Disclaimer: "...It is because of the fewness of women among them that the kind of the Dwarves increases slowly, and is in peril when they have no secure dwellings. For Dwarves take only one..." I don't own anything. Including the appendixes from LOTR.

Warnings: Minor swearing, tiny clip from Book 5 again, the altering of the beloved series of Dragon Knights.

Beta-ed by Kayla

:n:

news; letter

:n:

Alfeegi strode back and forth across the room. There was a tension to the air that he did not like. It was almost unnoticeable, faint, drifting in upon the winds that were coming uncharacteristically from the west.

From the sea...

He shook his head, willing his mind to focus on the more immediate matters at hand. There was work to be done in the castle, and this minor headache was not bad enough to excuse his lack of productivity.

The officer paused beside his desk, hand barely brushing against its polished mahogany surface. It hovered next to the ink well, half filled with the dark liquid, then pulled back.

He sighed.

The Dragon Lord was in a meeting about the hints of trouble they had been receiving from the north, and what he was feeling was just that: a feeling. It was nothing; nothing to base a report or send Dragon Fighters on a mission over. What would he recommend Tetheus have them search for?

Alfeegi shook his head, the nagging clouding of his thoughts beginning to clear. Pulling out a piece of official parchment, he picked up his quill, tapping it against the ink well once, twice, to remove any excess drops.

Then, still standing, he began to pen a brief memo to himself, noting down that if this vague premonition was still bothering him by the end of the day he would find an excuse to urge Tetheus to look into the activities along their western coast.

There was a soft knock upon his closed door. Not a loud announcement or proclamation, the sort that he himself was apt to give in order to attract the wandering attention of the other members of his clan, or the polite rap that Lykouleon might use to let his presence be felt. This was a quiet, muted, almost stroking tap.

Alfeegi turned towards the sound hesitantly and was startled at himself for doing so.

"Come in," he commanded.

The door swung open quietly, a tall and skinny man standing in the frame the space created.

Alfeegi stopped himself from raising an eyebrow questioningly as Avis Laira, the castle's head doctor, stepped into his study.

"What is it?"

The man moved closer towards him, almost unnaturally smooth eyes looking at him with consideration.

"I was wondering," he started in his low, soft voice, "Whether you had noticed anything... out of the ordinary."

Alfeegi narrowed his eyes slightly. While he had no reason to mistrust the other, his sudden appearance was beginning to make him uneasy.

"Why?" He asked curtly, casually covering his note with the blank sheet of paper lying next to it.

"No reason." The large, sad eyes met and held the White Dragon Officer's, seemingly searching his mind.

"It was just that I had heard a rumor."

A rumor?

"What? Tell me," Alfeegi snapped out of worried suspicion, immediately becoming once more the authoritative figure he was most often seen as.

Avis Laira was silent. Just as Alfeegi was going to command him to speak of what he knew, he began to talk in a soft, almost sing-song, voice.

"A rumor of Arinas. No, not of the lost continent. Of the islands between it and Dusis. Rumor has it that your Dragon Knight was seen headed over the ocean, towards the west."

Something stirred in the back of the Officer's mind.

'Your Dragon Knight'...?

It was pushed aside as the other man continued talking, almost in a whisper by this point.

"A rumor of battle. Of demons. Of falling." His voice was now echoing in the sudden still.

The air seemed cold.

"...Falling..."

Time snapped back to its regular pace, the faint background noises of birds in the gardens, maids hurrying down the halls, and someone whistling to themselves as they walked by under the window of the study penetrating the eerie silence, breaking it up into no more than a fragment of the imagination.

Alfeegi blinked his eyes open, not realizing they had been closed.

"Wh-what are you saying?" he asked, nerves both making his voice slip and his eyes narrow.

Avis Laira shrugged, his hands slipping easily into his pockets.

"I just thought you should know."

Suddenly, spontaneously, Alfeegi noticed that the doctor was fingering something, toying with it in his hidden hand.

Realization began to hit upon him, and he spoke harshly.

"What are you doing?"

Giving him an innocent look, pale eyes shimmering violet, the slender man withdrew a small...

Hazelnut?

Alfeegi stared at it.

What on Dusis was going on?

First the premonitions, then the convenient interruption and eerie conversation, now... This?

Taking it from the outstretched hand, he studied it briefly.

It did seem ordinary. Just a plain hazelnut.

On a sudden impulse, he held it up to the light streaming in through the window above his orderly desk.

It flickered.

Alfeegi began to cough, short gasps for breath as the oxygen in the room seemed to suddenly swirl with an abnormal amount of dust. Finally opening his slightly teary eyes, he looked up.

The message about Tetheus was gone from his desk.

He was alone.

Well, of course. Why wouldn't he be?

Puzzling briefly over his momentary thought that he had had company, Alfeegi coughed dryly again, brushing some of the still floating dust motes from the air around his face.

