<span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">Cria’s first impulse was to swallow the defiant one. Instead she listened to the lorekeeper-turned-surrogate, and paid attention to how Miri ran the House. She kept her eyes on the Head as she looked over the portrait, then as she was leaving, but before she’d fully exited the room, Cria turned her yellow, dragon-eyed gaze on the one who had interrupted, unannounced and unintroduced. In that moment time’s hourglass fell on its side, and Cria’s dark, still, eternal power filled the chamber. It flowed like a shadowy mist through the air, and everything in the room went perfectly still, save for the beating hearts and twitching eyes. The lights flickered as though battling against a suffocating wind, and Cria’s footsteps resounded off the walls. Belying sight and reason, Crianxiiliathellendra’s posture gave off the impression of her true size as she approached the quivering mammal.<br/>
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“Among my kind, <i>beloved</i>, I would be well within my rights to snap you up in my jaws and silence you once and for all for the insolence you just offered.” Cria raised her hand as if to stroke the diminutive woman’s cheek, but held her touch at a distance. “However, I am not among my kind and so I will suffer your rudeness, but I will not suffer your ignorance. The child you so nobly stand over is no mere whelp. She is the scion of a true and living Goddess, and her affairs will be greater than any you have ever recorded. She is on the stage of the pantheon, and the players are devious, treacherous, insidious and powerful beyond the capacity of your reckoning. Her blood is the last remaining vestige of a Goddess who cried the very oceans you sailed upon. Shahazen’s daughter is fortunate to have one such as you to nurture her, and care for her, but you cannot protect her, and neither can her absentee father. That is why I have come. You will not keep me from my task, no matter where you take her. I have no need nor desire to touch the babe, you may keep that dubious privilege to yourself. But you <i>will </i>keep a sensible and calm tongue in your tiny, little head, or you will bring not yourself but our charge to ruin and that I will not allow. My Mistress desires the life of that child to be long and fruitful, and so it will be. I will see to it. She said nothing of preserving you. I ask you, puny scribbler of primate tidings, where do you think the very first place Dartanden will search will be when he discovers that his minions failed in their task?” She paused, then indicated the room around them with the wave of a hand. “And where, do you suppose, might be the last?” She drew a sharp, black fingernail over the plane of the woman’s face. “One thing is certain, precious surrogate: You will never be able to hide Shahazen’s daughter from her past, and if you try, you will do her nothing but harm by leaving her utterly unprepared for her destiny. Speak no more foolishness in my presence, and you may keep your wagging tongue.” With that Cria withdrew her hand from the woman’s face, then turned to follow Miri out of the chamber and down the hall. <br/>
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Where all remaining in the hall, including Dorant, had been frozen, Miri’s movements remained unhindered. As soon as the door shut behind them, the choking moment was past, and Dorant was the first to speak as he stood before Marlon. “I would say she grows on you, but that is truly the kindest I have ever seen her. While I am ancient, and also a predator, I am not here to eat, good woman. I am here because Shahazen’s tears distress me, and Shahazen’s distress alarms me.” He removed the helmet from his head, revealing wavy hair the colors of sand, and deep, sapphire irises that held both compassion and endurance in oceanic proportions. “Please consider trusting us at our word when it comes to those whom we serve.” He gave a respectful bow of his head as he punctuated the request with a pause. “It is true that I would very much like to see my Goddess’s daughter with my own eyes, but I will acquiesce to your authority on the matter, as I believe you have her best interests at heart.”<br/>
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Cria’s power followed her into the hall, and surrounded Miri, but did not hamper her in any way. In the privacy of those quarters, Crianxiiliathellendra’s voice was softer, as though speaking to something like a sister. She was standing behind Miri, and tendrils of her hair had reached out to press lightly on Miri’s shoulders, imploring her to stop. “I did not think it was possible, for one such as you to exist.” The strands of hair brushed down Miri’s shoulders like an intimate caress. “I understand that I have stolen a secret from you, and that was not my intention. In return, I will share one with you. I have stored within me, next to my womb, the essence of many powerful, ancient and illustrious dragons. Many of each variety, of which there are seven. Of them, I have chosen the strongest of each type, and replicated their essence throughout the rest of their kind within me, until there remained only seven. Seven seeds from which to hatch the life of my clutch, one of each form and element of dragon. The most magnificent of any brood that will have ever clawed their way out of their shells. Some of the… contributors are no longer upon this world of life, and live on only in my body. It is my greatest desire to bring my brood into this world, and see what they make of it. I seek now only a mate with whom to realize this dream. That is what I want, Miri of House Sur. You, I think, do not know what you may attain with the power you hold. I wish to show you. When we go among your sick, dying, and even some of your dead, should you choose it, I will let you draw on my power, my life, and you may use it to heal those whom you will. I will do nothing, unless you ask of me otherwise.” The tips of the strands of her hair were trickling down Miri’s neck. “This is your House, Miri Ora Sur, and I, with your permission, will behave as a guest in it.” The silent death knell of her aura receded, and her voice returned to mere human proportions. “You first must conceive of your power differently. It is not life or vitality that you wish to return to them, but their death. Their deaths must be stored deep within them, secure and untouched, for it is when their deaths bleed out that they lose their lives. Mine is long, and deep, and pure, and so you may draw on it for the rest of your natural life and deplete me by no noticeable amount. Show me, Miri Ora Sur, what you would do with it.”<br/>
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The aura that had filled the room was now a dense sphere in the center of Cria’s chest, and from it a tendril stretched forth, coiled over Miri’s neck, and balled into an obsidian orb before her. Two of the hairs that caressed Miri’s flesh stretched out to the orb, attached to it like a pearl on a necklace, then let it hang before Miri in the air. Cria’s fingernail sliced the hairs, and they fell like wisps of silk and draped themselves over Miri’s back, unknotted and unbound. “A gift. A token given with no thought of return. Those touched by Lolae are worth so much more.” The pearl radiated with the power Cria had spoken of, dark, quiet, secret, absolute necromantic power that availed itself to Miri's touch and command. </span>