The metal beast floated effortlessly through the mass of bodiless ether binding the universe together. In its belly rested the last hope of the civilized worlds – as disjointed as they already had become. The behemoth’s numerous glass eyes gazed blindly into the darkness of space, to Earth, its sun, and its moons.

Feeling smaller than any of it, the humanoid watched the universe from behind the thick pane of glass. The slow movements of the stars, imperceptible to fixed place and small life, did little to ease the misgivings of the soul. She leaned against the glass, aching to be a part of that vast expanse of nothing. Yet, if death were that release, she was unwilling to fulfil the yearning of the call. She would not have called it fear; rather it was a simple acceptance of the duty she had the misfortune of being born to.

A slight ting rang between the magnetic strips on the woman’s boots and the floor as she shifted her weight. Despite the marginal gravity, and with the help of the magnets, she managed a semblance of posture as she might have on Luna. Or Earth, for that matter – they were supposed to be similar.

Flutters of softer stuff against metal rushed through the still air to sensitive, tapered ears. The woman tilted her head away from the light; illumination from pale green eyes cast a shadow over her face, hiding a scatter of pale freckles.

The human, for it was a human, smiled down at her from the designated ceiling. Although, in Zero-G, it truly made little difference what part of the metal confines one wished to adhere to. Short, fluffy brown hair stood on end, moving liquid-like when trailing the head it attached to before stopping to explore its bounds again. Equally playful mahogany eyes blinked once in the sunlight reflected off the ship’s hull.

Silence. Not the dead, stifling silence of space, but verbal quiet under the hum of magic and electricity.

In the past, there was little enough to communicate that they needed to speak. Now, there was a break in that reticence; it was a remark that spoke more than its words.

"He thinks we can’t do it."

The man’s smile faded to a shadow of its sincerity, and he stepped beside his friend. On level with her shoulders, a bit different than had they been on the same surface, he watched her turn again to the window. He had not heard of dissent, but there were many things of which he was ignorant.

"I’m sure a lot of them don’t think we can do it," he traced the thought along the stars, pouring his own trust into her confidence, "Which only means we’ll have to show them better."

There was no comfort to be given; it would have been rejected if there were. There was one certain thing, the goal, and no sure path to it. All questions, no answers, and only a sense of dread anticipation to tide them over.

Wakefulness came, suddenly, but with no outward indication. To eyes that opened slowly, more interesting than the dream world was the tinny resounding of feet trying too hard to stay to the ground in an environment that would not have it.

Dropping away from the tier into freefall, the being that knew let the far wall approach, stopping at an arm’s length to further survey the circumstance. A tainted smile graced an all too innocent face as pure frosted cerulean scrutinized the unawares below.

The one did not matter, or at least not in the same way. The other was… different. It was a fusion of physiology that struck a potent quintessence in a bad way; it was an abomination.

Using the movement of the ship and natural inertia, with a liquid grace fell upon the victims of choice… only to be pushed back by a sudden, although not entirely unknown force – made worse by the freefall.
 

The young magician barely turned to face their assailant as the azure elf was pushed back. Inefficient would be words of no or bad, so he settled for a bored, irate glare, and doubled pace to catch up with his friend.

"I could have done it," the woman whispered, her fingers already curled to her palms under the pretense of an impending confrontation.

"You shouldn’t have to." It was truth – an issue that should not have been.

Of the ancient race, there were few that did not remember the old forms, and the old life. However, very few that lived now remembered the transition, when the beings abandoned their old bodies for the human form. They had changed, since then, forcing their adopted world to change with them.

Of the oldest of this race was a handful that had survived the span of time since the changes had begun. Generations of humans passed, while the first of the amalgamations of fresh human bodies and ancient souls kept their weakening forms solid. They became immortal through willpower alone.

The most ancient of the beings ruled their younger kin, and took it upon themselves to maintain the well being of the blue planet and its inhabitants – near cousins, and creations, as well as the natural life they felt responsible for protecting.

But the Earth began to decay, and the source was not apparent to the Ancients. In their search for the cause, they had found a different curiosity… and exploited it for their own in the hope that the act would aid them in their effort.

Redemption was worth any cost.

If the most ancient among the order were as wizened as a true human of equal years had been, there would be little left of but an emaciated core of weathered bones, if that at all. Through sheer effort, the Emissary retained a grandfatherly physique. It was not the most impressive, for the oldest, the First of the First and most revered of the Order, managed to maintain her body as it were in its human prime.

Not her, her surrogate for the trip sat upright, leaving his hands on his lap. The youngsters stood before him, not the rare children of his race, but the adopted hope: the Children of the Earth itself.

"I hope you understand why our plans have changed," the Emissary spoke with a quiet dignity, and, unbidden eyes of the chosen sought out the elfling that stood closer to, but apart from the three of them closely gathered in the center of the room. If there was a hidden reason to an early departure, he was a part of it.

"For what we have seen, haste is an issue," the Ancient continued, feigning ignorance to the blame as it was lain placed, "The planet is dying, and the longer this goes on, the less of a chance you will have of stopping it. If it were our choice, out aid would be great…"

The great tragedy of sending mere children to battle forces which eluded even the greatest mystic or scientist among their own people was a task that weighed heavily on the lone harbinger, and his aged lungs breathed the false air with great difficulty.

"But for that every attempt we made has done less good than harm, and we now fear our harmony with the Earth is skewed…"

"What you try to say is that your people are too old and afraid to risk your lives for the good of our home," the young elf answered the speech with malice harbored over years of this structured life. Although his keepers understood the emotion, they felt it was not merited; it would not contribute to the greater good, and so was dissuaded. But he never recognized their hints as such.

"Old may I be, but still strong enough to put insolent youth to its ruin." The warning was enough, and the Emissary ended his oration, "We have assisted you as well as we now dare, knowing what we do. There are those who will help you on your journey, and the hand of Destiny shall guide and protect you in times of need."

The imbalance is reflected in the Orbs… we know not what corrupted them, but they are now your responsibility to bear."

We can do no more but pray."
 
 

Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.
~ R. I. Fitzhenry ~

The absence of the crimson bloodrock that made up the majority of Luna’s surface was a sight to get used to. In its place, verdant, sometimes massive plants sprouted from dun earth. In the distance, a cerulean ocean glittered barely in sight – the Blue Planet’s telling feature. The smell of dead peat and mossy life was overwhelming in air that was sweeter than on the planet’s cousin moon.

It was a wonder to have been born here and not remember this. The pilgrims might as well never have been to this world, having lived every moment on Luna. Yet, Earth held a call the Red Moon did not – and all the years may have fallen away to unveil babes new to existence, wide eyed and marveling the terrestrial sphere that passed beneath a compassionate sun.

The worn trail beneath their feet stretched from the harbor town by the bay to the capital city of the province. Coneria, as it was known, held a fair portion of land along the equator. It had withdrawn from worldly affairs, as had many other territories when the plagues reached such hazardous intensity. Now ships did not sail, seekers and merchants stayed home, and travelers were few.

The redhead kept within her perception Coneria’s spires as they rose into view over the horizon. Crimson and worn, cotton garments ruffled unchecked as she strode forth with a confident bravado – a warrior’s gait, despite a subtle aura of lingering adolescence.

Behind her, the pledged white and black mages spoke in hushed tones. The silks of their order were common enough in the world, and their education in the base art of the magi complete. However, despite what they knew, they still lacked the basest spells, let alone the words of power, to weave their sorcery properly. For all of what they knew, they were mere infants to the Otherworld that governed the craft.

Often behind, though sometimes ahead or to the side, the azure elf sided the outermost line of the company. Free will would never have found him there, yet there he remained. Soft, youthful features belied the mark of the savage. The leathers he bore were of creatures he alone had killed – the last of which had been a docile beast, a domestic of his keeper’s house. Reformed to a comfortable, crosscut tunic, the creature’s hide now wrapped the elf’s upper body.

Even now, he sought to undermine his companions’ confidence. The woman in white bore a walking stick, a natural staff not quite her height she had picked up along their way. As distracted as she was by this new world, she did not notice the elf as he came beside her; she did not notice him at all until he took the staff from her fingers, and by the time she turned he was already out of reach.

Her outcry went not unnoticed. Nor did a second – a slightly deeper voice of a second reason. The woman in lead stopped, turning in regard to the cry but in time to raise an arm in her own defense. The stick connected to bare skin with a heavy thwack, leaving a reddish mark that was to remain for hours. But the attack gave the girl an opportunity to relieve the elf of his newfound weapon, which she promptly did. She proceeded to break the staff in two, even as the azure youth looked on, dejected.

He tried to back off suddenly, swiftly but not swift enough, as she grabbed hold of his shirt. She wanted to suffer him the same, and worse, so that even that which held her back was not in her conscious mind.

"Tsk," the sound broke her thought, her concentration, "Arah…."

She looked to the magi, for it was the man of the Black Order who had spoken. The gentle reminder of her humanity, the one word he spoke conveyed so much more. You did what you had to do; you needn’t do more.

The crimson let the elf go, giving him a not so gentle push to remember by. Not questioning his luck, nor thanking the one responsible, he escaped in the direction of the city – jogging out of reach of the one who filched his fun, even as she stood motionless.

The magi passed her too, one with quiet respect and the other smiling gently; and she felt both, but observed neither.

It was yet an enigma… and seemingly would be an everlasting mystery with no solution. They felt it, day through night. That which drove them, now free, to seek the salvation of a world familiarly alien. That which kept them together, seemingly bound in hatred or mutual regard, while the shadows whispered of a Prophecy ages old.

Arah woke to an unfamiliar ceiling. Dazed, she sat up, leaning forward as a slight pang in her chest reminded her that someone was missing. Or was it the bitter acridity in her mouth?

Probably both…

The symptoms always varied, but the cause she knew. The magi had left to explore the city before the sun rose, which was where she was – the city Coneria… in the bed of a local inn, to be specific.

Unrelated to the absence, her head hurt. A deep bruise stained her left temple, seemingly brighter due to her ashen skin, and proved how vain playing hero could be. The bruise would vanish. The memory of chasing that twice-cursed elf through the city’s streets in a foolish attempt at justice would fade. The anger and indignation would remain as another notch to the whole.

The same elf was currently in that bright-eyed, happy state that only morning people could achieve. Chances were, he had been that way hours before any of them had woken up. Assuming he had slept at all.

And that whistling… not the piping music but an imitation of it while his hands were occupied with the lacings of his boots and the flute itself buried in with his other belongings. Too happy, too early, too much the reminder of his simple existence.

"Tarn," the woman snapped, managing to prop up on her elbows just enough and in time to see him, seated on a piece furniture typically reserved for no such thing, as he let his booted foot drop heavily to the floor… a painful sound to her head. The whistling stopped, merely a civil pause, as he stared silently to the address, "Quiet down."

She dropped back to the mattress as he finished lacing silently. It was too much to hope for – the sound returned beyond its prior resonance. Groaning, Arah rolled over, fishing the bed’s pillow out of the dark oblivion between the bed and the wall – where she had stuffed it the night before – to use as a buffer between her delicate ears and the harsh sound.

It didn’t work well. The only difference was that now the sound came through distorted. Minutes ticked by like this, until a sudden pounding drown out all other thought.

"Tarn…" the door… answer the door. Normally, she might not have been so slumberous. But she didn’t like this morning. It was oppressive.

"Nope," or maybe it was just Tarn.

There was a refrain from the clamor, time the woman used to roll out of bed and, finding her rucksack, to pull on a tunic. She padded to the door, bare foot, just as the third round of knocking began.

Arah opened the door, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes meanwhile, and came to face with a young man in uniform. Behind him were two others, dressed the same. Disconcerted, she tried to remember the regional laws from the jumble of general knowledge.

"Told you local authority wouldn’t stand for it," she said, taking a moment to smirk at her companion.

Insouciant, Tarn continued his meticulous routine. He kept on guard, tightening the straps around his forearms until they wouldn’t slip under an outside force. If they were looking for him, he was confident that he could get away, regardless, but being cautious would always give him the highly desired step ahead.

"What you want?" Arah asked, switching to the provincial dialect.

"I would know if this individual was the same that traversed the roof of the Public Conservatory our evening," the man seemed unsure, and it was a fit guess that he hadn’t actually eyewitnessed this event.

"He is," the warrior replied after she had dissected the acquired language. She tossed her head slightly, suggesting her companion without a doubt.

Tarn, on the other hand, had a slightly different idea of how she should have handled the situation.

"Don’t you think, ‘No,’ would’ve settled just as well?" he asked, finally having finished his grooming.

"No."

The uniformed men stared. Their chosen envoy wasn’t quite familiar with this job, but neither of his escort knew the foreigner’s conventions either, and weren’t about to step forward. None of them had ever been in such a situation.

"Could your party come with us?" the point man asked, now highly perturbed. When the woman turned to him, an equal measure irate, he wanted to run. Or at least tack please to the end of his now eleven-seconds-old sentence.

"May I dress?" she asked, politely enough. It was the first he noticed of it.

"Of course!" perhaps he seemed too eager to oblige the request, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t even sure if his comrades were still behind him.

"Wait," Arah ordered, promptly closing the door.

It took her a fraction of the time it had Tarn. The simplicity of the task was easy, she never understood how it took him so long. In the full two minutes she allowed herself, she had donned her pants and tucked in her shirt, and, add to that, lightly combed her hair with her fingers as she pulled it back into a ponytail.

It happened to catch Tarn’s attention that, high as the topknot was, her hair still reached her waist. It just begged for pulling. He moved close, but not close enough as she turned to him.

"Good luck!" he chirped as suddenly as she saw him, resolute to covering his pretenses.

"What d’you mean? You’re coming, too."

"What?" the elf was, for once, caught off guard, and slipped into a pleading whine, "Why me?"

"In case of what they’re after being a formal apology," Arah growled.

