Vex was escorted through the villa by 'Boot knives' and 'Groper', each still showering him with sour looks of contempt.  He found that he elicited this response alot, even the Queen and Gili were sometimes unable to mask their own, at times with him.  The Queen, still mad as as a nutt banded boar with his beating of Avery, he was to not strike her in the face, yet he had disobeyed and done it.  He knew he'd be punished for it, his current duties and other errands all that had save him from her immediate wrath.  He knew it was an inevitability, she'd do to him, what he'd done to Avery.

Looking around at the lavish wood furnishings, let him know the Rani appreciated luxury, and had no qualms trading with the north when the purposes suited him.  The furniture extravagantly carved from the large oak trees imported from the northern town of Cutter's Way, each upholstered with a darky, shiny, silken weaves found only here in the Scorch. The long hall leading to the meeting room had small slits and openings serving as window, these were the openings for the bowmen should the villa ever be attacked. 

    The hard, sandstone walls providing fortress like protection, and situated beneath the shadows of the large stone outcropping, it was alone by itself amongst the vast sands of the desert.  The flat barren waste making it all but impossible to attack unnoticed from the ground.  No pictures or portraits, or ornate fixtures were in this hall, it was set with bows and arrows in racks and quivers.  So although they passed through it on the way to audience with the Rani, it gave Vex a view into the lives of these desert dwellers.

    The extravagant entrance and lounge giving way to the drab utilitarian, hall of bows and arrows, these folks were raised fighting and struggling.  While the north had grown soft, these desert clans and tribes had fought and struggled fighting for survival daily.  It made him wonder if Reyna could truly hold back the sweeping sands of the desert.

    The flat roof of the villa had circular opens cut in it evenly spread out the entire distance of the long hallway, what looked to be multi colored glass filled them in, sending an array of spectacular colored sunlight through the hall.  It took Vex a moment to realize it wasn't glass, but the shell of keetone eggs, polished, sanded, hardened and molded together to make these sunlight wielding magical 'windows'

Vex stared at his dark, almost black skinned hands, the multi-colored lights giving them a shadowy hue of death.  His bauble, staring, empty eyed at him spinning between his finger tips, Vex smiled.

A large, beaded archway led into the Rani's reception chambers.  Walking through them, Vex realized the beads were actually the pearls made by the desert keetones, this pearl doorway was a small fortune all by itself.  They bumped and clacked against one another, like an angry swarm of sand gnats, as the trio walked through.

The room was large, a place where the Rani would hold council with tribe and clan leaders.  It reminded him of a mini throne room, with the only place to sit being a large, wicker chair hanging from the ceiling.  It was wide enough to fit two, perhaps three people, at the moment there was one lone occupant lounging in it, her servant stood behind the  throne swing, slowly pushing it gently back and forth.

The two Paladins escorted him to the stairs of the dais, Vex stood motionless looking up at the woman, who was not Rani Pilute.  Vex could feel his anger growing, he'd wanted to speak with the Rani, not this...this...woman.

"I am Eden Pilute, wife of the Great Rani Gechem Pilute, may our sands be life amidst the Scorch."

Vex made as if to take off his goggles, but then merely readjusted them, pretending to flick sands from the lenses.

She was a tall, attractive woman, her skin an ebony black, it's darkness rivaling that of his bauble.  The whites of her eyes gleamed under the domed, keetone shelled ceiling, her brown eyes were full and bright, studying her northern guest.  She wore a snake skinned breast band and a long, white skirt, the silk thin and see through, he could just make out her long dark legs, crossed and relaxed.

"These are dangerous times for a northerner to be traveling the Scorch,"  she stared into his eyes trying to read him, "dangerous times in deed, for one not to know the sands customs..." she paused taking him all in, "or for one to know the customs, and yet chose to ignore them."

Her tone, a controlled anger.

    'Boot knives' had squawked like a nestling rackal, filling her in on his rude behavior.

    He shot 'Boot knives' a hard look, you'll be the first, he thought to himself, and not just because he had his Alabastar boot knives.

