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The elders agreed to Dawn's plan with little fuss, but they were insistent she wait until she turned sixteen before she married her cousins. "It will give them time to see how we do things here," Moira, eldest of the elders, told he gravely. "I know it is handing the council more ammunition, but they've been meddling in our affairs long enough as it is, so a little more meddling isn't going to hurt things in the long run."
Gwydion and Mordred did not like being confined to the clan encampment, but they were told very firmly that they were living on sufference; if they didn't like it, they could return to Isonor and try their luck there. "You can either put up or shut up, or go home," Moira told them sternly. "I imagine the council will be very cross with you for failing in your mission, so I suggest you do as you're told and take your lumps."
Thus cajoled, the brothers submitted with ill grace. They were forbidden from interacting with any of the girls of marriagable age, and this put them in an even fouler mood. Once more they were told to put up or shut up, or go home, and once more, they were forced to concede.
Dawn thanked her lucky stars for the reprieve. Though she was determined to go through with her plan, she did admit to having more than a few misgivings. Gwydion and Mordred were the council's creatures; once married, they'd have complete say over her and her future children's lives. Once born, any children she had would be taken from her and raised in secret, to spawn even more children who would be the seeds of the council's future universe-conquering army.
And they'd already succeeded in one aspect; their man-made disease had finally been eradicated, now that they had enough children with the special antigen their foremother Scarlett had been born with, and a cure had been immediately developed from the left over umbilical cords of Scarlett, Winter, and his sons. But though the cure had been developed, the council were still cruel to the end; those native Pandorans who'd been afflicted with the disease and survived were told that they'd be given the cure that would reverse the barrenness the disease had left in its wake, but only if they agreed to let their future children be added to the ever increasing gene pool. Desperate to get their lives back, the Pandorans had agreed, but they'd come to regret their decision when their children were born and taken from them. Dawn had the feeling the native Pandorans had cottoned on to the truth, and would, in all likelihood, revolt. But the council soon put paid to any grumblings of revolution; they'd created a localised version of their disease that would kill slowly, rather than leave a person barren. Faced with slow, painful death, the citizens had soon given up on any ideas of protesting, submitting meekly with nary a peep. 103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRF5g7RwhEn
Dawn didn't blame them; the council was too powerful, and had been in power for many years, long enough to build up a store of malicious tricks and manipulation that would cow their people for a very long time to come. The citizens didn't have the power to overthrow their council, and in any case, the council had stringent contingency plans in the event of a revolt. No one knew what those plans were, but all agreed that the council would simply be able to disappear if overthrown, and then take over another helpless planet and start the process anew. Dawn felt sick whenever she thought of it, and as the days leading up to her sixteenth birthday approached, she vowed to bring the council down one way or another, and stop them from inflicting their unique brand of crazy on any more planets.
All she had to do was survive her upcoming marriage, and the rest, she hoped, would fall into place. One way or another, she vowed, the council would be brought to its knees and robbed of its power before their promised invasion got off the ground. Then and only then could the universe live in peace, without the fear of a widescale invasion hanging over their heads.
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