” The goddess commanded. “Has she not received my blessing? Has she been declared unworthy by me?”
Arxet wasn’t sure what to do with herself in this conversation. She had never seen Tiamat get this intense before. She had pulled aside teachers in the academy as Fatima before and lectured them on something or another that she disapproved of, but it always seemed to come from a place of caring and wanting them to improve. It seemed unclear if this priest would leave this building alive.
The woman looked up at Arxet, laid eyes upon her cold mark, and began to quiver with new vigor. “I- I didn’t know. It was years ago-”
“And it was decades ago that I declared that coldmarks had no link to Ninazu, and that we should welcome all who bore such a mark into our waiting arms, did I not?” Her volume was beginning to rise. The other tables had stopped eating to watch. How many people here knew this was a goddess, even in a business run by and for members of the ministry? “Answer me!”
“You did, Tiamat. You did. I beg your forgiveness!”
“Do not beg my forgiveness, it would be a waste of both of our time. You are no longer fit to be one of my priestesses. But your punishment has yet to be determined.” She thrust a finger in Idami’s direction. “Apologize to her, if you think you have any hope of forgiveness.”
The ex priestess threw herself at Idami’s feet and began bawling. She could barely sputter out a coherent word let alone a sentence. The younger weasel seemed utterly unimpressed at the display, and only stood and moved away from the sorry sight. “I don’t want any part in this. I just don’t even want to see her again.”
“Then your punishment is decided. Leave this city, and if Idami ever lays eyes upon you again you will answer to me. Now, GO.” The last word carried sufficient force for the entire room to shudder. The former priestess prostrated before Idami exploded into hysterics, begging for any kind of leniency. Tiamat, having lost all patience for the display, picked the woman up with one arm and carried her to the door and dropped her.
“Please- please! You are my daughter! Have mercy!” She finally managed to stammer out something coherent, prostrating herself again.
“NO.” Tiamat roared. The building once again shook. “She is no longer your daughter. From this moment on, she is mine.”