Castle Coneria was a tribute to Modern Art and Architecture. After the Maritime Armistice, the former king of the country, secure in his influence, had spent much time and effort in renovations… not to mention the financial side of things. Outside, the palace rose to challenge the sky. Inside, walls made of granite fortified white marble enclosed such spectacles as great halls, bedrooms, libraries, and the high audience chamber overlooking the surrounding forests. Even the consistently less than grand rooms – servants’ quarters, kitchens, guard chambers, and the dungeon situated somewhere below the foundation – had been added upon with artistic flair. Everywhere, tapestries and paintings hung from nearly every wall; sculpts and carvings rested upon pedestals to fill the empty middle space; exotic flora hung in light from strategically placed windows.

In short – extravagant was an understatement.

"Who’re they trying to impress, again?" Tarn wondered aloud, watching a peculiarly dressed lady of the court as she passed by. She giggled, leaving the elf uncertain; he edged closer to Arah, who diligently ignored him.

They approached a stair; it was a massive being, lazily sprawled from the upper levels. It curled back in on itself as it reached the first floor, and, like all else, was not sparse in décor.

All the less interested, Tarn was that much more easily distractible. Sweetness touched his senses, something at once unidentifiable and alluring. A quick glance around brought to inquisition the modestly dressed servant girl who passed his group by without regard. The aroma was not of her, he concluded, but of the suspicious basket she cradled in her arms.

Sufficiently intrigued, he paused long enough to attract the attention of his companion. Resigned to her obligation, Arah took it upon herself to press the elf forward before he had the chance to cause trouble.

His forthcoming attempt having been crushed, Tarn refused to be daunted. He followed the lead of their envoy, scaling the low steps with the least of adversity. The one thing he ever liked about the accursed half-breed – her reasoning was clockwork. It would take her a few minutes to presume he was docile to her way, after which it was his game. Soon he was again walking at her side instead of before her; he let his gait slip until he was abreast the last member of their escort.

The guard watched him as he fell behind, and he gave her a charming smile. On occasion, she glanced back to ensure he was still following – as she was not keen to his intentions – and every time, he was there. As they approached the great arches leading to the monarch’s audience chamber, she fell into line with the rest of her people as they came into formation before the throne; the six of them flourished into two lines on either side.

The young guard flashed a peek to side, and caught her breath when she espied only the crimson warrior. Of the elf, there was no sign.

She was not the only one to notice.

Arah glanced, first to her side and then over her shoulder. Comprehending what had most likely occurred, the half-elf swore on the vilest thing she could think of at the moment.

"Snail bait."

Unfortunately, common courtesy demanded she at least address the most powerful man in the Southern Territories before she could rend a certain pair of ears to shreds… although she was not barred from considering it.

Tarn had spirited himself away as soon as he predicted would give him the best chance. After he was out of sight, he rushed back to the staircase. Without hesitation, he leaped upon the banister and ran down the span of it, jumping at the last to avoid stumbling and landing with a soft phumph on the over-plush carpet. Ignoring the eyes he had drawn by the stunt, he caught his breath and looked for the servant woman.

Though she was naught to be seen, that smell had lingered behind. A deep recovering breath later, he was on the trail, following the invisible markers through the castle’s more auspicious rooms and to a fair-sized courtyard. Directly above, the sky shone through a distant gap in the palace proper. The walls appeared mathematically inspired – the polygonal surface was precisely mapped to a perfect circle… or at least, as perfect as one could get under the technology. An odd hexagonal base settled in the center of the enclosure, just before a smaller, pyramidal structure.

The pyramid was an imitation, the elf realized with shock, of a Northern Observatory that rested on Luna’s surface – one of the few buildings aboveground. Except for the stained-glass windows, that was… and that the construction was different as a whole… and this one had to be magically tinted to match the hue of the metals used by the Lunarians.

Shrugging off the misgivings, he followed the scent through the open archway. The discrepancies furthered – the observatory proper had not the set up of a temple. Or, at least, not to the same degree.

The young woman was there. She had let the basket out of her arms, alas, and it rested out of reach upon the altar table. The only other being in attendance was a young priest in the background, doing his monotonous chores, and an aging monk who was busied speaking with the girl.

At Tarn’s approach, the woman deferred and the holy man turned to him. Not what he wanted, suffice to say – he wanted the basket.

"Nevertheless, I shall speak to you on the matter further, my child," the monk finished. The matter, from what Tarn understood, was of recent astronomy, "My dear traveler, how may I aid thee?"

Intent on farce, the elf beamed. Deviously, he opted to choose the language for a barrier, and addressed the man with a most typical greeting – in the language of the Ancients.

"Good morning," The old priest’s jaw dropped. His apprentice stared, forgetting, for the moment, his broom work through the pews. After a strained pause, the elf continued, "I seem to have gotten lost on the way to the bakery, but since I found myself here I was hoping to inspect your basket and ensure nothing is amiss, shall we say."

Bewildered, the monk stood stunned. The young priest appeared at his side, in time to be dragged down into a deep kowtow by his mentor.

Tarn, being himself, took full advantage of the situation.

Meanwhile, Arah dealt with the politic side of things. Not ranked among the best diplomats of history, she made due with blunt honesty… where applicable.

Lord Murray, the reigning king of Coneria, had gone through a longwinded introduction of himself and his ancestry, and did the same for a few key members of his present counsel. The warrior considered it a dull process. Despite the demonstration, she was severely mystified to how to proceed when the deliberation came to her.

"Arah," she introduced herself, stifling a wry smirk at the shock they felt in its simplicity.

"I see," Murray eventually replied, as though it was something for much consideration, "Whence do you hail?"

"The Citadel of Enlightenment," Arah replied, after a slight uncertainty. After the moment, and that none of the present displayed any sign of understanding, she grew bolder. They wouldn’t know, anyway! "‘Tis o’er Mare Praesul, and rises above the midst of the Aest Plateau."

"Yes…" This time, she couldn’t help but smirk. The reagent had, truly, fathomed none of it. In the interest of not losing time, or ground, he glazed well over it, "And you have come forth unto Coneria. What is it you are seeking in my land?"

Where the half-elf had been, for lack of a better term, twiddling her thumbs behind her back, she now stopped. Meeting Murray’s eyes, she argued this between herself: speaking of places and landmarks that these people had never seen – as it were, would probably never see – was presumably benign. Explaining the Earth’s plight seemed… well… chancier.

The man seemed openly honest enough, although he was worried frantic about something. He hid it well.

"Coneria is the presumed at the center of the world," the most recent maps were drafted from the work of Master Cartographer Drohan, who had an insight of his craft from a rare perspective. Not entirely circumstantial, the greatest window of travel between Luna and Earth lie over the Coneria’s southern shore, "Hence, there is easy access to methods of travel beyond its borders. Also, it is a place of information – and of sciences – that could prove helpful to aspects of research concerning the… Imbalance, and how to amend it."

"Are there are others who seek with you?"

"There is…" Arah considered carefully. By all accounts, Tarn was most likely raising hell elsewhere in the castle, "One other in your palace, whom your guards appear to have let to his own devices," one or two of the present host shifted in discomfort, and the king seemed distraught. Though the woman was not finished, "And another two in your city – practitioners in the Art of the Otherworld."

"Four? There are four of you?" Murray asked, leaping up from his dais in what may have been sheer delight… or sheer desperation.

"What of it?"

"Tell me, milady, would you… and your party, consider yourselves of the Prophecy?"

"What prophesy?" the half-elf asked, taken aback, and just as suddenly on the defense.

"Lukahn’s Prophecy," the king replied, equally uncertain, "Four Warriors; Champions of the Light; and so forth…. Surely, you know of it?"

"I know of the sage," Arah said, each second renewing a vow that never again would she be involved in this aspect of questing.

"Yes, yes… but his Prophecy! That which foretells the coming of the Light Warriors to bring good back into the world…. And to restore the Orbs of Power and balance in the world!"

Arah’s hand settled upon her side, beneath her fingers rested the small satchel she wore connected to her belt… the crystalline sphere was far too important to be left anywhere else. She surreptitiously loosened the button holding the little bag closed, and presented the Orb of Fire with much tedium, "You speak of these, do you?"

The thing, small enough for her to hold near hidden betwixt her hands, rested comfortably in one palm. The darkened globe could have been flawlessly shaped of smoky quartz, with no other indication of being special or wondrous. Aside, perhaps, the sole mark upon its surface; the fault appeared a deliberate engraving – a representation – of a tiny tongue of flame, polished white.

The assembly was held by awe. Murray, who had fallen back upon his throne, caught his breath first; when he did, he was target for a question.

"You say this prophecy… it told you we’d be coming around," at his nod, the warrior continued, "Other than this, you suspected us, why?"

"It was said that, last night, one of yours saw fit to display acts of inhuman daring before our the audience of our common Conservatory… and we thought that it may have been a sign."

Inhuman, Arah snorted. Well, it fit, at any rate, "A sign?"

"These Heroes of Destiny… are they not heralded by signs of bravery and great-"

"I don’t know – yes," the woman was getting bored again. Even worse, cross, "You didn’t call on us talk about the inner workings of destiny, did you?"

"No, I did not," if the king became gravely serious again, "Perhaps you know not of the Prophecy, but I would have hoped you at least knew what it portends?"

"Unfortunately not."

"Very well," he sighed, lapsing into a proclamation, "The Sage Lukahn predicted, among other things, that four Light Warriors would arrive, in possession of the Elemental Orbs of Power. One of the things he said, just before he left for lands beyond our own, was that…" Murray’s posture stiffened, and his eyes took on a fire, "That these heroes would rescue my daughter and return her safely to us."

"With all due respect, sire… we’re here to save the world; not to rescue wayward children. I’m sure any hero would be happy to…"

"I do not trust any scalawag off the street to proclaim himself a hero; I trust what the Sage told to mine very ears!"

"Well perhaps he was wrong."

The silence that reigned in the Great Hall settled into the bone. The nothingness became audible, rising to a deafening roar before Murray called a truce.

"My apologies, good warrior… I would well make your troubles, of course."

Arah scowled, but is it worth my time?

After her grudging noncommittal reprieve to the king’s request, Arah set about to finding her erstwhile tourmate. It took a while of searching, and in the end she had to rely on several accounts by the castle’s tenants to narrow down the possibilities of where he could have gone.

When she finally found him in the small church, he was kicked back between pews, resting his feet upon the front bench and cushioning one arm behind his head. In one hand was a half-eaten, viscous pastry and to one side was an open basket, somewhat less than full of the things. It didn’t take a telepath to tell that the elf was eminently pleased with himself.

The same could not be said for the telepath.

"What’s all this?"

"I’m God," Tarn replied around a cheekful of pure saccharine, "Or at least, that’s what I think happened."

"I think you’re delusional," Arah said, standing behind him that he needed to look up to actually see her. It was not something he cared to do at that moment, so he kept his eyes on the central holy symbol.

"What’s wrong? You never in this bad o’ mood ‘til noon."

"I’m not in a bad mood."

"Oh, I see…" twisting so as to meet her steady gaze, he assumed, "You’re just jealous ‘cause you aren’t God."

"So now the definition of ‘God’ is "self-righteous and greed-stricken,’ is it?"

"Now?" the elf fairly choked, and shifted his posture to sit straight, "That’s how it’s always been, hasn’t it?"

"Only in your depraved mind," the fighter replied, growing impatient. Her every hint of body and voice was to leave; they were signs that he simply ignored.

"The gods this world has known and worshipped for the last millennium – a scale of which I’m being lenient – have been leading the ignorant masses to their own ends. They create, they destroy, and they modify without any justification in the least to…."

Perhaps there had been more to that particular rant, but Tarn had taken his time and run low on the one breath used to vitalize it. The last few words brought him near breathless as it was, and, as he sighed to recover, Arah sought to intervene.

"Finished?" she asked, not entirely bent on leaving it his choice. In reality, she meant not to.

"Not quite, no."

"Pity," she snapped her arm out, digging her fingers into the junction of the elf’s neck and shoulder, "Because we’re leaving."

Elsewhere, a young man was engaged in a search. The mage, uncharacteristically somber, sought high and low through the meager hostelry. Everything sans the heaviest furniture had been moved, and even that had been thoroughly inspected.

At long last, there seemed nothing left to check. He sat down, at the little desk and stared, aloof, to the paperweight. A small, white-marked-blue and hollowed-out ceramic cylinder, with just as plain a cover. In a flash of inspiration, he seized off the cover and peered into the empty space within.

This prompted a quiet titter from his friend and comrade; the woman in white smiled, taking a moment from her vigil at the balcony to watch the man’s plight.

"I doubt they’re there," she remarked, "nor under the beds – nor sheets – nor cupboards…" she cut it short as he sulked in her direction, "Nor any of the other pockets, rodent holes, or crevasses you’ve been through in the past hour."

"Yes, but I was hoping for a note, at least,"

The woman dismissed it and turned back to watching that which went on in the street, "You know better."

"And you could give a little credit here and then."

"Tarn has exhausted all credit to his name," while she did not see from where she stood, she could imagine the gradual frown that grew upon the man’s face. Frequently, he was far too idealistic, and rarely less optimistic, "And you know Arah will be naught but a step behind his trouble, despite how vain it is to even try."

It held true, but the man held within another nagging doubt.

"Do you think he were to desert us so soon?" his hand fell against his chest as he imagined having to live with that pain; he could imagine the elvan scoundrel traipsing the countryside, tracked by a most persistent enemy. At no answer, he sought to ask again in a single name, "Gaia?"

"Not as soon as that, I believe," the white mage replied, though cautious with the estimation. In the crowds below the balcony, she had caught just a glimpse of a familiar blue. As chances were, that was their wayward traveler.

"…What?"

