She was being stalked.

She knew she was being stalked, because the person stalking her was nearly as large as a refrigerator, and about as stealthy as one.

It was one of Jani's posse – the big one. Dakka, if Aria wasn't mistaken. Jani was the ringleader. Rill was the rat-like one with the wooden nose-ring. Dakka was the one you didn't want sitting on you.

Unfortunately, it looked like that might end up happening if Aria didn't take care. She had noticed the bulky girl several times, and each time Dakka had tried to disappear into the crowds. She managed it, too... eventually. Stealth clearly wasn't her strong suit. Aria tried to keep losing her in the crowds, bee-lining away from the massive girl whenever she saw her – which was often – but the great galoot just kept popping up.

Aria sighed, feeling simultaneously annoyed and nervous. She really didn't want a repeat performance of yesterday, sans one Alder, but it really was a sad attempt at hiding. Dakka was clearly going to a lot of trouble to not be noticed, though, so Aria did her best to try to pretend she didn't see her extremely obvious stalker. Meanwhile, she tried to figure out why Dakka was following her in the first place.

Clearly Jani was serious about wanting revenge. For what, Aria wasn't quite sure. She still didn't understand what she had done to evoke the girl's anger. She had been thinking about it since she first saw Dakka ducking clumsily behind a large cart of vegetables, and she was still stumped. Jani didn't seem to want her snooping around, but Aria was still trying to puzzle out what it might be that Jani didn't want her discovering.

A thought occurred to her. Could Jani, or one of the others, be Saint Dane in disguise?

She turned her head just in time to see Dakka diving headfirst behind a pile of logs. One of the logs fell in the commotion, and from behind the pile Aria heard a quickly stifled oof of pain.

Staring for a few moments, Aria shook her head and sighed.

She made her way away from Dakka once again, and glanced up at the sky for the umpteenth time that morning. It still wasn't close to noon. She really wanted Alder to get there so she could stop having to worry about getting jumped. She highly doubted that she was really in any danger; how could anyone that dumb pose a threat? But being stalked – however poorly – still put her on edge.

She was getting hungry, so she headed over to a bread stand. She asked how much for a loaf, and was quoted four quills for the large ones, two for the small. She took a small loaf of bread, then went over to an area with a small amount of shade, sat down, and started to eat.

Her mind wandered back to Jani. First things first. Who is she?

A Milago.

Who do Milago distrust?

Bedoowan.

Perhaps Jani though Aria was a spy sent by the Bedoowan to…do something. Aria chased idly after that string of logic, but let it drop fairly quickly, pulling out her water flask and taking a long drink. She just didn't know enough about Jani to come up with any real hypothesis, so speculating was more or less a waste of time. Anyways, while she was curious as to why Jani seemed to hate her, she didn't really see how it related to the concerns at hand – namely the Tryptite shortage, the civil dispute, and Saint Dane's hand in all of it.

Still nothing on that front, by the way. In terms of information she had turned up before noticing her crouching-tiger-hidden-buffalo, she hadn't discovered anything of interest. She had heard a few more Bedoowan-oppressor stories, one of them rehashed from yesterday; a bit of speculation on some holiday called the Feast of Noab; and she'd learned the names of the three suns. She'd gotten some odd looks on that one. Apparently it didn't matter where you came from – the suns were still called Noab, Laa, and Rigg.

As she finished off her bread, she looked up in time to see Dakka creeping up to her. Directly in front of her. With no cover. In broad daylight.

Aria blinked, then stood up quickly, glancing around. Although she wasn't in the main market anymore, there was still a branch of people off to her side, and she started heading over there, perpendicular to the path Dakka was making. No problem.

About ten feet away, Rill appeared from out of the crowd. She started stalking towards Aria rapidly, a dark expression on her face. Problem.

Aria stopped, and took a very good look at where she was. Reality dawned on her as she realized that she was on the far edge of the market – the edge closest to the forest, and farthest from the residential homes. Suddenly Dakka's sad attempts at subtlety didn't strike her as embarrassing anymore. They struck her as intentional.

She wasn't being stalked. She was being herded.

Aria decided she would just walk right past Rill, into the group of people – after all, she was still close enough that they would notice a fight breaking out.

Or they would have, if a couple of riled-up horses hadn't started storming through the market.

