A Change of Plans

​As the Herald continued his tale, the Dragon was evaluating how his return could be used to her benefit.  Now this Dragon was no ordinary Dragon.  Her name was “Sí atá i gceannas” (meaning She Who Leads) and she was a Wish Dragon.  Siate’ (her short name – pronounced ‘See-augh-tea’) had controlled the other Dragons for a very long time now – shortly after the clans were first formed.  

​When Aralt found the Emerald Dragon Stone and learned that it allowed him to listen to the mind-speaking of Dragons, she was the first to realize he could hear them.

​“Aralt, the Dragon Herald,” she named him one day.  The title amused Aralt at first, for he soon found that the stone made it even easier for the Dragons to agree with him.  Afterall, he was their speaker to the other fae and ‘outies’.  Shortly afterwards he and Siate' formed a lose bond to help her establish her reign over the others.  She needed a tool and he thought he was manipulating the powerful Wish Dragon to his plans. Now, Dragons normally are independent and don’t believe in royalty or governments for themselves, but they do respect power and ability.  

​Siate’, being a Wish Dragon, had great magical power, and soon she displayed that she also had a superior ability to manipulate others.  “Everything was going well until I gave that stupid corolla to the Herald,” she thought.

She remembered the day she gifted it to Aralt as a special reward for his help in convincing the other Dragons to have her as the leader of the Wish Dragon clan.  “If only I knew of it’s true power, I would never have given it to him.”

​The ‘true power’ of the golden corolla was that by itself it was merely a slightly magical crown as it was part of the Wish Dragon’s golden horde.  Gold is like a sponge in water.  It absorbs and stores loose magic just waiting for anything/or person that knows how to use the magic to release it.  Siate’ was not worried about the Herald being able to use the slight magic the corolla held as it would never be powerful enough to endanger her.  What the Dragon still did not understand how the Emerald Heart Stone would change of all that!

​“Him and that damnable crown,” grumbled Siate’ under her breathe as Aralt kept talking about his adventures.  He did not even notice that she was not really paying attention to him and his tales… she was thinking back to a long time ago when her plans started to unravel once the Herald placed her ‘gift’ onto his head.  She had given him the corolla just before they were to meet the Old One in open council.  The Old One was the oldest Dragon who the others naturally deferred to as their elder.  Respected and venerated she was.  If Siate’ could get her blessings, she would have no challengers to be the Old One's replacement when she faded away.  

Siate’ could remember clearly as if it was only yesterday.  Aralt, wanting to display his new gift from her, had placed the corolla on his brow as they walked in to the open council area with his green stone that looked like an heart hanging around his waist.  The plan was for Aralt to announce Siate’ as if she was a queen so that the other Dragons would believe she had the right of rulership.  If things went well and the Old One did not deny this entrance, then she would win.  If not, then the Herald could be chastised for his error.  

Foolproof she thought.  “I was that fool,” she mumbled to herself.  “I still don’t know what happened that day.”  Somehow as the Herald spoke, the Dragons appeared to go into a trance.  Even the Old One!  He had every Dragon at the open council enthralled except for one – her.  It was then that Siate’ realized that not a single Dragon would even remember her introduction by Aralt.  All of her careful planning was for nothing!

​Ever since that day, she had to watch Aralt very carefully but making sure he was never aware of her scrutiny of him.

His method of entrancing the other Dragons only improved with time and still today she did not know how he did it.  “New plan,” she decided.  “This time I will find out his method so I use him and his ability for me!"