The Last Straw

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Xander and his family had just sat down to dinner when a knock sounded on the door. Heaving a sigh at the inopportune interruption, Xander got back up and went to see who it was. "Yes?" He asked when he saw an unfamiliar dalhari on the other side of the door.

"Your immediate presence is requested in the elders' hall—all of you," The dalhari said. He didn't leave after he was finished, instead waiting for Xander and the others to accompany him. The siv wasn't very fond of the severe frown on the dalhari's face. It worried him a little.

"Why?"

The dalhari frowned harder, if that was possible. "I am not privy to that information."

"Fine," Xander said, closing the door. "Guys?" He called out, getting his family's attention. "We have to go see the elders right now. There's this stone-faced dalhari outside who won't go away until we do."

Saelen and Pairdra stood up, preparing to leave. "What is this about?"

Xander shrugged. "Search me, I have no idea. The kids go too, I think. He said all of us."

The kids got up as well, confused and put out at having to delay their meal. Maybe those stuffy elders would make it quick. Perhaps they were being invited to stay permanently. It wouldn't be such a bad thing; after all the hold was really fun, with lots of things to do.

When they got to the elders' hall, however, it was obvious that this wasn't a happy meeting. Four of the hold's elders—Gaha, Waei and two others Xander wasn't as familiar with were standing together near a fireplace with grave expressions on their faces. When they caught sight of the siv, those looks didn't lighten at all. "Xander!" Waei said loudly. "Bring your family here."

The siv moved as a group over to the elders. "Is there something we can help you with?"

Waei nodded slowly. "Perhaps. Do you have any idea what this is?" He said, holding out a metal object. It was a pole, about as tall as Xander, with a kink in the middle.

The three adult siv shrugged. "I have no idea," Saelen remarked. The others nodded their agreement.

"Ah," Waei murmured. "What about this?" He said, holding out a bowl of dark colored glass chips. He made sure the contents of the bowl were apparent to everyone.

"It looks like glass," Pairdra said after a moment. Where was this going?

"I can see that you do not understand. We'll leave this behind for the moment," Waei said, setting the objects aside. "How goes your adjustment to Na'alha?"

"I believe it is going well," Saelen replied. "The training is progressing nicely and the kids like it here."

Waei nodded. "How have they been doing?"

Xander grinned. "Very well! The hold is an excellent place for them to learn."

"Learn…" Waei echoed. "Odd that you say such a thing when their tutors claim that they regularly sleep during class."

Xander flinched. He'd been told about that, but it didn’t really bother him. After all, he had taken his share of naps in the classroom. Saelen and Pairdra looked more shocked, however. Nothing had been mentioned to them about their children's behavior.

"Hmm…Do you inquire about your children's…extracurricular activities?" Gaha asked Xander and the others.

"They like to explore the hold," Xander said defensively. He noticed that Mai'zi and Hainien had taken positions behind their parents and were nearly cowering. He didn't like that; these dalhari shouldn't be antagonizing the kids.

"By bending hanging rods and breaking windows?" Gaha accused tightly. "There are many such rods throughout the hold, all unusable because your children treated them like toys. They also broke several windows while exploring the hold…and that was for today only. Who knows how much damage they've done since they arrived..."

"What…" Pairdra began, not sure of what to say. He had had no idea the kids were so out of control—oh, he knew that they had the capacity for such mayhem, but he thought they'd learned their lesson in Caildin. Besides, wasn’t Xander supposed to be watching the kids all the time?

"When did were they supposed to have done this?" Saelen asked Gaha. He had a difficult time believing that they could have gotten this done without Xander's knowledge.

"This morning, when they were supposed to be learning," Waei replied for his mate. "They did not appear for their lessons, according to their tutors."

Saelen turned to the kids. "What do you know about this?"

Mai'zi stared up at her dad. She wanted very badly to just lie, but she knew it wouldn't work. "They were accidents! We didn't mean to break anything! We were just playing." Hainien nodded vigorously, agreeing with his sister.

Saelen sighed. "That's not good enough, kids. You're supposed to be very careful around other people's belongings."

