A large, black bird lit on a tall branch overlooking the Milago village. The sun glinted off its beak as it turned its head to watch the progress of two individuals approaching the edge of the forest. A man and a girl.

Anyone watching would assume that they were residents of the village. He, however, knew they did not belong here. They were just as anomalous to this place as him.

Saint Dane watched the pair of Travelers exchange a few words. The man seemed to offer her some assurance before turning to the forest, leaving her alone.

My, my, abandoning the girl so soon? At least Pendragon had had Loor and that fool Osa to tend to him. The girl must have already grasped the gift of tongues; otherwise Press would never have left her on her own.

He toyed with the idea of giving her a proper introduction to the territory, and just how savage it could be. However, Press would be nearing the Bedoowan village before long, and there were preparations to be made. He thought back to Pendragon's own experiences on this territory. The quigs, the Transfers, the arena…

Lacking a human face, Saint Dane smirked inwardly. Never mind; there would be plenty of time to give the girl a proper initiation to the Traveler lifestyle. For now he simply sat, taking a moment to watch her. He expected her to turn and head straight back into the village. Instead, she stood stationary, looking vaguely in its direction. Saint Dane was curious, and with a swift, fluid motion, he was airborne.

He flew towards her, using the northern sun to backlight him and hide his motion. It was unnecessary, as the girl was hardly paying attention to her surroundings. She appeared deep in thought, and with his sharp eyes Saint Dane picked out a series of emotions cross her face, most of them incomprehensible. He thought he saw a brief flash of fear flash in her eyes, but then it was gone. In its place was weak determination, shadowed by uncertainty. Impressive though her fledgling independence was – She had clearly consented to staying here and gathering information on her own – he still felt a stab of disgust.

Whoever this new spirit – Aria – was, she was just the same as the rest. Weak. Idealistic. Selfish…presumably. While he had had the advantage of knowing Pendragon from his earliest days, Press had kept this girl too well hidden. She truly was unknown to him. One of their new strategies, he assumed, keeping the lead Traveler hidden until she was ready to fight.

He was curious, though. He had assumed that Pendragon would be mentoring the lead traveler, that obnoxious boy from Second Earth. Theron. Now, he was a promising opponent, but it seemed that this girl was to take up the mantle instead. Or perhaps it wasn't settled?

With a quiet trill, he circled overhead, watching as she started to make her way into town.

A sliver of anger broke through his musings, and he let out a short screech. Perhaps the emotion was ahead of its time, but it mattered little. Pendragon started out just as ignorant, just as clueless. In time, she would become just as arrogant and self-righteous as he had. As little as he knew about the girl, Press's actions said enough. That he had left her alone so soon spoke volumes, and Saint Dane knew that she possessed the inner strength necessary to fight him. Though it was by no means her fault that she had been thrown into this struggle, he intended to hold her accountable, nonetheless.

She would learn the price of her unwitting defiance before too long.

The thought of vengeance soothed him, and the anger was quelled. With another sharp screech, he wheeled away over the forest, towards the Bedoowan town, to prepare for the arrival of his old friend.

Aria heard a screech overhead, and glanced up in time to see a large black bird sailing away towards the forest. She watched it with mild interest until it was out of sight, then turned to go into the village. Bird-watching had always been one of her hobbies.

She sighed, wondering where to begin. Should she just walk up to the first person she saw and start asking questions? Should she try to find some sort of town square where people gathered to socialize? Should she seek out Alder now, or wait to find him until she had gathered a decent amount of information from the townsfolk?

She felt like if she found Alder first, she would be tempted to accept his knowledge as fact and leave it at that. Instead, she shook herself off and decided to just dive right into it – like ripping off a Band-Aid.

She took a deep breath and, before she could stop herself, walked up to the first person she saw and introduced herself.

"Good morning," she said cheerfully to the woman she had approached. The woman was perhaps a head taller than her, with grey-streaked blond hair tied back in a pony-tail. She was carrying a basket covered with a cloth, and the aroma of freshly-baked bread wafted out of it. Aria thought she looked like she could be a mom, and sure enough, a moment later three children came sprinting out of a nearby house, zeroing in on her and shouting as they tried to line up behind her.

"I'm behind mom –"

"No, me! Me!"

"Arrrghamamama!"

The oldest of them, a boy of perhaps twelve, was carrying another basket covered with a cloth, pushing at his younger sister's forehead and trying to force her into line behind him. She was meeting him, quite literally, head on, ardently trying to force her way to the front of the line right behind her mother. The youngest, who couldn't have been more than three and didn't seem to have much of a handle on words yet, just babbled and watched happily as his siblings tussled.

