Tara's Gunpowder.

[Tera Destre]

The wagon creaked as it drew up to the gates of Castle Longden and groaned to a halt. The wizened driver wiped the sweat from his brow as he tied off the reins of his team of mules to the brake and looked to the Guard that had approached him.

“I ‘ad me ‘ders ‘rom ‘es.”, he spoke in a wheezing voice while holding out the letter he had been given as instructed by the cowgirl. Des had promised her friend Tara a gift in return for the Angel wing feather, the real one that is, and the wagon held the gift.

There, proud as you please, in the back sat four kegs of the finest gunpowder Tara could ever have hoped to have. Each keg was filled to the brim with the highly explosive, dangerously flamable stuff.

Des was hoping that the petite vampiress was intending to give it to her husband since she had mentioned Talomar would like the gunpowder several times when they had been talking about it. But she couldn’t be sure.

Nevertheless a promise was a promise and she had just had to have that Angel wing feather or she would surely have gone insane she just knew it! Admittedly visions of the Inn being blown to bits had danced through her head as she was selecting and paying for the gift but taking out her prized feather had soon silenced them nicely.

The letter read:

Dearest Friend Tara,

I love the feather that ya got for me! I really do appreciate you doing that for me. It was right kind of ya. I remembered my promise to get you this here gunpowder in return and I hope that you enjoy it.

I’m sorry this here letter is so short but I got deportment lessons, language lessons, a kitchen full of wedding invitations still to be sent out, a fiancé to spend time with, duels to call, a bar to tend, and a paper that I work for.

Not to mention a treasurer that is soon going to be gutted if he don’t quit asking me for them their pieces of paper that tells how much I spent on what where which ain’t none of his business if ya ask me.

Love,
Des

[Tera Destre]

Let us assume for the moment that while Talomar was working, Tara was like any other wife and mother of her time; dedicated, sane, warm, kind, and caring. And that she was not hanging upside down in the bellfry--where Lani's doves once launched a fullscale attack on her (likely in retaliation for the dismissal of their mistress) forcing Talomar to save her--playing target practice with the Moonbirds and crying out in victory every time when one of them fell down to the ground, deader than your average doornail.

"Ha ha, ya feathered freak! Got ya!" she shrieked and quickly righted herself to count the number of dead Moonbird on the ground when she heard the wagon approaching.

"Hmm?"

Her eyes narrowed, crawling over to the wall of the castle to get a better look.

"What is this?" she whispered to the night air, her fingers curling tighter around her wristrocket in preparation for an attack.

While the man unloaded the gunpowder kegs and gave the letter Destre wrote to the castle guard, Little Miss Grim and Improper got curious as to what they were, and walked down the wall of the castle as a mortal would a sidewalk, although she was doing it sideways, not rightside up. When the ground approached, she hopped down to it and crept slowly over to the kegs, her nostrils flaring as she detected an unfamiliar smell to them.

"Ders rom es?" she repeated, wrinkling her nose as the man spoke. "What does tha mean?"

Then it hit her and she giggled. "Orders from Des! Oh yay! This is the gunpowder she promised! Here, give me that!" she said and yanked the letter out of the guard's hand.

She then read it and ran inside the castle to pen a reply letter she would send by RPS, overnight, provided that Chris was still doing that job and had not become too hooked on being a bartender over at the Dragon.


Miss Des,

Thank you so much for the gunpowder stuffs! It could not have come at a more convenient time!

They're a little too heavy for Tara to lift so she's going to wait until her hubby get home so she can show him and he can do it. Talomar is all about safety, yanno. The castle guard tried to give her a hand but she told them not to do that cuz she remembered you said somefin bout them exploding. Now, see, Tara dun rightly know too much about that stuffs 'cept from watching Maddock (he's Miles, the Malign's, first cousin, did you know that?) blow apart buildings and whatnot back home at Onyx House. Maddy, he's real good with stuffs that go boom, he be. Aunt Bel says that he's the best in his "trade", whatever that means.

