The Story of Odvacut - Part 1

Clangorous noise filled the relatively wide, yet stuffed passage while people tried to push on through the masses in front of them who dealt with equal problems. One could occasionally see a youngling try to push itself through in the other direction, sometimes crying or on their mother's hands, to no avail in most cases. The passage itself was only one of many, which would've usually made clear that people stuck up on this early part of it wouldn't have any chance to reach their destination any time soon, but with the steady, slow progress that was always bound with a little fight and yet another challenge for one's sustainability, people were not thinking quite as rationally, especially not with what rumors from the other end had given prospect of. Some felt jealous of the tinies who had their pretty much personal paths up above most of their heads which was mostly to prevent any trampling in situations like this. It was a miracle in itself how as many people even fitted only into one of the small hallways, which many have already demanded to be broadened before as they wouldn't be any longer convenient for what purposes the growing community demanded of a main road, which was merely made to be used in one direction, which it even was in practice. But with the tensions between users and builders of them, which were widely rumored to be mixed up in the current matter once more, the work was progressively delayed until present day, where only the upper end of it had begun to broaden until the building party was distracted and, as some say, even attacked to a point where they laid their work down in protest and would wait for any greater change on the circumstances they had to deal with. Said tensions had been built up by a group who themselves were not able to help constructing the city, at least not in any significantly fast way, but actually even depended on those who they tried to oppress since their own population was growing, even if it was not as fast as that of the builders which was still far from outclassing them in a matter of numbers. They on the other hand didn't really need those who lived in the city they had created with their own hands over generations by now, as there was no special ability they didn't share across both species, at least not from their point of view. Some of them, although basically against consisting law, thought that besides the persistent oppression by certain groups that actually persistently gained influence, they would still have advantages of living here as the only species of their size. That was because preying on as well as eating tinies or each other, which in some cases was rumored to be necessary, was forbidden by law, although it didn't find general acceptance among the negatively affected ones, among which only few really saw a point in it. That and the still ongoing damaging of their reputation among the public were the two leading factors that made many of their fellow citizens that didn't share their species think bad about them for a lack of any real contact other than being neighbors at best. Those who aggressively tried to ruin their reputation would usually plant smaller crimes on them, which was so well planned that a standard examination of the case could only lead back to them, for a lack of anyone having witnessed anything.

What the ones who were still stuck in the tunnels couldn't see, was that at the point they tried to stream to in vain, a man was laying on the ground, surrounded by several others who did their best to prevent the surrounding people from pushing them onto him to get closer to what already laid below their feet. The young body was not moving despite the threatening masses that would unintentionally crush him if it wasn't for the guards. The body actually was a corpse already, not breathing nor living anymore for nearly one hour. While the masses, mainly driven by those who couldn't know what they were doing, were progressively pressing closer to the cities security men who were investigating the case, which in itself was not too hard to solve. The victim had a sharp, bent tool stuck in his chest, made of a wooden handle and ended in a extremely hard tip. Since it was stuck in his body, they couldn't tell if it still was sharp, but knowing that it was a builders tool to work on more fragile things such as the tinies paths and even on rock too hard for them to break with their bare hands, the number of suspects shrank down quickly, at least it would have if the masses around them would've come to speak up or to be understood doing so. Though the investigating staff was luckily not part of any group that would practice cross-species racism, they still had one thing that indicated that a certain party of the ongoing problematic situation in the city in general must have committed the crime. The identity of the victim was, due to its publicity, quickly clarified as that of Torpink, one of the leading members of the oppressing party that was almost certainly trying to push the builders into slavery. Knowing that, the focus in the investigations quickly laid on them and that wouldn't change throughout the entire process.

Still they never got any results that would stand against a proper defense, while the voices of the public, driven mostly by members of the party that had by now moved their vice-president into his respective position, were growing louder to a point where they couldn't be ignored anymore. While officers still tried to find the one who was responsible for all this, not even the members of the dead's own party, who walked by him and were the first to call for help, didn't want to have seen anything. Afraid of being the next and desperate to end the matter, people demanded justice by all cost, even if it meant that there would be a preventive initiative against all those who were able to have committed such a murder or were considered to do so at any later date.