Not one to deceive when a situation demanded honesty, Arah had concisely summarized the adventure through the castle. The short explanation even had Tarn’s ears for the few moments covering that he had not been part of.

And the flat appeal came not as an objection, but as a question over what was said.

"But we aren’t here to rescue wayward children!" Gaia protested, unlike her fellow magus.

"Then you tell him that, next time," the crimson warrior replied, earnest, "I tried; he wouldn’t listen – he’s all hung up on this prophecy."

Prophecy… something they heard nothing of… though the Ancients oft spoke of the twins Destiny and Fate.

"Perhaps we find this Lukahn, and feed the rat suckler to the snake pit," Tarn interjected for the first time, letting slip the fact that he was listening, after all. Clever to a fault – he had jumped the conclusion… if they were here in obscurity, yet the Sage knew, then the Old Ones held a farther influence than simply being fortuitous god-figures.

"Or just find him, and figure out what he meant by it," the black mage put in, defending the idea to a more feasible degree.

"Yes, but what about here and now?" the white mage, a woman of reason, brought the conversation back to their current situation, "What do we do about the girl? Her father-"

"He isn’t afraid of us. He thinks that, no matter what we do, we will be forced to rescue his daughter – and be successful in that – because of one simple belief."

The hush that fell over the room left, disappointed, as the half-elf refused to follow up without cause and the youngest narrowed her near-white eyes narrowed skeptically and asked,

"What would that be?"

"He believes that we do not act under free will," Arah shrugged, as though it were self-evident.

"So what happens if we do help him, then?" The black mage pondered aloud, poorly feigning disinterest. Arah caught his eye, politely, to answer.

"He will help us to the extent he believes is ordained."

"So it’s really in our interest?"

"It could be, yes; but not necessarily," the half-elf replied, "We don’t know what is ordained."

After much deliberation, the decision was made. It came down to one I don’t care, one, what could it hurt? and one why not? to one mild and not entirely heartfelt assertion of It’s not what we’re here for.

True to his promise, Murray allowed them access to all known about Sara’s abduction and her kidnapper – a former knight of the realm’s order. While the Magi investigated all corners by witness, Tarn made himself useless, and Arah prepared them for what was expected.

It was, perhaps, the first most notable deviation from the Plan, as they understood it. Although trained for necessary violence, it had not been evident what constituted necessary. Only ‘protect thyself,’ seemed the most obvious.

In the armory under the castle, the half-elf examined the assortment laid out before her. Spoiled by the work she had seen of those who crafted metals, individuals who had worked their art in tune of the soul. In comparison, these were sorely sub par.

"Worthless," Arah appraised. The keeper looked hurt.

"Well, it, uh… it is only what we use to arm squires, after all… before they craft their own…"

Arah nodded, smiling at the combined understanding, "Worthless."

Still, she went over the goods with a fine eye – seeking only that which, on the off chance it came down to it, would prove the best of use.

After hours spent in the castle’s holds, she opted to leave with what little she cared to take. The path, assuredly quicker to her destination than the one she had arrived by, led her up and around, past the knights’ chambers that resided in the northern annex.

Heartfelt, Arah slowed her pace, suddenly aware of more than what sat silently in decorum. For all its cheery atmosphere, the hallway reeked of malice. Unbidden, she slowly approached a heavy wooden door, the door whence the feeling came.

Her guard, a young and insecure squire, was content to let the woman explore without objection.

Unlike the rest of the castle – or that which she had seen – this room held little decoration. A bed, a cupboard above a desk, a chair, a closet… That which was was for practicality. One could close the door, and, unbeknowing, imagine the rest of the castle to match.

And the sheer blend of emotion!

The half-elf could not recall ever having felt so much conflict in so… small, a life.

Her eyes sparked to illumination as she warily crossed the dark chamber, set on the room’s single tapestry. Upon reaching the far wall, she pulled to one side the cloth – gold and silver and red, all Conerian color –to reveal a bright window. The view overlooked the forest beyond the wall; the fields, beyond which hid the great river, ever bleeding northeast; and the gray sky above it all.

The refracted daylight struck metal; it glimmered amidst the blankets.

A sword.

The woman let the cloth fall so as to inspect this new curiosity. A warsword, approximately eight handspans in length, or so she judged… wrought iron, and by far not the best forged weapon she had ever held, but well kept, well loved… and recently sharpened.

It was saturated in pride and affection, yet edged with disappointment – it once had to be re-forged.

Arah replaced the sword to its scabbard, noting that the metal husk was only slightly less kept. It, like most everything else here, was for practicality only, and regarded as such.

"This was your errant knight’s chamber?"

"Yes, it was," her escort replied, slightly shaken at the distraction and yearning to get back to the business, "but… I believe they already searched it extensively. I don’t see what else you could find."

"If you did, I’d be one to seek your help in searching," Arah mumbled, slipping into the Old Language. At his lack of understanding, she carried through in the Conerian dialect, "I’m finished here."

In her searches, Gaia had come across the first sting of destiny. As she mulled, silently, over the fine details – seeking out the smallest thread for which to follow – she caught the evanescent attention of one carefree elf.

"What’s wrong?"

"You wouldn’t care."

"Aww," Tarn smiled in a deviously attempt to appeal, "Give me a chance."

"Very well," the mage smoothed a wrinkle in her robe’s sleeve, and explained only the faintest detail what she was preoccupied with, "This… Lukahn Prophet left Coneria nearly a year ago," she ignored Tarn’s grunt of disinterest and continued, "In response to his last, and most indefinite, prophecy, the security around the Sara Princess was increased to a painful degree. It was lessened, most recently, on account of they caught the kidnapper – in the act, no less…"

"Alright, you made your point…"

"Yet, that taken into account, the Sara Princess was still kidnapped by a most trusted…"

"I said, ‘Alright,’" the scout snapped, rounding on the white mage with a snarl, "I don’t care."

"Then don’t ask," Gaia replied curtly. She was not given time to return to her musing; in the doorway stood a black mage – their black mage – who had arrived to hear the last of the conversation.

"I would like to know," the man said, politely making himself noticed before finding a chair.

While Tarn took the opportunity to escape the boring, in depth version that the white mage lapsed into, the black mage listened intently, though occasionally appending it with his own findings. What they pieced together came to the singular question, as at last given voice by Gaia,

"If the Lukahn Prophet hadn’t made his prediction, would the proper kidnapping have come to pass?"

The black mage fell silent in sight of the mere hypothetical question. Hypothetical it was, for the woman, though proud in her logistics, had no answer.

"Misuse it and lose it."

The warning went ignored – forgotten – as Tarn leapt at the chance to examine the new ‘toy.’ He came away disgusted and contemptuous.

"This was the best they had?"

The mage leaned from his chair to see; not nearly as fastidious when it came to the lore of weapons as Arah was, and still a ways behind Tarn in the aspect, even he could tell the blade was sub-par.

"No, but it’s the best you’re going to get," Arah answered, returning to sorting her finds on her chosen bed.

Holding it daintily, the scout tested blade’s weight and grimaced, "Why?"

Before the half-elf considered replying, Gaia answered for her, "Would you provide total strangers and potential enemies with your best armaments?"

"If they were going to save the world?"

The white mage sighed, regretting having asked, and resigned to ignore the criticism in favor of more productive things.
 

"Zeus."

The black mage, in his owlish survey of things as they unfolded, had watched the woman rummage before she approached him with the glint of metal in her hand. His protest was silenced before it was voiced as Arah held up, for his approval, a dagger. At the mere shake of his head, she rebutted, to his chagrin, the path of peace.

"Just in case," she affirmed. He took it from her hands delicately – reverently – before she turned away and left him to study it.

Without returning to her hoard, the half-elf came before Gaia. With all respect due, she offered merely an apology in her own words.

"I know not what a magus of healing would wield in battle."

The white mage glanced upwards from her thoughts, and without a second thought answered, "I would hope it doesn’t come to that."

"Perhaps it won’t, but I would hope to be prepared for anything."

"Are you so willing of violence that you seek to bring it about by refusing consideration of the alternative?"

The message, clear in its sting, resounded differently at the heart – We shape our world; don’t force avoidable tragedy.

The warrior turned away.

On the morning of what would have been the third day in the city, the newly entitled Light Warriors departed amidst a small convoy of knights dedicated to seeing them off.

It was a clear morning – the sun shone brightly against the depth of the blue sky, and the moons retreated over the horizon. The knights and their squires chattered, much in hymn with the songbirds. As the morning wore on, the forest and city faded behind them to plains. Noon came, and saw the Conerian knights and four journeyers part ways.

While the knights returned home, the four continued over the vast plain, following an invisible trail northward.
 
 

Their chosen route zigzagged across the countryside, and was marked by a handful of small towns and villages for necessary inventory. In their view, they had all the information they needed.

The princess had been missing for just over a week, and the trail led strong into the north. Conerian scouts sent to spy after the wayward knight had yet to return. If those knights yet lived, then the quarry led further than seven days by horseback, round trip. It was not much to go by, but it and rumors brought from the northern regions of the kingdom did harmonize with one another.

The first day sped by, two brisk stints of ten hours’ worth of walking with a short pause between them. On occasion, they passed a flockherd or tiny paramount to civilization. Several species of plains’ beasts went by unnoticed and undisturbed.

The second day passed in much similarity, with the exception being terrain. Late morning brought them into a sparse, dry forest, and a certain elf decided to play in the trees instead of along the forest floor.

Most of the third day was spent crossing a marsh, much to everyone’s – both silent and outspoken – chagrin.

The fourth day was no different, but the fourth night was spent camped out in the commons of a fishing village, and certainly brought a bit of attention despite an early morning departure.

On the evening of the fifth day, luck became them.

Upon coming to a second belt of forest, Tarn stopped, full attention on… something. He stood by unnoticed, as the others continued to filter through the trees. A sensation, loud as silence, reverberated past, leaving his curiosity piqued.

The scout, through talent renown for causing trouble, threw his sight forward. Past his companions, and further through the underbrush… Flowers, trees, grass, sunlight filtered before his seeking mind, blood, pain, fear…

He snapped back to himself, the vision settling into a schema. Torn, he stood for seconds longer while deciding what to do.

In the end, he decided upon what could have been considered the right thing, not because he cared but because it had the potential to be less boring than the days hence leaving the city.

He drew his sword, despite considering his inborn traits to be a better offensive; it looked more dangerous this way. He moved forward, swiftly, silently, confident – he had hunted effortlessly in the past, and this seemed no different.

He crept along, stopping close to his band. Had they noticed his absence, there was no indication. What had stopped them was related to what he had seen: the distinct sensation made his skin crawl. The sensation of lurking death… and they felt it too.

The wind shifted, bringing that coppery smell to bear. Arah bared her teeth slightly, the first to move towards the glade. The distinctive sound, a high bleating, melded with a pained rasping and the natural sounds of the forest.

Without warning, the half-elf drew her weapon before strolling into the clearing, followed slowly by her fellows.

The thing didn’t notice them at first. It sniffed and pawed at the ground, predator-like. It bore the form of a horse, twisted to a grisly spectacle of the shape-changed legacy of the world. It snorted, raising its bloodied muzzle, and turned its head to glare at the change in shadows from one eye.

The beast’s nostrils flared, and it reared, a tabard, tattered and torn, stuck to one of its cloven hooves. The colors coincided with the crest of Coneria; from the edge of the clearing, a mere three steps in, one could see the still form that may once had been a proud Conerian scout.

Arah approached slowly; the wary creature stood to one side. On her guard, the half-elf appraised the corpse as close as caution dared. The dead man looked none the worse for wear, if it weren’t for the unnatural contour of his throat.

That, alone, would not have caused the blood-sense. She glanced, uneasy, at the wood line.

There, past the pony and well beyond help, another carcass – this one equine, like the shape-changed, yet gutted and shredded to near intangible lengths.

It came together in one solid image: the attack was territorial. The man was a mischance; his horse was the intruder to this twisted creature that stood before them…

Arah prodded the beast with the flat of her sword, attempting to get it moving away. When that didn’t work, she gave it a solid thwap to the shoulder, which moved it slightly, most definitely irritated it, but hardly scared it off.

The warrior huffed. Chances were that man’s spirit had yet to be wholly severed from his body, but they had to get the body to ensure it was properly taken care of… Alive the stranger could very well have led them to the knight and his princess captive, and, optimistically, they would then have been able save quite a bit of time.

"You won’t get anywhere with a tactic like that," Tarn drawled from over her shoulder, and Arah replied curtly,

"Then what would you suggest?"

Without a word, the scout sauntered forward, brushing past the half-elf until he stood before the equine. It was an impressive monster; even at his height, he only reached its shoulder. That did nothing to stop him from raising his current off-hand and landing a swift strike across the beast across the long face.

At that motion, Arah leapt back. The monster reared, blood swelling in four jagged lacerations where the elf’s fingernails had pierced the thick skin, and Tarn was darting for the treeline a split second before the shape-changed gave chase.

Instead of darting for cover, as his companions first expected, Tarn ran up the nearest tree that could hold his weight, catching the lowest branch just as gravity tried to pull him back groundward. The beast snapped furiously at his heels in a testament to the twisted nature its kind. Barely intimidated, the elf dropped from his perch, slipping down the equine’s side. It screamed as a deep gash appeared along its body, courtesy of one shoddy squires’ blade.

Which leaves us to bleed you to your death, Tarn imagined, panting slowly as the wounded creature bucked and glared at him with loathing. It had more to bleed than he expected; he was soon sprinting around the glade in an effort to wear it down. When that failed, he whirled, missing being trampled by mere inches, leaving a second cut along the passing flank. The combined momentum pulled the elf forward; he fell to his knees, flattening into the grass to avoid the blind flail of hooves. His sword landed a pace away amidst the clover. Luck was his – where the creature still stood, its unbridled animosity had been drawn elsewhere.

