Wen Spencer - Wolf Who Rules

Windwolf called up the shield again and this time showed her how to properly cancel the shield. "It is best for you to get into the habit to intentionally drop the shield than just to relax your position."

It seemed easy enough, once you got past bending your fingers into pretzels. Tinker managed to initialize the resonance conduit, trigger the shield spell, hold it for a minute, and then cancelled the shield spell.

"What about air? If you keep up the shield, do you run out of air?"

"No. Air slowly leeches in, as does heat and cold. The shield will protect you for a period of time in fire, but eventually the heat and smoke will overcome you."

"Ah, good to know."

"Someone comes." Stormsong murmured softly, looking east.

The sekasha pulled in tight as they watched the eastern skyline.

"Listen," Wraith Arrow said.

After a moment, Tinker heard the low drone of engines in the distance.

"It has to be the dreadnaught," Windwolf said.

"They're coming," Tinker murmured, wondering who 'they' might be.

"Yes." Windwolf tugged on her wrist. "We need to return to the enclave."

Tinker glanced at him in surprise. She would have thought they would stay to greet the newcomers.

"I am not sure who the queen has sent," Windwolf explained. "I want to look our best. Can you change quickly?"

She supposed it depended on your idea of quickly. "I think I can. What should I wear?"

"The bronze gown, please."

"That's not the most formal one I have."

He smiled warmly at her. "Yes, but I love to see you in it."

She blushed and tried not to worry about how she was going to get into the dress quickly.

As they got into the Rolls, a shadow passed overhead accompanied by the low rumble of large engines. A dreadnaught slid out from behind the hill to hover near the tree line. She'd forgotten how massive the blend of airship and armored helicopter was; it dwarfed the ironwoods, its four massive rotator blades beating a storm of leaves out into the meadow. Barrels of heavy guns bristled from the black hull, like the spiked hide of a river shark. The gossamer moored at the clearing stirred nervously in the presence of the large predator-like craft. As they watched, the mooring lines were cast off and the gossamer gave way to the dreadnaught.

The thumping of the rotors suddenly echoed into her memories of her dream. In the background, constantly, had been the same sound.

She shivered at the foreknowledge, and wondered what her dream had been trying to warn her of.

At Poppymeadow's enclave, she discovered one of the sekasha had called ahead. Half the females of Windwolf's staff ambushed her at the door and hurried her to room. She tried not to mind as they clucked and fussed over her, pulling her out of clothes, washing her face, neck and hands, and pulling the formal gown over her head. Certainly she wouldn't be able to dress quickly without them, but their nervousness infected her.

At least she was confident about how she looked. The dress was a deep, rich, mottled bronze that looked lovely against her dusky skin. Over the bronze silk was another layer of fine, nearly invisible fabric with a green leaf design, so that when the bronze silk moved, it seemed like sunlight through forest leaves. Unfortunately, it still had long sleeves that ended in a fingerless glove arrangement and the dainty matching slippers.

"Oh please, can I wear boots?"

"You'll be outside, so the boots are appropriate." Lemonseed proclaimed and her best suede ankle boots were produced, freshly brushed.

Tinker stepped into the boots, the females fastened the row of tiny hooks and eyes made of cling vine and ironwood down the back of the gown, and she was dressed.

Windwolf waited by the car, wearing the bronze that matched her underdress and a duster of the leaf pattern of her overdress. His hair unbound in a shimmering black cascade down his back.

"Where is your jewelry?" He asked.

"They wanted me to wear the diamonds." She held out both necklaces. "But I thought the pearls would look better. I told them I'd let you pick."

"The pearls do look better," Windwolf took the diamond necklace and fastened in place. "But the diamonds are for formal occasions such as this. The pearls would be for more intimate times, such as a private dinner party."

Sighing, she surrendered the pearls back to Lemonseed for safekeeping. "We're just going out to the clearing and saying 'howdy' aren't we?"

"We are greeting the Queen's representative who can strip us of everything if they deem us unable to protect what we hold. Appearance is everything."

"They can't really take everything - can they?"

"It is unlikely." Windwolf swept her into the Rolls. "Please, beloved, be on your best behavior. Keep to High Elvish - and forgive me - but speak as little as possible, since your High Elvish is still weak."

Great, the Queen's representative hadn't even landed and already she was being made to feel like a scruffy junkyard dog. Her annoyance must have shown on her face, because Windwolf took her hand.

"Beloved, please, promise me to keep that cutting wit of yours sheathed."

"I promise." She growled, but silently reserved the right to kick anyone that truly pissed her off.

Tinker could see why Windwolf opted to dress first. True the dreadnought had landed and its many gangplanks were lowered. There was, however, no sign of the Queen's representative. A sea of Fire Clan red moved around the ship as the Queen's Wyverns secured the area with slow thoroughness. Their Rolls was checked at the entrance to the clearing where Wyverns already erected a barrier. After their identities were verified, the Rolls was directed to a shimmering white tent of fairy silk. An ornate rug already carpeted the tent. Servants were setting up a teak folding-table, richly carved chairs, a map chest and a tea service.

Leave it to elves to do everything with elegance.

The Queen's Wyverns were tall with hair the color of fire pulled back and braided into a thick cord. Like the Wind Clan sekasha, they wore vests of wyvern-scale armor, and permanent spell tattoos scrolled down their arms; both were done in shades of red that matched their hair.

All of Windwolf's sekasha had come with them and formed two walls of blue in the sea of red. Seeing all the sekasha in mass, Tinker realized not only how much alike the Wyverns looked, but also how much the Wind Clan sekasha - slightly shorter with black hair - looked the same. Only Stormsong stood out with her short blue hair.

"Are the sekasha of the various clans separate families?" Tinker whispered to Windwolf as she held out a hand to him, so he could help her out of the car. Experience had taught her that the long skirts loved to wrap tight around her ankles as she got in and out of cars and carriages - she had nearly gone face first into the dirt several times.

"Hmm?" Windwolf steadied her as she scrambled out.

"They look alike." Once out, she twitched her skirts back into place.

"The Skin Clan liked their sekasha to match - like coach horses. They would bio engineer a generation to suit them and then breed them one to another. They would kill all the children that didn't express the desired traits, weeding out stock until it bred true, like drowning litters of puppies when a mutt gets into a pure breed's kennel."

"That's horrible!"

"That's why we rebelled against them. Why we will have nothing to do with the oni who are so much like them."

"This one has the domana genome?" Lord Tomtom had said when he held her prisoner. "Perhaps I'll get my own litter on her." Tinker shivered as she remembered Tomtom's clinical gaze on her. No wonder the elves hated and feared the oni so much.