"Something must be done about this situation," Gaha said to the adult siv. "We are aware of the strained relationship you had with the Caildin elders because of similar such circumstances. However, we have to take action. Therefore, we have agreed on the following terms, subject to your approval. First, the children's lessons will take place in your quarters, where Xander will be present at all times. Second, the children are not to explore the hold without a parent accompanying them. Hopefully, these two measures will ensure that they get their lessons done and that they learn how to respect that which is not theirs."

Xander, Pairdra and Saelen nodded their agreement. The rules weren't what they wanted, but then again they weren't so bad; Xander was already stuck at home and the kids probably needed the supervision. They didn't wait for small talk to start, choosing instead to herd the kids back to their quarters. Dinner and a long talk awaited them. Xander felt lucky that they hadn't been asked to pay for the damage done to the hold and had gotten off with such a light punishment.

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Del woke Spike in early evening as she was leaving for the forge. "Are you taking Rali with you?" She asked as he stumbled toward the shower.

"Yeah, she wanted to help with some of the dying," Spike replied. "I'll get her ready, don't worry." Del nodded and left for work, smiling at her mate and child. They were so much like she and Waei were it was almost eerie.

Rali wasn't hard to rouse; she'd slept like the dead and was more than ready to go play in the dyeshop. Spike grabbed a bag of dried berries and carted the both of them off to the guild hall, Rali giggling and tickling him all the way. He made sure to relish every moment he had with her; while dalhari matured considerably more slowly than humans, he still only had a few years left before she started really growing up. At eight, she had just a few more years before she started serious, day-long lessons.

"Can we make the tunic today?" Rali asked as they entered the shadow-filled guild hall.

"Maybe," Spike replied, nodding at several weavers as they passed by. "It depends on how well our other work goes." When they got to the dyeshop, one of the apprentices was just finishing up sweeping the floor. "Odd, I thought I did that yesterday."

"Oh! I'm sorry," The apprentice said, frowning. "There was a little mess on the floor here and there. Perhaps one of the other apprentices did some work after you left. There were two mortars out as well."

"Perhaps," Spike murmured, setting Rali down on a bench. He handed her the bag of fruit for her dinner and set about stoking the fire for the evening's work. Once it was crackling merrily, he used a small glass and dipper to test the blue dye he'd left curing the day before. It looked a little off—a muddy color that was darker than he'd expected. Perhaps it was too dark to be used. However, the Narmunan wanted their wool…Maybe he should dye a test piece of their material before doing the whole lot.

On his way to gather the wool to be dyed, he paused next to another vat of dye, frowning. He knew that he didn't leave it there—he'd only had a single vat of dye the day before. Perhaps that was what the mess was from—some apprentice doing work. He didn't have anyone training under him, but apprentices were required to work in every area of the guild during their training. Perhaps one of them was getting a head start. Shrugging, he resumed his walk to the corner where he'd left the woolen fabric to be dyed. He would have preferred to have dyed it prior to weaving, but it would work acceptably the other way as well.

When he got to the corner workbench, however, the wool wasn't there. Spike looked around, thinking that perhaps he or someone else had moved it. When that produced no answers, he went into one of the storage rooms. Perhaps another weaver had put it away, thinking that it had been left out by accident. However, there was no large bolt of heavy woolen fabric their either. Where had his work gone?

Cursing softly, Spike stomped back into the main dyeshop. This was a bit frustrating. He looked over at the dye. It would hold for a while, but he really wanted to get that job done. "Rali, didn't I leave that wool on the workbench in the corner?" Spike asked his daughter.

"Um, yes, I think so," His daughter answered, looking around. "What's in that vat?" She asked, pointing at the new dye he'd discovered. "Maybe someone else dyed it for you!" Spike doubted that, but decided to humor her and check anyway. He retrieved another glass and dipped out a portion of the dye. The results made both of them shudder. It was a truly putrid shade of yellowish-green-brown. "That looks like—" Rali started.

"Yes, it does," Spike interjected. They both knew just what it looked like and there was no point in mentioning it out loud.

