The Arrival of the Birds

Posted on Thu May 8th, 2014 @ 9:03am by Morgo Le'Shaad & Egon Jotunnson II

2,660 words; about a 13 minute read

Chapter: Chapter IV: Rezer's Edge
Location: Skularii, Zkovos Isle, Dromache
Timeline: After "To Court a Stranger", Early Morning

The bounty hunter had come back alone.

Months ago, the Mandalorian bounty huntress hired by House Le’Shaad for an exorbitant fee had returned to them, empty handed with only an apology and a smile to show for it. Anja Tesanti had been a competent and incredibly skilled tracker and hunter of property and persons that were stolen or gone missing, renowned for her tendency to leave retaken goods…unspoiled. It made her an ideal warrior to send after the Le’Shaad shrew, and Egon had humored Lady Andraste’s request to have the first hand in bringing her daughter back in chains.

It would be the last time Egon would humor anyone’s wishes but his own in this troublesome matter.

Blue, blue eyes cut across the many hundreds of faces lining the walls of the Skularii Hall, unseeing but for the barely banked rage within them, almost luminous even in the light of dawn against the warm white stone of the place.

Egon’s first mistake had been to trust an outsider to finish the job. His second was underestimating Morgo Le’Shaad’s skill at worming her way out of yet another fate that she so completely deserved to suffer for her actions.


Silently, Egon fumed, his tall frame taut with tension. At the thought of the Duchess’ painted lips, curled in a secret smile—victorious and defiant—the primitive urge to openly snarl in challenge nearly overtook Egon before he smothered the impulse until it died.

To be angry was one thing. To allow it to surface in an instinctive act of hostility against an enemy not even present was beyond foolish…and undignified. But living with turbulent emotions simmering too close to the surface of his skin for comfort was all but unavoidable at this point. Certainly, being part Jotunn had its benefits—a superior physiology and mental capacity to Humans, among other things. But having the blood of ice giants within his veins meant also that emotions and baser impulses would always run violently within him, as it did their entire race.

Control of anything did not come easily to those with ice in their veins and fire in their core. And nothing was a greater threat to Egon’s carefully constructed control than thinking of House Le’Shaad.

Blood pumped through him, pounding in his ears, his heart beating like the sound of drums, war drums, calling for spilled—

Forcing a calm within himself, the king raised his head to window, feeling Skaadi’s warmth streaming in to cast his hardened features in golden light, the spear in his hand reflecting the sun. For a moment, Egon closed his eyes to the star and breathed in the Spring air, his lashes casting long and thin shadows across his cheeks. Winter had passed, and now…life was returning to his realm.

In his mind, Egon recounted the various spores and pollen that would be in the air now, relative to the seasonal dispersion patterns of each and every plant of Dromache’s flora. And with each spruce, each fir, each flowering plant the Grandsire named, a measure of his control locked back into place, returning the king to himself. In the silence his every breath was punctuated, joined only by the distant songs of birds returning to the Gardens.

When the Grand Scholar finally spoke, his voice was smooth, the low timbre of his voice warm and solemn, effortless in its authority.

“I trust you know this is an urgent matter that must be taken care of as swiftly and discreetly as possible.”

Opening his discerning blue eyes to look at the other man in the long hall, the Grandsire turned his head towards him as a gentle wind blew in from the outside, a lock of Egon’s black hair falling to his forehead, scattered with grey.

The king’s gaze was evenly met by a dark pillar of a figure, with eyes as preternaturally blue as his own, his cape fluttering in the breeze. Formidable and tall, his armor was black as coal, and seemed to swallow the light of the New Sun, rather than reflect it. For that fact alone, Egon knew that the intricately molded armor was forged from none other than Jotunn iron, a rare and resilient metal that only the ice giants knew how to properly work and bend to their design. The figure’s powerful frame declared him a warrior, and that he had no helmet marked him as a hunter. Yet now his face was concealed behind a mask that veiled everything beneath his eyes. To Egon’s eyes, it looked more like a muzzle.

The warrior said nothing in response to the Grandsire, his silence an affirmation enough.

Egon’s eyes flicked from the warrior’s shoulders to his boots, and away again, “And do you understand why this must be done—by you?”

The warrior in black blinked for the first time and stepped closer to Egon, his metal boot clicking gently on the mosaic floor.