    "I've come in the name of Reyna, Queen of the North, Lesna's great-great-granddaughter, she who holds the reins of the mighty Dracgons, chosen by the Known, empowered by the Reckoning, she who wields Wrath, ruler of all Nazra."  Vex held his arms out, spinning slowly, "The one whose mercies lets you live among the sands and the curs, free to defile your bodies with their twats and fleas."

    The small woman pushing Eden Pilute's throne swing flinched at the insult, he'd smelled the werewolf when he'd entered, she was a wolf, but her scent was spoiled, singed?

    Eden gave a brief, betraying glance to the servant, the Paladins each stood by quietly.  Vex smiled nastily at the servant then Eden, he was going to take full advantage of the Rani Rule.

    Eden swayed gently back and forth as she continued to stare at him, putting on the face of a ruler once more, masking her emotions.

    "Spitting sand and venom is a rude traveler's countenance, I'll not suffer it.  Royse says you've an offer for the Rani?"  She motioned her head towards 'Boot knives', "Make your offer, then leave, I will inform the Rani if I deem it of merit."

    She was hastily trying to dismiss him.

    "Your husband has left you during these perilous times?"  He asked with mock concern, "Why would a man leave such a lovely desert steed alone?  Why leave her with only a small remnant of his army?  Where is it that Rani Pilute might be?"

      Vex's last words laced with a sarcastic sense of mystery and question.  He didn't expect her to answer him, these were all questions he already knew the answer to, he watched her shift uncomfortably upon the throne. The thrones swaying design was to help cool her as she sat, but beads of sweat creased her brow.

    "The Rani's whereabouts are not your business north man."

    "That, is where you are wrong my desert mistress," he said seductively, "your Rani, and his army are heading east to join the packs of wolves gathering there, preparing to attack Nazra, which is treason..."

    "That is where you are wrong north-man, the Scorch has never sworn allegiance to your Witch Queen!  What we do is not treason, your kingdom rose from the ground, to only be burnt to ash.  Alngin has spoken, you will be swept under the sands once more."

    The conviction in Eden's voice was alarming, speaking as...as a zealot.  Something in the desert had changed, the sands were stirring, ablaze with the vengeful howls of retribution.  For a moment Vex felt a chill?  A chill...of unease?

    Vex paused, primal means, and brutalities sultry voice beginning to stir within.

    "I was going to offer a chance for you to save the women and children..." he stared off distantly as if reflecting, "no...I'm lying...I was gonna give you a chance to save the little, dirty fat girl that stuck her tongue out at me, but your mouth has made me very vexed!"

    Eden's nostrils flared like the hoods of the deadly Scorch Cobra, rage filling her eyes as she stood, screaming.

    "You dare enter the house of a Rani and make threats north-man?  Perhaps you don't know our desert customs as well as you think...a guest loses privilege of the Rani Rule if they make any threats against the Rani, his family or his people while in his hospitalities." 

    Vex smiled, his mouth widening into a deadly, toothy grin as his teeth began to growing, his goggles snapping off as his skull began to widen. His eyes now flaming red orbs of blood lust, he spoke one last time, his voice a demonic echo of carnage and waste.   

    "I not only know your customs, Sand Mistress, I am counting on them."

    'Boot knife' and 'Groper' lunged daggers drawn, Vex roared in unrestrained ecstasy, 'Boot knife' and 'Groper's' bodies tumbling to the marbled floors, headless.  Their heads thudding against the floor a few seconds later, each shocked and surprised to be there.  His large, Alabastar claws sundering flesh and bone, 'sccchticking' like a keetones claws shuffling and digging through the sands.

    Vex jumped the stairs of the dias, halfman, half beast, he twisted the draca, and became as a ghost, his ethereal form now jumping through the screaming Eden, towards whom he believed to be the larger threat, the werewolf.

    His upper half was through the Eden Pilute, he wrestled the draca once more and his right arm became solid once again, his flat hand catching the werewolf in the chest, upon contact he switched the arm to the ethereal mist once again, the werewolf becoming a ghost as well.