There were some gasps of surprise, a short scream, and the group of people began rushing over to see the mini-stampede. It left them all but alone. Aria's eyes widened as Rill grinned.

It was a setup – and Aria had played right into it. She turned her head to see Dakka blocking off the way towards the main market, and Rill was getting closer by the second. She didn't have anywhere else to go, so she darted away from both of them…straight into the forest.

Rill let out a cheerful, "whoop!" behind her as Aria began to sprint into isolation, and Dakka let out what seemed to be a happy grunt. Aria didn't pull anything back, heading full-tilt into the trees, hoping to get a good enough head-start that she could loop around them and get back to the market. The two girls chasing her probably hadn't been expecting that, because when Aria managed to get a good 20 foot lead on them in just a few seconds, Rill let out a frustrated screech.

Chasing her down when she was hungry, thirsty and exhausted was one thing. Well-rested and recently fed Aria was a whole 'nother animal. She quickly put on the distance she needed, and grinned as she began to make her U-turn.

That's when the third musketeer showed up.

Jani appeared from the right, where Aria had been heading, and grinned with equal triumph when their eyes met. Aria's smile dropped. Jani's remained.

Aria course-corrected, and began dodging between trees and shrubs, though there wasn't much to put in her way. It was a fairly sparse forest, and there weren't many places for her to go. She ground her teeth in frustration. Jani had clearly orchestrated this. Aria shouldn't have assumed that Dakka's amateur techniques were as shallow as they had appeared to be.

Short green ferns whisked past her as she ran, and she jumped over a large fallen branch. She tried to loop around the other way, but quickly realized that would be a waste of time. They had clearly planned this out, Jani taking the right, Dakka blocking the way back, and Rill flanking around the left.

Aria began to panic. She poured on the speed, not knowing where to go, and charged straight into the unknown forest.

She quickly gave up on smart tactics, opting for a straight shot in the hopes of wearing them out. They moved in directly behind her, and by the sound of it, were starting to catch up. The village was pretty far behind them at this point, and if she got caught now she honestly might not be able to make it back if she was badly injured. She doubted anyone would be able to find her this far out either.

Things were looking bad.

There was movement out of the corner of her eye. An animal? Aria glanced to her left, and to her amazement saw a boy keeping pace with her, just a few feet off to her left.

Where did he come from?

He grinned at her. Man, everyone was smiling today. He gestured for her to follow him. There was an angry screech from behind her as her three pursuers noticed the new addition. Although Aria had no idea who this guy was, she figured he could be Hannibal Lector for all she cared. If he was a jerk, she liked her chances of fending off one guy more than three pissed-off girls.

"Come on!" He yelled, and darted to the left. Aria followed, but her energy was starting to waver. She focused on the boy in front of her, her vision narrowing to a tunnel, as she poured on the last of her energy to keep up and away from Jani's group.

After was seemed like an hour, but was likely not more than a minute, the boy gesture for her to be careful, and he slowed down a bit. He went through a large group of ferns in front of him, dropping out of sight. Aria's brain didn't quite register where he had gone until she ran full tilt off the edge.

It wasn't a large drop, just a steep slope a few feet down, but the sickening lurch was enough to scare Aria out of her tunnel vision. The impact was shocking, and for a few moments the world was tilted and skewed. She lay there dazed for a moment, but luckily she had landed on a whole lot of leaves and ferns. The damage wasn't bad, but she was dizzy and her head hurt.

Behind her, Dakka's footsteps thundered, nearly drowning out the sounds of the other two. The boy ran over to her, looked at her with an expression caught between horror and hilarity. Some part of her mind vaguely noted that she must have looked ridiculous running off that ledge. He said something she couldn't catch and pulled her to her feet. She swayed, gasping for breath, and paused for a moment to get a better look at him.

He had short, unevenly cut dark brown hair. His eyes were a light, playful brown, and while he was not much taller than her, he was a bit bulkier. He wore odd clothing – not quite the armor of a Bedoowan knight, but definitely not civilian clothes. He had a long stick strapped to his back, and he was smiling like a kid who had just hopped off the biggest roller coaster in the park. Altogether, he looked quite dashing.

This time she caught what he said. "We really can't afford to wait here all day, you know." He began pulling her with gentle urgency towards…

A mine shaft!

That was certainly what it looked like. An opening in the earth in front of them sloped gently downwards, some old and rusted tracks leading into the cave.

