Leafiara (prime)/Tales/The Inner Fire

Note

This vignette was originally posted on the forums as "Return to Form," but since I'd posted a different vignette before then by the same title, I renamed this one.

Original Story: Fashanos 9, 5121

A message pinned with a crooked dagger to the outside wall of Dragonsclaw Arms:

"Rename your pub, Amos. The dragon wakes."

~~

A letter speeding its way southward:

Fellow Scions of Shaundara,

A man known as Amos the Lion has come to the Landing and has claimed to have worked with you in the past, while giving no details when asked. Our Councilwoman Alendrial DeArchon hasn't responded to requests to corroborate Amos' claims, but it's come to a point of no longer being necessary. Rather than working with Scions, he's been paying off town guards to illegitimately arrest our fellow member Captain Shinann at will and, as of yesterday, has used his paid-for town merchants and replacement judge to depose me as the standing mayor and suspend further mayoral elections.

Whatever this man has or hasn't done in the past, right now he's no ally of freedom and certainly no ally of the Scions. Consider this letter a request for aid in unraveling his schemes, if for no other reason than to protect your reputations and dissociate from a despot who's leveraging your name.

Very minor aid is all I'd ask at this time, ranging from recon to intel on his past operations; our militia marshal has given us reason to believe that Amos has used similar tactics in other areas before. Having more help on standby would be appreciated in case the situation worsens, but calling upon a large force is probably unnecessary at the moment, and likely not even beneficial nor wise.

The Scions of our town continue to recognize and support your important work throughout the Empire and I don't mean to hamper it by asking too much of you. We also need to tread carefully, as it's possible that Amos mentioning the Scions was an attempt to bait me into contacting the rest of you.

It's been several years since we've worked together and a small part of me looks forward to doing so again. The circumstances are what they are, but we both know the fight never ends.

-Leafiara Autumnwind

~~

Leafiara stuck another pin through Amos' name before taking the placard down from the wall.

Since sticklers for law always want to wait until there's hard evidence, the beginning of the end for these schemer types is the moment they reveal their true colors--and Amos just took the bait. The risk paid off. Compared to Dennet speed, giving myself away to make the Consortium give itself away saved us half a year of nonsense.

But even if he was about to make his move anyway, there's no loss. Another month of office would have been meaningless when he has the guards, replacement judge, and probably Alendrial in his pocket. Besides, all the cautiousness, formal letters, digging through old laws, maneuvering... I'll do it for others, but it's not "me." Now it's back to what got me elected in the first place.

She assembled the stray papers on her desk into a single sizable stack, lifted it up, and summoned spiritual flames into her hands until a pile of ashes sifted cleanly through her fingers.

The inner fire.