I'm on a roll. I just finished writing chapter 5 of Cliché and now I'm writing this. I'm not used to such productivity! Well, it's productivity on MY scale, probably not a regular persons. *sigh* Inspiration for already started fics is SOOO hard to come by for me. I was lucky THIS chapter even existed at all, I'm just feverishly hoping I can squeeze another one out, but don't get your hopes up.

This chapter is a bit angsty and questiony… Not great at all.

Once he put out the fire and saddled up his horse again, we were off, me lazily flying overhead and him ambling along underneath me. I noticed some flashes of metal up ahead, in a large plain of some sort. Flying higher I scouted out what was going on. Was this the battle they were talking about? If it was, the Stormwings were long gone. I searched vainly for glints of sliver, but saw only those belonging to weapons, not steel wings. I flew down and landed bedside Ret.

"The battle is just up ahead. It's a bloody mess. Can't even tell who won."

"You should stay walking. Who knows how the survivors will react. They probably just had some bad experiences with th' Stormwings." He said

I agreed. He slowed his horse down to match my pace, and we walked into the largest massacre I'd ever seen. It was a veritable bloodbath. Soldiers had been literally butchered on both sides. It certainly looked as though Slaughter had had some merriment here. We had gotten around 6 paces into the battlefield when Ret leapt off his mare and ran to the bushes. I waited patiently while he retched the remainder of his lunch. For once, I was grateful for my detachedness.

Being part Stormwing the stench and sights didn't bother me the least. In fact, the fear and pain emanating off these people was somewhat… nice. I drank it all in. I even had the urge to spread my wings and fly above those maimed, to really scare them witless. I had unfolded my wings without even realizing. The sound of Ret staggering back towards me shook me out of my morbid reverie. My human side still rebelled against desecrating the dead, no matter how much the Stormwing side wanted to. What would I become one I found my father? What would I do?

As I thought about these things I didn't notice that Ret was still dazed and completely woozy from the battlefield we were walking through, and that some battle-crazed soldier was picking himself off of the ground and stumbling towards me, ax raised. In fact, I didn't notice him until the sharp clang and scratch of steel hitting steel jolted me out of my depression. Out of sheer instinct, I fought him Stormwing style.

I spread my wings and turned around quickly, slicing his chest open and plunging feathers into his neck. He died without a sound, the crazed battle-light never leaving his eyes. The grating sound of ax on wings also startled Ret out of his daze.

"We need to get out o' here," he whispered urgently, "Who knows how many more like 'im there are!"

I nodded dumbly, still soaking in the fact that I felt no sickness, no remorse, over the man that I had killed in cold blood. I tucked in my bloody wings and we ran. I didn't want to risk flying. When we finally crossed that scene of carnage, we both breathed a sigh of relief, mine more audible than his.

"What went on there Ret? Can you tell who won?"

"No idea. I'm a hunter, not a warrior. The battle was most likely a huge one though, both armies coming head to head in that field with the hopes of destroyin' one another. I'd say it around half a day ago because the dead haven't been buried yet. There probably wasn't enough time, when they were retreating. Which ever side was retreating…"

I nodded, turning away from the bloodbath behind me. I was still trying to quell the urges to go out there, and do what Stormwings did. I guess Ret noticed this because he offered to lead us over to a small tributary of the Vassa that he knew about, so he could water his horse, and so I more importantly could wash off the blood. As we walked we started to talk.

"What will I do when I find my father? I if find him." I asked, "Will you be safe from me once that happens? Are you sure you want to keep going with me? I mean you saw what happened back there, we'll be seeing a lot more of that, are you sure--"

"Calm down Jazika," he interjected, "Yes I'm sure I want to continue with you. I've got nothing better t'do."

"Gee, thanks." I drawled.

He laughed, and said "Well, here we are. How do ya aim on washing that blood off though?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Well it involves you turning around…"

He laughed again and complied, tying up his mare and starting a smokeless campfire. I walked a little ways downstream, behind an over hanging willow that had grown very conveniently so that it's branches made almost a curtain around a small section of stream. Draping my clothes over a branch, I jumped in. The water was freezing! I couldn't touch my wings, so I just swished them around, hoping that the blood would come off nicely.

For some reason this particular kill disturbed me. It wasn't the first time I'd killed a man, and it wouldn't be that last, but the way…and the atmosphere, it chilled me. How many times would I kill before the end of my lifetime? Thousands? It was theoreticly possible I could live for centuries upon centuries. Could I watch everyone I knew grow old and die while I remained eternally youthful? Being a half-human I doubted that I would ever have friends among the Stormwings. I barely lasted 4 years without human contact, could I last centuries? Would it be better to just forget this search and die at 16?

The smell from the cook-fire roused me from my train of thoughts. I shivered from the cold and stepped out from the stream shaking myself off. I fanned my wings to dry myself off somewhat and quickly dressed in my still somewhat clean clothes. As I walked over to the fire, Ret was eating silently. I sat down beside him and gazed into the fire, entranced by the flames. The last thought that snuck into my mind before I slipped into my dreams was, would it be better if I stopped looking? Would it…?

There ya'll go. A new chapter. I'm so shocked with myself. So much Inspiration hitting me at one time. It's crazy. I'm used to going 7 months at a time without writing a single thing except random bad poetry. Yes, that's how bad my periods of un-inspiration are. I'm dead serious. I started all my fics in one crazy month of writing, plus I also started like 6 others then that I haven't even written down yet. I wasn't ever expecting to follow up on these….

Awwww… my chapters are getting shorter and shorter. I'll try and make the next one longer k?