Just before the trees, the magi stood by, hesitant to run or hide, yet individually doubtful of their own worth in such a situation. Not where they could see clearly, opinions fell second to confusion and wonder over what exactly was happening.

In the mind of the beast, this meant nothing. It pained, and it wanted to share that pain. Deeper than the wounds it now bore, at the dead center of its twisted heart was an essence of torment that had festered since before its creation – since the first of its species was viciously formed from the flesh and blood of another.

Where Arah had stood by, content to let Tarn’s actions lead to consequences so long as they never went beyond a point, she bristled at the danger now posed to the most vulnerable of their company. She presumed they were smart enough to escape, as it was, but that was not what riled her – the fact that the monster would dare threaten those in her keeping was infuriating.

The woman swiftly crept towards the creature, easy enough while it was distracted. It set to charge, and she leapt. A moment later, she might have paused at the easily recognizable prickling sensation – and chill – that spellbinding was responsible for. Instead, she felt it a moment into midair, and, before she could consider the perplexity of such a feeling, her vision exploded into whiteness, and a searing pain shot through her swordarm, sending her staggering back.

The air sizzled. With a posthumous gnarl, the pony fell heavy to the earth. Beyond, Zeus stood motionless – defiant – fingers still entwined in a metaphysical symbol.

At his elbow, Gaia blinked, as frozen as the black mage. At length, she moved suddenly to clear her eyes of the perpetual white, but rubbing did nothing as, regardless, color bled back into her perception.

The charred corpse twitched, the mass of muscle relaxing in death. Beyond, Tarn stared in half fascination, half abhorrence at the grisly scene. Arah crouched nearby, cradling her arm. Her weapon, having fallen from her grasp, lie smoking on the dead grass at her feet.

Zeus shuddered, needles of ice breaking against his back. He came back to the world as it was shaken. Through all the lesser forms of magic he knew, he had never expected the more refined Art to be so… well, as it had proven itself.

The mage stumbled, catching a low branch for support. With great determination, he stepped forward to follow Gaia’s path as she rounded the carnage to rejoin the elf-kin.

"Oh!"

The exclamation drew his attention. Gaia had descended to check on Arah, who rose past her, but not before the white mage caught sight of the extensive damage along her arm.

The electric current had scorched the warrior’s flesh, blistering exposed skin and fusing fabric to tissue.

"Lovely," Tarn appraised the sight, wrinkling his nose at the unpleasant, unfamiliar mix of scents that had since encompassed the glade.

"I’m sorry, I didn’t know…"

No, that was not correct – he hadn’t thought. The black mage knew full well that metal conducted, but everything had fallen together so quickly, and his mind succumbed to the call of the aether… to the call of the Otherworld.

It was something he would have to improve upon, in the future. Per moment, he had to focus on what he was doing – on keeping calm for his self and supportive for the friend he injured – before something worse happened.
 

This could be a setback, Gaia concluded effortlessly. She sought the extent of the damage, and found it to be less than reassuring.

"I need something…" soft pressed into her hand. The white mage determined the heavy silk as an article of clothing before accepting it for what it was – a prayer scroll, scripted with silver thread. She glanced at Zeus, quizzical over the resource. Although, it would work; and desecration was only a state of mind. "I can make use of this."

Within minutes, the white magus had bound Arah’s arm to the best of her ability. It would hold, she felt, until they could seek proper treatment. And she explained as much. Arah responded, impartial to the impediment, that there was still much to be done.

"We have to get this one back within the bounds of help," she spoke of the Conerian scout. It was a possibility, if not efficient, but left several issues unsettled.

"What if we find more of them after we’ve brought him in?" Zeus asked, wary of helping one where, optimistically, several could be found.

"Feel free to search," Arah offered, freeing the steed of its saddlecloth, "I doubt you’ll find any of them. And even if you do-"

"He was running from something," Gaia said, her voice uncertain as she added, "Wasn’t he?"

The half-elf shrugged, "You’re as correct as I, until we see for ourselves."

"And it’s still a day of travel wasted," the white mage remarked, resigned to fact.

"I can make it, there and back again, before dawn," Arah determined. Wrapping the body proved easy enough. The horse blanket was not typically used for such a purpose, but it easily accommodated.

"I can make it in half the time," Tarn exulted from the sidelines.

"Are you volunteering?" his rival asked, not quite interested in his prowess.

"For what?" at the stare he had drawn, he smirked and elaborated, "I’m bored; I wasn’t really listening."

"I’m going to the last village we passed," Arah explained, curt speech betraying her impatience.

"You’ll never make it," the elf mocked.

"Gonna try to stop me?" the warrior challenged.

"Try?"

"Maybe he could go, and you could stay," Zeus stepped in.

"Well maybe I don’t trust him to go," Arah snapped. If the elf’s reverence for the dead was indicated by his reverence for the living, he could very well have been planning to dump the corpse the fifth moment he was out of sight.

"Why don’t you come along, then, it’ll be fun watching you try and keep up," Tarn dared.

Somehow, it would be that which stuck. The more Zeus tried to figure out what, exactly, had happened, the more it eluded him; the only thing he knew for sure was that it had gone wrong.

"You’re leaving us here?" he fairly cried.

"Why not?" Tarn asked, "You’re slow."

Far more succinct in answer, Arah had a sounder plan. It was this that found the two apprehensive magi assisted into the canopy, with the party’s combined gear hidden in the underbrush.

"We’ll be back before dawn," the warrior assured them, once they were safely, if slightly uncomfortably, stowed above the ground, "Don’t worry so much."

"Easy for you to say," Zeus mumbled, easily loud enough for inquisitive ears.

"You’d think so," Arah replied, tepid.

"Good luck," Gaia offered as the elf-kin started off, though perhaps out of audile.

With that, the magi were left to the sleepless, speechless night; the sound of their fellows disappeared into the forest.

As luck would have it, the coastal village had yet to settle down entirely from the earlier rambunctious happenings. Nightly goings on proceeded with a slight suspicion in step. Unlike the more glorious cities, the town rarely saw as many visitors in a day. And rarely, if their business was elsewhere, did visitors come back.

Therefore, upon the return of half the morning’s guests, attention was rapt. Children yet awake stared unabashedly, leaving adults to sneak glances at one or another presented opportunity. If there had been any doubt over the bizarre, outlandish quality of the odd travelers, it was dispelled by the time they reached the parish temple.

The old building was rickety, no doubt worn by years and the sea air. Arah leaned heavy on the doorframe, rapping as loudly as the frail wood and her restricted position would allow. Unhindered by the responsibility, and unburdened and uninjured in contrast to she, Tarn spent the reticence nonchalantly gazing at one or another of the abashed townsfolk.

"Lose yourself where I can find you," Arah abruptly imposed. For a moment, she imagined he lingered beyond her sight… yet when she turned her head, he was no longer there.

Regardless, he warranted little of her attention once the door opened to reveal a young member of the Order.
 

The boy stared, his eyes bulging. He had never expected thus, to be confronted by a demon in the night. He certainly knew the tales, the stories of beasts from the Otherworld and their conquests in the world that was. He stood paralyzed, trembling, as this creature from beyond scrutinized him.

Behind him approached a marginally older student, wiser in the ways of the world. The elder boy shooed the younger, who in turn retreated to a safe distance to watch the scene unfold.

"Can I, uhm…" not nearly braver or necessarily wiser than his fellow apprentice, the older student was simply more knowledgeable in the ways of the world. Not to mention, he had been left in charge; personal fears were irrelevant, "May I help you?"
 

Arah might have agreed with his philosophy, had he not turned ghostly pale at the sight of her. She stood tall, shifting the weight on her shoulder – by now, there was no comfort, merely greater or lesser balance – and grinned. Rather, grimaced.

"I need to speak to the healer."

"She’s not here," the boy managed, although how his voice wavered he would never recall, "She’s out."

Time passed unbearably slow as the woman weighed this knowledge. At length, she came to her decision, "Then I will leave this for her."

Without a thought of it, Arah passed into the temple. The students followed skittishly, trying to keep out of the way and yet remain vigilant. More, the younger boy remained hesitant, while the older remained at a loss. The warrior strolled, heedless, to the altar and let tumble her burden. The first ambition was to rub her now sore shoulder; with the opposing arm injured, the best she could do was stretch the devious muscles back to routine circulation.

"Um…" the fretful boy watched, edged on by his younger associate to say something. He paled at his first real sight of the body, and tried to quell his friend when the other suddenly started fidgeting.

"She’s not here," he whimpered at last, catching Arah’s attention. She blinked, staring down at him through a light green haze and candlelight.

"So you said," the woman remarked.

"Well, can’t you take it somewhere else?" the younger boy finally piped up. This drew the unwanted gaze, causing the child to attempt to hide behind his elder.

"I do not have the time."

"But-"

"If you and your magus do not wish to assist that man," Arah clarified, briskly walking back toward the door, "Then you may pass the duty onto someone else. I assure you that if you do neither, nor, then I will return and will want to know why."

Without another word might she have gone, had the older apprentice not called after her,

"Can we at least do something about your arm?"

Above the din of the quelling town, in the seclusion of the shadows, Tarn watched. Not that he had to, but many things made more sense to see them first hand... not to mention that, before Coneria, he had rarely had the opportunity to observe people – elves, humans, or otherwise – in a fundamental state of being.

These people were stirred up, yes, but it did not mean that they were any less enlightening in such a state.

Every so often, his gaze was inexplicably drawn to the heavens, where hung low the moons. One pure, silver-white in its own right. The other, blood red and ominous to such an effect… unnatural, not that those below would have known that. He doubted that any of them knew or remembered that once one moon, and only one, lit the night sky of ages past. Certainly, they did not care.

Perhaps he could have vanished in the night, left the light behind… the thought had occurred more than once, and it certainly appealed to him. But where could one go, observed as he so surely was? Where could one hide from she who saw everything?

His musings were interrupted when the door he had been keeping a shallow watch on opened, revealing a different purpose in life.

Ah, well, he resigned. After all, if he could not do what he wanted, he could at least make with a temporary second best.

He watched, his slight smirk creeping across his face.

Arah strolled past his hiding place, following the beaten path; her every step was confident… deliberate. The scout was well aware of every cautious, sweeping gaze – undoubtedly meant to catch him. He might have grimaced as she turned just so, reminded suddenly of how he would have her ears covered before some unwitting moron confused her for a real elf. The stars knew she had enough hair for the job, if only she used it properly.

And then there was the braid.

It caught his attention, always, the way it moved. It did not much matter, whether it moved with her or if it were one of the rare instances where she stood death still and it moved alone under the influence some alternate inertia.

It ticked in some part of his mind, where there was an urge to stop it; or possibly to make it move differently; or to simply tug, and be instantaneously rewarded by a scream straight from the Otherworld.

And it was moving now.
 

Breaking from the preoccupation, Tarn slid across the slate tiles to the edge of the roof. Deftly slipping over the edge, he dangled as low as he could to the ground before he let go, landing soundlessly on the soft earth.

Perhaps not his preferred method of decent, but stealth was imperative in such a delicate situation.

Thus, every step was silent as he padded delicately behind his quarry. Two steps hence, the half-elf spun about, arms crossed defiantly.

"And you went where?"

"Exactly where you told me to," the elf answered.

"Really?" Arah challenged in false astonishment, "I couldn’t find you."

"You didn’t look."

With that, the argument came to a standstill – and Tarn noticed something he should have much sooner.

"So, the true incentive comes to light," he snickered, earning and subsequently ignoring a glare straight from the Abyss, "Hidden in the guise of heroic deeds is the selfish desire to-"

"Just be quiet and walk."

The silence was pure the entire four seconds it lasted.

"Make me."

It had been a very long night.

On occasion, his mind wandered, despite his attempt at vigilance.

He would glance to his side, where he could see clearly the white robes of his companion. In contrast to his constant fidgeting, she had yet to move twice in the hours since they took to their roosts. Even as her eyes remained open, he could easily have imagined her sleeping; as it was, he could sense her awareness.

Most often, he kept his focus on the forest floor. In addition to the countless insects and small life, a pack of ambiguously humanoid creatures had appeared, poked about, and left early on. Later, a wolf appeared to investigate the carnage – their carnage – scavenge, expand… or possibly reaffirm, its territory, and move on.

It struck him as fastidious when he came to a halt over trying to remember whether wolves could climb trees or not. By common sense, he would assume not by the lope alone; but it was dark, despite the moons, and he could not see well enough to judge for dexterous paws or able claws, so he kept his half-drawn dagger at hand.
 

At length, the mage’s hours’ old world crashed, and nearly broke him in the process. From the thin layer of canopy below him, the leafs crinkled with no regard to caution; Zeus braced against his crook where the tree met branch, trying not to breath as the limb swayed so. Eyes wide, he watched it twist and bend downward, revealing that which drew it thus.

While the magus could not say it was a relief, he could admit that the circumstance could have been worse. The listless eyes that scanned his clumsily wielded dagger with bored interest were, at the very least, familiar. From below, the sounds of rummaging echoed in the midnight air, returning life to a close cut away from routine.

"So…" the elf asked, slow for his breath as he waited, suspend from his chosen branch in a stationary variation of the age old, tried and true chin up "Need a hand gett’n down, or you fine where you are?"

Backtrack the trail left by the rider, and there came a point where the trees ended… where the flora bowed in deference to something foreboding even as the spirit darkened and the forest life passed by in silence. In the west, the sun was setting, casting ominous shadows over the land, and over the mound that grew from the Earth.

At first glance, in the fading light, the steep slope seemed natural. Grass and twisted vines grew upon its surface, shadowing carved rock… and manmade steel. Here and there, the trace of civilization grew to light, almost cultured to the point of illusion.

The visible work was easily hundreds of years old… but whoever the shadow-crafters were, the ruin easily outdated them by a millennium. The new was artistically rendered, while the old looked to be an archaic form of practical.