Hadn't there been something he had wanted to look into...?

"I'll have to talk to Cernozura about how the maids are cleaning this room," he muttered darkly.

:n:

"Lord Kharl!"

A short human boy, unnaturally colored hair lashing behind him as he ran, for all the world like the tail of an irate cat, shouted in the echoing stone hallways.

"Lord Kharl!"

He skidded to a halt, arms crossed over his thin chest, only slightly out of breath and sending a vicious glare to the yokai towering over him.

"Yes, Garfakcy?"

"What was that about?" He snapped, moving his hands to his hips, not at all daunted by the momentary irritated glance sent his way by the demon.

"What was what?" Kharl asked placidly, taking in with amusement the way Garfakcy twitched with annoyance at this obvious feint at ignorance.

"It's hard enough to deal with you when you're actually being stupid. You don't need to play at it as well."

The demon laughed at this: an odd blend of enthrallment and cool contempt.

"What were you thinking?" The human boy went on, pointedly ignoring his master's amusement, "You practically told," his voice rose with the emphasis and unconcealed disgust, "That Dragon what you were planning!"

Kharl stated calmly, "I did not."

Sweeping past his servant, long white robe brushing against the dirt-free floor, he continued talking, forcing the other to almost jog to keep up with his longer strides.

"I merely informed him of what I had heard. I never even mentioned what I had been working on. Besides, I erased his memory."

"Merely informed him of what you had heard, my foot," the boy muttered, choosing to ignore the other's last distracted protest.

"Garfakcy," Kharl smiled, his short attention span already starting to wander away from the topic at hand. "Did I show you my latest invention?"

"If you mean those capsules for carrying your spells, they aren't new and I'll be damned if I'll let you try them out on me."

The demon's smile drew tighter, the light in his eyes becoming more focused.

"No." Kharl paused in his stride, "It's something else. It is far more interesting that that."

"'Interesting?'" The human boy raised a questioning eyebrow, his previous anger ebbing suddenly away. "What do you mean? Lord Kharl?"

His response was the light facade of a laugh.

"You'll see."

:n:

"They did what?" A high, cold voice asked, dripping with unconcealed scorn.

"They opened a portal in order to return to Kainaldia?"

"Hardly unusual, Shyrendora," its counterpart spoke, the underlying rhythm and melody of the words eerily similar to the prior, while an octave lower. "They needed to report. And you cannot deny that what they had to say was not without value."

The two generals were speaking in a locked room, its plain white walls giving it a feel of thin sterilized clean, as if they had been recently bleached to eat away any hidden stains. The marble floor underfoot was icy to the touch; the dry air crisp.

Shydeman stood, walking smoothly over to the large arching window in the room, a pale hand reaching out to brush aside the long deep crimson curtains.

He cast a cool stare down upon the jagged Kainaldian landscape.

"They should not have opened a portal," Shyrendora continued, "The Dragon Clan is already aware of our activity. They should have returned as quickly as possible without use of excess magic that would draw attention to them."

"Then they would have been spotted as they flew overhead," he returned calmly, still gazing almost lazily at the ground far below.

When she did not respond immediately, instead glaring at the small of his back, Shydeman smirked to himself, the gesture apparent in his voice.

"But as it is, we not only know that the Dragon Clan's forces are disabled, we have received something that could... come in handy."

The chill in the air intensified: a frosting of winter's breath over thin glass.

It misted over, glinted off of, a small sheen of dusty metal barely visible under a loosely draped white cloth.

"Don't you agree, Shyrendora?"

:n:

A/N: Don't you love Kharl? He rules. Expect to see a lot of him in here. n-n While he won't be in every chapter, he will be making frequent appearances. n-n

:n:

Gack! I forgot to do this:trying to quickly add in:

Sarehptar: Really? You didn't like that book? I loved it. non I thought the Wings sequence was breathtaking. :still in love with it: And Kharl SHOULD appear more often. :gets annoyed waiting for him to be shown: He was in here a lot. n-n

Kayla:sweatdrop: Too lazy to write out the other name... Yup, this was the idea I was mentioning. XD And thanks for bugging me about getting you the next chapter!

Peophin-chan: I know what you mean. :nods: And this was soon. VERY soon for me, as I'm sure you know. XD It was longer, too. ..My friend always says "hobey-ho". But she also calls herself a "smelly smurf". o-oa :does not understand:

Angstluver: I'm glad you like it. n-n ...And that face (0o0) looks so cool... :gives biscuit for showing her the face:

Hououza: Thank you for the luck and wishes. I'm supposed to be doing a self portrait for art. I'm a bit nervous, as I need to use acrylic paint...:not sure how to do that:

Kage Tenshi: You have a cool name. n-n Hehe... This was VERY soon!