"Who wants something that color?" Rali asked her father. She would hate anything that color!

"I have no idea," Spike said, grabbing a pair of tongs. He reached into the vat, searching for anything that might have been immersed in the foul-colored liquid. He found fabric near the top of the vat—something that concerned him. It was obviously a very heavy fabric to have sunk down in the vat without a weight, and to be that near the surface meant that there was a lot of it. He began to pull the fabric out, a bad feeling building in his gut.

Well, at least he'd found his wool. All of it—the entire bolt—had been dyed one of the ugliest colors he'd ever seen. It wasn't even a very good dye job either. Whoever had mixed the dye hadn't stirred it well or waited for all the ingredients to mature; they had simply dumped everything into a vat, added water, and put in the fabric. As a result, there were random spots of color here and there—red, brown, green and black. The variety of colors he saw went far in explaining how the end result had been such a nauseating shade, however. It looked like something Rali would have come up with—if she had closed her eyes and randomly picked out ingredients!

"Is that the wool?" Rali asked, looking at the stuff from her perch on the workbench. "It's ugly!"

Spike nodded his agreement as he strung up the stuff to dry. He didn't trust himself to say anything; for fear that he might use really vile expletives in front of his daughter. Whoever had done this was going to pay—in the most painful way he could come up with. Once the yards of fabric were strung high into the air, Spike picked up a still-staring Rali and marched into the main hall. He didn't stop until he ran into a teenager who was thinking about apprenticing into the guild when she got older.

"Tuos?"

The girl spun around when she heard Spike call her. "Master Laio?"

"Were you here at all yesterday?" He asked, making sure that she had had nothing to do with the debacle in his dyeshop. He didn't suspect her, since her interests lay very definitely in weaving, not in dyemaking.

The girl shook her head. "No, I was in lessons yesterday."

"Good! Could you take Rali over to the forges? Del should be there and I have business that needs doing," Spike said, handing his daughter off to the girl. Rali made to protest, but Spike shot her a warning glance. Now was not the time.

Tuos and Rali exited the main hall rather quickly; since the teen had also seen that look and knew that something was up. She would have liked to have been able to sit in on whatever was about to happen, but it was probably Laio's intention to get her away from the situation.

Once the twosome was gone, Spike turned back to the others in the main hall. "Be in the dyeshop in five minutes," He ordered sharply, leaving no room for argument. "Tell the others."

Spike then left to return to the dyeshop, while the weavers spread the word. The entire guild was crowded into the workshop less than three minutes later. Spike almost never called in the guild like this, so it was quite an occasion. "Someone was in the dyeshop last night," He began once he knew everyone was present. "And managed, somehow, to create an entirely new color of dye." Spike stopped and pointed to the fabric hanging from the ceiling. "Unfortunately, I doubt that the Narmunan are going to like it very much."

Gasps and groans followed his announcement. Not a weaver in the shop mistook what he was saying. Someone had broken in yesterday and basically ruined an enormous quantity of material—for a rather important contract. The fabric was a loss—the best that could be hoped for was that a very potent black dye would cover the worst, but even then it could only be sold as second or third rate material. And that didn't fulfill the contract with the small contingent of Narmunan house guards that lived in Na'alha. It wasn't the season for prhang wool, so they didn’t have a lot of material of that weight simply sitting around. More would have to be spun and woven, and quickly.

"Who did this?" Spike shouted, his voice echoing through the high rafters and off the walls. "Who?"

No one said a word. How could they? Not one of them knew how this mess had come about. "Someone came in here and purposefully made this dye from scratch," Spike said, gesturing toward the dye vat. "And used that particular fabric in it. And I want to know WHO DID THIS!"

It was several minutes before anyone mustered the courage to speak. "I don't think anyone in the guild did that," One weaver offered. "Even the laborers know better than to play around with the dyes."

Spike shook his head. "But whoever did this managed to get the right mordant into the dye—and the right ingredients as well."

"Please tell me that isn't the guilds' new color," Del said from the doorway. Spike turned to see his mate leaning against the wall, staring up at the hideous material. "I realize that all of you are far more experienced, but believe me, that is stunningly…ugly."

