Ugh. Dialogue-heavy chapter. Having been trying to avoid those lately. Maybe dying guys just like giving long monologues? Also, out of curiosity, was anyone else at Anime North last weekend? Just wondering if I might have bumped into anyone without realizing it.

"I wake up scared, I wake up strange
I wake up wondering if anything in my life is ever gonna change
I wake up scared, I wake up strange
And everything around me stays the same
It's the hairshirt I wear
And this hairshirt is woven from, is woven from your brown hair"
-Barenaked Ladies, "What a Good Boy"

Ryuce awoke in an unfamiliar room. His leg was mostly numb, but beneath whatever drug had been used to dull the pain, he could still feel it burning. "Sir? Lord Ryuce?" He recognized the solider at the end of the bed, one that had gone through the Demon Castle with him. Of all of them that faced the Demon King, or whatever creature followed after him, he was the only one that had escaped unhurt.

Ryuce rubbed his eyes. "You're all right." He sounded as though he cared about the nameless man at the foot of his bed. What he really meant was, is everyone else?

"Dr. Laira worked on all of you. Sir Ellis still won't wake up."

Ryuce rubbed his leg. "What's going on?"

"He says it won't go away, not completely. He called it a 'sapping wound.'"

"Can I see a doctor?" He asked. A foot soldier would not be able to tell him everything he needed to know.

"He's with the king right now," the soldier informed him. "I'll ask him to see you next."

"Thank you." Ryuce laid his head back down on the pillow. He closed his eyes and let pain wash over him. He whispered a prayer to any god that might listen to protect Ryula and Lykouleon, and many they never see him in such a state.

Ellis was in torment. One side of his mind was shining with light; the other black as pitch. He stumbled through the darkness, bare arms catching on strands of the inky black. They wound around him before he could see that he was tangled in his own hair.

He woke up, sick to his stomach and bathed in his own sweat, both hands winding in his long hair. He wanted to cut it off.

He sat up in bed, feeling scared tears form in his eyes. He swallowed. By his bed sat a pitcher of water and a glass. He didn't feel pain, except in his bandaged arm. Still, it was three tortuous steps to get to the water. He sucked it down greedily, glass after glass. There was just enough left to splash on his face. He at least felt cleaner, but still shaky.

The door creaked open. A slight girl walked in, wearing the servant uniform that Ellis had become familiar with when he had served under the Arinas king. "Sir Ellis?" She asked in a voice next to a whisper.

"Yes?" He tried to hide his relief. He needed someone to talk to.

"Oh! Dr. Laira says that you're not to be out of bed! I was just sent here to check on you. Is there…anything I can get for you?"

"Shears?" He asked hopefully.

"Ahm…" She blinked. "I don't think so. The doctor said that you shouldn't have weapons for awhile."

He closed his eyes. Of course this would happen. "Could I see the doctor then?"

"He's with Lord Ryuce right now."

"There's more than one doctor in this castle."

"Dr. Laira said that he wants to take care of his saviors personally. He won't let anyone else do it." She let out an exasperated sigh. "Well, I personally think that he should be resting up too, but—oh, I'm sorry! Here I am babbling on when you should get some sleep."

Ellis shook his head. There would only be more strange nightmares if he fell asleep again. His own hair would be the death of him. "I'll get back in bed, but on one condition. You have to stay here and talk with me."

She curtsied. "Of course, Sir Ellis. Anything that will make you feel better." She sat on the end of the bed, and they talked. Nandi, the servant, at first felt like she was doing just her job, acquiescing to a noble's request. As time and words passed, she had been drawn deeply into conversation. The more they talked, the more she felt like she was making a friend. "And do you have a family in Arinas?" She asked.

"My mother's house. Or, I should say, my sister, as she's the lady of the house."

"I'm sorry," Nandi replied at once. "How long has it been a matriarch's home?"

Ellis licked his lips. She wanted to know how long it had been since his father died. "I'm not sure. I only found out a few days ago. Recent enough to make Erisabe, that's my sister, want to cry."

"My sister died almost ten years ago and I'll still cry about it when I think about her." She was right: two tears were already glistening in her eyes.

"But I have a family in Dusis. Lord Ryuce, and his wife, and all the other Knights. And someone…someone very dear to me."

