*Aurthur had started to take it in his turn to stand guard duty. Part of the reason for this was to escape the house arrest that his mate had placed on him, he had to admit. But another reason was he had been unwary once, and his family had paid for it. He would never allow it to happen again, EVER again. So far in the past few days, all had remained quiet. He had switched places with Temeraire this morning, and he had a little bit of excitement this morning. Apparently, the memo did not get out that the Shimmerscale Orphanage did not accept solicitors. The man wasn't afraid of his advance, and even had a smile on his face. But then, it's wasn't as though dragons were scarce in Rhydin.

As Aurthur met the intruder, he gave a feral hiss, and suddenly released his deadly, venomous spines all at once, and the man went white as a sheet (Aurthur was fairly certain that the man had soiled himself as well.) and fell over himself trying to flee. As he made his way back to his sentry perch, he grinned and laughed to himself, hoping that someone else would be just as ignorant to try and approach the lair.*