"Smithy, if we wanted your opinion, we would have sent for you," Spike shot at her, annoyed at the intrusion. "But at least you can see that it isn't what we wanted. Someone did this, without permission and without the knowledge of the guild."

"Sabotage?" She asked, frowning. It was rare but not unheard of for important contracts to be made difficult by unknown parties.

"We don't know," Spike answered sharply. "But if you have any ideas, please share them."

Del shrugged. She didn't take exception to Spike's anger; after all she got frustrated whenever he showed up at the forge, which was invariably when something was going wrong. When Tuos had arrived with Rali, both wearing excited grins, Del knew something was up. She sent the pair to Gaha and flew over to the weavers' guild to see what was going on.

Before Del could say anything, however, a noise drew everyone's attention. Someone was running down the hall. Del stepped further inside the door and moved to one side, letting it close behind her. After a moment, the patter of feet stopped. Every dalhari in the room craned their necks to improve their listening position. Who would be outside the door? Everyone in the guild was in the room.

"Is this the one?"

"Yeah, remember the carving on the door?"

"You think the dye's done?"

"It should be. It sat all day!"

Spike's eyes widened as he recognized the voices of Xander's children. Sure enough, the door cracked open to reveal Mai'zi and Hainien, who peered in cautiously. "Oops," Mai'zi whispered when she saw all the dalhari in the room. Each weaver heard the word—just as they had heard all that had been said by the two siv. Now they knew who had ruined Spike's dying.

Mai'zi let the door fall shut. As soon as she let go, she and Hainien took off at a dead run, streaking through the halls. The door they'd just left shot open as an entire guild's worth of dalhari came flying after them. The kids hadn't thought that the halls were wide enough to accommodate flight, but they were wrong. They managed to make it outside and took to the walls of the guild, jumping around wildly, trying to make it back to their quarters. Unfortunately for the siv, the dalhari were much more experienced at moving around their hold. Within minutes, both children had been plucked from precarious perches and hauled back to the ground.

"What should we do with them?" One weaver asked as she struggled to keep hold of Hainien.

"Take them to the main hall. Call the elders," Spike said grimly. He marched back into the weavers' hall, accompanied by del.

"Evidence?" She asked lightly as they reentered the dyeshop.

"Of course," He said, taking down the still wet, monstrous fabric. "They went too far, Del. Before it was hold things—windows and food and being annoying. This time they've interfered with guild business. It is our right to demand restitution."

Del nodded. "Yes, it is. It may, in fact, be what is needed to stop this behavior." She would like nothing better than to see those two kids brought back to earth.

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Gaha watched in alternating amusement and horror as the weavers' guild—the entire weavers' guild—marched into the main hall. She, Waei and three other elders had just gathered to discuss the evening's business when nearly fifty dalhari swarmed the room. Two of them had Xander's kids tucked under their arms. The siv didn't look too pleased with the arrangement and were thrashing about, trying to escape. "Dare I ask?" She said as one came near her.

"It is Laio's story to tell," One weaver said as they took position around the hall. "But you may want to call in their parents."

Waei signaled for a guard to do just that and went back to waiting for Spike to arrive. It didn't take long—and Del was with him. The appearance of those two wasn't wholly unexpected, considering how Rali had shown up in the arms of a potential apprentice of the weavers'. Still, this massive presence was a bit unusual. "Laio?"

Spike walked right up to the elders and dumped the ruined fabric at their feet. He'd thoughtfully put it into a waterproof container so that it wouldn't stain the floor. "They did that," He said, pointing to the fabric. "It is a rather important order for the Narmunan, and they managed to make it unusable!"

Gaha looked at the fabric in horror. She was a Mirh and thus closely connected to the weavers' guild, even though she had left her work there long ago. "Laio, how did they…"

"Good question," He growled, turning to the kids. "How did you?"

Mai'zi and Hainien just whimpered and resumed their struggles to get free.

"What's going on here?" Xander demanded as he, Saelen and Pairdra stormed into the main hall. "Why do you have my kids like that?"

