Aria felt like a delinquent being marched up to her house in the middle of the night by the cops. As the knight who caught her out after curfew – Jorith, the very same one who had caught her and Press upon arrival in the village – walked her up to the inn, she saw that her uncle was leaning against the doorframe. It looked like he had been waiting for her to return, and as she approached he hopped up and ran over to her. "Aria, everything alright?"

He seemed relaxed, but she could just catch a telltale hint of concern in his voice. As Jorith cantered up he said, "Well, here ya are, safe and sound. Don't let me catch you out after curfew again!"

It seemed to Aria that he'd said that last time, and she wondered how many times she'd have to get caught out after curfew again for him to actually do something. "Yes, sir," she said respectfully. "Thank you for walking me back. I appreciate it."

He just huffed in a very knightly fashion and said, "Well, don't make me make a habit out of it." He looked to Press. "And you, keep a closer watch on your niece!"

Press said with equal respect, "Yes, sir. Won't happen again."

"Hrmph. Well, you two have a good night," he said brusquely, and turned his horse about and cantered away. Aria suspected he rather enjoyed catching people out after curfew, and wondered what he would do now that it was about to be ended. Probably whatever he'd done before the curfew. Keeping teenagers from tipping cows, maybe. Did Denduron have cows?

She went inside, glad to be out of the cold, and sat down by the fire. Uncle Press followed her. She was glad to see Tarek wasn't there.

As they both sat down Press said, "You missed dinner. Want me to scrounge something up?"

She shook her head. "I had dinner at a friend's place. Sorry about taking off earlier."

He waved her apology aside. "Hey, sometimes you just need time to think. I'm glad to hear you had a friend to go to, though."

She wasn't sure what to say, so she decided to start with her biggest concern. "So…did Tarek tell you about what happened?"

"Yeah, some of it. You want to talk about it?"

She didn't, not really, but she figured her uncle was the only person left she needed to tell about this, and that it was better to just get it done with. She told him.

He didn't say anything as she talked, but unlike Tarek's silence, Uncle Press' didn't feel stifling or judgmental. When she finished, he reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. She wasn't sure why a hand on the shoulder was the go-to comfort tactic, but it was pretty reassuring. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. You made the right call, though. I know it's tough to take sometimes, but we can't use stuff from off-territory. And even if we could, Alder wouldn't have wanted you to put yourself at risk fighting those guys, and he definitely wouldn't have wanted you to kill anyone."

She looked at him, tormented. "I know, but still, Tarek is alone now, and I could have stopped that. He hates me, and I don't think I can change that. Everything he said about me was true."

Press frowned. "What did he say about you?"

Aria opened her mouth to reply, but shut it again immediately. If Tarek didn't tell him, she wasn't going to either. "Doesn't matter."

Press looked like he might say more, but then just shook his head. "I guess I'll let you two sort it out. But just remember: some things can't be stopped or changed. Some things are just meant to be."

Meant to be. That again. How was she supposed to know what she could change, and what was just 'meant to be'?

Well, she supposed it wasn't worth pondering now. She said, "I know. And I'll try and talk to Tarek again before we leave." Eager to be off the subject, she continued, "Anyways, how was your day? Did you get to check out the lab?"

He shrugged. "Nah. Mostly just spent the day talking to Nyja and Tolk. Didn't get much of a chance to while I was in jail, so it was good to catch up with them. Anyways, I figured you could show me around tomorrow. After all, you know your way around pretty well by now, eh?"

Ugh. More than she'd wanted to. "Yeah, alright. Sounds like a plan. When do you think we can head home, though?"

Press looked thoughtful. He rubbed his chin and said, "We'll give it a couple days. Make sure everyone's still getting along, that there aren't any loose ends, and that Saint Dane isn't going to make some last-ditch effort to get everyone fighting again."

Saint Dane. Aria found herself tensing at the mere mention of the guy's name. She really hoped he'd given up and moved along. He must have, though, right? After all, she'd routed both of his disguises. Neither Maal nor Sawil could turn up again and hope to make headway with anyone. Unless he was secretly Nyja or Tolk or someone, he was out of options here.

Yeah, he was probably gone.

She yawned and realized just how tired she was. Uncle Press noticed her flagging and said, "It's getting pretty late, and you've had a crazy day. Guess we'd better catch some rest." Then he glanced up at the front desk and frowned. It was empty. It seemed Kren had retired early.

Aria said, "No worries. I booked a room for both of us earlier. Same one we had when we got here."

He looked relieved. "Great. Kren's pretty protective of his rooms. I crashed here one night when he was out and went up to pay the next morning, and let me tell you, he wasn't happy."