The woman, who had turned to Aria in mild surprise, looked back at her children and sighed. "Calm down you three. Tirk!" She said, clearly addressing the oldest boy. "Keep an eye on your brother. Sera, you take the basket and walk with me."

The girl, who was around ten, looked equal parts happy and annoyed. Happy because she got the place in front, but annoyed because she had to carry the basket. The three looked like they were about to start arguing again, but the woman merely raised an eyebrow, and they obediently took their places in line, occasionally throwing rude facial expressions at each other and generally being children.

It made Aria smile to see that families were families no matter where you went. Then she looked back as the woman made to address her.

"Good morning," she said politely as she started walking. Aria followed, keeping to her left. "Were you looking for something? You seem a bit lost."

Aria shrugged slightly and said, "I'm not really looking for anything in particular. I just arrived in this village last night, so I don't know anything about it." The woman looked at her in mild surprise, and she added, "My uncle and I stayed at the inn last night."

"Your uncle?" The woman replied, glancing around.

"Yeah, he's not here at the moment…I'm on my own for the day." She decided it would be better not to add that he had gone up to the Bedoowan town – at least for the moment.

"Hmm." The woman looked thoughtful, and replied, "Well, I'm taking my children to the marketplace, if you'd care to join us. Where are you from?"

Aria felt a stab of relief. A marketplace sounded like the perfect place to find out what the village climate was like. "I would love to. My uncle and I are from a village over the mountain. We're here visiting for…" she paused. Her uncle hadn't told her how long they'd be staying. "…A few days, and would love to get to know more about the area."

"A village over the mountain? What is it called?"

Aria said the first name that came to mind, and hoped the woman wouldn't recognize a lie. "Granite Bay."

"Granite Bay? I've never heard of it."

Aria was a terrible liar. Her heart started racing and she pushed her hair back from her face. If she had to keep this up much longer she would begin sweating big time. "Oh, yeah. It's a small village, quite a ways away. It's by a huge lake, where the fish run all year round. We get quite rich from selling them. Terrible bear problems, though." That lie came easily enough. Granite Bay was the closest town to Lumis, and their high school mascot was the bear. They were nowhere near a lake, really, but it was an affluent area. Bunch of stupid, stuck-up rich kids.

She smiled and looked down at her shoes, then glanced behind them to look at the kids. They had obviously overheard the conversation and were watching her with great interest. Well, the two older ones were. The little one was happily watching a butterfly, stumbling along and largely being held up by his brother.

She guessed they didn't get many visitors, considering how treacherous the mountain was. She hoped her story would hold up.

As it was, the woman didn't seem to have any problems with it. "Well I'm sorry to hear that. We have animal problems ourselves here – not many, usually, but the last few months it's been worse. My husband is a hunter."

Aria was about to ask what had caused the recent animal problems when the girl, Sera, piped up from the back. "My dad brought home a wolf pelt big enough to cover my whole bed! It was huge! He's the best hunter ever!" The little one in the back seemed to agree, making some garbled noises that sounded vaguely like, 'bebunder berver!'

The woman glanced back and raised an eyebrow, looking like she was about the scold the girl for interrupting. Aria quickly intervened. "My name is Aria, by the way." She offered the woman her hand before remembering that she was carrying a large, possibly heavy basket.

The woman turned back to her and looked down at the extended hand curiously. Maybe they didn't do handshakes here. She withdrew the appendage. "Chariti. Welcome to our village."

Aria realized that the village didn't seem to have a name. Odd. She guessed 'the Milago village' was identification enough, but still. Maybe they wouldn't start naming their villages until they built another Milago village. Or maybe they would just call it, 'the other Milago village'. Who knew?

Aria asked her what had caused the animal problem. According to Chariti, the Tryptite shortage meant that there were fewer night patrols around the village, which meant that the nocturnal predators had become more comfortable encroaching upon the surrounding area.

Tryptite again.

"Tryptite…that's the stuff that glows, right? The stuff the streetlights are made out of?" She already knew this, but if she was going to be thorough, she may as well start from the beginning.

The woman looked a bit confused. "Streetlights?"

Aria could have face-palmed. Streetlights were obviously an Earth thing. Instead, she pointed to one of the now-dormant light-sources.

The woman followed her finger. "Ah, yes, those. We used to have more, but the shortage has been so bad lately that most of them have been taken down. Just enough are left up to give the knights light to patrol by." She frowned slightly when she said this.

"Oh, yeah. We ran into a couple of them last night." At the woman's intrigued glance, she clarified, "We arrived past curfew."

The woman seemed curious. "I see. And what did you think of them?" She asked, looking at Aria closely.

