?Wearing a scowl on her face, Melisandre exuded an almost hostile aura as she led the way back to her estate. Clearly whatever Ss did in order to keep Otis'' eptance as a member of the Roost had heavily upset her.


    No one dared ask her anything during the flight back from the Hall Masters'' meeting chambers, and they could all only wonder what exactly had happened.


    When they finally arrived back at Melisandre''s estate, she held a meeting with everyone in attendance to tell them what had urred and n their next step.


    "To start, Ss must have called in arge number of favors just to spite me in this issue. He got multiple other Hall Masters on his side and brough up long forgotten precedent from when the Roost was still fairly new." Melisandre said, practically grumbling.


    She then exined that far in the past, long before her time, the admittance of any new owl required the permission of three of the Roost''s top brass.


    This rule had not been put into practice for centuries, but Ss had decided to bring it up and used it as his main argument for why Melisandre could not push Otis'' membership through on her own.


    Normally doing something like this would have only gotten him annoyed looks and a quick dismissal, but with the supporters Ss had prepared ahead of time he was able to push his agenda.


    "So, I won''t be able to get Otis to join the Roost any time soon. Thanks to Ss I need to get the approval of two other Hall Master and while I can call in some favors of my own, it will still take time, since we will apparently need to go and assess Otis before he can ever enter the Roost, which means that three Hall Masters will need to leave at the same time. That is not something easy to schedule. And it does not help that Ss insisted that he be brought along to make sure that as he said, ''Proper procedures are followed.'' Damn I want to wring his neck right now." Melisandre said her anger obvious.


    For any other special admittance to the Roost, it would have only needed to be brought up briefly and the Hall Master wanting to bring a new owl in would have no problems doing so of their own volition.


    However, due to Ss'' interference Otis was not going to have and easy time of it.


    "Could we not just go over Ss'' head?" Evelyn asked.


    If Ss and the Hall Masters he had gotten on his side were causing a problem, then they could just go to the highest authority in the Roost, and get Minerva to quash the issue.


    Unfortunately, Melisandre could only shake her head at Evelyn''s suggestion.


    "No this is not a matter for the leader of the Roost to deal with. She has far more important things on her te than dealing with the admittance of a new owl. Perhaps if your friend was at the cmity rank it would be another story, but for just a mere newly evolved tyrant rank there is no way I can ask for our leader''s assistance." Melisandre said.


    As much as se would enjoy watching Ss squirm if she brought in Minerva, calling on the leader of the Roost for something so small would tarnish Melisandre''s reputation, and make the current Hall Masters seem highly dysfunctional.


    "Why does this guy even have it out for the two of you in the first ce?" Bylur said, a look of displeasure on his face.


    Evelyn though had no clue why Ss did not like her or Melisandre, and could only shrug her shoulders.


    On the other hand, Melisandre grimaced, she knew exactly why Ss was periodically getting in her way and harassing Evelyn as a way to get to her.


    "I suppose that I might as well tell you all about what happened between me and Ss in the past." Melisandre said, sitting up straight and getting ready to tell a long story.


    Everyone looked towards her intently and from the expressions on Anneli''s and Katrina''s face, neither of them knew about Melisandre''s history either.


    "Back when I was still only at the awakened rank, I was actually on a team with Ss. Back then we did not go out of our way to antagonize each other, and I would say we were even good friends." Melisandre said, shocking all of them with this revtion.


    Evelyn had figured that they had a long-standing rivalry and had always been enemies, but never once did she think that the two of them had been allies.


    Continuing on, Melisandre told them all of some of their exploits together as a team, but things obviously did not end well.


    "During our rise up the Ranking Hall, we got approached by arge faction that wanted us to join and Ss thought that it would be a good opportunity, but I declined, and our other team member did as well. This left Ss with no choice but to also refuse, since we were wanted as a team. Onlyter did I learn that just how malicious this faction could be." Melisandre said, a look of sorrowing over her face.


    Just like what had happened with Evelyn, this faction decided to antagonize Melisandre and her team, and on one such asion when they were outside the roost, they riled up a bunch of beasts and led them to where Melisandre and her team had been resting.


    Both her and Ss managed to escape, but their other teammate did not and ended up dying in the battle.


    "After that we were more careful and the two of us spent a great deal of time nning and getting stronger so that we could crush the faction that killed our friend. Eventually we were able to bring them down and not a single remnant of that faction remains, but our friend, Ava was still dead. This hit Ss harder than it did me, since I am certain that he was in love with her. He was almost manic in his quest to destroy that faction, though, I was not much better."


    Once they had wiped out the faction that opposed them Melisandre and Ss stuck together for a bit longer, but it all changed when Ss tried making advances at Melisandre.


    Now that his love was gone he wanted to try and fill the void with his next closest friend, but Melisandre rejected him, seeing him more as a little brother than a romantic interest.


    "Ever since I rejected him, Ss has been antagonistic towards me. He has never done anything to truly harm me, but he enjoys annoying me where he can. I believe he does this mostly just to get my attention, and he clearly still has some level of respect for me in his own twisted way." Melisandre said, giving her own opinion of her current rtionship with Ss.


    And from what little interactions he had with Ss Evelyn could see that Melisandre was probably right.


    When she first arrived in the Roost, Ss t out told her that she was not worthy to be Melisandre''s apprentice.


    Even now he wants to see Otis to make sure that he was qualified to enter the Roost under Melisandre''s endorsement.


    "That is the general gist of my rtionship with Ss. I honestly wish I could just ignore him, but since he is another Hall Master that is impossible. In this case he has pretty much already won. I would rmend that we stop trying to get Otis into the Roost right now. Ss is just going to turn it into a bigger mess and it could snowball out of control if we continue to push back. Otis would garner plenty of unwanted attention and by association so would all of you. In my option our best bet now is just to wait until the normal trials to enter the Roost are held again and have Otis participate then. Ss is not the one going to be in charge and the Hall Master who is owes me a big favor. I will make sure that Otis is evaluated fairly and allowed into the Roost. Not even Ss will be able to interfere with the Roost''s scheduled recruiting."


    Sighing Evelyn had been hoping to get Otis into the Roost in order to use his status and power as a tyrant rank beast to help her and herpanions elerate their growth.


    Having Otis onboard would have allowed them many more options than they currently have.


    Sadly it seemed that getting him in now was going to be more than a hassle than it was worth.


    "You are right Melisandre. We will just have to wait until Otis can enter the roost normally. It is only a few months'' time, we will get by fine." Evelyn said, her shoulders slumped in disappointment.