The Heart Grows

Just after Stewart, Elanor, and Harrow walked into the main keep, Penelope looked around to take stock of her predicament. The guards were nervous, which wasn't surprising in the least, but they seemed strong in their conviction and trust of the King. "Uh, now what?" she asked the nearest. The man looked startled, but quickly regained his composure.

"We keep following the King's order until he issues a new one. You didn't eat anyone on the way in?"

"No. All the people on the wall were wearing armor, and while I can melt that off people quickly enough, it also melts them too—and I forgot to bring a bowl with me." She waited a moment and, when the guardsman could hold back his laugh no more, she grinned. "The truth is I have never eaten anyone. I haven't been a dragon long, but I don't want to get a reputation like that."

Trying to stop his laughter, the guardsman managed to calm himself enough to ask, "What if the King told you to?"

"Would you?" She snaked her head around on her long neck, now used to being able to look backwards at someone standing beside her. "If he needed it, really needed it, I would. Not that I'd eat the Marquess if his assassin is anything to go by. There's a woman who likes her poisons."

Wincing, the guard asked, "There has been a woman escorting the Marquess. She departed a week or more ago, but returned a few days ago. That's her?"

Turning her head to look at the front doors of the keep, Penelope nodded. "She was trying to kill the barons in the city of Northridge, then later the King and Elanor foiled her plans to kill the Earl of Hearthhome and the King himself."

"Sounds like someone who deserves a conversation with the business end of a gun."

"Yea—" Penelope was cut off by what sounded like repeated cannon blasts coming from high in the keep. The sound, though, she recognized. It was the rapid report and explosion that Tinpot's explosive ammo used, but chaining over and over for what sounded like nearly thirty shots. "Get on!"

Even as his brain registered the end of the fusillade, the guardsman moved to follow the command. He held on and drew his own pistol as Penelope flew upward rapidly. When they stopped rising, he was staring in the shattered windows of a guest suite and could see Elanor and the King still standing. "Your Majesty?!"

Elanor pulled from Stewart's embrace and turned to the window, her gun lagging behind her vision only barely. When she saw it was Penelope with one of Stewart's guardsmen on her back, she lowered her weapon.

When the guards in the room moved to put themselves between Stewart and the window, he held up his hand. "It's under control."

What confused Stewart was how the capital hadn't reacted to Penelope's presence. He glanced to Elanor, who sat to his left. "You said the kingdom has acknowledged Travis?"

"Yes. I can't feel his presence, like I would in Northridge, but the kingdom now has dungeons as part of it. It said that both the dungeons in Northridge had offered support." Elanor still shivered. The kingdom had been in agony, what with so many cities cut out of it, but somehow Breeze and Travis together made up for a lot of that—and she had no idea how or why.

Stewart chewed on his thoughts for a moment. The rest of the throne room was a flurry of information being passed between officers, but there was still the dragon in the room to remind them that this was going to be anything but a normal war. Personally, he was glad to have a dragon in the room. Penelope seemed both ignorant and uncaring, though she had given him useful advice so far. "I can understand the importance of Travis, but the other dungeon was a Verdant animal dungeon. How could that compare to a city?"

Lifting her head at the question, Penelope cut in—as the room turned deathly silent. "Breeze has over a hundred floors now, and we believe she's adding one to two a day. She seems to be speeding up."

"That's impossible," a voice called from across the room.

Shrugging her wings, Penelope blew a little puff of air out her nose. "Tell her that. When she got past eighty floors, we stopped trying to keep count and just asked her boss to tell us."

Stewart noticed Elanor nodding and thought over that. If that dungeon had only half its floors populated, that was enough food production to supply a city larger than the capital. "Travis seems to be a force of change in all around him. We will definitely take his offer of support."

"Where?" Penelope asked. At the look of confusion on Stewart's face, she clarified, "Where do you want me to open an entrance?"

The absurdity of it, combined with the knowledge that Travis already had a dungeon entrance in one city, was too much for Stewart. He shook his head and laughed, but held out a hand to Penelope in a placating gesture. When he got himself under control, he said, "I'll confer with the city and we will decide whether something within the walls or a new keep would be better. I understood he offered to assist in this war, but I didn't expect it quite this close to home."

"We can open two entrances, actually. I'd talked with him about it, and we considered the capital to be a good position for one. The second would have been best reserved for either the east or the west, but under the circumstances—"

"It would shorten communications and material transport to an instant. The railway between Far Reach and Northridge must be completed as fast as possible, so we can leverage this further. It is a shame that he is based in Northridge and not Hearthhome, but we can't solve that without another entrance—one that should be best reserved for the west, when we take it back." It was such a huge step that it made Stewart feel that they could beat the rogue cities to a war footing despite them already having planned for this. "I'll see to arranging that as soon as I can. Travis knows we are engaged in a war now, and I intend to earn his assistance in carrying it out with as much alacrity and effectiveness as possible."

Penelope sat through the rest of the meeting between Stewart and his military leaders listening with mild disinterest. As Stewart had said, it had devolved into repeated complaints of the timeframe required to muster soldiers. Otherwise, things had gone smoothly.

After that meeting, a new caste of leadership entered the throne room: religious leaders. Penelope watched the shock play over the faces of most as they came to show support for their new king, and came face-to-face with a dragon instead. She yawned at them in disdain, but recognized several of them as not being hostile—and two that smiled at her. "High Priestess Alice Stormblade," Penelope said, "and you'll excuse me, High Priestess of Sandwalker, I don't know your name, but I do hold two of your priestesses in high regard."

