Yeah.. 'Ryan'.. Sorry.. I think Nerissa is just insane.. And before I start grossing people out.. I warn, that she has no relation to Caleb - That whole mother thing was just.. No.. And then Cedric and Miranda? Yeah, they weren't allowed to show 'dying' because it'd scare children... As if interbreeding pedophilia could do any harm, and women as old as Yan Lin being with Julian.. Shouldn't there have been like, menopausal problems with that story..

"FIND ANYTHING THE REBELS LEFT BEHIND! PLANS! FOOD! STRIP THIS CITY BARE!" Aldarn forced out controlled breaths, as the crowded room silently listened to the echoes from above. They were being ransacked; Aldarn had never expected it to happen, but Lord Cedric was up there, and the Infinite City had been called upon to be searched.

Whispers rattled, too hushed to seem as more than a gust of breeze to Aldarn, but he felt calmer for the fact that his charge had been revoked. He knew why, but Caleb had been right; sending word and a signed referral along with Vathek, that he'd left charge between Aketon and Drake. Aldarn was left, then. Caleb was predisposed; compulsively dependent on Will, and Aldarn had no business faulting pure unrefined love.. He'd betrayed it. Betrayed Caleb. Aldarn had betrayed Will and he didn't know how he had gone from worrying about her, to desperately attempting to sell word of her presence for a glass of water. "How long do you think they will keep looking for?"

"Shht." It was funny, that he was the understudy now, and yet Drake was asking questions, but he didn't mind. Drake had been nearly taken, apparently; a slicing wound that had deeply opened between his abdomen and right up to slice off a certain layer from his neck, and Aldarn knew that Drake had wanted the scars, but he'd been dying, again. Aldarn's eyes traced up the smooth skin of his friend's neck, which had been warped when he'd first seen him again.. The Mage's water was a blessful healer, though Aldarn wished that she would stop talking. She'd kept speaking 'Chaleb vero cursore', and it hadn't been until she'd asked to Chálev that Aldarn realized. She didn't even know that Caleb wasn't here. Perhaps she'd gone blind, though perhaps she always had been. She didn't complain, as she kept speaking of Caleb in a language he didn't understand, that his new leader's decision had them all within her place.[0]

"The witch they call the Mage is the lasst vesstige of the Ancient Empire." Aldarn swallowed, as Drake unsheathed his knife, already laced in blood. That was another thing; one drop and the Mage would probably kill them all - this was probably more dangerous than facing Cedric once again. "Why, when you captured the City, was she not brought out with the rest of them!"

Them, being the women. The women were gone, and the sicker, weaker men. "Even the rebels, fear her power. I sent five men in.. N-none of them returned."

Aldarn swallowed, because Caleb would berate their clumsiness, had he been there. If they didn't come out, Cedric would suspect; Drake was wrong about the fear of the Mage. It wouldn't drive them away. And Caleb would scold that they'd come in in such numbers anyway - the Mage needed her respects, Caleb was very thorough of that. "Then go in yoursself."

...

Silence stretched, as Will pulled her legs tighter against her chest; ignoring the sticky warm sensation that dug into the sheer pain of her limp arm, which had hollowed out numbly, and was currently drenched, but she ignored it as her cheeks clammed with a second solution, she found that as far as her empathy could skillfully push down the emotion, her eyes steamed forcefully and the fear kept coming back.. Or was it building? More fear came once again; the fear that if she let go she would simply die; if she let everything fall where it would."They aren't your dreams anymore.."

"I-I'm s-s-sorry." Will found herself nodding, at the voice that had clearly proven it's point.. A wispy snarl that seemed hard of breath, and she nodded through erratic shakes, biting her lips as another wave of tremors consumed her; the ice blowing in as air from the window, playfully entwining and filtering into her blood, mixing finally, as it made it's way through to her already frozen heart. "I'm-m s-so sorry."

