One more chapter up again yay! Anyway, just to let you know next chapter we will meet one of my "complex" characters which is…. waits for dramatic effect… Loeiza which will later on in the chapters be followed by Haelori with a bit of Hai thrown in

Enjoy

P.S I wrote this chapter fairly fast but I think it came out ok. If I look at it too much I'll just waste my time and rewrite it like 3 or 4 times… Adralan is too complicated sometimes

Adralan didn't know how to tell Bastian that Máire had refused him. She walked up to him tentatively as she saw his shadowed figure still hiding in the path that they had taken earlier. She took a deep breath as she braced herself for what was to come. He could either believe that Máire had indeed denied him or call her a liar and prove it for himself. Adralan could only hope that he was wise enough to believe her.

"What did she say? Did she agree?" he asked as he pulled Adralan into the path with him.

Adralan took a moment to answer as she thought of the best way to tell him. "I don't think she was quite up for it." She remembered the frantic state in which Máire had switched from. The girl had a problem and it was not with Bastian or with her family it was merely with herself. Whatever Bastian must have seen in her must have been something extraordinary that Adralan would never be able to pinpoint.

"What do you mean…?" Bastian asked, still unable to grasp the meaning of Adralan's words.

"Well," she was unsure of how to say it, "I gave her the letter. She read it and then went raving on about how she cannot stand dishonor. And then she something about being tricked… and the Serpiente ways and that you tricked her—"

"Tricked her!" Bastian nearly shouted.

Adralan jumped back at the sudden outburst and then heard Bastian apologize. Still, it left her startled and she stepped back before she was caught in his fury.

"I never tricked her into anything… not once! And now she lays the blame on me?" he paced back and forth almost as of Adralan wasn't there to witness his rage. He kicked one of the shrubs. He went on about Máire and how she had come to him and Adralan could only catch the words liar, wanton, and cheat among a few other things. Finally, almost is every single emotion in him had been drained out, he sank on the loose gravel and placed his face in his hands.

Adralan bent down to his lever and looked him at. She had no experiences in mending lover's quarrels but she had seen enough of them to know the pain that they could possibly feel. It was such scenarios that only made her grateful to have never had such a terrifying experience.

"Bastian," she said gently, "did you really like her that much? To me she seemed to be almost completely selfish and half mad even."

Bastian took his hands from his face and looked distant as he shook his head. "I knew she had conflicts with her alistair. She would come to me and we would speak. One time she let me kiss her… she looked perfect and I thought she might feel something for me as well. Her family lives here and tries to mingle with the other Serpiente but her father is still strict in the old ways and found her an alistair from the Keep. When she let me go further… I thought it meant she wanted me over her alistair. Now she says I tricked her?" he scoffed.

Adralan shook her head. "You cannot just fall in love with beauty… It serves for nothing in the end." She looked down at the gravel and though for a moment of Lea. She was the perfect example of how beauty serves for nothing. "My mother's guard, Lea," Bastian looked at Adralan as she began to speak softly, "was a great beauty back when my father was still in exile. When the ordeal for the leader of the pack in which my father ended up winning, she was rumored to be the next queen. The one before her was weak and frail. And my mother, she was to be ordained as the successor of our pack's seer and healer. Sadly, Lea was savagely attacked by one of the other females and my mother helped her…"

Lea had told Adralan the story of how she was grateful to her mother for what she had done for her that day. She had also told her of the remorse she felt when she thought of all the selfish things she had said to Auria before the traumatic experience.

Adralan continued. "It was a humbling experience for Lea and she succumbed to the life of being my mother's guard. But before I left, she told confessed to me that she plans to leave her position as my mother's guard to someone else. That she met someone who accepts her as she is, despite her shortcomings."

"Why doesn't she just leave now? Why wait?" Bastian asked.

Adralan could not help but laugh. "She needs time to tell my mother of her plans. She wants me to help her in doing so."

"Your mother sounds terrifying." Bastian said innocently.

"Yes, but she is a good queen and the people love her. She trusts Lea with her life and no one else."

Bastian bent his head down as he thought. He then smiled weakly. "Sort of like my mother and Nicias. He is not even her official guard anymore but he still lingers to keep watch on her…"

Nicias, the name sounded familiar and Adralan recognized him as the handsome blonde man that had accompanied the queen in her arrival.

"I suppose after the death of my father, everyone was left in a state of shock… and Nicias stepped in to fill the void."

Yes, the death to which Loeiza was witness. Adralan knew the incident all to well. She had heard of as a child growing up. She closed her eyes and in a flash, she could see her father dying as well and the image sent shivers down her spine. Quickly she opened her eyes, telling herself that it was merely her imagination and not a vision. But that was silly knowing she did not posses such power to have the sight.

"Are you feeling better?" she asked him.

He shrugged and glanced at the direction where the northern hills were. "I said I would forget her…" he shrugged again.

"I suppose beauty is my weakness then." He said as he laughed himself. Effortlessly, he picked himself up from the gravel and helped Adralan do the same. His garnet locked with hers for a moment as she rose and then he looked away quickly. "So what of you?" he asked as they began to walk out of the path. "Ever experienced something like I just went through with Máire?"

"Never and I am not eager to." She quickly responded as she found the subject uncomfortable.

"Never?" Bastian asked amazed. "Don't you think happiness is worth the risk?"

Adralan laughed softly to hide her growing discomfort. "Happiness at the risk of unhappiness? No."

"You are afraid." He said as he studied her carefully, trying to figure something out by just looking at her. Adralan looked away and avoided his gaze.

"I am not afraid… I just simply know the final result is always that. Those reckless emotions amount to nothing in the end. A union with mutual interests in mind is better but not emotions. Look at you Bastian, are you any happier now that this is over with?"

He shook his head but grinned. "I took the risk and knew what I would get myself into. But this has also served to strengthen me… teach me a lesson. But you think that by avoiding it you will not hurt."

"Relationships work but only if the decision to get into one is carefully thought out. Zeev and Dhalia were never reckless and they are the perfect example of a good union. On the other hand…" she trailed off as she thought of Valeska and then strangely, of her mother as well. She hated to think of her mother and the memories of her childhood. She wanted to forget.

"On the other hand what?" he asked, pressing to hear more.

And in that moment, it was out. Somehow the conversation began to eat away at her and the thoughts which she had only kept to herself came pouring out. It was something organic, as if the mood, Bastian and all her dreary surroundings helped in her outburst.

"My mother and father were the ideal union in our pack, their union was foretold. And yet I find no happiness in their eyes when I see them look at each other. My mother adores him but I know my father no longer does. I fear he never did. When I was a child, there were faint rumors that he had acquired another lover and my mother, I think she went mad with grief for a while… she sent us away and changed everything about her for him. Do you think that I want to become like her? People already say how much I remind them of my mother… of how she used to be… and now I have this decision looming before me…" She meant Damek but somehow felt no need to mention him. "And you, in love with Máire, a self-obsessed dim-wit who cares nothing for you. So ignorant to the point of asking me to see the future for her, to see if her shame for being with you will haunt her forever… I find no happiness in anything like that…" she trailed off and found herself in Bastian's arms. She didn't know when it was that she had gotten there but she enjoyed the comfort her gave her.

"You are not your mother." He whispered gently in an attempt to sooth her.

"I am a disappointment to her… I know that I am. They say I am like her but she looks at me and I just KNOW. She hates the fact that I dance because she hates Valeska…" she gave a quiet sob.

Bastian pulled away from Adralan and looked into her face. Gently, he wiped a tear that had slid down her check with his thumb and looked into her silver grey eyes.

"Do you remember when we were children? You didn't care about what your mother thought then. Neither of us did." He smiled and Adralan smiled faintly in return. "And now that I see you again, you were wound so tight that you barely resembled that carefree girl I had once known… the little carefree girl that I had liked so much.

Adralan looked down on her feet as she remembered. "I'm sorry." She said as she pulled away from him. She didn't like the feeling of comfort he gave, something that emanated from him so easily. She didn't like the way he looked at her or the way he touched her face. But what she didn't like at all was how much she wanted him to stay near her.

She cleared the few tears away from her face and kept him at arm's length. "I didn't mean to break down like that but it's just so much…"

"Pressure?" Bastian finished for her. He kept his voice light heard, as if nothing had happened and looked at her.

"Yes." Adralan smiled.

They began to walk back out of the path and towards the palace.

"Don't worry," he said. "Emotions do not scare me away. But I wonder, if you let all those things you said about Máire be known to her?"

The question was unexpected after what had happened but Adralan gave a grinned weakly. "To some extent…"

As they reached the end of the path and saw the Wvyern palace looming before them, he said. "I would have loved to see the look on her face at that sudden outburst as well."