Arah grimaced. The sheer levels of anguish were nigh overwhelming. Years upon years must have passed, each leaving a new layer on the vast death this unhallowed ground already bore. A quick glance revealed she was not the only one – Tarn had fast crept to her side, eerily fascinated by the wreck. Behind the two, Zeus stood by to stare in awe at the weather-beaten columns; Gaia, ever grounded, took recognition of the gaping hole in the odd fusion of earth and alloy and green.

The fissure could have been hidden for a vast span before the recent trespass. Yet someone had been here not long before them – the vines had only recently been hacked away to reveal the jagged entrance.

By spontaneous unsaid decree, Arah was the first to step forward. She stood at the threshold, blinking as her eyes lingered in adjusting to the rapidly changing light.

Nothing stood out beyond, making the darkness appear a corporeal substance unto itself.

The first tentative step met a gradient decline. The gravel slipped beneath the warrior’s boot, carrying her down a sluggish, gritty decent. She stumbled when the floor leveled off abruptly, and took a moment to gain her bearings.

Above, almost distant, the dying evening light condensed at the entrance before sparking the freshly disturbed dust and diffusing to nihility. The darkness became marginally defined as darks and lesser darks shaded green.

The half-elf stepped aside at the telltale scratching of a companion following after. With docile grace, she lifted the other off the floor and out of the way of the next in coming.

Light exploded, a pinpoint mass nursed to life between the fingers of a novice mage. Once he was sure it would survive, he placed it over his shoulder and willed it to stay. A multitude of shadows sprung forth, cast from the man, his hat, his companions, and the encompassing architecture.

Much of the steel framework around them still bore the eroded granite, marble, and clay once used to decorate the interior of the old building, although patches and whole sections had fallen to rubble. The ground, covered in deep, uneven silt and marked by debris, was further evidence to this.

Tarn arrived in the midst of his companions’ admiring the vaulted ceiling above… admittedly through the markedly collapsed ceiling in between. He spared the sight a glance, though sought to avoid the new light as best he could, he pressed on – apart, though not alone.

An archway, by design or by deterioration’s chaotic arrangement, met their progress. On the other side, the confines opened into a vast floor… the walls having fallen, or, equally likely, been intentionally knocked down centuries earlier. Remnants yet stood silent vigil, though few left unmarked by time or vandals.

And over it all was that still sensation – this was a tomb, buried through the ages but left fresh to rot.

The scout looked down; the thick sediment had risen to his ankles, and every step left a mark.

Though not every mark was his….

Blue eyes narrowed in contemplation of the fact, and speculation over what it meant. Someone – or something, at least – had been down here recently. But they had played on that very assumption.

Arah brushed past him, the magi close in tow. The elf shielded his eyes from the intrusive magic light, Stupid humans and their faulty body chemistry, and followed at a distance. He did not bother mentioning the trail through the drift – if they missed it, they deserved to get lost.

It proved trivial. Arah had noticed the indications, but for her there was another sense to rely on… they merely followed the same path. Very faint – or muffled – but it called to her with an instinctive eccentricity. She dared not answer it; it could very well have been a trick of the ages… an echo. It would simply not do to bring such Otherworldly attention upon herself and her company. Every so often, she would check the sediment to ensure the cries was not leading her astray.

Behind her, Zeus gasped. Ever aware, and timid, of the gloom around them, he was the first to notice the forming silhouette. The walls took shape with every step, the trail leading to a barely defined gate. Names sprung at him from his knowledge of the vague history, none that he could confirm or deny, and none that he could name to this place.

Is it a building within a building, or are we found in a city? he wondered. Unexpectedly finding that he had fallen back behind the others, he stumbled forward as quickly as he could. He came beside Tarn; earning a cursory glance, the magus shied back a step.

Before them, Arah struggled with the doors, digging her fingers between them and putting all her force into the right. It slid slowly, miserably scraping against an unseen resistance. Despite the debilitating resonance, the warrior twisted her way into the opening, bracing against the metal slabs and forcing them back into the walls.

Choking over the dust and anaerobic asphyxiation, the woman leaned on the doorframe and coughed to recover her breath.

"Are you…?"

The sincere concern was waved off; caution flooding her reasoning, Arah peered into the murky lightness beyond. The source of the call was here. Familiar scents flooded her heavy suspiration, something now known and Cornelian… and something else, musty and old and permeating… and something that sounded like metal, muffled smartly, though easily copper scented.

She glanced to her right, watching hers reactions. The magi stood by, oblivious to it yet waiting for her recount. Tarn, she knew, could sense from where he was… staring past her, abstracted of the situation.

"Is this not your charge?" she asked, calling him back to attentiveness.

"Non," the scout smirked, "You are doing it fine."

"See anything?" she furthered, quietly vexed.

"Didn’t look" Tarn admitted, reasoning, "Don’t have to – anything in there, it knows we are right here; do you agree?"

Arah resolved with a wordless grunt. Silence fell, short to be pushed back by Gaia’s assent,

"Perhaps we should see for ourselves, then."

"Certainly," Tarn grinned, "Once our ‘path, here, gets out of the door."

Rolling her eyes, Arah stepped around the edge, turning to bow slightly and extend her hand in a faux greeting. The mocking could have sparred on forever, even with their white magus’ call for the brace to maturate.

Momentarily pacified, the group moved onwards. Spreading apart like so many curious wolf cubs, the four moved together as individuals. Each more interested in one or another in the chain of small features than the building-hall as a whole – the light streaming in from holes out of sight, high above; architecture; later carved relieves on the walls, on the pillars. Thus, the lone figure in the center of the room attracted no notice as he stared, incredulous, at these unbidden invaders.

"By the White Lady," he swore, astounded voice soft. As it were, he had been expecting the undead the only ones mindless enough to trespass, and was braced for thus. For these, lost children, he had no words…

He had, however, turned them to face him. Surprise ran both paths.

"Whom, in all the Abyss, are you people?" his voice deepened to a strong bass, echoing behind a well-worn helm as he dared address, "This is my temple. Why are you here?"

Looks were exchanged. Tarn dared to break the strain, callously speaking his mind.

"If this is your temple, you may wish to tidy up a bit."

"We have come under a pact marking us as Light Warriors," Zeus explained, "Under this pact, we are to liberate the Sara of Coneria’s royal family from a wayward knight. We believe they may have come unto your temple, if you would forgive the transgression."

The armored man shook his head slowly, disbelief growing with every word he heard.

"Light Warriors?" he mimicked, "You impertinent fools…

"No one touches my princess!"

The knight, for knight he was, raised to view a blade dark as the night sky and glittering with its own number uncountable of stars, "Leave this place, or I, Garland, will knock you all down."

It was, perhaps, an odd translation, or a colloquialism. Interpreted into the Old Language, it sounded quite silly.

Tarn snickered. Arah smirked. Zeus coughed politely into his sleeve. Only Gaia remained emphatically neutral, and this was important in the situations where one’s companions misinterpreted circumstances due to appearances.

Garland was serious, calculating his strategy cautiously. One did not battle outnumbered and merely wish for victory, that was madness. He evaluated any given of the four, taking heed of strength and bearing. Light Elves, as he understood them, were generally frail. Magi could be dangerous, but were nothing without protection… and for regardless, as these did not bear like grand wizards. Thus, the menacing, as he reasoned, was the redhead.

Perhaps there were a discrepancy between elvish males and females that would explain it, but he thought not in this way. Something about her struck him as off – perhaps she was a Dark Elf, one of the more Earthy of Elfkind, but that, too, did not fit his reasoning. She was, he concluded, simply dangerous, and she seemed familiar, as though he might have known her… in another time… another life….

No. This was who he had become, and nothing could take his destiny from him.

He stepped forward; armor clanking, muffled; cloak billowing behind him, unchecked; sword gleaming of its own dark light. Ominous, the knight stood, challenged and challenger, and alone in his own right.

Derision was not to be lost lightly. Even a charging knight seemed little consequence, ‘til reflex parted the group. Startled, the magi retreated to one shadow or another. Arah moved smoothly out of the path of a swordstrike, even as the knight knew his tactic would failed and hopelessly angled to swing at the other. It seemed a clumsy gesture – Tarn laughed, easily gone.

As it appeared, it should have been easy… four – or a mere two – against one. As it turned, the company’s scout blended into the background, preferring to watch. Garland turned on Arah and, as the latter was unaccustomed to the rigors of suchlike combat, succeeded in driving the callow warrior back against the edge of the darkness.

Albeit well trained, the lack of true experience became a liability. It was all the half-elf could do to parry the knight’s fluid charges. The woman’s few, uncertain, and certainly meager attacks fell to counterstrikes, or were drawn back for the exposure they posed. She tried, certainly, but as it often were, trying was not enough.

Hidden in umbra, the magi watched, apprehensive. The urge to support their ally hindered by the worry over worsening the situation. After all, what help were simple incantations to a fight? Or, potentially worse, untrained magic let loose to its own end?

Coming to such a resolve, Zeus raised his hands, crossing arcane symbols in the air. The trails glowed brightly, as he channeled the power to cast… for what else was there to do? Merely stand by, and watch the inevitable?

And, at a harsh word, and his broken concentration, the bright sigils melted into nothing. Aghast, the black mage turned to Tarn, who resolutely scowled at the effort.

"What would that do?" he hissed, "lest your troublesome gift is wiser than you."

"I don’t see you doing anything," the magus shot back, earning a soft laugh. Worried mahogany eyes turned back to the strife, even as sorcererous fingers twitched to do something… anything.

"I know better," was the answer. The scout faded to the darkness, face aglow with chemical phosphorescence and mirthful even now.

And even now, Arah barely kept her ground. Her only safekeeping was that Garland attempted to lure her back into his reach, and, wary, she hung back.

Under fatigue, she nearly stopped, noticing a familiar peculiarity to the errant knight’s form. One move in particular… there was an inherent flaw there, she knew – she had fallen to it several times herself, in exercise. Now, in practice, she prayed that she could overcome it in a last-ditch effort to conquest.

Alas, the feat could not be entirely without danger. It left her open on her right side, but Tarn was supposed to be covering that. On retrospect, that was a very stupid thing to trust to. Faithless, he protected self alone – his primary defense evasion.

Arah, though daring in her own right, proved not fast enough. Garland landed his strike, his dark sword rending a deep tear through the padded cloth and the flesh beneath. The force of it knocked the woman off her feet, and she landed, breathless, upon the cold stone floor.

Where one more experienced might have sought to recover quickly, The half-elf merely gathered herself enough to stare – hateful, spiteful – at the knight.

Garland raised his sword to strike again – forsooth, to kill – but paused in that gaze. There it was again… That something he had since forgotten and haunted him from this girl he had nary met. A sentiment – almost tangible….

And so, as he was distracted, something struck him. Avenging magics, perhaps, drawn to his sin and cultivated. He felt the deluge – falling before it, penitent, broken… wrenched back by the sheer force. The name that bubbled to his lips – a master, a lord among a caste of paupers, laughing in mirth and fury in battle, a captain… his captain…

Forsaken, Garland breathed his last in a gurgle of blood and the single syllable that called forth his life accomplishments, all shadowed by his great legacy.

"Lír…"
 
 

Alone, the young woman knelt sullenly, hands tied together in a mockery of the even’ prayer. She would not show fear... but it was there. Perhaps it was her fear that kept her prisoner; the forgotten ghosts that trembled on the edge of her awareness played their part well to keep it very much alive.

She refused to give in. Even when the spirits wisped past her, watching curiously, or when they begged her to flee in familiar, faded voices. Even when...

"Lír..."

She gasped as Garland’s dying breath swept over her. She strained to hear, to see anything outside of the enclave of fallen pillars, but all around her was shade and stone.

Terribly frightened, she clasped her hands tight and prayed.

The dust had came alive. The lightest tufts attached themselves to clothes and hair, or fluttered in the waning illumination, drawing shadows in a slow dance. The remainder fell back to rest, clumping together on the floor.

Blood soaked up the moons’ light. It stained steel, unnoticed at first as Tarn stared over the blade and waited for Garland to move. He was sure that the knight was trying to lure him into a false sense of security. The fact that he was not breathing was irrelevant – people could fake death, or so the elf easily imagined.

The blood on his sword crept into his attention, and he eyed at the smudge warily. Are humans as fragile as they are ephemeral?

Tarn cleaned his blade in two brisk swipes against his trouser leg. At the margin on his vision, he noticed Arah pulling herself to her feet, and so studied the metal as a blind, focusing half-elf’s nuance. She stood cradling one side, and her measured gaze swept over the knight to land on him.

What he did not see, he could imagine, and under the circumstances the scout thought it best to heed discretion. Fading into the dark, he disappeared to roam amid the ruin.

Her parting words died on her lips, and Gaia sighed. Her fellow magus did not need them; her guardian would never have heeded them, and she felt useless as the silence dragged on. She berated herself, "Useless," she said again and out loud, determined to do something about it.

"Arah," she said, as focus. It served another purpose in drawing the other woman from whatever it was she internally seethed at. The magus started, stopped, and beckoned in the dark, "Zeus, could you rekindle the light?"

"We just killed a man," Zeus wavered. He could not rationalize any other way about it, and he was ready enough to do as much himself only minutes before, but it still felt...

"Yes," Gaia agreed, "And although I can’t help but feel it was all highly unnecessary," she further emphasized, "Light, please." The tiny wisp flickered into existence, and the white scowled mage at what it revealed. Stepping carefully around the fallen knight to Arah’s side, she assessed the damage in stride.

In the moonlight, the fighter’s injury was a play of shadow. Under the glow of the light, the red of her tunic was a shade darker across her arm, which she held pressed tight against her side. Blood trailed over her knuckles and pooled in her palm as Gaia eased her hand away so as to peel away the cloth.