Another week of hateful propaganda and no further proceeding in the case, people were growing restless. Things escalated under the lead of the Human Equality party, which Torpink had been leading before his death. The policy was, even at that point, widely dominated by them or similar parties which they knew would follow them. It had begun with a public meeting in the great market chamber, one of the biggest chambers Odvacut possessed and the place where Torpink had been murdered. The time and place had been spread from one to another, careful not to let any builder know, despite the certainty that they would notice the masses of people flowing through the tunnels, which actually wouldn't matter any more at that time. The initiators merely wanted to demonstrate just how much they could organize behind their backs.

The evening came and while most people were preparing for the night in their housings, the builders too were coming back from work in the deeper parts of the city that were yet to be extended for future generations and new-comers who would still come and extend the population of the safe haven. Minutes after everything had fallen quiet and most people laid in their beds or were at least inside of their chambers, the masses set into motion again. Knowing that most of the hard working builders would be asleep or too exhausted to care, the humans passing by their houses didn't bother to see if they really wouldn't notice. Gathering in the market chamber, the crowd filled the entire space up through the entrance tunnels, creating the feeling of being part of something much bigger.

"My dear brothers and sisters," a voice rang from the center of the market, muting all the others on an instant "I thank you for coming and for spreading the news so quickly and reliably" he now glanced around, seeking for darker skinned bodies among the attendees "Every single one of you did their job very well and now, my friends, now there's only one last thing to be done to free ourselves from the danger these... These... Murderers and conspirators pose to all of us! Keep in mind that even if they did not yet, the day may come when one might be caught out there and, as sad as I am to say it, a single one of them, be it who ever you want, would sell all of us just to save their own life out of the selfishness that lies so deep in their nature. Remember, that this is not an act of hate, it is the only solution that will provide constant and absolute peace and safety to all of us, to protect you from their blind hate, anger and aggression, from their very nature that could mean death to all of us. Let us now go and free our selves from the threat within our lines!"

Enchanted by the well chosen words of the Human Equality's new leader, the crowd clapped their approval and let all their voices sound as one. Setting themselves into motion up towards the higher living quarters of Odvacut, the Human Equality's plan began to unfold itself to its victims.

**

Zyad was merely in half sleep, woken out of a quickly reached, deep slumber by a persistently loud sound coming from seemingly everywhere, when she was unpleasantly woken by the feeling of falling, though not just in a dream. Instinctively rolling up as small as she could in the little time she had before hitting the ground, she triggered yet another strong pull on her tail, stretching her to her full length or what her room allowed it to be due to the limited space it provided. The pain of being roughly pulled over the soil that was the floor of her chamber only added to that of falling out of her bed and the emotional pain of being woken so quickly after she had fallen asleep, tired from a long day of working on the next extension of the city deep down at its lowest end. As she attempted to get up she felt two arms gripping her upper arms, hoping in her half sleep that they would support her, which then began to drag her away, out of her housing. Entering the long tunnel in front of it, her halfway opened eyes revealed to her that they were by far not alone, which negated her instinct to call for her, as everyone standing at the walls or walking with them all around her seemed to acknowledge and accept what injustice was done to her. Opening her eyes a bit further, Zyad became aware of a long, stretched out, scaly tale in front of her, which belonged to a young man she couldn't recognize. What she did recognize was that he seemed to be getting the same treatment as her, being relentlessly dragged towards the upper end of the tunnel, which soon ended in another one, in which they also took the direction upwards, towards the surface. At a certain point, it became impossible not to notice that all the people who stood at the walls, speaking to each other or sometimes shouting at or even spitting on those who were dragged by, were humans. Besides the few she saw shaking their heads every now and then, the majority seemed to view the unclear happening as right or at least as a necessity. Although she had a hard time understanding even fractions of what they were speaking or saying to the passing by and a lack of any explanation or justifications for what ever was going on, she was certain that this had something to do with the Human Equality and was most likely their doing.