Nandi easily hid her disappointment at his last statement. She refused to acknowledge the brief romantic fantasy that had set itself in on her. Even if Ellis was her friend, it didn't make him her lover. She wondered for a moment if all the girls in Dusis swooned over him, just as she had seen them do in Arinas, but he had never seemed interested in any of them.

They talked for another hour, at least until someone knocked on the door. "What are you doing in here, Nandi?" Another servant hissed at her, making the young woman blush. "You should be in the kitchens right now! And better get out before that strange doctor sees you."

"He," Nandi started, but the servant waiting at the door didn't want to hear excuses.

"I asked her to talk with me for awhile," Ellis jumped in to defend her. "It has been lovely meeting you, Nandi, and I hope you'll visit me again before I leave."

"Right," she said, stepping away from his bed. There was certainly going to be some gossip down in the kitchens while the servants made supper.

Dr. Laira inspected Ryuce's wound with a dark look across his face. "Youkai magic. Powerful, too. Your leg's been infested with it. It will spread to the rest of your body, if nothing is done to stop it. Short of amputating the leg, there's very little I can do."

Ryuce frowned. Lose his leg? He could not appear to be weak in front of his people or other nations, all with their eyes on Draqueen. "How long will it take to spread?"

Laira sucked in air. "Hard to say. It looks like it was meant to create a slow, painful death. It may take months to get past your leg. Are you in pain?"

Ryuce nodded. "Less than when it first happened, but still quite a bit."

"It will stay with you for the rest of your life, and it will go to the rest of your body. What's worse: to be a king with a battle wound, of a king trapped in bed, crippled by pain?"

"I am NOT cutting off my leg!"

Laira stood up, hands on his hips. "Very well. I see that a doctor, someone who's studied healing for years, does not have the right to tell a king how to avoid a poisoned body and excruciating pain for the rest of his long life. And it will be long, I assure you of that." He bowed. "Now, Lord Ryuce, I have other patients to see to."

"How's Ellis?" He asked to Laira's back before he pushed through the door.

"Foolish, much like you," the doctor said, and left.

Well, at least that was something to be glad for.

Laira entered Ellis's room carrying a slender parcel, long and wrapped, at the bidding of Ryuce. He should probably expected the Knight to be out of bed, but even if he had, he still would not be pleased by watching the man pace. "You should be asleep, Sir Ellis. You'll never recover pacing around your room like that." Dr. Laira scowled, tired of these defiant patients. "Sleep is the best medicine a body can get."

"Not this body." Ellis wouldn't even sit. He kept moving, taking long strides around the room. "If I fall asleep again…no. I can't." He ran a hand through his hair. "It's choking me."

Laira shoved him lightly toward the bed. "What's on top of your head or inside of it is not my concern." He leaned the parcel against the wall. Ellis immediately recognized it as his sword, but more than that, the sword that held the Water Dragon. "Your lord asked me to bring this by."

"Which?" Ellis asked, though he already knew the answer.

"The one from Dusis. Now get into bed."

If Kahaku was nearby, he knew that he would be all right. Kahaku was his guardian. If there was anyone who could save him, it was that Dragon. He crawled back into bed and closed his eyes, hoping the nightmares didn't return. He knew they would. In fact, they picked up right where he left off.

He stumbled through the darkness, strands of hair locking around him. He yelled, trying to push his way through, sever them from the roots that were trying to pull him under. They locked around his ankles and knees, elbows and wrists, trying to pull him under the writhing black mass. Some wrapped around his waist and torso and neck. They sucked him in, wrapped around his head the rest of his body. His face was the only thing left untouched as the rest of him sank, drowning in a sea of his own black hair.

Above him was a single glowing strand. It took all the strength in him to reach out one arm and grab it.

He woke up, again soaked in sweat. This time, however, he knew exactly where he was. He got out of bed and unwrapped his sword. He grabbed handfuls of his hair and cut them off, not even careful enough to avoid nicking himself. A pile of long hair was at his feet when he was finished. He then lightly touched the flat part of the blade saying, "Kahaku. I need you."

Haylen looked up at Laira, knowing this would be the end. "The Demon King is gone, but I feel there is a more powerful force growing. It will take time, but I can feel it in my bones. Arinas will not survive."

