I think I can help with this one. I think Tazendra's actions can be explained by a couple possible things: 1) The opponents in question might have had didn't social rank or titles that might have caused Tazendra to give the Hawklord the honour of a duel, but not the Dragon. 2) It was more insulting to the Dragon to a) deny him a fight and b) do so on the grounds that 1 dragon wasn't enough for her to consider the effort. In this way she maintains a superiority without drawing sword, which we all know is better than doing so by drawing the sword (He's taken x number of colours without drawing sword, "Dragon") I'm not certain where you get the idea that there's more than one emperor per reign, but let me forward the hypothesis nonentheless that this may occur when certain houses are in power. Can you really imagine anything but a democratic government when the Teckla are in power? Would not the orb be under the command and at the use of many men/women at once? As to your last point, people grow up slower or faster according to nature/nurture rules. Jon Carey _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail