Kay…

I'd ask for forgiveness for the unexpected break, but I'm not really sorry at all. ;D As a favorite character of mine once said in a fanfiction, "I'd say sorry... if I knew what it meant." Now, I know what it means, but I'm not sorry, cause I got the chance to sleep in. ^^

Anyway, responses before we pick up where we left off at the end of the extremely short previous chapter…

Wait, only one? You readers wound me.

ImInvisibleForNow: Yeah, that sort of thing has happened to me many times. ^^" I fixed it in the end. Question is, will Magiya?
Thanks. School's close to over, and we're reading the Count of Monte Cristo. Heh, the teacher's mad at me for almost spoiling it because I've read it before. XD
And here's your chapter. ^^ Thanks for reviewing again.

"Damn that man," I murmured without any real anger; if anything, I sounded… hopeless. "Why did he have to pick me to harass?"

As usual, Kai didn't answer. With a quiet groan, I just leaned forward, burying my face in his warm fur as I began to cry quietly, this time unable to stop the flow of tears streaking down my face. With a sinking feeling in my gut, I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to face him—face anyone—until I got things mentally sorted out. Sniffling again, I just pushed my face deeper into Kai's unnaturally warm golden fur, closing my eyes.

How the hell did I get myself into this? I wondered. If I hadn't been such an ass… I wouldn't be crying over that son of a bitch now. What am I going to do? … No, I already know that. Continuing to ask in the hopes of getting a different answer isn't going to work. Grimly, I just hugged my pet closer. Kai didn't complain. In comparison to my earlier mood, I realized, he wouldn't be complaining anyway. Still… I wish there was something else I could do instead of apologizing, of all things…

I must have fallen asleep there, back against the door, still on my knees while I hugged my Pridemaster to my chest, because then I was dreaming. It was the worst kind of dream somebody could have, though, because it was the type where you don't realize you're asleep until you wake up. But the dream itself was more of a nightmare.

I was running.

No, sprinting. No. Still not fast enough.

I was tearing down a tunnel as fast as I could force my legs to go. My robe was only hindering my movements, doing so more than it ever had before. My feet made frantic little whap-whap sounds on the uneven stone floor in a one-two pattern that was chillingly familiar to me, only spurring my fear.I had no staff, adding on to that terrible horror. My heart hammered a tune that, if I had bothered to listen to it, would have been a death note throbbing in my chest. As it was, I continued to dash down the tunnel. It continued straight ahead forever, never turning.

I felt… frantic. Terrified. Like there was something at the end of this tunnel that was precious to me, and I had to reach it before… before… before it was gone, this time for good.

What does that mean?

I didn't pause to wonder what my thoughts knew; I only ran on and on. My pulse was fluttering like a caged bird begging to be free, but unable to do much more than beat its wings. All I did was force it faster. I bolted down the uneven passage, barely able to stop myself from tripping over the dips or rises in the choppily cut stone floor or my own feet. Every twenty feet or so, a pair of torches lit up the passage, only making the lighting uncertain and flickering. If I could have been more on edge, I would have been. And I still didn't know what lay at the end of this tunnel running almost endlessly through the mountain.

How do I know this?

A bolt of pure, primal fear struck through that thought as soon as it registered, obliterating it. I kept my feet moving, stumbling now and then, feverishly racing down the tunnel to save whatever it was that lay at the end.

Must… keep… going…

The one-two continued to ring a chord in my mind, just a small niggle that I couldn't let go. How familiar the pattern was…

That's it.

The Hydra Cave. Krieger's footsteps as he got between Horidon and the idiot, stunned damsel. How I had clung to that sound, being all I had to hold on to until I was brought back to normal.

And just like that, the tunnel flared up on all sides, vanishing in a blaze of white that was dazzling. I squeezed my eyes shut as tightly as I could, my hands automatically going up to cover my face.

Suddenly, there was… nothing. I didn't exist. I had no body, I had no eyes. There was only my mind, and an endless white. Then a dull pain was radiating through my entire being (however big or small it might have been at that moment) until it felt like I was being torn apart limb from limb by dragons, while acid had replaced the blood in my body and whatever skin was left was being burned to a crisp. It was the worst pain I could have ever experienced, but the most horrible part of it was… it was all mental. I would have screamed until my throat was raw and bleeding, only I had no mouth to use or air with which to hear myself scream.

