Drabbly goodness.

[kippurbird]

Officially Alec lived with Council leader Zaladine Kindess as her adopted son. He was to live with her until he was twenty five and officially an adult. Unoffically Alec lived off by himself with his wife and son, making an appearance at his adopted mother's house for offical functions and things like that. Occasionally he'd stop by to talk and get some mothering. Once in a while he was summoned.

Today he had been summoned to her house. It was a rare enough occurance that he felt slightly worried. Brushing back his hair in a futile attempt to make it look neat he followed the servant to her office. She was sitting behind her desk with a thoughtful expression on her face. Her hands were folded neatly in front of her, her face seemed to be more care worn than usual.

"When I said you needed to do something with your hair, Alexander, I didn't mean that," She said as he stepped inside, indicating the purple streak that occupied his cropped hair. Alec gave her a sheepish shrug in response.

"I lost a bet with Lar," He said as an explination. Her lips gave a slight twitch in the direction of a smile.

She waved for him to sit down, her light brown eyes watching him sink into one of the high backed chairs, before she spoke again. "The council had been doing some cleaning out of artifacts in the storage rooms. During this purge we found something from Pentarch," she paused her, and the heavy way that she said the city's name indicated that it was from the old ruined city that their ancestors had built. "It was a set of rings. Three of them."

Alec sat there quietly, not exactly understanding the signifigance of such a statement. Zaladine, however, pulled out a small wooden box and pushed it towards him. He picked it up carefully and opened it. Inside were, as he guessed, three rings. They were identical, braided rings. One strand was made from a silvery metal, one from a golden metal and the third from what looked like a living shimmering piece of liquid live wire. It wiggled and twisted with in the grasp of the other two strands trying to break free, but was completely caught. Alec's eyes widened as he recognized the rings. Zaladine wore one almost exactly the same, except that the third strand was made from a moving brown piece of metal. He looked up at her.

"Yes, the missing council rings for the Elemental wizards. We found them in a box with some other magical rings."

Shutting the box Alec said, "Why show them to me?"

"You are the only Elemental wizard Alexander. The laws say that you should be on the council. You're too young, of course, but you are the only one."

"I don't want to be on the council."

Here she smiled, "You are not the only one who doesn't want you on there as well. However, it was felt, as a gesture of good will that you should at least have one of the rings."

Alec looked at the box, "To show that I'm sanctioned and not a threat?"

"Those weren't the exact words... but yes." She reached over and took the box back. Opening it, she removed one of the rings and held it out to him. "As a favor for me, will you take it?"

"For you, yes," He said after a pause. He took the ring and placed it on his middle finger on the right hand. It felt a little big at first but then it fitted itself to his finger.

"Thank you."