    Vex howled in morbid delight, hurling the she wolf towards the wall.  It was a gruesome way to die, he'd push her into the wall, and then let go.  She would change back to her solid form while in the wall, her body with no space to once again reclaim her life,  She would become one with the wall, her muscles, blood, and tissue denied it's space in this physical world, raped of their right to be.

    He'd experienced it once himself, centuries ago, while wiping out the entire village of Cool Springs.  He'd run across a mind bandit, a thought shaper, the man had entered his mind and made him transfigure back into the material world.  It was the closest he'd ever come to dying.  The man had fled south, never to be seen again.

    He didn't want to admit it, but just thinking the man might still be in the Scorch all these centuries later troubled him.  The wounds of that day had taken years to heal, and the scars, were a dreaded reminder of that day.  No matter how hard he bent, worked, or tormented the draca, the magic essence of the dragon's themselves, they would not heal him completely.

    He pulled his hand away as the she wolf entered the wall, the wolf's diamond claws raking his arm.  Drawing blood?  She howled as his Alabastar scaled arm was shredded, in a trail of blue fire and whited blood.  She was plunging through the wall, just when he expected to she her agonized face as she changed from her phantom form, Flames, dark and bright exploded across the wall consuming her.  She was gone.

    Eden was running down the middle of the council room, guards were now pouring in, but he had them by surprise, none had expended him to break the Rani Rule, and none had been prepared for the attack of a monster born of death and blood, coming from an unarmed court clown.

He let Eden escape the room, grabbing his boot knives from 'Boot-knife, making him just another nameless soul he'd sent to the Known. He found himself dealing with the twenty or so Paladins that flooded the room.  He stalked about the room, a Dracgon-Wolf now, darting back and forth from physical form to phantom, Paladins died in agony as their bodies became one with the floors, walls and ceiling.

    Paladins lower halves, upper halves, from the neck down, just their heads showing, arm and legs all part of the villa now.  A macabre sculpture of a demented mind, the blight of the north moved through the halls and walls, leaving not a room or hall untouched.  Men, women, children, the Rani's pet birds and cats, all impaled into the walls. 

    He caught up to Eden as she was fleeing the front gate with the dirty face fat girl.  He swatted an arm causing her to stumble and fall.

    "Run Frae! Run!" she shouted, rolling on her back to look up at him. 

    Frae's stubby little fat legs labored as the tot tried running through the hot desert sands.  She wore a cute lil breast band and small desert skirt, her chubby little saddled feet churning up the sands as only a five or six year old could.

    "What stories does you desert god speak to you now dirt whore?" he purred, a breath before biting her head off with his Alabastar-diamond teeth.

    Frae screamed, running faster.

    Vex smiled, returning to his phantom form once more and sinking beneath the sands.  He ran as a wolf beneath the sands, when he was certain he was a few sand dunes ahead of her he surfaced once more as the queens jester, his bauble laughing loudly.

    It was only a matter of time before the small girl crest the dune, and met his eyes, they were black now.

    "It's okay my desert treat, it's okay," he coaxed, reassuringly, "come child, come."  He shook the bauble, changing the laugh to a higher pitch, a more playful sound.

The girl looked at him, scared, confused, but wanting, Vex beckoned her to come, his face soft and loving.  Hesitantly she took a step towards him, then another.

"That's a good girl, come on now."

She took one step after another, as she got closer, she seemed to relax, her heart slowing, her eyes trusting.

When within arms length, Vex showed her the only mercy he'd give to any that day.  He transformed once more to the Wolf-Dracgon, lashing out with his great maul snatching the girl up in his jaws.  Smashing her against the roof of his mouth with his tongue, he'd gobbled her down, head first, lighter pressures cracking her feet and legs first, as he increased the pressure on his tongue breaking the hips and pelvic bones, the pressure squeezing her innards through her mouth, sliding down his throat, like the exquisite fish eggs harvest from the coastal town, of Crowns View.

His throat constricted tightly as he swallowed, the large lump visible for any watching the Dracgon-Wolf, crushing and pureeing her insides as she went down. He gulped again and again forcing her down.  He looked to the Keetones, they were all his, negotiations had gone as expected. His face now wolfish smiled, his negotiations always ended this way...?