Nothing came, then, for a long time, and Will found curiosity consuming her amongst fear, and she caught her breath, as she commanded her arm; finding it stuck and then almost biting through her lip as she tore it away from the soft pink cotton that dressed her leg; the fastened dry blood creating a noise and wave of pain, as it started bleeding again, and she scrabbled to the sink, swearing forcefully as he fingers cut against the glass that had filled it from the window, but she twisted the tap with trembling fingers and held in nothing when searing water hit and entered her skin. And she could count the lines; four; eight; twelve; the deepest creating a dent within her, and reaching just past her elbow, and them crossing haphazardly down from their, to.. "You're all alone, Will.."

Will fisted her free hand over the thinnest trembling slice that threateningly wrote a neat scratch over her wrist, and she could remember that that had been where it had started; quick, gentle; controlled, before madness seized and she stared now at her butchered hand, and a slicing glass within it.. Had she.. No.. It hadn't been her. It hadn't been her! It had been.. Nothing.. Nothing had done this! No.. Something.. Something else! She hadn't! She couldn't! She'd never! "I didn't do it.."

"Mm.. No, but if you can't even convince yourself.." Will dropped the glass, then, and shrinkingly stretched the tiny palm, and whimpered at the denting pool of blood began to work it's way.. It was too much blood.. She.. That was too much blood, she needed to stop it. "You're all alone, Will."

...

Janen had been of recent promoted closer to Prince Phobos'. The second after Cedric had been killed, and he stumbled with disgrace down stairs of dim shadows, to the well lit room. Green stone, floating on heavy waters, and water falling that disclosed the Mage's water-pond above the soil.. His eyes traveled down, when his foot hit a clanking metal, before he'd had time to interpret the room further, and he felt a cold rush as he stared down at golden lamps, that he knew to be those of his guards..

..His guards, who also lay across the floor; strewn with dried slashes of blood across their throats.. He'd heard rumors, of Earth being a safe ground. But he was too high up; Lord Cedric had kept tabs on him to the extent that safety was an unreachable thing, and he didn't have time to do more than cry out, as a strong hand pushed his head forward over a blade; he felt the slash for a moment.

...

Nerissa smirked, at the mesmerising text; letters on a page, she would have to shake the hand of Will's mother. There had been no influence on the note, though perhaps Kandrakar had seen what a thing this babe was; she was broken; she didn't even work properly. Either way, Nerissa felt desperation coursing through her, as Will rolled tears of her icy fearing heart.

Sorry, out all day - you're alone for the night! x

"Oh Will.. You are so, so alone.."

...

And Aldarn immediately pushed a cloth onto the slit skin, where Drake's knife had been, and Drake knew it was in avoidance of the Mage's wrath. Not that she'd do anything. She was trapped in a time fix; always saying the same words over; always looking for Caleb. Drake had almost thought she missed him, but no.. She just didn't know he wasn't here, and she had never shown an emotion to the day..

He had been left in charge, along with Aketon, but the man seemed to fear a decision, because Caleb never held anything from Aldarn. Aldarn got whatever the hell he wanted, and something must have happened. And Aldarn had been stubborn to leave his post in lead; constantly berating every word from Drake's mouth until he'd started asking questions. Aldarn seemed to satisfy at that; he was still a part of it. But Aldarn was used to getting whatever the hell he wanted, and he was worst because Caleb allowed for Aldarn to be a child, but the war itself beckoned the boy to play a man now that Caleb had been gone. Aldarn was a good child.. But he wasn't ready.

He wasn't ready. Drake didn't feel ready, but he knew that everyone was waiting for him to slip. He felt for Aldarn's sourness, because it was hard. But the boy was losing his grip, and Aldarn had always assumed morality by not doing what Drake did. But for every woman Drake touched, the rage inside him; the panic wore back, and he feared that Aldarn would in the end be lost. Lost to something far more sinister.

Aldarn needed to be around goodness again. He needed to see goodness; the closest to the 'un-war' for Aldarn was a short memory the boy seemed to recall of there being a sun. It was a fake. Aldarn didn't remember the sun; he saw one and told himself he recalled it. There had used to be three suns.

[0] Speaking Ancient Meridian

Chaleb vero cursore - (Ancient Meridian) And Caleb the runner.