Her thoughts were confirmed when they came closer to the entrance of the city and daylight broke through the rather loose seeming bushes that was supposed to hide it from predators of any kind. Up at the entrance, as the last one standing there, stood Ralkud, the new leader of the Human Equality party. Recognizing him, she tried to look right up ahead, acting like he was just another citizen, to avoid being noticed. When her captors had dragged her past the guards who seemed to mark the end of her journey, she had to realise that her ignoring only made her more worth looking at. Together with countless dozens of glares full of either hate or shame about the fightless defeat, ignoring was not the best choice to remain unnoticed. Zyad came to notice that when she felt her wrists holding her back as she almost automatically slithered on in an attempt to keep some of her dignity by refusing to be dragged out of her home. Looking at the two men on either side of her she couldn't help but see Ralkud who had given them the sign to stop.

"Now see who we've got here," he said as he stepped up closer and knelt down next to her "Zyad, I was afraid you'd never come, you're pretty far back in line, you know?"

She didn't answer nor did she look at him, after all the molestation even when she was working pretty far away from his home, this time he went to far.

"I'm sorry, I had planned to keep you, but my advisers said we shouldn't make any exceptions," he teased as he used one hand to turn her chin towards her.

"Where did all the humanity go you used to praise," Zyad shot back at him with a sharp glare.

"You just said it yourself, humaninity. It doesn't really apply to a race as weak as yours, don't you think so?" Ralkud said as if he explained it to a little child.

Instead of contradicting, Zyad spat him in the face, her own look still full of cold hate.

"Hmpf," he smirked with a slight smile, satisfied to see that his teasing has struck her where he wanted to. Without wasting any time he raised his right hand and slapped her across the face, then he got up and signaled the two men who held her that they could move on.

"I hope you enjoyed your stay, because you'll never get back again," he called after her while Zyad reached the upper end of the long tunnel.

Blinded by the comparably bright moonlight from outside that broke through the plantlife which blocked the entrance, as the last meters of the tunnel were not lighted anymore the two guards shielded their eyes with their free hand, while they held both of Zyad's in a firm grip. Frustrated about the lack of this small piece of freedom, despite the fact that she didn't need it anyway, she jerked herself free from their grip and muttered something they couldn't understand, then she slithered the last few meters out of the city on her own.

**

The next morning began with a huge chain reaction of people waking each other, starting the moment the first few of the new homeless woke up from their pretty short slumber. As they had all been used to the constant low light in the night that would still be there when they woke up, the rising sun quickly turned too bright for the most to sleep on. With more and more waking up to trouble the others sleep, the greatest part of them awoke just a half hour after the first few.

Zyad was woken pretty early on by a group of children close by playing with unchanged cheerfulness, oblivious to the situation their parents found themselves in now. Sitting on the ground she and most of the other have slept on, she could watch them rise one by one, blinking at the bright sunlight, hoping that all this was just a dream. After roughly one hour everyone was awake and still rooted to the spot, everyone was waiting for someone to come up with a plan. The whole scenery seemed pretty odd, as the whole area, ground and trees, was crowded with homeless nagas now. Everything was pretty quiet considering the number of individuals assembled so tightly, only the crying of a hungry infant broke the silence somewhere close by. It didn't take long until two voices added to the persistent call for food.

"Don't you want to wait until we've decided what we're going to do?" Someone asked the child's father who was about to head out to get some food, probably intentionally louder to publicly raise the question that bothered them all.

"Well we didn't even talk about that yet so I thought there was enough time to get my son some food before we finish. But since you're asking already, what do you think we have to do?" The second one asked slightly annoyed, expecting that he didn't even make up his mind about it himself.

"Well quite obviously: search for a good place to build a new city," the first replied self-confident.

"And giving up everything we've built through generations?" A third male interjected a short distance away, receiving full-throated agreement.

"But if we want to get back to our own homes, we need a plan to make the best out of our advantage," another one said while he glanced around in the hope of finding someone who could do the job.

"I suggest Zyad," a well known voice said from somewhere in the crowd.

It merely took a few seconds until even the last of those who didn't knew her found themselves guided by her former coworkers.

"She's been organising our work on the living quarters and I've never seen anyone doing a better job on it," he added then.