When I awoke at last with a severe migraine and coated in a sheen of sweat, it was dawn. And with how miserable I felt, it could have been the dawn of my execution, for all anyone knew. At least… that's how I was feeling at the moment.

"What do you think, Kai?" I mumbled incoherently. "Think taking out a few monsters or bandits will help any?"

I don't even know why I keep talking to him. He's never going to answer.

With a quiet groan, I rose to change into a dull purple robe edged in white before setting out for Oaklore Keep. "Ready to go, Kai?" I asked to thin air, finishing the simple long braid I had twisted my dark hair into. My pet standing at my right hip was answer enough.

However, upon stepping outside, I hesitated. In the small stone enclosure to the left of my cottage, there was the huge black equine that had come back with me from Moonridge. I had no idea what to do with him, I realized for the umpteenth time as he raised his head, gazing at me with liquid brown eyes. It wasn't a matter of, 'He followed me home, can we keep him?'

"What am I going to do with you?" I asked briefly, tilting my head. The big black stallion just went back to grazing. My eyes flicked to the tack I'd removed from him (taking nearly an hour to do so) after returning from Moonridge, and sighed as I rubbed my eyes. "Can't do anything right now," I muttered. "I'll walk to the Keep."

Nearly an hour later, I was stepping hesitantly through the huge wooden gates of the fortress, my Pridemaster at my side. The sheer remarkableness of the Keep had always held me spellbound. After a moment, I hurried up to Rolith, narrowly avoiding getting run over by Sir Casm and Sir Vivor, who were carrying crates of things that smelled funny and I'd have preferred to avoid thinking about. The whole Keep was abuzz with energy today, it seemed. After a quick glance around the inside of the fortress, I rubbed my forehead.

"Either everybody here has had enough coffee this morning to send a water buffalo into cardiac arrest, or the bandits are at it again," I said dryly to the Captain, and he nodded, frowning as usual.

"The bandits are trying to storm the keep again," he confirmed, nodding once. "Feel like helping out?"

"Do I have to? I didn't get much sleep last night…" A long yawn punctuated my statement, proving my point. Rolith scowled. On him, it was more endearing than threatening once someone had discovered his true personality.

"You do owe me one," he reminded me. I grumbled unwillingly; he was correct. "Actaully, you owe me several—"

"Alright," I interrupted. "Fine. But first…"

"You need to wake up?"

"You know me too well."

"Fine," chuckled Rolith. A slight smile still tugging at his lips, he suddenly allowed his hammer to rest against the wall of the Keep, wrapping his right arm around my neck.

"Hey!" I squealed as Rolith promptly proceeded to rub his armored knuckles on the top of my head. I frantically shoved at his arm as hard as I could and at every which way, but to no avail. My friend mercilessly twisted his knuckles across my scalp repeatedly. "Cut it out!" I wailed, thrashing around in his grip, probably just giving myself bruises from his armor. I could hear Rolith laughing now, and continued to struggle in vain against his arm. "Rolith, let me go!" I whined before he finally took pity on me and released me. I scrambled back a few steps, glaring at him balefully. "Ass!" I spat at him, scowling. He just shrugged, still smiling.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"I don't."

"Ooh. If I were you, I'd have—"

"But you're not me, Rolith," I said testily. I was in no mood to banter with him this morning.

"But if I was," he continued unabashed, "I would—" He stopped as a knight (it might have been Sir Valence) called to him urgently from the top of the wall.

"Captain! The bandit hordes are charging the castle!"

Rolith's playful demeanor vanished at once, and the typical moody frown returned. "Defend the Keep!" he shouted, hefting his big ass hammer as he did so. "Magiya, are you with us?"

"Yup," I said grimly, holding out my staff horizontally at arm's length. A ripple of gold shivered down its length, and when it disappeared I was holding a twisted light blue staff with prongs of the same color holding a small, glowing blue orb at the top. It was one of several that I knew how to summon. "Rolith, I hope you know how much I'm going to enjoy this," I said with a malicious grin as we charged for the gates. I could already hear the battle cries of the bandits over the walls. Several knights followed us, apparently content to let us lead the charge.

"Knowing you? Yes, you really will enjoy this," he said in dark humor, pulling up to a stop at the gates. He waved to one of the knights on top of the wall, and the gates slowly grated open, revealing the seemingly endless groups of Darkwolf bandits running towards us at full tilt.

"Let's go!" I shouted, surging forward with the Captain at the head of the large group of knights. Were the bandits strong? Yeah, sure, some of them were.

We were stronger.

When the two sides met, I was whirling and spinning, casting spells left and right. Most of the time, I called upon the small ones that didn't require too much concentration; focus was one thing I did not have in the middle of a battle. However, when the opportunity was provided, I stopped and allowed my mind to delve into the little marble of magic hiding in my consciousness. Doing so gave me more power to use against the next wave of bandits, and I often did so, flattening more than three of them at any time in one big surge.

The entire time, I felt a sort of vicious snarl permanently etched on my face as I flung magic at enemy after enemy after helpless enemy. From time to time, I could see Rolith in my peripheral vision putting his own dent in the bandits' numbers, causing as much (if not more) havoc among them than I was. There was no time for a break in the hours-long fight. It was action, reaction. There was no time to think. It was the same situation as with the war in Moonridge; just fighting. It was like some kind of primal instinct took over every time I fought in a battle like this… almost all strategy fell apart, and logic and reasoning became nonexistent.

At some point during the fight against the bandits, my back met Rolith's, and after wordlessly confirming with a glance that we weren't the enemy, the two of us continued to devastate the bandits' force. Rolith swung his hammer at any foe within reach, causing heart-clenching damage everywhere he struck, while I cast spell after spell at any bandit that moved, frequently hitting my target. Since we had first fought together a couple years ago, this was the fighting form we both always seemed to gravitate towards—back-to-back. But it didn't bother me, and judging from his reluctance to fight in another fashion, Rolith didn't either. I hurled handfuls of ice, fire, lightning, and small whirlwinds at the hooded figures who were often carrying maces or hammers of some type, tapping into that stream of magic now and then for a small extra boost.

"Retreat!"

I blinked, getting jerked back to a sane state of mind as I heard the raspy cry. If it had been a knight, it would have been more methodical—it would have sounded more like an order than a frantic call for help. However, as the cry rang out, I saw bandits all around Rolith and me hesitate in their movements, taking a half a step back before that half step turned into two, and the two turned into a full-out run in the other direction. Warily, I began to straighten from my slightly bent position—the one I always assumed when I fought—and gazed suspiciously at the bandits now racing in the opposite direction. Rolith stood up straight too, and his eyes glinted as he raised an eyebrow. I knew how he felt. Adrenaline still pulsed through my veins, and judging from the slightly excited, partially twitchy expression on my friend's, he felt exactly the same way. The rush that a battle brought was damn near indescribable… but incredibly addicting.

"Cowards!" I snarled lowly, my grip on my staff tightening almost to the point where I feared it might break. Then as my line of sight met the many bandits still lying on the now-bloodied grass of the space between the walls of the Keep and the forest, my anger and heightened awareness seemed to fade away. My shoulders slumped faintly, and I looked back at the Captain for a moment. His eyes met mine, and his gaze softened.

He glanced around the battlefield sadly. The Darkwolf bandits had been nothing less than fearful bullies; they ran when the full retreat was called, leaving all of their injured or dead comrades behind. Even now, several of them cried out from their wounds or staying ominously still where they lay. I shook my head slowly, not just in scorn for the bandits who had run after their leader, but also in pity for the ones remaining. Without a word, I carefully knelt down by the nearest bandit, who was calling out in the most heart-wrenching way for water. It seemed to me that something heavy (perhaps a mace) had crushed the lower part of both his legs. The bone wasn't shattered, I saw upon further inspection, but he wouldn't walk for several months.

Internally sighing, I called up a little bit of the small amount of power I had left to direct a small stream of water into the man's mouth before calling Sir Junn over.

"Start taking care of the ones left," I ordered in a quiet tone. The redhead's eyes went wide for a moment before he just nodded, and proceeded to do his job. I turned away. The bloodlust that had nearly consumed me during the fight was gone, leaving me feeling… hollow. Hollow and empty. It was unsettling, because I had never felt this way before.