“The Le’Shaad woman has broken the law and escaped justice. She must be brought back to suffer it.”

The warrior’s baritone was clear and un-muffled as he spoke through his mask to his king and emperor.

Egon turned his gaze back to the wall and the large portrait hanging there. Here in the Skularii, the Hall of Scholars, hung the painting of every person to ever hold the honor of Scholar—Renounced or not.

Within the silver frame, dressed like a conquering queen on her coronation day—inspiring worship and fear—stood none other than Lady Morgo, of House Le’Shaad. Upon her brow sat a silver diadem of surpassing beauty and craftsmanship, disappearing into her dark gold hair, woven and pinned in a style both feminine and regal. And regal she was in her deep blue robe, richly stitched and trimmed in silver, an elaborately engraved breastplate shaped to her curves worn over her gown. Upon her shoulders rested a fine white pelt, a cloak—grandly clasped at her front by a chain between two silver magpies mid-flight, their wings fanned wide. The heavy blue cloak hung at her sides, artfully arranged in a train on the floor around her.

In her right arm she held a heavy white tome, worn with age, the symbol of the Force engraved upon the leather. In her left she held the Le’Shaad Cortosis Staff extended, the spearhead ignited, illuminating one side of her face brighter than the other.

The air shifted around him and Egon felt the man in black armor come up beside him, turning his eyes towards the portrait as well. As the hunter examined the painting like he would prey before the kill, a sound of derision escaped him as his eyes roamed the work of art. The excessive theatrics of the Le’Shaad was often met with either awe or contempt—and Egon could guess which one it was his warrior was experiencing.

“Indeed, it is a matter of justice.” The Grandsire nodded in response to the hunter’s answer, “This time, however, this matter goes beyond simple penalties.” He added, tone grave.

Sighing, Egon allowed himself to study the careful use of chiaroscuro by the painter in Lady Morgo’s portrait, the use of light and shadow in this picture casting it as one of the more somber pieces in the Skularii. On a day that should have been a celebration and an honor, Morgo’s portrait was more like one painted on the eve of a great battle, in preparation for glory…or death. When Egon next spoke, his words were almost weary.

“I have grappled with the Le’Shaad all of my life, as my father did before me—and his father before him. For as long as history can remember, the Le’Shaad has always been the dark and rotten underbelly of all that is bright and golden about Dromache. The shadow to our light. But their criminal affiliations are beyond what it is in my power to prove.” Egon’s strong fingers clenched around the golden spear in his hand as he spoke his next words, “So it was only fate that when I convicted Morgo to a life a prison, I sought to finally rid this land of their blight. Yet now, she has escaped into the galaxy and remains at large.” Said Egon with deceptive calm.

The warrior in black seemed to sense his true emotions, however, as he remained silent as stone, simply watching his king with a careful eye.

“This is not just justice.” The Grandsire harshly assured, “This is beyond the fate of one woman. This is personal.”

Turning to the man in black, Egon drew himself to his full, impressive height, his Jotunn eyes flashing with the quiet anger of one humiliated.

“Lady Morgo disobeyed the fate I’d laid down for her to live. She broke the law, defied her sentence and flaunted that defiance in my face in fleeing the planet. When I am the law, here on Dromache,” Egon spoke quietly but with a firmness as he turned his eyes upon the hunter, expression hard, “it says much that she would seek to break it so publicly.”

The warrior’s head tilted as grim understanding dawned in his cold eyes, his thick brows furrowing.

“She challenges your integrity as the Law in breaking your sentence and creating one of her own. She mocks you. This is an attack on your authority as Grandsire and your House.”

“Precisely.” Egon answered, raising his chin to regard the warrior in black with a burning gaze that demanded action, “Others will not follow a chieftain who cannot make even one woman obey him. I will have my throne—but I will not command their respect. This is why you must bring Morgo Le’Shaad back to us and restore honor to this House.”

Stepping closer to the hunter, Egon leaned forward to clasp him by the shoulder with one hand in a gesture of unusual trust, ignoring the sharp edges of the hunter’s spaulders digging into his palm.

“You were not born within these walls.” The Grandsire spoke in subdued tones, “But you also have the blood of the Jotunn within you. This is your House as well. The House of the Jotunnson.” And looking into the hunter’s unreadable eyes, Egon stepped back and nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Bring back the Le’Shaad and the reward will be immeasurable.”

