#moving lairs

“Oh?” Geras said. “You want me to do that?”

“You and Luna,” Aridatha clarified. “She should be getting in any time now. She worked with beastclans before joining us, yes?”

“As far as I know.” Geras had never spoken much to Luna, though the other guardian was friendly and good-natured enough, as far as she knew. Their paths just hadn’t tended to cross. But Luna had to have got that harpy of hers from somewhere.

“You can start without her if you want.” Aridatha turned away. Something in her tone suggested that she considered the matter Geras’ problem now, not hers. “Just … work something out to transport them. With a minimum of fuss, please.”

“I’ll try,” Geras said, and then Aridatha was gone, picking her way through the clan’s detritus back to the stack of clutter Isildur was sorting. Geras had to hand it to those two: they’d done a better job arranging things than she would have believed possible. But even those keen minds couldn’t keep everything in order. Still, the odd battle-stone and feathered fan littered the floor. Eventually it’d all get swept up and stuffed into a bundle with everything else.

Geras had not entered the clan’s familiar cave in a long time. Unlike most of the other dragons in the clan, she’d found a familiar she wanted to keep. She couldn’t have said why she decided to stick with Fee – and Rakgi did ask, every so often – but something about the Serthis … She just seemed to belong with Geras.

Fee was currently in Geras’ room – what would soon be Geras’ old room – familiars being fairly low on list of things to haul across the mountains. Except for Luna’s harpy; of course her charge accompanied her.

That chain of thought led, naturally, to the question of Geras’ own Search and when, exactly, that was supposed to happen. Shaking her head as if to clear it, Geras put those questions aside and stepped through the curtain draped over the familiar cave’s entrance.

“Holy Flamecaller.”

Clearly, Isildur’s organizing hadn’t reached this far. The large chamber was a mess. The smell hit Geras first, musky and fetid. The floor … the state of the floor did not bear thinking about. As Geras stepped through, the creatures scattered to all corners with a cacophony of growls and squawks. There was half-eaten food everywhere; it must have come from the main hoard, except … as Geras watched, two floracats and a large scorpion fell upon a dodo and tore it apart, snarling and clicking at each other.

When Geras failed to produce either food or threat, the animals seemed to decide to ignore her, and got back to chasing each other, clawing at each other, and hiding from each other. Lifting her head, Geras noticed that at the back of the cavern a large area had been barricaded off with a slightly haphazard pile of wood and stone. Skulls and feathers hung from the barricade, the former staring rather accusatorially at Geras. That was where she would find the more intelligent beasts, she imagined.

She stepped backwards out of the familiar cavern, back into the main hoard, and took a long, deep breath.

“How did we let this get so …” she said, to no one in particular. “It’s … it’s awful.”

She felt suddenly uncomfortably aware that she’d been sitting in luxury in her own chamber nearby while the creatures that her clan was responsible descended into chaos.

“It’s pretty bad.”

Geras spun to see Frip lounging on a nearby stack of flowers and rocks. Her perch put the nocturne nearly at eye level with Geras, so Geras could see the smile on her face. She couldn’t, however, find any meaning in Frip’s blank white eyes.

“Someone sure ought to do something,” Frip said lazily.

“May I assume you want me to be that someone?” Geras asked.

“Do you see anyone else here to do it?” Frip shrugged.

“There’s you.”

Frip slid off the pile of junk, rolling over on her way down to land on her feet. “Oh no. We’ve had it quietly behind the scenes for far too long. And this is our new beginning, after all. Think of it as a chance to start over.”

Geras frowned as Frip slunk away into the hoard. “Wait, but … Where do I start?”