Avera came with Benjamin back into the living room of Eliezer's home, having finished their jaunt through the woods together, to find their host and his companion sitting, chatting, and sipping on tea along with another man.  "Hello, sir," Avera said sheepishly. "Hello," the man replied with a well-humored grin.

The scent of death was in the air, carried by a gentle breeze from Elkshire as they approached the crest of the hill which overlooked the damaged city. Avera felt her body tense, and she noticed that everyone had become uncharacteristically quiet.  ‘Out of respect for the dead,’ she pondered. 

She had never seen so many people from so many diverse regions, pasts, and occupations. Even in Pyre, there had never been such unity among the people, despite the government's efforts to make everyone the same. Here, it was different. There was something more genuine, and Avera knew that she liked it much better than Zephyr's form of unity among men. There was work going on to bury the dead there in Elkshire, which Jordan oversaw. Together, many of the men labored to dig the graves and transport the bodies of the people. For the most part, there was a communal grave prepared for all of them,

"No! Absolutely not!” It was morning, and Eliezer was not the least bit amused by the stubbornness of his companion as she looked at him with those soft blue eyes swirling with a harbor mist which penetrated him, piercing straight to his heart, and blinked. “No! You are a

Adrien raised his head to the sound of the black waters ritual as the unending voice of the tiny, minuscule dragons berated him. To the others there, it was a sound like a high pitched scream, but to him it was the words of the dragon tongue which led to the creature's summoning.  "Dezu draco mortek, dominus mundus, dominus coelum. Dezu exsindo haxikus vestris mortek. Detraxis amarte portentik glaukxis. Exuros pux hominus exis fazik malumi provenias," the voice of the dragons repeated in the harsh tones of their dark melody, and it drained in his