Reed seemed to want to say something, but at her next question; the somber mood, just created, dissipated.

"So, Um; why are you trusting the two of us with this?" She asks innocently. "I mean, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't want anyone to know."

"Let's answer that once we are all in the Elder's Sanctuary." Cassie replies.  We all file into the room and Taylor sits down in the Presiding Elder's chair.

"I am Allendale."  She states plainly.  "From this moment, the Council of Elders is open.  If any of you have impure intentions, leave now."  The threat in her voice was plain to us.  "Samantha, and Erica.  Please step to the center of the room."  The two did as ordered.  "I am willing to have your questions answered; however we need assurances as well.  We have contracts and agreements in place, we need your unequivocal declaration that you will not knowingly or willingly violate these agreements."

Cassie steps to Taylor's left, after she finishes speaking.  "Ladies of the United States.  Your response at this time may be to exit the room, if you either decline, or feel you may be unable to comply.  However, if you affirm, that you will perform this single task to the best of your ability, please respond with 'I do so promise'."

"I do so promise." Left both of their mouths simultaneously.  

"Noelle, these are your guests in this Council; stand behind them." Taylor continued, once I had followed her instruction.  "This is your last chance ladies, after this, you will be bound by your words.  If you have any ulterior motives in being here; you will not live to see the sun set."  I could tell they believed her, and nodded.  Neither moved, aside from standing at Parade Rest.

"Whose guests are these?"  Cassie began the formal proceedings.

"Samantha, and Erica, are guests of Noelle Trammel." I answered.

"Do you accept responsibility?"

"I accept the Bond."  I answered.  Cassie dropped her formal tone, and spoke to the two.

"She is accepting you two into our Council.  She will be punished the same as you for breaking our rules."  Cassie resumes her formal stance, as they nod.  "Allendale, the guests have agreed to the bond."

Taylor nods, and Cassie sends an almost imperceptible tendril of mana linking the three of us.

"It is done."  She says.  To which Taylor nods; then stands.  

"The verification will commence."  As soon as she spoke, I felt a wall of raw mana slam into me.  I know my guests did too, as they seemed to stagger.  Blue auras appeared around them both, followed by myself, then Cassie, then slowly, around the rest of us assembled.

Taylor then sat back in her chair.  "Thanks for coming to greet me, everyone." She smiled, an honest happy smile replaced the apprehension that had been there.  "Cassie, are they strong enough to accept the knowledge of our agreements?"

"They are, but it would need to come from the strongest of us.  If I or Noelle did it, they would probably die."

"So just barely."  She smirks, then walks to the three of us.  "It is time to let you know what you agreed to.  This will be mildly uncomfortable; but is the easiest way to let you know."  She said as she rested her hands at the temples of each woman.  I knew what was going on, but I couldn't sense it at all.

Both girls were being given the knowledge of every contract we had active with current governments, what they could use us for, what they couldn't, and the consequences of violation.

"Erica, do you understand the answer to your question earlier?"  It was a question to see if it was pushed properly.

"Yes, by the state hiding your existence to the public, and allowing you free travel, you agree to not make yourselves, or your abilities public, and if the trust is violated from their side; you will remove yourselves from their lands, to not return until the entire governmental system has been dismantled.  If the this trust is violated from the Trammel side, the offending party will be removed."  She cocked her head "the way it feels, it means you have a way to kill an immortal?"

"I do." Taylor answers.  "I am the only one the method wont work on.  And no, its not possible for you to do it, and I won't give it to another in this room.  Giyas was the last one I gave it to.  He used it on himself within the hour of me doing so."

It was the first time I had heard this, in all these years She never told me.  However, Cassie looked as though she had known.  Allendale had trusted my husband, her son, with this, and he used it on himself, to die in my arms.  

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"How did you give us the knowledge of all these contracts?" Samantha asks.

"Arcane Arts." Cassie answers as Taylor sat back in her chair.  "Arts that have been lost to the world for some five, to six thousand years."  She spreads her power into the room, and images of all of the older ones appear, all wearing our ancient tribal gear. 

"We were all originally Shaman, or mages who studied under Gundar Trammel; Allendale's grandfather.  And when he passed on, our studies continued under Allendale."  The image changed and Gundar's visage disappeared, and the outfits changed.  "A few years passed, and Allendale had figured out how to manipulate the Aether, to force a body to be created, and a soul to move to that body.  As a side effect; Allendale gained this form of immortality. The rest of us found out when a competing tribe stabbed her in the heart; she died, and two days later, she appears nude, at her own funeral pyre."  

