Luna of Rogues

Part 25 - Rough Rogues

Extra chapter as promised, though everyone's probably off on holiday and not checking Wattpad by now. You all enjoying the summer?

"Welcome to the first meeting of Last Haven Council." Ollie was standing in the command room, at the far end of a long table, and addressing the six of us. "Matters for discussion today are the fortification of Lle o Dristwch and the Llyn Rogues."

"Argh, stop being so damn formal," I told him. "We're hardly a royal court."

"What am I supposed to say?" Ollie asked me with a frown.

"I don't care, just don't talk like you were raised in a mansion."

"Hi, y'all, the castle's falling down. Discuss," he tried. "How's that?"

I smiled happily. "Perfect."

It was decision time, and I had called in all the wiser, older heads to share their experience. At least, I had tried to. No one had been very interested in attending a meeting. Only Tom of the Elders could be bothered to get off his ass, which was fortunate, because I wanted a word with him anyway. He knew I suspected him of slipping the note into the cellar, and had consequently avoided my company at all costs. Until now.

"We could try building a wooden palisade around the castle. Just as an extra line of defence," a middle-aged man named Mortimer suggested. He was an old-timer renowned for being a jerkoff player in his youth. These days, karma had left him holding the camp record for the most children (and STDs, if you believed the rumours). He was the only other volunteer for council duty. The rest of the seats were filled by my family.

"They'd just set fire to it," Fion argued, correctly. "I thought we were going to rebuild completely."

Leo, who was sat directly opposite me, opened his mouth at this point. "Where are we going to find the money to rebuild an entire castle? And why bother, when we can just strengthen and add to what we've already got? Most of the stones are secure enough. Having been on the opposite side of the siege, I can testify to that."

"Well, I suppose we could reuse the rocks from the crumbled parts. That way, we'd only need mortar, cement, and people to work on it..." I added.

"Take thirty men off patrol rotation and set them to building it instead. The younger shifters can do more of the patrols," Tom offered. "Although the next topic might fix this problem anyway."

"Okay, what about the towers then? We'll need experienced builders for those," Mortimer pointed out, still butt-hurt that we had rejected his palisade suggestion.

Before we could debate over the towers, the door thudded open. Ollie had posted a few fighters on guard there, but they didn't dare move to stop the intruder. They knew what we all did. Mess with Maggie, and you didn't eat for a week.

"Having a meeting without me, are we?" Maggie asked brightly. "Well isn't that rude?"

She scraped back a seat to my left and sat down violently. We all averted our eyes, and Tom coughed awkwardly. "Margret, my apologies. We didn't know that-"

"Oh, shut up, Tomos. I don't care for your opinion. Everyone knows you're still spying for Ric."

What an interesting nickname, I mused. No one called him that. Ever. It added to the mystery of who was Maggie was. Those two certainly weren't related. You could tell just by looking at them. Maggie had had dark hair once, which had gradually greyed during my childhood. Rhodric was pure Llewellyn with light-brown hair and hazel eyes. They were different ages and had different accents. So I could only wonder how they had met, and what would persuade her to babysit for someone she obviously disliked.