Re: Library Courtyard
The professor nods sympathetically at Grave's reaction. She begins speaking, and while tired, once again she seems the calm and collected scholar.
"Let's begin with the obvious. I am as you saw. I am dragon. My father wanted to create a pure-blooded extension of his line. He murdered my mother. He murdered my brothers." She looks at Grave's face. "He murdered many of your kind."
She glances to Delor and Delilah. "And many of your kin, as well. He dabbled in alchemy and dark magic. You cannot imagine, you cannot understand the nature of such evil until you see it every day, until you are forced to live with it. With Him."
She looks back to the cattaur. "My father realized after killing my brothers that I had no suitable mate, and so he forced himself upon me when I came of age to bear eggs. He would have raised my son, his son, to be his equal in malice, in evil and design. I spared my son that fate. I wove an illusion that made him seem very sickly and weak upon hatching, and it was my father... his father... that devoured and murdered my son."
The professors eyes scan the buildings of the university. "I fled here, hoping to escape. Those were my years here as a student. The young Miss Ramielle, who had been here before under different names. I studied advanced transmutation, and I met another dragon. I learned of the Old Ways of Dragonkind, of our traditions and law."
"The subsequent details are unimportant, but suffice it to say that I prevented my father from transforming and slaughtering the inhabitants of a human city. I prevented his transformation in... an exceedingly lethal way. The final mortal action was his, but I facilitated his self-annihilation."
She rises. "All I have done, I have done in defense of myself and others. Even the death of my own son..." her voices trembles for a moment, then steadies, "even my own son... was a mercy. Was kindness. Was right."
She walks forward to the cattaur, still bruised but standing tall and proud. She looks up into his eyes. "Good cattaur, my actions bring me no shame, no dishonor. Nor are they crimes by any laws, mage or dragon. Take my explanation, and leave me in peace."
(The professor, while talking, has lowered her mental defenses to allow Calcius to verify the truth in her words.)