The image changes Once more, with a young Allendale, standing where an old woman once stood.  Giyas and myself arent in the group yet.  "She then attempts to teach the rest of us her method, but something goes awry with the Aether streams at the same time, and the rest of us gain varying methods.  Most gain the ability to take over bodies where the host soul has given up.  And two of us gain what is now refered as 'true reincarnation'."  The image shifts several times, and eventually a new figure is added. 

"Dorian, came to our Tribe, wanting to learn how we had become so strong.  And we taught him.  He learned my reincarnation method.  However, he began fighting all of our neighboring tribes.  Even after several deaths, he still continued to fight, for no other reason to prove his strength."  The image changes, without him in it again.  "After seven generations of him forcing our Tribe into war; Allendale made sure he would never be reborn again.  By this time she had married, and had bore several children, but none wished to learn the Arcane ways, until her son Giyas."

With Giyas in the picture, I knew it was getting close to my entrance.  "Giyas quickly learned the Arcane ways, and Allendale assessed his personality, using a more crude version of the spell she used on the room earlier, then taught him the spell we learned to continue our lives.  By this point our Tribe, because of Dorian's conquests, had become just over four hundred souls, and it was getting harder to find food to feed all of us.  We split our Tribe," the outfits changed again, "by this point we began calling the two tribes a Clan.  An acknowledgement that although we were no longer together, we were still the same Tribe.  As a show of good faith; Giyas was married to Noelle; we thought nothing of it at the time, because they were already amicable.  It was shortly after this, though, that Giyas was challenged for the right to marry her, and bind our tribes."

The image now had me, with a slightly different tribal garb.  "It was also around this time that Giyas awoke his ability of prophecy, and cast a spell on Noelle, that is how she gained her 'true Imortality'.  There were seven attempts to kill her by her cousins over the next two generations, and she had learned our Arcane method by the time her direct relatives had all passed away."

Everyone in the image shifted, except Allendale and myself, everyone was unrecognizable.  Our outfits went from light leather to heavy furs, and Giyas' visage disappeared.  "And then, Giyas asked Allendale to learn the spell she had used on Dorian.  Thinking his prophetic ability was telling him that he would need it, she complied.  Within the hour, he called out his wife of four hundred years, cast the spell upon himself in front of her, and delivered his last prophecy as his soul shattered."

The outfits channged to woven fabrics, "the world was changing, and we knew that others would seek to learn what we had kept secret; our clansmen no longer recognized us as family, as it had been a long time since the tribes had split.  We created a secret society.  We called it The Society of Immortals.  At this point, we gave each other the names we would use as our 'first' name from then on, and decided on the surname of Trammel, as we were binding ourselves together."  The images of people then walk toward each of us in the room, the people who they represent.  Cassie then sits down to the left of Taylor.

Taylor then stands.  "Do you have any other questions?"

Messing raises her hand, as though she is in school.  Taylor smiles at her, and nods.

"When you say Arcane Arts, you are really talking about magic right? How is it that it's a lost art if it's real?"

"When we were less than a century old," Byron, one of the men on the other side of the room began to answer, "shamen had real power.  However they refused to teach their craft.  Gundar was our tribe's shaman.  He didn't want his grand-daughter to follow in his footsteps, but, taught her anyway, because none of the boys, who would be her husband, wanted to learn, and a tribal fight had taken his son, his heir.  In tribal fights, the shaman was always the first one killed, Gundar was a long lived shaman.  When he got older, some of the fathers told their sons and daughters to learn his ways, and we did.  But we we're no match for Allendale, who had been learning since she could grunt."

"You said you gave each other your first names, when you created the Society, so how does Gundar, Dorian, and Giyas, have names?"  Reed asks, her head leaning to the side slightly.

"They were the first we gave names to.  Before then, we didnt need names, we verified who each other were by passing mana through their body, and feeling how it resonated.  We still do it to each other, as our appearances, and current names, change."  Taylor answered.  "Now, I think question and answer time is up for now.  Because of the bond, between you three, you two will age significantly slower than your contemporaries.  I apologize for not telling you sooner.  As far as how much slower, I am not sure."  Taylor sat back down in the chair.  "On to the next order of buisness: Byron, since you have spoke, please go next."

For the rest of the day, we spoke about what we had been doing since the last time we had seen Allendale.  Who had been where, when certain events, that have been recorded, took place, what governments we helped, which ones we helped collapse, how the current governments treat us; things of that nature.

When we were done, we had the driver take Taylor back to the house she was staying at, and calmed down the hystarical Leah.  It's been so long since I've had parents, I forgot about this.  Well, the night ended well, and I got my first delicious meal in thirty years.  It was worth it.