One time, when Tara wasn't harassing Bert (that's Maddy's invisible friend that lives on his shoulder like Arthur does hers), Maddy gave Tara a blowup stick he called "dynamite" and he was helping her get a meece out of a hole cuz she was wanting to pet it, you know they meeces is real cute, but, an' Tara dun know how this happened, the hole did not have no meece in it like she thought and next thing Tara knew the whole wall fell down.

Aunt Bel wasn't very happy an' Tara got in trouble with Daddy because like Daddy said "The Oak and Ash is not an enemy target, Tara, but our family tavern. This is coming out of your allowance", to which Tara said "Well how come Maddy dun get punished too?! He's the one that showed her how to do it!" But Daddy, you know him, he's Loo-shus, an' she loves him lots she do, he didn't listen and Tara cried for a long time.

So Tara hears you is marrying up that Gavilean fellow. He's a nice man, cute too. Not ugly and smelly like that pirate of yers. Say...where did he go anyway? Tara dun see him nuh more which she guesses is a good thing because she did nuh like him too much, but you knew that dincha? Anyway, this is a good thing and Tara is happy for you. But yanno, Miss Des, Tara has some questions for ya cuz parts of yer letter confused her.

For instance, why ya gotta take language lessons? You dun suck too bad at Common. Sure you sometimes talk like you is a clock that's winding down and you got trouble with "r" sounds but it's hardly noticable once ya get a few tankards of ale in ya. An' besides, you work at the Dragon, so it's nuh like anybody is gonna pay attention, so why ya gotta do tha? Tara thinks that is silly and she can say that cuz she's an expert on language, she is.

An' why does ya got a kitchen full of wedding invitations, hmm? Isn't they supposed to be on a desk with the rest of yer important papers ya should nuh really read? Take it from Tara, Miss Des, cuz she's been married lots and lots of times, ya dun send out nuh wedding invitations from yer kitchen. It's unsanitary an' if Tara opens hers an' contracts some form of the Creepin Crud, friend or nuh friend, she's gonna take you an' tha' handsome hubby of yers to court an' sue ya for unspecified damages that'll blow their own little hole into yer kingdom's coffers! Now stop it an' get with the program!

Finally, an' she is real saddened by this, but she is sorry to hear you is being deported. Tara always thought this day might come cuz yanno, yer nuh really like the rest of us Supernaturals, wha wif you sleepin during the night, smiling all the time, an' being so damn polite to peoples. It's a shame too cuz Tara figured if you didn't come 'round, an' get pale, drink the blood of the innocents an' scare the hell out of peoples like she an' her friends do, that you could be taught, even if it was the hard way. But she guesses that's all water under the bridge now that you is being exiled.

Damn, now Tara is sad. She really liked you, Miss Des. Why did ya have to be so deadset against killin! Ya coulda jus' asked Tara to teach ya! She woulda helped a girlie out!

Well...can't really blame nobody but yerself, now can ya?

She is sure disappointed in you Miss Des. Tara will try to make the authorities listen, maybe change their minds, but she can't make nuh promises cuz they is still investigating her from the time the funds over at the Orphanage got misappropriated an' Tara told Zonker that Panther did it.

Apparently Panther's got more clout in this town than Tara. Can you believe that crap?!

If Miss Len wasn't so googly-eyed over him an' he did nuh save Tara from Woody's spritehole that time, she might have a good mind to bite him.

Oh well, time to go. She can hear Marius fussin an' Gertrude (she's the second nanny to care for him in four months) screaming. Best go see what that woman is carrying on about though she can't imagine it's anything too terrible. Talomar's son is a good boy that is fixin to take right after him.

He's never going to do anything that'll shock some white into someone's hair like his Momma. That's a shame too but at least she's got more time to work with him than she did you.

Damn you, Miss Des.

Damn you an' yer highfalutin ways!


Love,

D.C.K.

[Tera Destre]

Des picked up the letter and opened it then began to read. Her eyes got wide then wider as she scanned it. Before she got to the end she was laughing as it was obvious once again the tiny (crazy) Vampiress had misunderstood what had been written to her.

She gave serious consideration to sending her another letter to clarify her misunderstandings but decided that no doubt Tara would not understand the next letter either so she didn’t bother; instead she went to meet her Elven language tutor.