Aria paused for another moment, then began to follow him. She wasn't in the habit of going into dark, isolated tunnels with boys she barely knew…but she didn't really have much choice. She decided she would have to trust him. Just as they started descending, Aria being mostly dragged since she was still shaky from the fall, there was a shrill screech and something crashed down loudly behind them. Glancing behind her, Aria saw that Rill had done exactly what she had done, and was now laying in a dazed heap.

Jani appeared at the top of the slope. She had clearly put on the brakes when she heard the screech, and had just barely managed to keep herself tumbling off the edge. She paused, then smirked triumphantly at Aria as she readied herself to jump down.

Then she got hit by the semi-truck that was Dakka.

Dakka had clearly tried to stop in time, too, but she just had too much momentum. Momentum, as Aria had learned in physics, was equal to mass times velocity. And Dakka had a lot of mass.

She plowed straight into Jani, stopping dead and sending the smaller girl flying. She launched her. Jani bellowed in rage, Dakka cringed, and Rill screeched again as Jani came down right on top of her.

Aria let out a nervous, hysterical laugh, and turned to run into the tunnel.

They had been stumbling along quickly for just a few minutes when the boy said, "Okay. I think we're alright." With that his pace slowed to a leisurely walk.

At least, that's what it sounded like. The sunlight had faded a ways back. It was pitch black down there.

Aria was holding onto the boy's arm in a death grip, stumbling forward in the dark. He himself seemed to be pretty confident in the confined area, but said, "Hold on. I'll strike up a light."

With that he paused, Aria heard some ruffling sounds from the ground, as though he had knelt down and was rifling through a pack. A minute later, there were a few sharp clacking sounds, and a torch caught fire, giving them both light.

The boy was looking up at her curiously, two stones in his hands and an expression of bright interest on his face. He asked, "Are you alright? That was some fall." He grinned again.

Aria just stood there, panting for a minute, still exhausted and head pounding from the tumble. "Give me... a minute…" And with that she slumped against the wall and began massaging her temples.

The grin faltered when he realized that she might really be hurt, but she waved her hand and said, "I'm fine. Just a headache. And a bit tried. And worried. Aren't they going to catch up with us in a minute?" She said while gesturing back the way they had come. She pulled out her water flask and began chugging. There wasn't much left in there.

The boy shook his head and said, "No, they'll be too afraid to enter the mine. It's full of poisonous gas, after all."

Aria choked on her water, and began coughing violently.

The boy raised his hands in a calming gesture, and said, "Don't worry! You'd have to breathe the stuff in for years to really get sick. You'll be fine. But those three will most likely be like everyone else, and refuse to come in here on principle."

Aria rode out her coughing fit, took a few deep breaths, and finally spoke. "Thank you for getting me out of that. I'm Aria." She held out her hand to shake.

He looked at it curiously for a moment, and Aria drew it back. Right. Again, hand-shaking was probably a cultural thing. He shrugged and responded, "Aria? What a strange name." She blushed a bit. She had taken a lot of flak about it in the past. He noticed her discomfort and hastily said, "Not strange in a bad way! Not at all. I like it." Then his mouth tilted up into a cautious grin. "My name is Tarek."

Hallelujah! A two-syllable name! "Pleased to meet you." Beyond being polite, she was genuinely grateful for his help – albeit a fair bit suspicious. Miraculous rescues didn't usually just happen. Who was this guy, and what had brought him her way?

She decided to pursue that line of questioning. "So, how did you know where I was? That I needed help? What were you doing here?" She hoped she didn't sound accusatory.

Fortunately, he didn't seem offended. He raised a hand, gesturing for her to pause. "Come on. We can talk while we head for the exit. It's a fairly long walk, so we should get going." With that he held out his torch, lighting the passage before them.

Aria looked around for a moment, a wave of unease passing over her. Although she wasn't actually claustrophobic, she was somewhat uncomfortable in confined spaces. The tunnel they were in wasn't large.

She shrugged it off and started walking. As they moved through the tunnel, darkness encroaching and receding with the flickering of the torch, Tarek picked up the conversation.

"So, you're Press' niece, right?"

Aria twitched her nose in irritation. "Hey! I'm the one who's supposed to be asking the questions." Furthermore, she was getting tired of being recognized as 'Press' niece'.

