The roiling tumultuous clouds echoed the familiar cough of thunder. Lightning scorched the horizon. For an instant the world was printed in negative to his eyes. The young man shut them, but his dreaded past screamed to him and he threw them open almost immediately.

The sour taste of diluted mint swirled in him dry mouth. Mustering what saliva he could, the young man spat the shredded remains of mint leaves to the gray soil by his feet. He peered up from his cold knees, wiping at his lips with the back of his hand, to meet the black horse that stood across from him underneath the Cliffside outcropping.

The large animal gave a low gruff blow of air from its twitching nostrils. The young man's patience with it had waned and began to suffer.

"What, you tired?" The sound of disgust was thickly evident in his voice. As if feeling his hot anger the horse twisted its head away from his scornful stare causing its silky mane to flicker to and fro over its bold neck.

The young man scratched at the back of his damp scalp, lowering his head. "Yeah, well I am too."

He looked to the lifeless bundle of blanket feet away out of his peripheral view. Several days before that heap held life, and warmth, and love. Now, like his crumbling heart, it was dead. The heels of his clammy hands met his weary eyes as he rubbed them profusely. If only he could manage some sleep, a slight sliver of rest. That, however, was beyond even impossible.

When the young man slept he screamed, and when he screamed he awoke. In those past two days he was lumbering with a pitiful three hours of sleep. Not that they were peaceful by any means.

His week upper body slumped to the stone wall. It was uneven and jabbed unmerciful fingers into his back, but he didn't care. He was already in pain. As if life wasn't at its all-time lowest, the voice of the godforsaken shaman rang ferociously in the very canals of his ears.

"Do not get too close, boy. Her fate is sealed; you're helpless to dissuade it."

The young man cringed at the words, each plunging a serrated blade deeper with every straining syllable. The old man had been right. Damn his bones, he thought. The old man had been right.

He loved the aging shaman almost more than the now lifeless girl, but he hated him the most as well. The old man had taken him in when he became a wandering refugee. He had raised him since he had been waist high and able to hold a bow steady. Due to him, the young man had been invited, without question, to join their religious and most prestigious tribe: those who protected the forbidden land, the place that lay at the ends of the world, the very place where his only existing hope may, with any prayer at all, be waiting.

Even though it had been against all laws of the land for shamans to have offspring, the old man had taken him in, raised him as his own. But he never called him 'son'. That was against the rules. That was unheard of. It was never appropriate to refer to him as that. And it was that sole reason why the old man called him boy, or you, or wanderer. Yes, the young man despised the old shaman by far the most.

The young man sighed deeply, exhausting his lungs. "They'll be coming after us," he exclaimed to the silent horse. Then he chuckled. "They're probably already after us."

He allowed the vibrant, bellowing roar of steady rain flow into his rattled brain. He watched as the precipitation fell like sheets on the bending weeds, the faltering tall grass, and the ever soaked ugly brown mud. The young man realized he was cold. All tinder was wet beyond spark. The 'ancient' sword, as they called it, was an excellent tool for bringing fires to life, though it was no match for Mother Nature's furious crying.

The man that sat aching under the outcropping was wet and broken. He was as frustrated as he was drowning in loathing. The only matter that kept his head above the frigid waters of hopelessness was the hope that this Dormin could bring her back.

"They can do it," he spoke full of assurance. "The Dormin can manipulate the rules of the very world to do it. Why else would old Emon be so afraid of anyone venturing there?" He made a noise in his throat to the horse to provoke an answer. The animal looked at him with its massive night black eyes.

He jerked his gaze to the cylindrical shaped blanket. "They can do it, Mono."