"I have to close this," the white mage mused, "I don’t know if... No, we’ll probably have to have it looked at later." She placed one hand over the other and gently spread her fingers over the injury. "Prepared?"

"Fair-" the last of the word died a soft hiss.

It hurt – one drawback of magic over natural healing – but magic held a distinct advantage in time and hygienics. Gaia sought out the damage, ever careful as she knit the raw flesh together. There was a difference between cultivating independent cells in a petri dish and the cells of an organism, but they responded in a similar way. She pulled her hands away, and was relieved to find the wound a dark, aggravated pink, and no longer bleeding.

"That should hold," the white mage silently thanked Kerla for her guidance. Even knowing what she did, she had little enough practice. She would not have been able, had it been necessary to attempt twice, "Your blood will be thin for a while. Are you feeling alright?"

"Fine," Arah mumbled. She was dizzy and sore, and there was a buzz in her head that stung when she tried to catch it, and wandered off her focus when she tried to ignore it, but she determined she could live with all of that.

"You aren’t going to collapse on me, right?"

"Later," the warrior promised upon choosing a particular direction to hobble off in.

Apart from herself and Garland, there had not been another living soul in this place since their countrymen stumbled unwittingly under the knight’s ambush. They, the would-be heroes come to rescue her, had all fallen. She had seen them die – felt their deaths. Garland said not a word of it, almost as if he were seeking to shield her from the truth. But something else... somewhere, in his mind or this place, and it was all so confusing, but something blamed her.

It’s your fault. Your fault they came; your fault they died.

She shivered. Garland himself had joined the haze of unsettled death in this place, and she was left, alone, to the mercy of the Otherworld.

She thought she should run... stumble through the ruins, through the wilderness as far as she could. Maybe she would be found, rescued at last. She stayed for the sake of fear – that if she did not move, she would not be found by the lurking terror.

Hope never died so easily.

If she thought twice, she would have missed the familiar spark. Even so, she might have imagined it, but it was a chance she refused to let slip.

"Lír?" Her voice rasped, but she managed to cry, "Captain?"

If it isn’t him…? Her heart skipped. She had attracted something’s interest, and she shuddered to realize it was likely one of Garland’s automatons. She had to survive, a little longer; just a little longer and she’d be found. The thing shuffled around the near pillar, and the little princess screamed.

It was a beautiful scream, clear in voice and softly sharp.

Arah flinched. The sound echoed, fading away, and the girl bolted past. The half-elf followed the movement languidly, watching as the waif stumbled, barefoot, and bowled into the unassuming black mage behind her.

"Found," she announced telegraphically. She kept her distance, rather than bother with the tangle of robes and nightgown, "Leave now please."
 

Shocked, the princess stared, first to one, and to the other, and to the last. Fear gave way to awe, and she smiled softly when her bonds were cut away. She tried to speak; interrupted by the woman in white’s scrutiny and magic, she tried again, "I’m okay. I..."

I’m fine now; now that you’re here, It’ll be all right. She didn’t know how to say it, but the words... she listened to hear the words.
 

"Leave," Arah repeated. Every last bit of insight wanted out, and the atmosphere of the place was bearing down on them. She fidgeted, restless.

"Yes, in a moment," Gaia assured her. The girl was none the worse for the experience, but she was dehydrated and shivering. The white mage pulled the silken robes over her head; for the moment, it was all she had to offer. But leaving was not a bad idea, "Where’s Tarn?"

"Don’t care," At the mage’s glower in her direction, Arah conceded grudgingly, "...missing three nights, then look."

Contrarily, Zeus grinned, "And what will you do with these three nights?"

"First, disbelieve; second, enjoy; third, regret."

"...Regret?"
 

"You..." the voice was uncertain and unpracticed, but the word was of the Old Language. Emboldened by her own attempt, Sara arose as becoming as she could. The sentence that followed was as unpracticed, faltered slightly, but clear in meaning, "You’re the Light Warriors, aren’t you?"

Zeus glanced to his cohorts. What did you get us into? Gaia mouthed to Arah, who shrugged and thought back, Out now?

"Yeah, I guess we are," the black mage answered, earning a sharp glance that he easily ignored, "Come on," he smiled, taking her hand, "Let’s get you out of this place."

As four walked away, one hunched on the fallen pillar slipped to the floor. That which shimmered in the dark had caught his attention, and he was most curious. An opaque sphere of volcanic glass, it rested atop an altar, quite out of place and strangely inviting. The surface glittered, and the elf blinked upon realizing he cast no reflection. Not only him, he found, but nothing at all reflected. More than dark, it absorbed light, and yet it held light within itself. It might have been a magic thing, and useful. Thinking to take it with him, Tarn attempted to lift it from its place of rest.

Cold fire surged through his arms, and he sprung back. It tingled, through his fingers, up into his chest. He huffed, alarmed, but the unpleasant sensation dwindled and he breathed easier.

No touching, then, he thought about it. Perhaps if he knocked it into something, but it had not yet moved to begin with. He was sure that he had tapped...

He felt the sound before he heard it – a shuffling, abrupt and near. The reek of decay touched his senses, and the dark orb was forgotten.

The sharp incline proved a hassle. While not too steep to summit, the coarse sand made slipping easy. A misstep sent him skidding downward again before he caught himself. The black mage solemnly wished they had a lithomancer. Sara did better – on hands, knees, and feet, and with the overflowing robes tucked just so, she scrabbled nimbly towards the starlight. And to think he was supposed to catch her if she were to fall.
 

Below, the gravel scattered over Arah’s boots and into the dust. The fighter waited, diligent, at the bottom of the slope, by Gaia’s unapproving humorance.

"You can’t catch him if he falls," By which the magus meant, I won’t let you. Guardian principle or not, the potential was half again as likely to make things worse for the both of them.

Arah shrugged, neither yes nor no. The white magus sighed.

"Honest," she said, "The converse, yes, but you can be as troublesome as-"

Startled by the sudden movement, she turned as Arah paused. Sword half-drawn, ineffectual, the warrior scowled darkly at the ragged lump of putrid, decaying flesh that landed at her feet.

"Hey, half-breed," Tarn grinned by way of greeting, "Do you want that one, too?"

"It’s rotted out..." he nudged the thing with the flat of his blade, and it writhed dismal, "But it’s moving more than the last one."

"That is..." vile, depraved, ghastly. Gaia wrapped her arms about herself, uneasy. "Go," she said, "Go."

"Oh." The blue in the dark faded, disappeared, and danced curiously. "We’re leaving?"

"Yes."

The elf sprinted upwards, following the ascent with ease. He left their sight, the echo faded, and Gaia reached out to catch Arah’s arm.

"Now you," she insisted quietly, "No complaints; I shall be right behind you."
 

"Elf eyes!" Princess Sara gasped in delight, startling the mage before her. Zeus found Tarn immediately over his shoulder, attention locked on this strange new creature in arcane white.

"What of it?" he queried, both uninterested and curious. The princess was a small thing; young, her legs were too long for her, and terribly thin; the borrowed robes fell poorly on her frame. She did not, he presumed, know anything about elves.

"Well... You are, aren’t you?"

"Ah, see now," he hummed, "And I’m sure you know."

"Enough," she defended, "A little. We have an elf at the castle."

"Do you?" Tarn displaced his shock at that, trying to discern what would make any sane elf be there. "Whatever for?"

"She’s a lady of the court," Sara tried to explain, "and she acts as an emissary sometimes. She’s very pretty and she’s been there longer than I can remember."

The scout blinked and looked to Zeus for help as the girl went on to explain how romantic it all was, which neither of them understood. The babble stopped when Arah emerged from the chasm, and Tarn reached to help Gaia up with a single hand.

The elf lingered behind as the company filtered away through the trees. He was gone hours later, when the sun dappled the ruins, but morning met a fresh growth of ivy and flowers between the growing darkness and the living world.

In the hour of dawn, phantoms prowled about the waking world with honest intent. Among them, in the shade of the forest, the five fell just so far from the accursed temple and its dead. On a sodden carpet of the prior summer’s leaves, the four settled, one by one, among the undergrowth. Sara adhered to the magi, exhausted, curling up between them and trusting completely her notion of heroes.

"We staying a while?" Zeus sought the closest twig in reach, and he studied it, snapping it with some difficulty. The little branch was pliable and green, nothing for the use he had in mind, "Fire?"

"I’ll see what I can find." Tarn stretched, pulling himself up. Arah yawned, leaning back against her tree.

"I’ll follow," the fighter considered, "five minutes." At the reproachful glance from Gaia, she amended, "Ten minutes."

"I’ll be done by then."

"Doubtful."

The elf laughed, stepping lightly on his way. The pursuit of firewood, far and alone, gave him ample time to himself... and well excused – there was too much water in the wood anyhow.

He paused, well apart, and watched the return path. Satisfied, he rolled back the slapdash patchwork of his sleeve and the darkened cloth beneath, studying the discolored tissue beneath. That did not surprise him; he knew it was there and it had itched along the way. What worried him was that it hurt, that the color was for likely for ill and that he knew little enough to tell. And it was less his pride that kept him from asking the one who knew enough – that was not his kind of pride – it was more...

There was a tread, loud and heavy for how suddenly nearby... or he had lost himself to the dream world. Regardless, the scout let his sleeve fall, and flexed his fingers, secure in the knowledge that they were there, and that he could still feel them.

"You think me entirely incompetent?" he asked, turning his back on the meddlesome flash of red.

"Non," Arah replied, slow and still irritatingly confident, " I figured it would be an appropriate chance to ask why you’re still here."

"How do you mean?"

"I presumed you would off the day we landed," the fighter said, "Meant to ask, but it slipped my mind." She studied the trees, seeking to find one withered dead, and dried out. She found the one she was looking for in a thicket of new growth, "This one."

"I’m not so foolish to believe I can get to Korile Elian on my own." Tarn studied the find. Pale gray, burned and twisted. A lightning scar amidst the life of the forest, "And you’ll be going there sooner than later, anyhow."

"So... if we were to go everywhere except, we’d be stuck with you?"

"Since I know you want to get rid of me," he grinned, better than proud, "You shall have to hope it doesn’t happen that way."

The half-elf stared, and he thought he had done something wrong... in her eyes, at least. He fidgeted, and stared back at her... and just when he thought maybe something, time perhaps, was finally broken, she spoke.

"...Well?"

"Huh?" he thought, perhaps, that he had fallen asleep... again or for the first time. He looked to her, and to the tree... Ah. The tree. "Oh, right."

He climbed well enough, and he did his best not to wince although his arm itched and burned. When he peeked over his shoulder, he found Arah watching his progress, disinterestedly... worse, she looked tired and worn, and he hated when she did that. It was so definitely not his fault she pushed herself so hard. He thought that she needed to remember how to relax... how to have fun. The lot of them, in fact – the duty and save the world was going to get them killed one day, on the sheer weight of it all.

But for now, he crouched on a branch that creaked and swayed. The light breeze whistled through the treetops, and danced in his hair, following fluffy clouds through the deep blue of the sky. It was going to be a beautiful summer day.

And the elf imagined that he was probably the only one to fully appreciate it this side of the Aldi Sea.

Shaking off the daydreams – he would never get home if he allowed himself to fantasize – Tarn huffed, starting work on the tree. Crick, the bough crackled as he tugged, breaking off with a resounding Crack! He felt his balance sway, and panicked. Weighed down by the dead wood, he dropped, swinging to catch his branch by the crook of his knee.

He grinned, bashful for a moment. The end of the limb dragged across the ground as he offered it up. Arah caught it merely to let it drop; while Tarn endeavored to palm his way back up the trunk of the tree, she kept him supported until he was altogether righted. From there, he found it best not to hold on to the branches as they fell, and he had soon stripped most of the branches in reach. The last came, not the one he worked at, but the one that snapped underfoot. Trusting to what his luck was trying to tell him, he decided that he had had enough.

And, having faithfully avoided and gathered together the falling timber, Arah quirked an eyebrow at his back as he sauntered away.

"I’ll bring them back, shall I?" she wondered aloud. Not to have expected differently, she looped her belt around the bundle and lifted it carefully.

"It is the only way it will get done," Tarn’s voice echoed... too close, too far. The fighter whirled to find him far too close, and he smartly backed off. "Right?"

"Walk," she instructed.
 

The sun was nestled in the treetops when they found the uncleared little campsite. Zeus had dug a firepit out of the dirt beneath the mulch, and his illusion of fire disappeared when the bundle of firewood dropped beside him. Dutifully, he broke off the smaller bits of kindling and dropped them into the hollow. With a glyph drawn into the dirt, the magus sparked a meager, but all the more real, fire to life.

Intrigued, Tarn paced, and crouched beside the man. He drew a second glyph, beside the first, and nudged the mage, unnecessarily, for attention.

"What’s this one?" the elf asked. Zeus studied the mark thoughtfully.

"I don’t know it," he shook his head, "why?"

"It was carved," Tarn said, "In the underground. I was curious."
 

Blanket over shoulder, Arah stretched. Fire... unnecessary now, but if they were staying the night... Elf, distracted, magi, safe for now, princess accounted for, food yes, but tired... after nap.

One more thing, she tapped Gaia’s shoulder and the mage lifted her head. She thumbed over her shoulder, cluing simply, "Check his arm."

She slowed to paused by Sara. The princess slept, Fear tiny and fragile Hate on the forest floor. Terror, dark and unfathomable, twisting her insides... –

The fighter poked at the girl with the side of her boot. The child startled awake, wide eyes seeking who, what, where?

"You were dreaming," was all Arah said before strolling past to the periphery of the camp.
 

"Are you sure you didn’t see a whole that wasn’t there?"

"It looked deliberate."

"Gaia," Zeus waved to her, and pointed to Tarn’s glyph, "is this one you know?"

"No," the white mage answered, "Is it important?"

"I don’t think so."

