The morning following, Tallulah was visited by Kelwin and Lunea personally. It jarred her initially in such a private setting. Kelwin never before made the attempt to visit her in her quarters.

"My mate here is concerned for your well-being, and I must oblige. She has come to me with the proposition to allow you to have maids for companions while you are not in my service. Tell me, then, is this what you wish for?" The false sense of concern in his words made her every fiber of her being wince. It was what she wanted. She was deprived of female interactions growing up, and while in the company of Atlas, she could only hold the pretense of being a man and could never truly relate to the rest of his guard.

"I would like for this opportunity," she replied simply, knowing that further elaboration would incite unnecessary curiosity from him. A certain level of indifference was her best option at this point.

Even so, Kelwin gave her a hard stare.

"If you step out of line, I will hurt your new companions, just know that," she gave a stiff nod in response.

It was yet another burden she would carry whilst here, but she still felt light, knowing that she could finally escape.

"My mate has selected females for you already, I don't need you looking for maids and blowing my operations, so they will have to do. I trust her judgment," that was surprising in itself. Kelwin didn't seem like he would trust anyone, least of all his own mate. He had fornicated with another woman before her and failed to tell her.

Tallulah nodded, too afraid to sound gleeful if she spoke aloud.

"Very well, they will be here shortly, and after introductions, I expect you out in the training field." Again, she nodded.

Kelwin left without another word. A few moments later, they entered. Tallulah shared a small smile at this victory.

"What are we to do while you train his men?" Tallulah wasn't expecting this and did not have an answer right away.

"I can show you the keep, and once Tallulah returns, we can figure out what to do next,"

"It might be good to watch the training. The view from this room is good for that, and we can critique the men below and how they respond to your actions?" Benna inquired.

"Please, you're the only one who wanted to learn combat, Rika and I chose not to," Aurora combatted.

"And yet had your sister not been found out, you would've been made a soldier, one who uses weapons," countered Benna. Tallulah glanced between the women before her pondering what situations they'd gotten themselves into.

"Please, ladies, it's not a competition. While I enjoy the enthusiasm, you do need to get an idea of daily life around here. It's not easy pretending to be something or someone you're not," Tallulah eyed them all. "Take Lunea's offer and get acquainted with the keep today and tomorrow. we can discuss fighting or whatever skills you have that can be of use?" They all murmured their agreement. Tallulah was finding that the more time she spent with these women, how seriously unguided they were in life. She would figure out their individual situations sooner or later because she knew that for Atlas to send them something was up.

Lunea took them under her wing while Tallulah made her way to the training session. It wasn't anything new, but her renewed vigor sent every fiber of her being ablaze with anticipation of this session. She would obliterate them all. She had gone too easy before.

She would not back down today and went harder than ever before. These boys never stood a chance.

It was such a dance for her. She could easily float around the fighters to find their weak points and exploit them with such finesse that it was all she could do to not mock their inadequacy.

It was all one on one training with Kelwin's officers, and surprisingly, she had seen Lord Faustus in the field today, but he was not participating in the training. She wanted to wring his neck for drugging her while in his camp. She wasn't sure how they'd done it because she ate what everyone else ate, and they couldn't have suspected her being what she was unless there was someone on her side giving them Intel. For that, she was vexed.

She had forgotten that these dragons could shift and could also fight in their shifted forms, which meant they would always have the upper hand.

She could not shift, not outright anyway. If she did, a riot would ensue.

She had to brace herself for the reality of facing a dragon in a fight. And when this battle took place, for it would, she needed to be prepared.

This... this wasn't the place to prepare.

She would ask Lunea and her new maids to help her there. All she was focusing on was controlling her shift and learning how to be a dragon, not how to fight as one or against one.

One of the lords under Kelwin took a running start and exploded into a yellow green dragon, twice the size of hers, and braced for an attack against a deep purple dragon.

"Boy! You are here!" Kelwin, finally seeing Tallulah in the field, made his way over.

"I've drawn up some tactics I want you to look over and help prepare those who can not shift to join ranks with those who can,"

It was a test. Surely Kelwin would not actually want her opinion on these matters.  She eyed the paper in his hand. Why must he make her betray her mate and kingdom like this? She hated it with such a burning passion. 

"You will do it," he insisted, an evil glint in his eyes.

She took the paper from him. She knew very little on how to form ranks. That was not a position she handled. Usually, it was given to someone like Reylan, or perhaps Mykel now or maybe they shared the role. Either way it did not matter.

The drawings were lacking in detail, but Tallulah found she understood the overall picture. It was a plan that could never work in anything other than an open field, confined areas were out of the question with dragon fighting each other. This was something she could deal with. Once she escaped this army, she would share this information with Atlas.

The bigger dragons would work better behind the footsoldiers, but she wouldn't tell Kelwin that. Instead, she began marking the bigger dragons as dispersed through them, and the smaller dragons would go behind and in front, leaving horses unguarded and easily over taken by opposing forces.

She would need to spend hours developing a thorough plan that would ultimately fail in battle... She did not have hours, however, and Kelwin was coming back from the group he was speaking with.

"So, boy, what do you propose?"

"I would need a lot more time to create a true plan, I wasn't given this job while with Prince Atlas and his other guards," she told him. It was better to tell a white lie in this situation.

"Hmph. I expected one of your prowess to be able to work this out for me. Perhaps your skills aren't as great as we thought," Now, Tallulah was confused. Who was the mysterious we? Was the mole that close with Atlas? They knew someone was feeding information to the enemies, but not who. Maybe they did know who by now, but Tallulah certainly did not.

"I beg your pardon?" she replied.

"I thought, that perhaps you would be able to solve the dilemma we are facing by having mixed troops. But I see that you are just as baffled by it as we are and therefore we will have to resort to previous tactics in order to figure out what will work," Kelwin spoke very slowly to her as if she didn't comprehend his earlier remark. 

Maybe she put too much thought into the we statement, but recalled everyone who was with them on the travel south: Reylan and Latimer, and then Mykel and Ander...and her and Atlas. Atlas was in contact with Iris and her people, traitors of their own kind to want peace from the conflict. 

The only person who gave Tallulah hesitation in their group when they began their trek south was Latimer. He was, after all, the son of Lord Faustus and knew a lot of personal things about the people in their group. But he also didn't strike her as the kind of person to betray his King. King...what a strange notion, Tallulah should be his queen now, if she wasn't here, rotting away as a prisoner.

"I'm sorry to disappoint, but this was never my specialty. I was asked to protect and fight for Atlas, that was all," Tallulah replied haughtily. And it really was all. Her lack of knowledge about anything growing up proved to be a downfall when a part of his guard, but that was not something she could remedy now. She was just starting to become acquainted with the history of their people as she read in the library in her spare time. At the rate she was going though, it would take ages to accrue the necessary knowledge to be comparable to any Lord or Lady's education.

"I see that now. You are as useless to me as you were to him. You couldn't even protect yourself when it came down to it," Kelwin chuckled. Hoe she wanted to throttle him right then and there to prove him so very wrong, but she couldn't, not when she was devising a plan to escape. If she acted rashly now, consequences could, and would, prove detrimental to her escape and the escape of her new companions.