The aftermath of a battle is always humbling, I thought tentatively, leaning down in one smooth movement to feel for a pulse on one of the other Darkwolf bandits. Nothing. It shows you just how easily life can be torn right out of your hands… The terms 'pried from my cold, dead hands' or 'over my dead body' have a new meaning once someone sees this. Moving on over the trampled grass, I carefully stepped over and around slick patches soaked with a red liquid that made my stomach churn. Another bandit lay at my feet now, and he had a head wound that was bleeding profusely. Seeing all of this damage… it's a sobering sight, to be sure. I gingerly tied a makeshift bandage around the unconscious man's head before letting an assistant of Sir Junn's take over, and continued. It makes you realize how incredibly lucky you are… just having life. Rolith joined me after another few minutes, appearing suitably chastened.

"You don't realize how lucky you are to be alive until you see… this," he said in a quiet voice, echoing my own thoughts as he gestured at the battlefield. I nodded once, in no mood to speak. "It makes you realize how much you might be missing in life," he continued in a murmur as he propped another bandit up so I could tie up his shattered knee. He probably wouldn't walk again without the help of magic to heal that injury. "Friendship, joy, humor… love."

I looked up sharply at Rolith as he named the last, my eyes glinting. We moved on as Sir Junn finished up what we had been doing with that bandit, and I crossed my arms as we stood in the middle of the grassy area between the Keep and the forest.

"Just what are you insinuating?" I demanded quietly, my somber mood evaporated in a matter of seconds.

"Nothing," my friend protested. But his face was too… innocent. Rolith had always been able to maintain a flawless poker face, but there were times when it was too perfect. This was one of those times. I scowled at him, tucking my chin slightly as I glared at him from under my eyebrows. If the sudden twitch in his expression was anything to judge by, I had quite the effective 'death glare' or 'don't fuck with me' look going. Rolith shrugged one shoulder, his hammer hanging loosely in his other hand.

"I'm saying," he relented, "That you need to open up to more people!"

Great. This argument again, I thought irritably.

"Look, metalhead," I growled softly, not happy with the readdressing of the subject that must have been discussed more than two dozen times in the last year, "We have been over this a thousand times. I will not trust more people than I feel comfortable with."

"You seemed pretty comfortable around Artix," he challenged. I opened my mouth to object (hey, it's a knee-jerk reaction) before pausing. Despite my tendency to charge into verbal fights head-on, it was beyond even my impulse-driven arguing side to not admit that he was right. I snapped my mouth shut abruptly, shooting a truly venomous glare his way.

"You need to make up with him," Rolith pressed.

"Bullshit!" I retorted in a clipped tone. The Captain ran his free hand through his dark gold hair in frustration. I swear I could almost hear the gears in his head going haywire. A random thought occurred to me… those gears could be all Lim's fault.

"Apologize to him!" he finally exclaimed, his eyebrows dipping lower than usual. "He's good for you, Magiya, whether or not you choose to believe it."

"That's a lie," I refuted instantly. "I hate him! He's an ass!"

"Look," Rolith said flatly, "If you don't shape up your trusting issues, and fast, you'll never find peace or contentment. And if you can't trust anyone, if you don't let anyone in, then nobody will be able to care about you or love you."

That last statement struck home.

I blinked, and all thought processes stopped for a solid half a minute as I stared blankly at Rolith. I couldn't ever remember him being quite so ardent on this topic before, and the bluntness with which this line of reasoning was delivered… well, quite frankly, it was chilling, in a way.

I opened and closed my mouth a couple times before I glared at Rolith, turning on a heel and storming away. I headed back into the forest, back in the direction of the path that led to Falconreach. If I had wanted, I'm sure I could have summoned a small rain cloud to hover over my head to perfectly demonstrate my mood. However, I hadn't stalked more than twenty feet across the trampled grass when Rolith called a parting question out to me from behind.

"Think on this, Magiya; if you died tomorrow, would you be satisfied with how you left things here? Would you be happy with the extraordinarily small amount of people who would mourn you?"

After a short pause, I broke into a run, sprinting as fast as my feet could carry me away from Oaklore Keep. I kept my face pointed downwards, hardly watching where I was going, trying my very hardest not to let the tears fall.

Ooh. Rolith really ripped a hole in her. When was the last time anyone put a toe across the line like that with her? O.o Evidently, it's been too long. She needed that to be brought down to earth again.

But, yeah. Your chapter, hope you enjoyed. If you did, please subscribe and/or review. Reviews are always appreciated, and very much valued. ^^