"Hmm." With that, the matter dropped. Gaia crossed her arms, Tarn smiled brightly, and Zeus glanced between them. The white mage narrowed her eyes, listless and wearied. "What is it about your arm?"

His smile faded to a shadow, the elf inched for the nearest tree.

Darkened clouds lolled over the eventide, casting deep pink-tinted blues across the sky. The nocturnal skittered, the forest alive... timeless, fearless of the troubles plaguing the world. A few, the tiny and foolishly bold bloodsucker insects, took their chance at an unusual meal; the larger creatures avoided the circle of light, the sound of the flute, but only out of caution of the moment.

Sara sprawled close to the fire, toying with whatever bit of twig or leaf her fingers came across. She spoke of many things as she played with the dirt, and it got under her nails. She squeaked, once, upon finding a tiny millipede that ran, leg over leg, from the sudden illumination; she gave up on the dirt and toyed with the edge of her blanket.

The magi listened to her stories – Gaia less attentive, Zeus more rapt – though she might have gone on alone. It made her feel better to talk, about her family, her country... politics, diplomacy, and world politics. She caught Tarn’s attention once, with mention of the elvish country, but it did not last as she went on to speak of Olympus and the hero La’al and things he held no interest for.

Pursuing the Second Circle, Gaia filtered her attention selectively. With no credence to the stories of a young princess, she thought it unimportant; so long as Sara did not seem to mind, the white mage only listened with half an ear.

She was interested, however, when the girl’s talk turned towards Garland... and Lukahn’s Prophecy. She abandoned the middle plane and listened carefully to the details, and to the nuance and reverence of Sara’s speech.

"He didn’t believe in the Prophecy," the princess was saying. The betrayal was difficult for her to speak of, so she spoke softly in an effort to make it less of a thing, less important, less real. "He said we should solve our own problems, and, well, in the end he believed, if the Light Warriors came, he thought he could... he thought he would be able to control him, reanimate them, like he did with our horsemen.

"Poor man. All the jealousy and pain... and he never would have been able to do it, anyway. We believed, all of us, I’m sure. We weighed against him, and he should have backed down..."

"No," Gaia disagreed slowly, "He might have been right."

"We believed in you, and you came," Sara insisted. Her belief was solid, yet never before tested, "It has to mean something."

"Belief begets magic," the white magus tried to explain, "If I do not believe in me, and I very well might not, I am powerless and he would win."

"Surely, you must believe in the Prophecy?" She failed to understand the concept – how the world’s fate rested precarious,

"I had never heard of your prophecy before I arrived in your country," the woman said. Know what needs be known, she sighed, reciting ingrained principles, and smiled. "Tell me of it."
 

"Arah...?"

She opened one eye, lethargic, and caught the magus’ foot before he trod on her. He twisted slightly to see her, grinning apologetically. He stepped back, kneeling down beside her. The luminescence faded and died, and he took it for assent. They sat together in reticence.

"Are you all right?" Zeus asked at last. He did not know, and it worried him; she did not move, and it worried him more.

He raised his hand, tracing with two fingers. The unfinished pattern glowed and melted away as Arah’s hand found his.

"She’s a telepath."

"...What?"

"Later." There was a growl in her throat, and he wondered what, exactly, it meant. If telepath was the forefront of worries, why did it bother so...?

"You’re sure?"

"Entirely."

They fell silent again, and the mage let the world wash over him. The breath of the forest; the soft-deep piping, rising and falling in his ears... The stars above, the soft, cold moonlight. His mind wandered the edge of the First Circle, and a path it knew well enough without him.

He snapped aware, hours or seconds later. Arah was on her feet, sword extended, on edge, to stop Sara from an inexplicable rush towards the darkness.

"Stay," she growled softly, letting her arm fall behind her at cat’s tail as she prowled forward. As she stopped, it became apparent that something else was moving in the darkness... something large, just beyond her field of vision. No optical illusion of shadow-on-shadow, the thing was deliberate in its movements, and was distinctly heading towards the camp. And how strangely it moved, at once with caution and broken disregard.

The breeze shifted, tainted by a fragile thread of enchantment. Now the current brought the subtle tang of metal, mingled with a far more overwhelming air of the late-harvest. Nothing telling, and neither how it tread heavily along the forest floor.

It paused. Arah made a decision.

Closing the distance between them in long, deliberate paces, she lunged. The beast raised up, and she ducked under its flailing legs, aiming a half-blind back swing towards it. Rewarded with a clash of metal, she twisted to press her blade against the unexpected polearm, and found herself in an uncomfortable position.

Her sword was at a snug diagonal against the cavalryman’s chest... enough to gut him one way, or knock him off his mount the other. But at the same time, his halberd was similarly tight at her back. The surprised young man stared, abashed.

"Are you for good or ill?" Arah asked, tone dusk.

"Strange time for asking!" the man replied, perhaps amused, but noticeably shaken. At the lack of further prompting, he answered abruptly, "I’m looking for the Light Warriors. You wouldn’t happen to be-"

"Conerian?" The half-elf narrowed her eyes. The youth nodded, hesitantly at first, then with more vigor as he understood the question.

"Johan Aerie, milady," the stranger introduced with a melancholy pride, "Horseman, third-rank. For his honor, Lord-"

"None of that means anything to me," Arah growled in the Old Language. She worked on untangling herself as the man stuttered at the babbled interruption, and continued on.

"For his... honor, Lord Murray; Her Ladyship, Queen of-"

"You must forgive my friend," Gaia observed tartly, having followed into the dark. "You may find difficulty blame us for being alert, but she does tend to overdo it some nights. If you please, our camp is this way."

Arah tensed; not startled as traditional, but surprised all the same. Johan dismounted casually, halberd in one hand and the horse’s reigns in the other. With a bright smile, he followed the white mage along towards the camp, horse… horses, the half-elf blinked, in tow. She snorted and followed along last, veering as they came near to where she had been contemplating earlier, and stepping high over the black mage, still at rest where she had left him.

"Disappointed?" he asked, curious. She made a neutral sound from the top of her throat, and he laughed.
 

"For his honor," within the fire’s light, Johan tried again to introduce himself properly, "Lord Murray; Her Ladyship, Queen of the Seas... Princess Sara!"

The horseman dropped to his knees in reverence, his hand slipping from his mount’s bridle. Sara, far too accustomed to the gesture to think anything of it, clasped her hands over her mouth in delight.

"You brought us horses?" she chirped, wholly delighted. Johan was honored to a royal embrace, and blushed accordingly. His color deepened the more the princess prided him, "You are wonderful."

The horses made little difference in time, for the pains of learning to ride overbalanced the urgency of the return. But Johan insisted Sara be spared the discomfort of walking, and they could be burdened with hack-be-done saddlebags.

Time pressed, but time was furthest from the princess’ mind. She made a point to stop at every town, and at every village. She wanted to help, virtuously enough, and endeavored to personally bring the Light to every worn down, abandoned shack in the wilds of Conerian territory. And as far as Johan was concerned, saving the world was a matter of one naïve girl’s whims.
 

"This is intolerable," spoken and not was the agreement among the Four.

"Could you not put her to sleep?" Arah asked once, under the eves of a barn and the summer rain.

"Yes, perhaps," the black magus mused, "But I might not be able to bring her out of it again."

That would not do, so the matter dropped.
 

Another solution came to mind as the would-be heroes trekked a distance behind Johan, his horses, and his princess.

"Second sight."

Gaia thought of it first; she said as much, her tone one of the last, tired desperation. The birds’ eye view, spirit sight... the very dependence upon meant trusting Tarn’s lackadaisical humor. For his part, he only grinned and shrugged, "Thought of it weeks ago."

"You said nothing of this," Arah pointed out, sour.

"I was waiting for you to ask."

The steady tread of the horses on the road, the shuffle dragging feet. The fighter stared lateral as they walked, and asked at length, "Well?"

The elf shrugged, staring far and ahead. "Pointless, now."

The tallest spires of Coneria rose over the horizon. He knew they were there the whole time.

Their arrival was tumultuous. People stopped to stare. People crowded. People cheered. They were loud, they were happy, and they would not keep far enough back.

"I’ll find you later," Arah promised, slipping away into the sea of strangers. Only Gaia heard her; the mage turned to look back, too late, and beheld only the unfamiliar. She sought, a moment or two, for the familiar glimpse of red, but it was a color all too common in the streets of the City of Dreams.
 

The crowd thinned by the heavy, carved gates of the castle. The courtyard was a happy relief to sore travelers and pained ears; courtesans watched, aloof, from their perches and fountains and windows. They twittered amongst themselves. A stable hand appeared for the horses, but that was the closest any came.

The great hall was quietly inviting. Before the grand staircase and surrounded by the vast majesty of the Conerian splendor, King Murray stood alone but for a single guard.

Her pace was slow and demure, breaking first faster and into a full pace run. Princess Sara was caught in her father’s embrace. Borrowed clothes... travel grime, nothing of which concerned them, father and daughter reunited. Murray would have done anything for his family, which included following destiny without question. Sara, a child still, merely wished to be something proud of. There was nothing to be feared, nothing anywhere in the world.

"Captain Lír," the monarch introduced, and the ruddy man bowed deeply.

"We are forever in your debt," he recited, "Any service within our power is yours. Lukahn insisted that you would wish to go east, and for your journey, in your absence we have rebuilt the northern bridge... if that is so.

"If you are following him to Crescent Lake, however," Lír paused, uncertain. He cut himself short with the promise, "I would offer you counsel, if you would take it; now is not a time for such things."

He had spoken for his king, and was paid due attention. Aside of formality, Gaia directed her own long-thought words to Murray himself.

"Sir, if I may," she said, "We have taken your matters upon ourselves, at great risk and loss of resources that we could not spare. I think it not unworthy of us to ask for aid in our continued journey; this, and we will consider your debt repaid."

The regent saw her, not as the small woman, mediating on a gamble and trust in a man’s good heart. He saw her – a hero to his nation, epithized in culture through word and spirit since time began. And he felt less than faithful, for his belief had been tainted by desperation and uncertainty.

"Yes," he agreed, no longer in doubt, "Name what you need, for it is yours to claim."

She was caught off guard, and it must have shown, for she could see Zeus’ wry smile on the edge of her vision. She sighed, the release of pent up what if and worry, and respectfully said, "Thank you."

"Rest with us for as long as you desire," Murray decreed, "For as long as my castle stands, may the Light Warriors find peace within her walls."

The Conerian gold coin... Conerian silver, less usual but still a valid form of currency; they had similar etching, at least. There was an Elvaan Platinum in there someplace, but unlikely anything more exotic than the occasional unmarked gulden.

She could not tell the difference. The varied designs meant something... But of value and cost, there was nothing by which to judge. Arah poked at the collection of coins in her hand, and cast a glance at the woman behind the counter.

The clerk was by far accustomed to her job. Even just a little disquieted, she waited patiently.

Tietry. The half-elf did not know the desired number, the language, or even the denominations of the coin she was looking at. Her pride kept her from asking, as did the doubt that she would understand. At last, she took a couple of guldan and cupped the rest down.

"Hmm." The woman took her turn poking at the coins, slightly incredulous. She smiled, and shook her head, "Any room in the house, not already taken ‘course."

Arah murmur an assent, heading straightaway for the landing. Thirteen steps up, eight doors in and toward the street... the same room as half a month ago, yet with no sign or scent of ever having known them. Time was strange like that, she knew, but the sudden realization made her skin crawl to be forgotten so quickly.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself. All she needed was the solitude.

The warrior fell heavy on the door and locked it before dragging herself forward. Disburdening, she paused to stare out the window. It was raining, and the clouds veiled the moons and the stars. Her heart sank. Although she knew the sky was there, she liked certainty; she liked to see things, lest the world vanish when she closed her eyes.

The moons are there, she reminded herself, the stars are there.

The room was dark, and she sat, crossed legs, on the floor, under the gray of the window. She did her best to ignore the pull on her spirit, even as she knew it was about to get worse.

Clearing her mind, she thought of many things. She focused as best she could, but little touches kept getting in the way – little worries and troubles, and memories and previsions. Things that did not matter, no matter how they tried, and she snarled at them, leave me be!

The world faded, growing distant. She hated this part... her human blood preferred the tangible, and kept her grounded. Unable to walk as far as the First Circle, even had she wanted to, she kept her heart closed to the Otherworld, and concentrated on the crystalline spires of what had once been home.

She called, softly at first and as strong as she dared, for it was so very draining. There was no one there, but there was something here, at the edge... cold and pain, and all so sudden, overwhelming, terrifying – Nothing.

The woman dropped, rigid, to the hardwood floor; the ceiling flickered as her vision darkened, and she drifted far from consciousness.

He pulled up a chair, settling in next to the one person he recognized. None of the people from the night before were there... but she caught his attention – the moon-silver elf. Different from Sara’s Pride, the Elf Lady of Coneria, this one seemed foreign, as though she were only here in passing.

She was dangerous. She made him want to run. He tore his gaze away, landing a solid strike from the back of his hand to his companion’s shoulder.

"We leaving today?" he asked, and dug an apple from the fruit basket. The black mage shrugged, lethargic, tepid. Tarn felt his hackles raise, and he inexplicably sought for the other elf.

"I suppose," Zeus was saying, his voice shallow and far away. He sighed – a harsh, grating noise, squeaked and shrill, "Not like there’s much use to it. Food’s poisoned anyway."

For a long moment, the scout could not comprehend what he had heard; he could not breathe, and his thoughts refused to move, even as the insistent Get up, get up, upup run! tore into his mind. He managed, at long last, to kick stumble back, and his legs tangled in the chair as he tripped and kicked and scrambled to his feet.

The dining hall had grown cold, and the people... decomposing, dead-rot, dead staring eyes. He wanted to run, had to run, but felt rooted, stuck. It was her – the silver-elf – gone, and the only thing living, but gone and corrupted and evil.

