A voice, in the blazing vastness.

"We're lost. I know we are."

Silence

"Look, I know no one has said anything for three days, but I can tell we're lost. That village was supposed to be three days into this endless wasteland, and we've been going for a month now."

Silence

"Barton, damn it, you're the one leading this expedition, and I'm getting an answer out of you! Now!"

Wufei Chang spurred his horse into motion, bringing the animal to a sudden halt in front of a startled, if amused Trowa Barton. The woodsman's soft eyes flicked up from where he was staring absently at the neck of his plodding horse, meeting the blazing eyes of Wufei…and calmly led his horse around the fuming warrior without saying a word.

A smothered snort and a quickly cleared throat made Wufei's icy glare settle on the brown-robed mage, riding behind the woodsman. A wide smile broke through his controlled visage, however, at the glowering frustration on Wufei's face.

"Oh, come on Wufei! It's just the heat that's getting to us all. At least this place smells better than the swamp we first went through. Or the ruined farmland where we couldn't find anything to eat. This place is nice! The swaying wheat as far as the eye can see! The russet mountains to the west, the line of ocean to the east!"

"And each three months' ride from where we are, with no foreseeable end in front, and just as far in back. I am lost in the middle of the world's largest granary, with a self-imposed mute for a guide and a dirty mage who insists on sightseeing the same damn things for months on end!"

Quatre rolled his eyes and tried to shake the dust out of his sunny blond hair, turned a light russet from the constant red dust that swept throughout the vast grasslands. As far as the eye could see north and south, there was nothing but waving golden stalks of wheat and tallgrass, a constant reminder of complete and utter smallness. The land rolled and pitched under their feet, belied by the grass as flat and stark. Numerous small mammals skittered underfoot, unused to humans; an easy target for either Trowa's bow of Wufei's daggers. To the east, the white-capped Russet mountain range was visible when the three man party crested one of the hidden slopes and valleys that marked the landscape. To the west, a thin grey line was seen at sunrise and sunset, a glimmer or a shadow of the ocean as the sun moved its way across the sky.

Other than that, it was grass. As tall as the horses' heads, the work to clear a space for camp was only possible by Quatre's aid; magical fire didn't start prairie fires, and it browned the meat of the plainsrabbits quite nicely. Sitting on horse back was one of the only ways the companions saw one another, with the golden monotony broken only by Trowa's dark green woodsman suit (now a sickly grey-green from the dust and sun) and Wufei's spotted black mount (who was, the poor mare, turning the same disturbing grey colour as Trowa's clothing). Quatre was nearly impossible to find if he was separated from the group. Donned in light brown mage robes, with a light complexion and riding a dun coloured gelding, the young magic user was often only distinguishable from the landscape by his bright blue eyes.

Searching for a village that was supposed to be three days' journey into the Grassland Sea, the companions were a month off schedule and had seen nary another living soul besides their travel companions. Much to Trowa's relief, Quatre's boredom, and Wufei's annoyance, there had been little talk as to exactly why there had been no village where the woodsman had said there would be. Wufei had been trying for days, perhaps even weeks, to confront his companions, but both seemed content to wander until the End of Days came, or until they were all too bleached from sun and wind and sand to see eachother anymore, wandering off into a half life of existence.

With these cheery thoughts, Wufei halted his black (grey) mare and stood resolutely, waiting for his other companions to stop and come back. Much to his utter irritation, they plodded on, unseeing and seemingly uncaring. Wufei's frustrated snort ended the longest conversation the three of them had had in a week's time.

That night, as the horses were grazing in the distance – discernable only by the crunching sounds, hidden by the constant grass – Trowa lay worried. On his back, with his hands behind his head, the woodsman cut an impressive figure to those who cared to look (Quatre did), but years of patient waiting in tall trees had made his contemplation a still and silent one. Gazing at the stars, he fought the urge to look at the dark blue flame of magical fire, his eyes begging for a break from monotonous yellow and brown; it would not do to get distracted. So he stared at the black night, the sickly and weak light given from the stars a less than comforting companion to his musings. There was one thought and one thought only that circled Trowa's usually calm brain, like a dog chained to a deep post:

"Where the fuck are we?"

A sudden gasp of shock escaped Quatre at the same time Trowa's eyes caught sight of a death shadow that passed, inky black, across the stars. Wufei was on his feet with sword drawn, his eyes darting through the darkness illuminated oddly by the blue tinged light. Trowa sat up, feeling for his bow even as his eyes scoured the black night for a blacker shape.

Quatre's wavering voice broke the tense silence, even as it added to the sudden drop of dread that both the warrior and the woodsman felt.

"Dragon" At first, a whisper. "Dragon! DRAGON!" The young mage scrambled for his pack, broken out of his paralyzing fear by his own shriek. Knowing there was little he could do against the terror, but grabbing his spell components anyway, Quatre found a strength born of desperation and cast a protective shield around the three of them. Trowa started at having his intense search of the sky interrupted by the shimmering globe that formed around the campsite, but a glance at the mage told him it would hold firm. He dropped his bow and unsheathed the short sword that hung at his side, grimly aware that he would probably be eaten before the range of the weapon allowed him to strike what would be a superficial blow to the massive dragon.

The three travelers formed a back to back circle, covering all angles as Quatre spoke a swift word that quenched the fire from outside eyes. Now, the companions could see out, but the enemy without could not see in. In silence, waiting for the dread creature to return – as they all knew it must – they stood tense and sweating.

A rustle in the pitch black grass ahead of their little man made clearing made all three of the men jump, twirling to face the hated and fell creature of nightmares. Trowa thought fleetingly that a large dragon should be making slightly more noise as it crashed through the sea of wheat, but was more than shocked out of this line of thinking as a slight, black clad figure jumped into the circle of firelight. The person was carrying another over his shoulder, running full tilt towards the fire it wasn't supposed to see.

A flood of relief crossed the black clad figure's face (none of the companions could tell if it were male or female, due to the long braid of hair, although Wufei judged the person correctly male by the strength with which he carried the other person) as he spotted the companions, and he ran towards them. Too late, Quatre called out a warning as the black clad man smacked straight into the protective barrier, knocking himself as unconscious as the person he carried.

The shimmering canopy of the protective shield dissipated as the mage ended the spell. Wufei glanced sharply at the mage, Trowa's own question resonating on his lips: "What the hell are you doing?! There's a dragon out there!"

Quatre was dragging the black-clad figure nearer the fire, and, going back for the other person, grunted an answer over his shoulder; "I can't sense the dragon anymore, and they look like they need help – oh, for Goddess' sake, will you two put those down and come help me with this one!" The two warriors sheepishly lowered their weapons from the prostrate figures on the ground and grabbed a limb each of the other person the black clad man had brought with him.

Plopping himself on the ground, out of breath with moving the bodies and the sudden onslaught and dissipation of adrenaline from the non-existent fight, Quatre regarded the two figures on the ground, the black clad one beginning to stir. Smiling innocently up at his two companions, the mage ruffled his blond hair, watching the red dust float down to sparkle in the blue firelight.

"Well, at least we aren't as lost as these two!"

Trowa snorted in dry amusement as Wufei uttered a curse to crazy mages and the endless grassland.

The night swallowed the five small travelers, a spot of blue in the black night.