Woah. She was supposed to be the one looking for answers, but it seemed like Chariti wanted to know how the guards had treated her. Aria noticed that she had seemed slightly perturbed when mentioning the night patrol. Wondering what the woman would think of her description, Aria replied, "They seemed nice enough. One of them was a bit rude, but he seemed more irritated than angry. The other one was very helpful and escorted us to the inn." She didn't want to make it sound like the guard had been pushy or insistent. He really had been helpful.

They had been walking for a while, and the children seemed to have lost interest. Tirk, the older one, had picked up his younger brother, who was now riding around on his shoulders. They were swaying a bit uneasily as Tirk struggled with his new load, but the child was giggling and grabbing at his brother's hair. They stumbled off the road and onto the grass, and Tirk swiped his brother off of his shoulders before they could fall and deposited him safely on the ground.

There were tangles of green plants topped with small orange flowers by the roadside, and the little one began struggling to pull one up. Before they could lag too far behind, Tirk rolled his eyes, yanked the whole plant up, root and all, and gave it to his little brother, who promptly went berserk with happiness. Aria smiled and turned back to Chatiri.

The woman nodded thoughtfully. Aria hoped that she may get to hear her opinion about the night patrols, and wasn't disappointed. "A lot of people are upset about the patrols. They've always been there, keeping the village safe at night, but lately they've been much heavier. It's because of the curfew…" She trailed off, looking worried.

That was disconcerting. "The curfew is just because of the Tryptite shortage, though, right? And to keep people safe because of the animal problem?"

Chariti nodded, still looking concerned. "That's what they say, and they may have good intentions, but…" She trailed off, eyes darkening. "We haven't had a curfew in a very long time."

Aria blinked in confusion, then realized that Chariti may have been talking about the time before the tribes were united. She definitely looked old enough to have lived through it if it was only 15 years ago. "What do you mean?" She wanted clarification. She was curious to hear a first-hand account of the old Bedoowan rule.

Chariti glanced at her. "How much do you know about our village, and its history?"

Aria was cautious about explaining too much. She was, after all, supposed to be new here. "I've heard that those Bedoowan guys used to…" She wondered if there was a sensitive and polite way to say, 'rule you with an iron fist'. "Govern over you guys."

Chariti snorted. "Govern over us? They enslaved us. They forced us to work to death in their mines, and used the products of our labors to make themselves rich and fat. Do you know what Glaze is?" Aria nodded. "Well, back before the Great Battle," Aria thought that 'Great Battle' sounded like it should be capitalized, like the name of a major historical event. "The Bedoowan used to perform 'Transfers'. They would take whatever we had found that day and weigh it against one of our miners." Her voice had grown steadily softer, and Aria realized that she didn't want her children overhearing what she was saying.

Aria glanced back. Sera and Tirk were both trying to listen in, but were also trying not to be noticed. When Aria looked back at them, they quickly lagged a bit further behind, obviously fearing their mother's wrath should she notice them eavesdropping. The little one was still dragging his plant around happily.

She turned back to Chariti and leaned in closer, and she continued, "If the glaze we mined did not weigh as much as the miner, then he was thrown down the mineshaft."

Aria was horrified. Press had said the Bedoowan were bad, but that was gruesome. She wondered if the woman had lost anyone to the ritual, and felt a pang of grief for a person that she didn't even know.

As though that weren't enough, Chariti apparently had more to say. "The entire town was forced to gather each day and watch the event. Even the children. I was little more than a child myself when the Transfers started…"

Suddenly the woman looked tired; Aria wondered how she, or any of the Milago, managed to live with the Bedoowan so peacefully.

She asked, and Chariti sighed and said, "Not all Bedoowan were so cruel. In fact many of them did not even know that the Transfers took place." Suddenly she got a fierce look in her eyes. "Most of them knew about the Arena, though."

Aria was about to ask what the Arena was, but suddenly she was interrupted. A voice called out, "Chariti! Thank goodness you are here! I thought I would surely starve to death if you did not arrive. I was already in the process of building my funeral pyre!"

Aria glanced around. That they had arrived on the outskirts of an open, crowded area. The marketplace, presumably. She noticed the man who had called out approaching them. He was fairly tall, with wide blue eyes and smile lines around his face. Chariti barely glanced at him as she continued walking. "Hello, Dellon. What a loss that would have been." Though she said it in a sarcastic tone, Aria could tell that she wasn't really bothered by him.

The man feigned an expression of deep pain. "Ah! Such cold and callous words! What would your children think, if I were to die?" As he said this the three rushed over to him with happy shouts.