She blushed on the compliment as she saw people agreeing that she was probably the most suitable to go for the task, even those who she knew had been in some kind of administrative or coordinative position agreed or at least didn't disagree, probably because nobody wanted to deal with what seemed to turn into a war-like situation.

"I would... I would also say that we shouldn't just leave what we've put so much time into to build up and I'd accept the position as the organiser of our temporary community and the counterstrike to claim what's rightfully ours, though without any unnecessary violence, people just acted too quickly and will surely change their minds if they see that we, even as the vicious party, don't mean to have anyone disadvantaged."

Her condition found, party hesitant, acceptance, as a great part of the audience was obviously seeking revenge.

"Is really every single naga here now?" Zyad asked into the crowd as she glanced around, realising that she couldn't even see the whole community of her own species from the same level.

"They threw out every single naga living in Odvacut and we decided to stick together, whoever might be missing must have left right afterwards," someone said close by.

"Not only nagas," a voice came from somewhere above "Humans who lived together with one, I'm not the only one"

The young woman who had raised her voice sat on a branch like some others did, though nobody seemed to have payed attention to her legs yet.

"Some nekos too," a furry hand, apparently belonging too the male voice, shot into the air somewhere in the distance "They didn't make us but we thought it would be better to leave in advance, we're not all but a good part is here with you to help in any way we can"

"Same here," another feminine voice spoke up as a female form vertically climbed a tree, revealing a spider abdomen below her waist "A few dridders left as well, we were sure that they would go for us some day anyway and we wanted to show some solidarity"

"I'm glad and thankful for your decision and I must say that having you all here makes things a lot easier to plan. Now, since I just realised that our little community is still pretty big I'd like to do that with only a fraction of you, at least one of each species and enough so that every one gets to hear any important news and so I get to know if anyone has special qualities I have to take into account. It'll take some time to get started, until then you could search for some breakfast, better take some more for later and to help others who couldn't find anything, our resources are limited."

**

20 minutes later the number of people surrounding Zyad had reduced itself from hundreds to a dozen; one neko, two humans, two dridders and seven nagas seemed to be all it took to spread the word throughout their new community. All the others had left to watch over their children or gather food, while some of them seemed to just stay around and talk to each other.

"Alright, I guess we can start now. I barely had time to figure out a plan, but I guess that our chances are pretty good knowing that we can count on the help of several species, allowing us to make to best out of everyone’s strengths. Since we can't bring up our full strength over night, we will need some time to be prepared, I assume two or three days will do. Now to get to the most important part of the preparations, the tasks for everyone. Since the preparations need their time, we need shelter for the night, sleeping out in the open all the time can't be healthy. Starting right away when we meet again, we'll go and find a good spot to start a small underground village, nothing big, just a few larger sleeping chambers so we have space for everyone. We will start building it today, with only a few nagas and hope that our progress is good enough to start with the chambers by dawn tomorrow, allowing more of us to get to work. Next up are the dridders, you've basically got only one task, I thought about a way to nail those who block our way and there will be lots of them, to the spot and the easiest way to do that would be with a really good net, which would require only one man to watch over while the others go on deeper into the city. I guess I've figured out an ideal form for it but I'll get back to you later, probably with all the dridders we've got, for a brief brainstorming. And then we've got our food supplies, which need to be taken care of as those who already have a task need to work on it without any unnecessary distraction if we want to strike back as quickly as possible. So anyone who doesn't have a task yet is asked to search for food, individually or in groups, as they wish, just make sure we have enough food for all of us through the time we're out here and consider that you'll lose some of the nagas by the time we start with the living chambers. There's another task someone has to take care of: safety. I want guards around the community who watch over predators and spies, I'm sure they will try to get some information on what we're doing so keep an eye out for strangers and even for tinys, our plan isn't worth a thing  if we don't keep it a secret. Speaking about the plan, I'll create several groups who storm the city at the same time so they won't be able to concentrate on only one tunnel. I will therefor need several group leaders, who don't necessarily have to be you so if you don't consider yourselves suitable for the task you can suggest someone else, a dozen would be quite ideal. Six of them should be nagas who had been involved in building the city, these will get a special task for the great day."

