We spend the next day nursing Lina back to health. Amelia does not seem jealous of Lina, nor Gourry of me. Our love is a ray of sunshine in a sea of darkness. Nobody mentions the loss of a day. Nobody mentions that the orihalcon tanks are drawing close. But we all know.

Lina, our unofficial leader, is weak, she can barely walk. I am weak as well, partly from worry. Amelia is exhausted from taxing her power in white magic. Only Gourry is fine. Perhaps tomorrow will bring better luck, and we prepare run anew, knowing that we have no defense power left of our own.

We know that when we die, so does our heritage, our powers, our stories are left untold. We are forgotten, and magic will cease to exist, both in physical being and in the minds of children. Death is not an option, but it is practically an inevitable eventuality. Our flight insures nothing, it only prolongs our life. We do not mislead ourselves with thoughts of life.

We carry a great burden, to pass on what we have learned so that magic will continue to thrive in Zefilia. All the magic users were invited to attend a conference, those that refused... We know now that they were killed. The conference center was enclosed in orihalcon, nulling our powers. Only Gourry's sword saved us from certain death.

"Why don't we fly?" Amelia had once asked.

"We would be visible from all around, and killed in a matter of seconds." I answer.

"We could fly low," she suggests.

"In a desert? Do you not think that they have radar? Staying grounded makes us appear as naught but wildlife. Beside, the desert is littered with anti-air traps, which somehow sense airborne organisms, which are set upon by tracking missiles."

Amelia's naivete is annoying, but her earnest desire for justice, inflamed by the recent assassination of her father keeps our spirits up. She is quick to believe, gullible, a good counterbalance of my analytical pessimism.