The little one yelled something like, "Unccadel! Unccadel!" It sounded vaguely like, 'Uncle Dell', and Aria wondered if they weren't related. She glanced at Chariti.

Chariti rolled her eyes and clarified, "My husband's brother." Aria nodded, trying to hide a smile.

Though he himself was carrying a basket in one hand, he reached down and scooped up the little on in his other arm, saying, "Ah, little Tinil! I pray that your mother treats you far better than she treats me! Clearly she does, though, because if she didn't, you would surely have long since starved to death. As it is," he said, letting out a small huff of air before depositing the child on his shoulder, "You are quite heavy!"

Chariti snorted.

Aria stepped back and watched the exchange. The man, Dellon, chatted with the children while Chariti looked on, barely restraining a smile. Their previous conversation was clearly forgotten, and Aria decided that she could find out more from the other villagers. Chariti and Dellon got into a mock argument over the price of her bread, and at last, with many moans of self-pity, Dellon parted with a few quills and bought half a loaf of bread from her.

As he left, (much to the disappointment of the children), Aria walked back over to thank Chariti for her help.

"Not at all…Aria, was it?"

Aria nodded.

"Hmm. What a strange name. Well, I hope that you enjoy your stay in the village. Do you have a place to stay?"

"Er, I think my uncle knows someone who lives here…do you know anyone named Alder, by the way?"

Chariti thought about it for a moment, then said, "I'm afraid not. This isn't a large place, though. I'm sure if you ask around, you'll find him." As she swapped her bread basket from one hand to the other, the smell of the bread wafted up and hit Aria full on, eliciting a loud growl from her fairly empty stomach. Aria blushed.

Chariti smiled and asked, "Well, I'm glad that you have a place to stay, but do you have enough money to eat?"

Aria replied, "Actually, I lost most of my supplies on the mountain, and my uncle's the one carrying the money." Technically, this was true.

Chariti paused, then smiled. "Here, take this. Hopefully it will tide you over until you find him, or your friend." As she said this she pulled out the other half of the bread loaf she had sold to Dellon, and offered it to her.

Aria's eyes widened, and she said, "Oh, I couldn't…"

Her stomach disagreed, and rumbled loudly again.

Chariti laughed, and said, "Don't worry about it. Our family is far from poor. We can afford it."

Aria blinked, and said gratefully, "Thank you very much." She took the bread and stole a quick bite. It was still warm, and crunched lightly in her mouth. It was delicious. Her enjoyment must have shown on her face because Sera suddenly piped up.

"My mama makes the best bread ever."

Chariti looked sharply at her daughter, but Aria grinned and said, "I can't help but agree," to which Chariti couldn't help but laugh.

With a few goodbyes, Chariti and her children were on their way. Aria stood in the sunshine, munching on her bread, feeling warm in more ways than one. She decided to find some shade to stand in while she ate, but as she looked around she realized that there was almost no shade at all.

That didn't make sense. After all, the sun was right…

She looked up to find its position in the sky, and her jaw dropped.

That's too many! She thought as she looked around in confusion. There were three of them. Three freakin' suns.

How had she missed that?

The enormity of the situation suddenly hit her. She was standing alone, in a village that could belong in the Dark Ages, surrounded by people whose culture and history was so different from her own that she stood no chance at relating to them, and to top it all off, she was on a completely different planet. A different planet. Her uncle had told her this already, yes, but it hadn't really meant anything to her. It was such an, forgive the pun, alien concept to her that the words themselves may as well have been gibberish.

And she was alone.

She stood for a moment, panic threatening to overwhelm her again, when she noticed Chariti's youngest, Tinil, watching her from across the road. His mother stood with his back to them, bartering with another villager, and the other two children were looking at some toys another woman was selling.

Suddenly, Tinil ran over to her, the orange flower his brother had picked for him still clamped tightly in his small fist. When he reached her, he thrust the flower at her, smiling widely. He was missing his two front teeth. It was fairly adorable.

She blinked, and took the plant, flowers, roots, and all. Before she could say, "thank you," he had turned around and dashed madly back to his mother, wrapped his arms around her leg and buried his face in her clothes shyly.

Aria blinked again, and she looked at the flower he had given her. She thought about the way he and his siblings had played and argued on their way to the market, and about the teasing exchange between Chariti and her brother-in-law. It dawned on Aria that, as strange as this place was, it really wasn't completely alien.

The panic began to slide away. She looked at the bread Chariti had given her, stuffed the last bite in her mouth, and smiled.

She decided the suns didn't really matter. She plucked off a stem of flowers off the plant, stuck it behind her ear, and dove into the mass of people.