With a satisfied smile she glanced around into the baffled and impressed, mostly unknown faces. Nobody would've expected that she would come up with such an extensive plan in such a short time without anyone even able to contribute anything to it. That wasn't too bad actually, as most of the audience came rather because they knew a lot of people or were not afraid of getting to know knew ones, than because of a great idea they wanted to contribute.

"We'll meet again to go through the 'attack' tomorrow when I've got the entire plan, I'll need some more time for that, having a plan to run the community should do for now," Zyad finally ended until she added after a few seconds of unexpected silence "Uhm... If you don't have any questions, you're free to go. Tell everyone to spread the word, you should be able to spread  the tasks by yourselves, I guess."

Her audience set into motion now, moving off to where they had been sleeping this night to meet as many returnees as possible. While the others walked off chatting with each other, two nagas remained. A female, easily recognizable as a grass-naga and a male earth-naga who did have the typical brownish scale and skin color, but lacked the unmistakable features that signed the builders of Odvacut such as Zyad. Seeing both looking down at each other in somewhat depressed ways, the problem here was obvious.

"You know, you don't have to be one of the six to become a group leader, the others can also be nagas," Zyad tried to cheer them up.

"Really?" The girl exclaimed cheerfully.

"Sure, just be here tomorrow and I'll see where we'll put you. Why do you want to lead a team anyway? You seem pretty young to me," Although age was mostly a relative thing in Felarya, Zyad could tell by the behavior of the actually grown up naga's reaction that they had barely just reached adulthood.

"We uhm... We've been together for quite a while and now that we are old enough our parents forbid us to move into our own home, they say we can't take on so much responsibility, simply because we never got a chance to prove them so. I guess our chances would be better if we had the opportunity to take on your special task, but I hope we get to do the job," the male explained confident.

"I'll see what we can do once we're talking about it tomorrow, see you then," Zyad repeated smiling while the couple walked off holding hands.

He was right, they really would've had better chances to get a place as group leader if they were able to take on a job in one of the special teams, but they lacked the typical features of a builder which were essential to coordinate the whole group. These features had been an evolutionary addition to those of the typical earth-naga living around the mountains, adapted to creating their own home anywhere. The main differences were easily visible as a builder's tail hardened on the tip to a point where the scales took on the shade and color of solid rock, while they were actually even harder, as were the backsides of their hands, which had a thinner but equally robust layer of rock-like scales that protected them from any injury that intensive digging could cause.

The next few hours went by quite uneventfully; people came together where they had spent the night almost at once, so a great part of their community moved out pretty much right after arriving, taking almost everyone with them except a few who would wait for others to come back to give them the direction they left in. The search for their new temporary home too was quite a short one, so they were still pretty close to the city they would reclaim once the preparations would be finished. Once there, the first few builders got to work, creating an entrance tunnel for the home they would start creating tomorrow. Others moved out to search places to gather food they could use the following days, while some preferred to stay around the new settlement.

Zyad had her own plans in mind, things that still had to be taken care of before she could go through the plans for the attack on Odvacut. Therefor, she went, or rather slithered, to meet a relatively large group of dridders who had, as most of the others did out of simple comfort, remained among their own species for the greatest part, which made it easier to gather as many for the planned brainstorming as possible. After a short introduction on the dridders' side, as they all seemed to know Zyad at least from the report they must have been given already, they focused on the main reason for the small meeting.

"So I've thought of something that should work pretty to hold larger numbers of defeated, though not dead, we're not going to kill anyone, in one place while using a minimum of people to watch over them. I thought about some kind of large net, really large, for several people to fit into it, with a large, bubble-shaped interior and one opening, where it becomes thinner on two opposite sides, really thin, and ends in two backstraps that can be used as handles or knotted to close the whole net," modeling the construction she had thought off with her hands, Zyad did her best to explain what she meant, although she was sure that wouldn't be too easy.

The dridders though, obviously used to working according to even more vague descriptions, didn't seem to bother about the amendable presentation but began chatting or having dialogues that sounded like arguments at some points. Glad to see them all participating and apparently not rejecting the product of her own imagination, Zyad was at more than eager to hear the female, who she quickly recognized as the dridder among the small audience this morning, speak up and tell her what they had settled on.