He raised his eyebrows at her, clearly a bit amused.

She sighed. "Yes. I'm Press' niece." Then another thought dawned on her. "Have you seen him? I was supposed to meet up with him yesterday, but we didn't and now I have no idea where he is." She looked at him hopefully.

He winced and said, "Yes, I know where he is. You're not going to be happy about it, though."

She felt a jolt of dread. "Is he alright?" She asked, a frantic edge to her voice.

"Yes, he's fine; he's not in any danger. It's just that…well, he's been arrested by the Bedoowan council. He's being held until things settle down. Don't worry, though, a lot of people like Press. He's being treated very well."

She froze. Bile rose in the back of her throat.

He was being treated well? Good treatment or not, he was in prison!

She had, due to a very embarrassing misunderstanding, once spent a summer at military school because she had been convicted (wrongfully!) of a minor crime. The regiment was so strict it wasn't much better than prison…just with more mandatory exercise. She knew what it was like to have your freedom taken away from you. It was one of the worst feelings in the world.

And her uncle was in jail.

She was hit with equal parts anger and distress. Her uncle had come here to help these people! And they imprisoned him? How was that fair? And now he wouldn't be coming back to help her. How was she supposed to do this on her own?

Tarek had paused, and was looking back at her with apologetic concern.

Aria sighed. Not on your own, she reminded herself. She still had Alder, Tal, and now…maybe Tarek.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, and forced herself to calm down and keep walking. They had taken a few turns, and Aria had lost all sense of direction. Her sense of direction was generally awful anyways, but this labyrinth of a mine was making it impossible to tell which way they were heading. After another moment, she asked, "Okay. How did you know this?"

Clearly relieved that she wasn't about to have a breakdown of some sort, Tarek quickly replied. "He sent me a message through one of the knights. I just found out yesterday evening. He asked me to come find you, and tell you not to worry. That Alder and I would help you."

Aria perked up at that. "You know Alder?"

"Of course. He's training me…both as a knight, and a Traveler." There was a faint air of pride about him as he said this.

Aria looked at him in surprise. "You're a Traveler?"

"And a squire," he insisted.

Dismissing the squire bit again, Aria thought about this. If Alder had been training him then he probably knew a lot more about this Traveling business than she did. She made a mental note to ask him some big questions later, but decided to go back to her original three. "So, how did you know where I was?"

"Well, I got the message at night, and since we have the same curfew in our town as the Milago do in theirs, I couldn't leave then. I started out for the village this morning. I arrived by mid-morning, and was about to head to the barracks. I dropped by the marketplace to grab a bite to eat, and that's when I noticed you."

She stopped him there. "Wait. How did you recognize me?" Unless Press had gotten a picture of her to him, which was unlikely since this territory didn't seem to have that kind of technology, she thought that sounded a little fishy.

He shrugged and said, "Well, I had a basic description of you… also, I overheard a group of people remarking that the, 'strange girl from the village over the mountains just asked what the names of the suns were.'" His lips were firmly pressed together, clearly in an attempt to keep from laughing.

Aria glared at him for only a moment before gesturing for him to go on. After all, if he hadn't noticed her, Dakka would probably be sitting on her right now.

"Well, I began trailing you…rather more proficiently than the big girl, I think."

"Dakka," Aria clarified. "Turns out she wasn't stalking me. She wanted to be noticed. She was herding me."

He nodded and said, "Yes, by the time I realized that myself it was too late, and they were making their move. The other girl, the one who got knocked off the ledge back there–"

"Jani."

"Jani," he nodded again. "She let loose a couple of horses that were tied up nearby and got them riled. Then she took off for the forest."

"And that's when you started following us?"

Again, he nodded.

Suddenly, he stopped. He cautioned for her to be careful, and extended his torch. Aria could see why. There was a hole directly in front of them, a small, crude fence the only thing keeping them from falling all the way down. She drew a bit closer to the pit, then glanced up, realizing that the hole extended above them, too.

"This was one of the first shafts built when the Milago began mining for glaze. It is also the deepest." His voice had taken on a more serious edge. "It extends much farther down, as well as all the way to the surface. We are directly under the monument in the center of town."

Aria felt a spark of excitement – it should be around noon, by now, and the monument was where Alder said he would meet her.