Tarn felt the movement behind, betrayal, and threw up his hands, defensive; the last thing he felt was the garrote wire cutting through his fingers.

There was a chill in the air, most notable because his snug blanket was caught on something. Bleary, the black magus craned his neck to see what, when the fluffy white quilt bunched over itself of its own accord. Pushing himself up onto his elbows, the man stared, bewildered.

In lieu of guessing, Zeus moved to jab the interloper; he was less than surprised when his hand failed to make it half the distance before he was snatched at the wrist. Aside that, the elf did not move. The man grimaced – the grip would have hurt without the immaculately trimmed nails digging into his skin.

"Is there a reason you’re in my bed?" he asked, sincere in his inquiry. The indifferent, guttural response was nothing of an answer, so he paused for thought and took it as he dared, "May I... know the reason?"

Nonplussed, the black mage slid off the bed, pulling away... bearing thin scratches even as the hold loosened and fell. He lifted his robe from across the chair, where he had draped it the night before, and brushed it off, conscientious, before pulling it over his shoulders.

"What time is it?" he wondered aloud. The sun was high; the aether was calm. ... And there was an elf in his bed – a fairly unusual way to start the day, but maybe it was to keep him on his toes.

"I’m going down to the kitchens," Zeus said, rather unnecessary. He watched from the door as Tarn did... absolutely nothing. He snorted softly, and grinned at the absurdity of it as he padded barefoot through the castle.

The massive door was twice her height, humble in its finish but well kept and silently heavy. From beyond, the scent of dust wafted, and Gaia caught her breath as the sensation of history passed her over.

"The library," Lír said softly, as not to disturb the scholars, or even the spirits of the chamber. And a library it was, not in the way that the magus knew them – of sentient crystals and phantoms of living memory – but in mysterious words and ghosts long recorded and lost. It was primitive, yet ancient with a life of its own.

"It is the greatest library in the world," the captain smiled at her awe. "Come."

He led her to an extensive hexagonal table, old, indented and polished to a semblance of new. Laden bookcases loomed, and men poured over them, organizing and reading as they went. Some scholars worked at strategically planted desks, transcribing, and a select few researched at their own corners of the table. It was one of these that Lír pulled aside and spoke to in a hushed tone; his thick voice murmured distinctly, even though Gaia couldn’t hear the words.

The scholar gestured and sought under the table. The white magus glimpsed at the table’s underside for herself, finding a niche of books, and had to smile. Lír returned to their corner; placing a book in particular on the table and drawing it open to the marker.

The world spread out before them in greens and gold and whites, and little scribbles denoted this was a mountain and that was a forest. The captain flipped the pages, coming to a likeness of the southern continents; he took a moment to touch the city marker labeled Coneria before his hand moved east across the paper.

"You may think to take this path," he traced softly on the vellum, an arc across jagged bronze markings, "through the mountains. There are many trails, many ways, but," he breathed softly to admit, "it is a treacherous way."

"You advise against it?" Gaia studied the map, and wondered if hers was from a different pattern. Everything was far more pronounced... painted from the view of looking upwards, she realized, rather than down.

"Yes. It would be easier from the Elflands, south," the man traced the river that cut through the plains, "And easier, still, if you could appropriate a river-ship."

Perception was different; for a moment she realized the vast deprivation her lifelong detachment might have cost. She felt a twinge of longing, could I see how you have seen? "You’ve been there."

"Not as far as Crescent Lake, no," he smiled, and shook his head. "There are cities and civilization – pardon the mountain folk – if you could come from the East, but... Wind no longer breathes on Conerian ships."

"Aside the rivers, there is no sure water travel?"

"There are cities east which may hold men yet unafraid of the sea… Pravoka is the closest," he pointed, "More likely... Parenae, on the ocean proper."

"Perhaps." Calculating the distance, she almost feared – it was a gamble, and to fail meant more time lost. If this prophet is worth it, to begin with... "What do you know about Lukahn’s Prophecy?"

"All that he said – that Princess Sara would be captured, and that four would appear and save her."

All that he… Gaia paused, solemn. Arah was neither fluent, nor the most perceptive, and to trust her hearsay... Or Sara, excited and taking in everything she was told. Between them, mixed, matched, and hoped for... my mistake, it seems.

"That’s all?" her words slipped with her trail of thought, "Nothing about the Elements? The Orbs…?"

The captain eyed her, curious and snared by her confusion.

"He did- with what he was working with, he couldn’t help..." he grinned, abruptly insightful, "You thought his was the one true prophecy?

"Truly, he built upon what we already had. The Prophecy has been in prose and thesis – in Coneria, at least – since time began."

Her presumptions set aside, her wits again gathered close. It was all Gaia could do to command, with all due civility, "Please explain."

"I... Aenor!" Lír courted a passing librarian, and chuckled, "Silvia’s Dissertation, please. Oh, and maybe something from Marcin Casimir."
 

The woman returned with the latter first, and escaped to find the former. The captain leafed through, expertly pinning down a passage. He held a finger to it and handed her the book – a glamorous work of fiction – and she read it, with half a mind to dismiss it for pure fancy. It might have been cultural belief spilling across the page, or she might have been influenced by the suggestion that there was something to find.

Silvia’s Dissertation convinced her… Not that it was truth, but there was the trace of something old, and probably long forgotten. The treatise went on, and she followed it laboriously.

"Do you have a quill?" she eventually asked, dry, "And a..." her thoughts were again scattered, and she again called them together, "and parchment."

"And any more of these?" she demanded, tapping the book.

The dining hall was quiet in the hours between the morning and evening banquets. It was mostly the servants who came and gone, either in passing or for the sake of their own meager meals, and the occasional foragers who missed their chance at twilight.

Of the thirteen tables, only two were attended. The first of these was occupied by a herd of squires in from the midday training, quietly sore and hushed amongst themselves. The last was alone in the company of Zeus, who thought on the Second Circle as he reclined across two chairs.

Tarn appeared, pale and grim. With a discarded dish, he helped himself to pilfering the bread rolls off the squires’ plates and their table’s salt cellar. He smiled in response to their shock, especially at the lack of comprehension, but it failed reach his eyes and he moved on to find a seat. The first suitable chair was dragged, squealing across the stone tiles, and set back against the wall.

It was the noise that got the black mage’s attention. Zeus watched, curiously, before he fetched his own chair to set beside the elf. Keeping the backrest between them, he shadowed the scout’s movements as he fussed with the ornate container. Once Tarn got the troublesome thing open, he poured an impressive amount of its contents into his hand.

"You look unwell," the magus observed.

"I overslept," was the elf’s reticent explanation. He lapped at the pile of salt, his movements tightly controlled; Zeus could not think of anything further to say, so he swiped one of the bits of bread and grinned, cocky, at Tarn’s wholly skeptical glance.

She was constricted, like her skin no longer fit. She longed to be free, and for a moment she wondered why she did not merely leave like she insisted. It came to mind that she was still bound to her body, which ached in protest as she pulled her legs under her and lifted herself to kneel. Her throat was dry, thick and suffocating; she remembered how to swallow, and that hurt nearly as much. For the first few moments, she focused solely on breathing.

She opened her eyes last. The light seared her mind, and she squinted to keep the worst of it down without giving ground. The little things came into focus first – her fingernails... her hands, pale against the floor. She stared until she could see the tiny imperfections in the wood, and she tried to remember where she was.

Coneria? Left to…

She remembered earth and flora, pain and hate, and the girl with the bright smile and the flaxen hair – the one who could call upon the power of the Moons…

... Except it was impossible.

Oh. It was impossible for the Princess to call upon the power of the Moons, because there was a boundary in the way. That was why she was there, to test the suspicion.

Arah lurched to her feet a little too fast, and teetered, dizzy, as she examined the room. She found the door, irritatingly stuck and... Locked, rather, and easily taken care of.

When she found the stairs, she took them one at a time, and followed the wall and the commotion from the landing to the common room. Those that noticed paid her no heed as she moved for the tavern counter and rasped for water.

Almost concerned, the man to her right remarked. She nearly missed the conversation, and stared blank when she realized he had spoken to her rather than merely spoken.

"Thus wherefrom?" he asked, perhaps again, and she shrugged.

"Far away."

The stranger laughed at that, and she considered the flavor of the water. He continued to speak of things she could not fully decipher, and did not care to – of the way the world was, and of villains and ships and the sparkling sea. He was homesick, but it was safer here. Except it that it was not, and he got to debate with the woman on Arah’s left, and she decided it was nigh time to follow up on words that trickled back into memory.

The public square was empty, and the fountain was dark under the stars. The figure dancing on the edge did so secretly and away from prying eyes. She moved to a rhythm of her own crafting, her humming drowned out by the trickling water, but she knew it by melody and she knew it by heart.

Finding she was observed, she slowed to stand perfectly still, her skirts circling her, dark and weightlessly ethereal.

Arah inclined her head, and the girl leaned forward in a mock bow, hand to chest, panting softly. She was smiling, shy yet glowing.

"Tonight, they dance," she swirled by way of explanation, "For fun. How silly is that?"

The half-elf, uncertain as to how to reply, asked, "Why do you?"

"Art!" the dancer giggled, "I dance, a living art."

"But not for fun?"

The girl waltzed alone, wistful.

"Sometimes, I wish," she said, and before anything else, "But it is silly, when they dance. That is not for me."

"Why?"

She did not answer; Arah shrugged and continued on her way with a simple parting word, "Dance."
 

Standing on the lip of the fountain, Arylon swayed with the breeze. And when the warrior was out of sight, she danced to a new melody.

Tarn danced for neither art nor ceremony. He danced because he had never done so, to show up the crowd; and to annoy a particular nobleman because he could. The restrained outrage was an amusing expression to behold, so the elf was sure to flaunt as such every time they passed the fellow that, Yes, I’m dancing with her instead of you. He would have also mentioned that it was because of the man’s fawning, and going nowhere, that he stepped in as he had.

Indeed, he danced for fun.

Above all, Tarn danced for the attention. He paid mind to Sara as was necessary and less more; she laughed at his clandestine inelegance as he imitated every step… flawlessly pure, acting without spirit.

"You can’t do it like that," she grinned, "planning, I mean; you have to flow with it, feel it inside."

"Huh?"

Something was wrong, and it teased at his mind. It was lightness, a feeling not quite his... like outside looking in, or second sight... like... Telepathy. He snapped down, almost missteping as he scanned the hall for the intruder in his mind.

Outward, he fringed the dance, and left Sara, mid-music, at the edge of the floor. He smiled, faux apologetic, and went on the prowl.
 

He found what he was seeking easily, and without being seen as her attention was elsewhere. Wary of that, lest it be deceit, he crept swiftly and reached from a safe distance...

... only to be caught by the arm and pulled sharply against the half-elf’s shoulder.

"What are you up to inside my head?" he queried, leaving off indignation for another day. He stared sidelong, and she twisted to answer,

"I’m not."

She let him go when she got him a safe distance before her, and he sought an advantage. Before the fight could break, Gaia interrupted.

"We were going to look for you," she stated flatly, and answered before he could ask, "We are leaving now."
 

From the dance floor, Sara watched them go, and ran for the Captain of the Guard.

"Wait!"

They stopped, one after the other, and all but Arah twisted about to see Sara hurrying after them, closely heeled by Lír. She stopped short, paused for breath; she cradled, gently, a wooden case.

"You left before it ended," she accused.

"What?" Gaia glanced between them, the princess and the guard, perplexed by the girl’s distress.

"The ceremony," Sara clarified, "You left before the end. You didn’t even-" she pouted, "It was important."

Arah half-turned at last, meeting Lír’s eyes on a cursory glance, but fixing her gaze on Sara. The girl curtseyed, ungainly with the box, and offered the thing in a semblance of formality. Gaia accepted it, and found it lighter than she thought. Unable to open it, she asked instead,

"What... are we supposed to do with this?"

"It is said to have the power to break the evil seal," Lír recounted, "In legend. It’s been passed down through the matrilineal line for-"

"My mother gave it to me, and her mother gave it to her," Sara stated, humbly important, "For two thousand years, it’s been held by the queens of Coneria, for the coming of the Light Warriors."

The white mage tucked the thing underarm, awkward. "Thank you."

The princess curtseyed and Lír bowed deeply; the would-be Light Warriors took it as a cue to leave, with subtle gestures and nods. Sara called after them,

"Faretheewell."

The bridge that arched across the wide, peaceful river was practical and fairly unembellished. Although crafted in the vaulted style and brickwork of masonry, its swift completion and massive strength attested to a fabrication in swathed in lithomancy. The sun was low under the river when Arah tested its strength, pessimistic and all but daring it to wash away; it remained, defiant, and she gave it a little credit. Sunrise met the four at the midpoint of the bridge, held back for a moment as the influx of aether washed over the world.

Bereft of his flute, buried somewhere in his belongings, Tarn placated himself by intermittent humming. It was tolerated, unchecked, and he broke into song to match his leisurely pace.

"From far and silent starry skies
Echoes a song full of life.
Crossing a darkness of thousands of light years…"

"...Now, wet with tears,
As though deep in prayer,

"So that one day,
Sadness, too-"

"Because their songs are all they taught me," he was quiet for a moment’s reflection, and wondered aloud, "… Where was I?"

"‘So that one day sadness, too, will end’," Zeus offered, and shrugged under the half-elf’s seething glare, "It’s a good song."

"Mm.

"From far and silent starry skies,
A song full of life can be heard."

"Can you stop, now, please?"

"Mm... Non."

Proper Credit:  Lyrics translation for Pray (the Final Fantasy Prelude with lyrics, which Tarn is singing in chapter three...) is copyright the Impresaria, and used here with permission.  For the whole song and other Squaresoft lyrics, check out the Final Fantasy Opera House.