"Akila." Dipping her head a little, the catkin could feel the rumbling purr echoing through her and judged it as easily as she breathed. "Priestess Felna has been keeping our order updated on events in Northridge, as well as a novice priestess who shows great promise."

Their little conversation was cut short as a young woman, not much older than Stewart, walked proudly up to the throne and bowed her head to him. "Your Majesty, we tried to save your father, but something was interfering with both healing and resurrection."

Gasps and mumbling broke out in the room as the representatives and leaders heard the news. What hit Stewart harder, though, was remembering that Eliza had used a poison to kill Harrow—and he remembered that it had only happened because Harrow had stopped the grenade from reaching him. He didn't want to jump to conclusions yet. "Thank you for your efforts." Raising his voice, Stewart looked among the religious orders. "The Marquess of West Reaches has had my father, the former king, killed. His agent attempted to kill myself and the Earl of Hearthhome while I was there. He is complicit in the killing of the former Baron of Far Reach, and I suspect other nobles across the kingdom. He has aligned the western cities in a rebellion against us. For these crimes do I hold his life forfeit. There is a five million gold bounty to be placed on his head, and all his lands, titles, and those of his complicit family are forfeit. Please, spread this to all who hear your words."

Silence, except for the sound of styluses scrawling down the words, took the room as every religious order's head took note of the exact words said. Elanor sat there, feeling a little superfluous. She thought back to the fight in the suite, and felt not a drop of remorse for what she'd done. Inadvertently, she sensed Sandwalker, the kingdom, and the city take note of her anger and quickly dampened her fury to a warming flame. "Do you have a name?" she asked. "Everyone just calls you the capital, and I've never heard—"

"Home," the city spoke to Elanor, holding back as much of its will as it could not to panic the woman. "My name is Home."

The name was wrapped in concepts of a warm fireplace, good food, and family nearby. Elanor easily supplanted the family she'd left behind with a newer and more welcoming one. "Will you let my friends make an entrance here? He's a dungeon." The city itself swelled with anger at first, so she clarified, "Travis. He's part of the kingdom now."

Home froze in its anger. The kingdom, always a close companion, reassured it that the Inquisitor's words were true. "It truly is a friend?" Even to itself, that sounded pleading.

"I promise. It's his dragon that got Stewart here in time. She's nice too." Elanor felt one more moment of indecision before Home relaxed. "He also has resources and effects that will make you and your people stronger."

Watching and listening to Elanor, even as the high priests and priestesses talked over her, Penelope braced her back legs and stood up. Her movement cut every conversation short as over a dozen pairs of eyes stared at her in surprise. "Your Majesty"—she'd heard enough people talk to Stewart now to know how to address him a little better—"it's time to introduce your city to Travis. Priestess Elanor, is the city in agreement?"

Nodding first to Stewart, who was looking at her, Elanor said, "Home is ready, Lady Penelope."

"Then by all means," Stewart said, standing up, "let us find a suitable location for the dungeon entrance."

The throne room and the great hallway leading to it from the courtyard of the keep were, Penelope had to admit, the only places in the castle she'd be able to go. She let Stewart lead, of course, with Elanor at his side. None of the religious folks seemed inclined to elbow her out of the way. So, she let them deal with keeping clear of her tail as she performed her most dignified walk possible into the courtyard and, finally, to the main gates of the keep.

When the city guards spotted Stewart wearing a crown, they froze for a moment. Then, recovering, they fell back and to the sides to provide a path for the strangest procession ever to leave the keep. They parted further when he turned and directed everyone to proceed along the path that followed the outside wall of the keep around to where it met the outer wall of the city. There was a wide swathe of road that kept the wall clear of buildings that would give any attackers an easier way within the keep, but where it met one of the inner points of the outer wall's star was precisely the spot that Stewart wanted. "Lady Penelope, will this suit?"

It was a dingy, out of the way corner, but Penelope could recognize it had the most important thing given what this entrance would be used for—access to a huge, wide road. Nodding, she walked up to where the walls met and turned to face Stewart. "This will do. Travis?"

The ground shook, but what Home felt most acutely was a new presence pushing into the locale. There was a dungeon entrance within the city already, of course, and it had its own keep built around it. The Verdant dungeon of the capital was dormant, quiet, and had never voiced a single articulate feeling.

"Hello. I don't know how this will feel, but I don't want to hurt you and I hope we can be friends."

"Uh. Hello." The greeting, friendly, supportive, and warm—was the last thing Home had expected. With the dungeon, though, came another link. Another city and another dungeon seemed to reach through this dungeon that had connected with it. The city was young, but strong, and the second dungeon felt like an avalanche of life and energy came with it, pouring into the city streets and easing the ache of hunger with the merest touch of its presence. It was overwhelming, a shock unlike any the city had experienced before—and utterly welcoming.

"Greetings!" Northridge wasn't sure how to address such a massive entity, but it liked Travis' first effort. "I hope we can be of some support with the war."

Breeze wasn't big on words, so they instead wafted warmth and mana into Home. Part of them wanted to open their own entrance into the big city too, but Travis hadn't said they should yet.

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This story is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, Damaged, is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.