Then she realized the implication of Tarek's words, and her excitement was abruptly snuffed out. Unless she was mistaken, this was the shaft that several of the Milago had told her about. The shaft that miners would be thrown down during a Transfer, if the glaze they had mined wasn't sufficient.

She couldn't stop herself from imagining a screaming Milago plummeting down the hole in front of her, and she suddenly she felt like she was going to be ill.

Tarek was watching her, and must have noticed her change in mood. He asked, "How are you feeling?"

"I'm…alright," she replied shakily. "I've heard the stories. Those days were awful, weren't they?"

Once more, he nodded. "I wasn't alive then, but Alder has told me much of the old days, both from the Milago point of view, and the Bedoowan. The injustices were terrible, and it was a miracle things ended the way they did; that peace was an option." He glanced at her, a spark in his eyes. "As Travelers, it's our job to stop this sort of thing from happening again."

Aria's eye twitched. She found herself cringing away from the idea.

How was she supposed to stop this? Did Tarek really believe that they – that she – would be able to make a difference in a situation this big? And suppose they couldn't. Suppose it did happen again? What would happen to her? Standing so close to the edge of the pit, it was all too easy to imagine herself falling, screaming, plummeting helplessly down…

She struggled to force the thought out of her head.

They stood in silence for a few more minutes. Eventually Tarek said, "Come on. We aren't too far from the exit." He glanced at her, frowning a bit, then smiled reassuringly and held the torch out, leading her around.

Aria stared at him for a moment longer, thoughts buzzing, stomach churning, then followed.

She wanted to leave. She just wanted to go home, have a cup of hot chocolate, and tell Kar about her whole crazy adventure – no doubt her best friend would believe her – and try to salvage the interview she missed. She wanted to put this whole thing behind her.

But now her uncle was in jail.

As Tarek led her through the dark, winding tunnels, which all looked so similar they were actually beginning to feel familiar, she began formulating a plan to get her and her uncle off of this territory.

Maybe she could convince the Bedoowan to let them go, provided they stay away until all of this was over. She thought that might work, but knew her uncle would never go for it. Maybe she could just stay low and let things go the course, not get involved, and when things calmed down, she and Press could take off.

As she was pondering her options, she noticed movement off to her side.

Her head whipped around, just in time to see someone at the far end of a branching tunnel shoot one quick, terrified glance at them, then take off running.

She pulled up to a dead halt, and called out, "Hey!"

Tarek stopped and looked at her in surprise. "What?"

He obviously hadn't seen the man. And it definitely had been a man. Fairly short, pale, wearing long, light-colored leathers, and carrying what looked like a large bag filled with…something.

Aria glanced at Tarek. "You didn't see him?"

"Who?"

"There was a man over there," She said while pointing down the tunnel. "He didn't look happy to see us. He took off running."

Tarek looked down the tunnel, then shrugged. "Well, most people don't come down here for anything. But as a result, the few who do have the place mostly to themselves. It's an ideal place to go if you want to hide things, or be alone. I wouldn't worry about it." Indeed, he didn't seem terribly interested, and kept walking.

Aria stared down the tunnel for a few more seconds, as though waiting for the man to reappear, then followed reluctantly. The man had looked terrified when he saw them. What did he have that was so important that he didn't want it being discovered, even by a couple of teenagers?

Aria stored the incident away in her mind, deciding to come back to it later. There was a bit of natural light streaming in through the cave, now, so they were probably very near the entrance.

Sure enough, the next corner they turned revealed a large opening and the daylight flooding through was nearly blinding. Aria, eager to be out of the cramped cave, ran forward, just about flinging herself out of the arched opening.

Tarek jogged after her, putting the torch out before emerging, and ran to her side. They were standing in the forest, a few Milago homes just visible through the trees. Aria glanced at Tarek and said, "Alder said he would meet me at the memorial at noon. Which direction is it?"

"This way," He said, then began jogging towards the village.

Aria followed, thoughts and ideas still running haphazardly through her head. She hoped that when she saw Alder, she would be able to put them straight.

She glanced up at the sky. The suns were close together, so either noon was either very close, or it had passed very recently. Of all the ideas running through her head, she had come to one conclusion. Her uncle was well-liked amongst the villagers. He would be fine here…and he would probably have an easier time of it without having to take care of her.

Come hell or high water, she was going home.