"Sire," one of the soldiers sitting at his bedside started. Haylen held up a hand to silence him.

"I knew that my reign would be the last that this troubled continent would see. Knowing this, I never took a wife or produced and heir. Now here I am on my death bed—damn my pride! I shouldn't have gone. There is no one to follow after me. There was always time. Now it's gone." He released a sigh. "There is nothing more I can do, but tell my only friends that remain here that this is the end."

Silence surrounded them. No one knew what to say.

"Tomorrow, I will do the last I can for Arinas. I do not know how long I can save her, but it is what I must do."

Ryuce was panting when he finally got to Ellis's room, but no one was going to stop him from seeing his Knight and friend, and that included himself. He pulled open the door and all but collapsed as he entered the room.

"My lord?" Ellis sat up in bed, alarmed at the surprise visitor.

Ryuce limped over to his bed and sat, dabbing sweat off his forehead. "You cut your hair," he said.

"This place is a tomb," Ellis whispered.

Ryuce nodded. He wasn't sure if Ellis was just talking nonsense, but he had felt it too. "We need to leave."

Ellis's eyes were wide, petrified, bloodshot. "Yes." His fingers grabbed at the sheets. His eyes focused back to Ryuce's face. "We're leaving."

"I'm hopping Sarazar can conjure up something that can save this leg. Do you think you'll be well enough to fly us back to Dusis tomorrow?"

"As long as I stay awake."

Ryuce smiled, grateful to hear that. "Ellis, I want to apologize to you, and now weems to be the right time for it. I had never given much thought to where you had come from. It never seemed all that important. I realize now that I was ignorant of that fact. So while I came over here to protect my family, I never guessed that I would meet yours. Once we return to Dusis, I just want to let you know that you may return to Arinas any time you wish. I daresay it needs a Knight more than Dusis."

Ellis rubbed his temples. "You've been listening to servants' chatter about why I came to Dusis."

Ryuce shrugged, as if to say that he couldn't help it. "Even more entertaining are the stories about why you returned to Arinas. I didn't know that you and Haylen were lovers."

Ellis burst out laughing, something he hadn't done in days. It felt wonderful. "Is that what they're saying?"

"Some of it. Seems more plausible than an affair with a servant girl."

"There are quite a few stories about me, few of which are true." Ellis continued to grin.

Ryuce groaned to himself. Why couldn't Ellis talk directly him for once? "Did you really cross the king like they say?"

Ellis swallowed, the smile disappearing from his face. "I hadn't known that I committed an offense against him at that time. But I've moved on, and I believe so has he. Or he didn't lock me up because I was under your protection. Because he saw me as your problem now."

"At any rate, I hope that you have not felt as though you were being punished when you lived with us," Ryuce went on.

Ellis shook his head, not used to how light it felt since cutting his hair. He missed the feeling of it swishing against his neck. "My prison became my home. I don't know if I'll ever return to Arinas once we leave, but…thank you for allowing me to make that choice." But what he really meant was, Thank you for letting me have a choice.

Ryuce was right, by the by. Arinas would need a champion, but it could not be Haylen as he lay dying of his battle wounds. It could not be Ellis, for more than one reason. Instead Arinas was left to be preyed upon by demons and ruled over by youkai.

I can only watch the story as it unfolds and tell it back to the rest of you. As much as I would like to change it, I cannot. Had I been there, had I been allowed to speak and warn them, there is a very much that I would have tried to change. I would tell them to send that doctor right on his way. Then again, I would have told them to listen to Sarazar and not go to Arinas. If Ryuce hadn't acted so rashly, so much devastation could have been averted. There would be time enough for Haylen to find a successor that would not let Arinas become a rising demon mass, and the horrors committed against the Dragon Tribe might never have occurred.

But these are just glimpses of the future, alternatives that were snuffed out like a candle when Ryuce made a choice. The what might have beens are of no use to us now. All we have are the How and Why, and the present that they have created that we must now all share. Right now the present for Lord Ryuce was walking to a secret meeting, the next day between him, Haylen, and a youkai's arm.