Looking back at the Lady Morgo’s portrait, Egon’s eyes fell upon her solemn face, her peaches and cream complexion so different from the swarthy olive skin of the Zkovos mainland. Her lips, so customarily smirking, were instead lifeless and still. But those eyes.

Those grey eyes looked at him, through him, like he didn’t exist; worse, like the mind behind those eyes was calculating his worth to the last hundred thousandth of a decimal point and came up with—zero.

“Do not be deceived by the white coat of the innocent faan she presents to you.” Egon warned as he gazed into those cold, dead eyes of paint, “From her father, and all his forefathers, she has inherited a heart as black as the death of stars. Do not allow her to speak to you, and you will not fail—sedate her and keep her sedated until you return.”

The warrior only stared at the Grandsire with critical eye, his expression masked from sight.

“You speak of the Le’Shaad woman like she is a sorceress, a witch who would cast a spell on me, if given the chance.”

Egon glanced at the hunter with a small, lopsided smile as he slowly blinked, “Perhaps she is.” He mused, tone light, “Not too long ago in our history we would have called what she can do with her hands and the right ingredients magic .

“It is not magic.” The hunter stated flatly, “It is science.”

Egon’s odd smile faltered slightly as he remembered just who he was talking to, and he turned his head to hide a small frown. It was not often that Egon allowed himself to think of inconsequential things, and as the hunter’s eyes became less patient, the king remembered that this was neither the time nor the place.

“Well…be it spell or science—see that you do not fall prey to it.” The Jotunnson king lifted his eyes to give the hunter one last, hard stare. It was a look of steel, uncompromising and unforgiving. A look that would accept no failure.

The hunter met that look with one of his own, and sensing the dismissal that it was, he nodded and reached to his shoulders to unhook the black cape clasped there. As the heavy black cloak fell in a heap to the ground at his heels, the hunter bowed deeply from the waist before turning to leave the Skularii with swift strides, leaving the cape behind.

Watching the warrior leave, Egon’s sharp eyes tracked his dark head, the hunter’s hair a tousled black, tied back in what was unfashionably long for men in respectable Dromachean circles, but quite expected of those who had lived their lives in the North. Those who were Jotunn.

Sparing a glance for the fallen black cape and what the gesture meant, Egon’s turned his eyes back out of the open window as he blinked and raised Sigunnir, the Grandsire’s golden spear, to bring it down to the floor with a resounding crack, like thunder.

After a moment, one of the Zkavasenna guards made his presence known behind his king.

“Your Imperial Majesty.”

Egon’s eyes washed over the palace Gardens, so carefully and lovingly maintained by the graceful hand of his Queen, Gylla. From the corner of his eye flew in a small, swift bird, its slight feathered body black in color, its flanks white—the wings a vivid blue. Egon didn’t need to be closer to know that the bird’s eyes were golden.

A magpie. No doubt looking to thieve from existing nests to feed their hatchlings. Tricky, infinitely clever and intelligent, it was no wonder this bird was thought to be the manifestation of the Jotunn Trickster god’s whispers, his wives. A god, married to his lies.

Egon watched as the little female magpie perched on a branch and watched a pair of large gilded-claw eagles in their high nest upon one of his palace spire. The magpie timed, waited, and watched as the eagles lifted the protective netting his Queen had put up to prevent thieving birds from entering, and took flight side by side, off to hunt.

Ever the clever one, the magpie flew to the spire and ducked under the protective net near the corner as it had seen the eagles do, raiding the nest—taking off with a single golden egg.

The Grandsire sighed, making a note to inform his wife of her netting’s flaw, before turning to the guard, blue eyes like steel.

“I am ready for Senator Vuul. Send him and his escort in.”

Some men were strong and fierce, like the eagles. And some men were magpies or crows, underhanded and sneaky, taking from those they had no right to take from. Whether Egon liked it our not, Spring was now here...and birds of all virtue were flocking to the nests of the powerful. Some came in peace, while others came with hunger in their eyes.

In the privacy of his mind, Egon considered what kind of man Senator Haavan Vuul would turn out to be. Birds of all shapes were never trustworthy in Spring.

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