"Your idea sounds good, but guessing that you'll probably want to have us involved in the counter attack, we'll have to make two different nets. One that's sticky, which only we can use without gluing ourselves to it then and a second that any other species can use if you have no other choice, just know that they won't be as effective as ours," the dridder said as she wiped a few strands of her long, black hair out of her face.

"And there's something else we can contribute," a male with shortish, brown hair interjected "a long string of silk with a backstrap on its end, so thin that you can hardly see it. If we get to be above them, which is easily done inside the tunnels, we can use them to let any guards run into them, which will get their heads stuck so we can hold them back while others get at the distracted enemy on the ground."

As wrong as calling their former fellow villagers the enemy sounded, the idea was great and for as long as they didn't prove them wrong about the lies the Human Equality must have spread among them, they would definitely not just welcome them back.

"Sounds good, we need a lot of both, I'd say you get two nets for all of you, if you make it in time, roughly a net for one out of five of the other species and I guess your idea," Zyad glanced at the brown haired dridder now "can be easily realised while we're attacking, trust me you'll have to be waiting for quite a while until you get your turn"

With that, the additional planning with the dridders was finished and, after wishing everyone a good rest of the day, Zyad finally got her time to relax on a lone branch, high enough to be well out of range for any unnecessary distractions but still within hearing range for anyone who would want to directly address her. Mere minutes after she had left the rest of the community down below her, she allowed herself to be engulfed by the beautiful nature the surface had to offer, a pleasant change compared to the ever so similar soil that was basically the only thing you got to see when you lived in a city made of hundrets of tunnels below the ground. Once she had mentally left the place, she began to see Odvacut infront of her eyes. Half a dozen tunnels from different directions, leading across the living areas, connected with each other through countless smaller ones, towards the great market chamber deep down inside the earth, from where the new and yet to be finished tunnels lead even further down towards new living quarters they had only just begun to build. The first thing she had to take into account was the fact that they couldn't just break through one tunnel, as a single obstacle could stop the entire attack, although she couldn't quite imagine one that was that unbreakable. Then again, trying every tunnel at once could easily lead to them running out of troops, as the size of each group was obviously shrinking as the amount of groups rose. One important and essential advantage they had were their digging skills, for obvious reasons: the entire city was build into a quite unique, at this size anyway, type of ground, stretching out through soil that consisted almost entirely of clay-like earth which allowed them to dig through it very quickly. This natural advantage, to build new tunnels their enemy couldn't possibly know of, was the one thing that would allow them to win this fight, despite the odds being otherwise stacked against them. In a matter of numbers, the humans and who ever still remained among them, who, she hoped, wouldn't fight against them, outranked them, plus they had the opportunity to prepare, despite not quite knowing whether those who they cast out would try to get their homes back under control. Knowing Ralkud's paranoia at times though, Zyad was pretty sure that they will have taken care of a few matters of additional defense against their kind.

Then there was the matter of scattering the people they had across the tunnels they would be trying to break through, while taking into account that they couldn't have them all inside the tunnel nor could they all have their own ones, a healthy mix would have to be found. At the same time, the different types of resources, so the different species, would need to be allocated properly, especially the dridder would have to get into position somehow, while humans were quite surely bound to remain simple ground units. The best idea for the dridders would surely be to create an artificial tunnel above the one each main group is pushing their way through, so they could get into the fight out of nowhere, while the respective nagas building it would be allowed to help anyone, who would really need it, out if necessary.

She dwelled on her ideas for what felt like mere minutes, but had to realise that, by the time she was sure she had worked it all the way out, the sun had already disappeared from the sky which now slowly blackened as night was coming over Felarya. Looking down she saw that a lot of the others were settling for the night already, forming groups of people who must have been related to each other somehow, leaving merely small paths between each separate group one could only see from above. Figuring that she might as well get some sleep, Zyad slithered down the tree along its trunk until she ended on the last branch that still looked suitable to hold her, then she laid down in her side, coiling her tail around the branch, and glanced along their small settlement once more, realising that she was by far not the only one who made use of the more private places to sleep. From where she was laying, she looked right over an equally low, in proportion the size of the tree anyway, branch on which a family of nagas had settled assumingly a while back. Glancing along the branch she unexpectedly found a pair of eyes staring right back at her, a young girl, barely three or four years old as she could tell, who´s parents were sleeping on her right and left, judging by the rocky tails, which they were the only other ones to posses among the nagas on said branch.