"WHY?" Spike raged, turning on Xander. "Why? Because they are a menace! Why? Because they are a danger to this hold and because they just ruined one of our more important jobs!"

Xander looked at Spike in confusion. "What is it they are supposed to have done?"

Spike pointed at the fabric. "They managed to mix up a dye that made fabric turn that color," Spike said angrily. "It was supposed to be dark blue, for the Narmunan house guard. Now it's good for nothing more than rags. The blue dye is also ruined, somehow."

Xander looked from the kids to the fabric, to the elders and finally to the dalhari crowding around the hall. "Aren't you over reacting a little, Spike? It's just fabric."

Spike's eyes widened impossibly and he bared sharp golden fangs. Del put a strong arm around him, hoping to keep him from attacking the siv. Gaha and Waei were similarly horrified by Xander's reaction, but they chose not to aggress in such a fashion.

Meanwhile, Saelen and Pairdra took turns staring at their children and at Xander. How had things gotten so out of control? Yes, they had some things to work out with Xander, and with the kids, but they had no idea it had gotten quite this bad. Even the meeting they'd had earlier with the elders seemed to have gone alright, all things considered. Now this…And how had the dalhari gotten a hold of the kids? They had finished their delayed dinner a short time before, and Saelen and Pairdra had gone back over to the training fields for a little more practice before bed…but Xander should have been with the kids…

"Xander!" Gaha said sharply. "That is unacceptable. That is very expensive fabric, and the contract is very important to the weavers' guild."

Xander huffed. "So we'll replace it. Big deal."

"How?" Saelen asked softly. "We don't have the money to pay for that, Xander."

Xander spun around, looking hurt. How could Saelen not support him—in public, no less. "Sae—"

"What do you want us to do?" Pairdra asked Gaha, interrupting his mate.

Gaha raised an eyebrow, surprised that the quiet siv had actually taken charge. "First, you will of course have to compensate the guild—and explain to the Narmunan why their order wasn't completed on time. Second, your family—all of you—will be required to attend lessons on proper conduct of all types. It has become glaringly obvious that you cannot control your children and that they have learned nothing about self-control, respect for others or for their own parents. That can only mean that you have not transmitted those lessons to them, or that you yourselves have none of those qualities either. Regardless, you will all be instructed on such things until we are satisfied that none of you will be engaging in such reckless and wantonly destructive activities in the future."

"You're making us go to school?" Xander said incredulously. "We came here to get away from elders telling us how to raise our children!"

"Perhaps you should have stayed," Vaishi said quietly. He had arrived from the training fields and had heard everything. "At the time I thought that the elders of Caildin were being unduly harsh in their treatment of you. However, in retrospect that was not true. In light of recent events, it has become clear to me that your children's misbehavior is not aberrant for them—they are always disrespectful and thoughtless."

"Traitorous bastard," Xander muttered under his breath. A ripple of gasps moved through the dalhari. Little did he know that he'd just gravely insulted the dalhari. Traitors were rare among their species, but such activities were the most harshly punished. As for bastardy, it didn't mean the same thing to dalhari that it did to Xander. For them, it meant that Vaishi had fathered children so loosely that he didn't even know how many he had, implying that he was supremely inconstant. It was an especially severe insult to hurl at a bonded dalhari, who would take his vows to his mate very seriously.

"That is enough!" Waei exclaimed, his deep voice resonating over the crowd. By now the weavers had crowded close to the siv and were growling menacingly at them. "Saelen, Pairdra, Xander, Mai'zi, Hainein—you will be escorted to your quarters, where you will stay until the elders have finalized how to deal with this situation. You may not leave your quarters, and guards will be posted to ensure that you do not attempt to do so." To ensure that the siv understood that there would be no discussion, he and the other elders turned their backs and walked away. Spike, Del and Vaishi followed suit, exiting along with the elders. Soon the siv were left alone with a huge contingent of guards, who were waiting impatiently to lock the siv in their quarters.

Once they were alone in their rooms, Saelen ordered the kids to go to bed—no questions, no begging and no argument. After they were gone, he turned to Xander. "We need to talk."

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