"This will seem strange to you, but we have discovered that the soul of a human is commonly held in the left arm, though it has been found to move around if the arm is lost somehow," Haylen explained, sitting across from Ryuce in a mostly plain room. Between them was a square table, covered with black cloth and holding the arm of the Demon King. "Demon physiology is different. Their bodies take the opposite of ours. Take the heart. Ours is on the left side, while theirs are on the right. So it's the same with souls. The Demon King's will most likely be in his right arm."

Ryuce stared at the disembodied arm on the table. Could that gruesome thing really hold a soul? Could a demon ever really possess something so precious?

"Some say souls go on to eternal reward or punishment depending on how they acted in life," Haylen continued. "Maybe they do, but there are some that are too powerful." Again he paused, this time to catch his breath. "I am afraid this one will return if we don't act on it." As always, Haylen had two soldiers near him. They exchanged grim looks with each other. "Is the container ready?" He asked them.

"Yes, Sire."

"Very well." He turned his focus back on to Ryuce. "I'll perform the extraction now." Haylen put both his hands on the dismembered arm, one above and one below the elbow, and closed his eyes.

Behind his eyes, Haylen worked through rotting tissue and hardened muscle. He slid his mind inside, grinding through the bones and marrow and to a deeper part, to something more foul than the rotting arm.

He opened his eyes again, hold a ball in his hands, as solid as it was incorporeal. He turned to his soldiers, quickly, and placed the orb into the container that his peons had prepared. As the top was closed, Ryuce saw with a jolt that it was a casket. The soldiers set to work as soon as it was closed, nailing down the lid and wrapping two chains around each end.

"Lord Ryuce, you understand more than anyone the need to protect your home. It is our duty and burden as leaders to keep our people safe. So I regret that I have to ask you—"

"I'll take it," Ryuce said before Haylen could finish. "But under the condition that from now on, Ellis is under my jurisdiction only. Should he ever return to Arinas, you will have no control over him. He is no longer one of your soldiers, but one of my Knights."

"I would say that he already was. Lord Ryuce, you have nothing to fear from me."

Before leaving, both men bowed to each other. "I hope the best for Arinas," Ryuce said.

"I hope the best for both out kingdoms," Haylen wished. They both stood up. "Safe journey."

The flight back to Dusis was long and exhausting, and all Ryuce wanted to do was sleep. All Ellis wanted to do was stay awake until he passed out. They parted ways in the Castle, each with their own separate thoughts.

Ryula was holding Lykouleon, trying to hum the baby back to sleep when Ryuce saw her. He only saw her back and her long golden hair as he entered their bedroom. He wanted to hold her arms, kiss every inch of her body. He wanted to take his son and tell him proudly, "Papa's home". Instead he had a coffin sitting in the armoury and a bad limp to show for his trip. He had the two people he loved most upset. "I missed you," he said to his wife's back.

She put Lykouleon back in his cradle, keeping her back to him as she did. "You didn't even say goodbye."

"I was being rash. I'm sorry."

Finally, finally, she faced him, and exploded into tears. Ryuce held her, knowing there was no woman he could ever love more.

"I thought you were going to make me a widow. Even when we were separated, searching for the Dragon Knights, I wasn't as afraid for you as I was the past few days." She buried her face in his chest. "I don't want to live without you." And Ryuce, almost to the point of tears himself, promised her that she never would.

"Ellis, you look terrible."

"I've been away for days risking my life, and that's how you greet me, Lera?" Ellis was relieved to see a friendly face, especially the Wind Dragon Knight's.

"I'm saying it because it's true. Your hair's all messy and uneven." She touched a particularly long lock that he had missed. She grinned. "However bad you look, it's good to have you home again."

He inhaled deeply, breathing in the air of the Dragon Castle all around him. "It's good to be home."

"So why do you look so bad?" She asked.

And for once, Ellis decided that it was time to tell the truth. "I've been having terrible nightmares. Every time I sleep. I…" He couldn't continue.

She nodded. "I…I saw my parents killed. And for a long time, every time I closed my eyes, I would just watch it over and over again." She bit the inside of her lip to keep from crying. "When I woke up, all I wanted was someone to hug me and tell me I would be all right. I'll…I'll hold your hand when you're asleep, if you want." She blushed, knowing that she sounded more childish than she wanted to appear. "So if you wake up and you're scared, you don't have to be alone."

He took her hand. Already he felt better. "I've missed you."