The little girl laid on the apparently broader part of the tree with her tail hanging loosely off the backside, while her hands hung over it towards Zyad, with her head resting between them. Her hands, still fairly small, rather looked like paws as the skin on their backside was already covered with the characteristic rock-like scales, making her hands still looking way too big for her tiny body. She looked pretty tired, despite still being awake, doing nothing, which might have been boredom as well. Willing to delay her sleep for a while Zyad flashed her a smile, which the girl answered by sucking air into her cheeks and releasing it slowly. Feeling kind of helpless as she had to remain silent Zyad put on an apologetic look and shrugged her shoulders, the girl simply repeated her actions. They kept on staring at each other for a while until the young naga eventually began yawning after all, receiving a broad smile from Zyad while she gave up the staring competition and snuggled against the soft part of her mother's tail. Zyad kept on looking over at the cute scene for a while until she felt how she got a bit drowsy herself and closed her eyes to drift off to sleep.

**

The attack on the city had been a success, just as Zyad had thought, whatever the Human Equality thought they might be using as a strategy, they either failed at stopping it or were simply surprised by anything they came up with. Troops were running by, slithering, skittering or running further towards the market that was now almost visible at the far end of a few tunnels. Zyad stopped on their journey to go and take a look into one special living quarter on her own. She had ordered that every single chamber would be checked by groups passing by, two or three leaving theirs while the rest would go and until they would eventually catch up, but specifically this one as to be left for her and her alone.

Taking a last glance along one of the many main streets, smiling at the success of her own plan, she entered the chamber that didn't quite differ from the others by any means of furniture, it was filled with just what it really needed and therefor left a good part of its space open. There, amidst the open space, stood a chair, with a man resting in it, his back towards her.

"Zyad? I knew you'd come," he said without even turning towards her.

She didn't answer but closed in on him, wondering how he could know that it's her.

"You're always coming back to me after all," a smirk came from behind the chair, getting her even angrier.

Standing right behind the chair she raised her arms, ready to strike, when the motionless figure suddenly got into motion, getting up and thrusting the chair away with one hand, he quickly slipped around Zyad. While he reached around her neck to have a relatively secure grip on her, he reached for a knife he had been concealing and held it to her throat.

"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist," Ralkud said with his usual, always-arrogant voice "But you know, I don't mind at all, I'm always glad to have you back in my arms..."

As he trailed off, probably mutely laughing at his own bad joke, Zyad tried to slide her tail through his legs as calmly as she could, hoping to break free if she would manage to knock him off his feet, sure that he wouldn't harm her as much as he would usually mistreat her.

Suddenly a sharp pain drove through her body, Ralkud had noticed her tail disappearing from his view as she needed her whole tail to put the most strength into her attempt to knock him off of her, and stomped into the thinnest part of her tail that still rested on the ground, sadly not covered by her hard scales anymore, while she began to erect it behind him again.

She released a cry of pain and sank into herself a bit, mostly being held by Ralkud rather than herself, his knife still following her throat as she did. A few moments passed, then he pulled her back up so his head was next to hers, fearing that she might use this opportunity for another stupid idea.

"You know, I'm always glad to have you back, but it breaks my hearth to let you go," he whispered into her ear while he stomped into the sensitive part of her tail again "so now I'll make sure you're never going to leave me again!"

For a brief moment she felt the knife retreat, then he thrust it right into her neck...

**

Zyad snapped up out of her dreams, containing herself not to let a cry escape her. Looking around she found herself, bathed in sweat, lying on her branch above the rest of her community, glancing right through the near complete darkness of the late night. Everything was perfectly quiet, only every now and then did a sleeping body shift, unconsciously getting into a more comfortable position. Repeating to herself that it was just a dream, she slowly laid back down and eventually drifted off to sleep again.