As she stood up she said, "Pay up front or get out kind of guy, huh?" Suddenly she wondered exactly how much time he'd spent on this territory, to be so familiar with all of its people. "Hey, how many times have you been here? You know the Bedoowan councilors, you know the guards on the night patrol, you know Kren, you were arrested at some point – how long have you been coming here?"

They headed back to their room. As they both walked in her uncle yawned widely. "It's been a little while since I was here last, but I've been familiar with Denduron for a long time. I was around during the rule of queen Kagan, and the enslavement of the Milago."

Her mouth popped open. "Wait, seriously? Wasn't that, like, fifteen years ago? You've been coming here for fifteen years?"

He stretched, and as he did so several joints in his back popped. "Oof. Lying on a cot for a few days will really put some kinks in your back. I actually just started coming back again about a year ago, when I suspected Saint Dane was getting involved here again. You see, this isn't actually the first time he's tried to topple Denduron."

What? Why in the world hadn't he mentioned this before? "Are you serious? Wait, if you already knew so much about the territory, and Saint Dane, and if you had Alder and Tarek to help you, why did you even need me? I didn't know anything about this place!"

She was fairly indignant about this. Her uncle obviously had experience with this stuff if he'd saved Denduron from the shapeshifting demon in the past. It didn't seem like there was any reason for him to have brought her along.

Wrong, apparently. "That's part of the reason why I brought you, actually. I didn't want to risk my own past experiences here misleading me. I knew the Milago when they were enslaved, and I knew the Bedoowan when they were overlords, but I haven't really been in the loop on what's been going on since the two tribes united. Oh, and as for being arrested, yeah. The last time I showed up to help, I was nabbed by the guards on sight, dragged off to the dungeons, and thrown into the arena with a quig. Gotta say, this time around was much more low-stress."

As soon as he voiced that sentiment, he looked like he regretted it. He opened his mouth and shut it, almost like he was trying to grab those last words before they got away, but was a bit too slow. Aria, barely managing to keep her voice below a shout, hissed, "Low-stress? Low-stress? Yeah, low-stress for you! You've been sitting around in jail. I've been getting chased around and threatened by everyone and their grandmother! This has been the most stressful week of my life! And yes, I am including the Ferrimore thing." Her voice was more shrill than she would have liked as she finished.

He winced, hard. They never talked about the Ferrimore thing. "I know. I'm sorry, that was a huge foot in the mouth on my part. You've done more than I had any right to ask of you, and I know you didn't have to. I'm proud of you, Aria."

Her shoulders, which she didn't realize she had tensed, dropped. She'd been upset with her uncle enough for the last few days, and she just wanted things back to normal. She rubbed her eyes, which were starting to sting with fatigue and said, "I get it. I'm sorry. I'm glad that I was able to help, I really am. But please, I want to go home as soon as possible."

He smiled, a bit sad, and a bit tired, and said, "Just a couple more days, then we'll head home. There's still a lot ahead of us, but our next stop is Earth."

She didn't exactly like the sound of that, but decided to focus on the 'head home' part rather than the 'lot ahead of us' part. She stepped forward and hugged him, and he hugged her back. Jeez, it was nice to have her uncle again.

Another few minutes and their shoes were off, lights were doused, and they were in their beds. Just as she settled down Press' voice sounded sleepily from across the room, "Oh, have you been keeping up on your journals?"

"Mhmm," she replied drowsily. "Have the last couple in my bag, ready to send off. Tomorrow." She assumed Press would send the journals the same say Alder had, and she didn't feel like a big light-show before bed. She just wanted to be unconscious.

"Good deal," he said, and within a minute she could hear him snoring. Thankfully, he wasn't one of those super-loud, revving engine sort of snorers. His snores sounded like a sighing grizzly bear. It was actually pretty comforting.

As she drifted off a few thoughts bounced around in her head. She wondered if there would still be quig-bears at the flume when they got back up there, and quig-cougars back home, and if so, how they would deal with them. She wondered what her uncle had gone through fifteen years ago, to think this trip was pretty tame by comparison.

As unconsciousness claimed her, the last thing that floated through her mind before being violently repressed was, if this happened fifteen years ago, who's to say it won't happen again fifteen years from now? Did I just stumble upon some eternal, interdimensional battle between good and evil? How many times has Uncle Press done this? How many more times can he do this? What will happen when he's gone?

Am I supposed to be his replacement?

Her mind recoiled from that final thought, and moments later she was asleep.

Saint Dane, in his raven form, was hanging upside down from the eaves of the inn. It was not a particularly dignified position, and he was eager to be out of it.

Finally the lights went out in the Travelers' room, and after several minutes of silence and darkness he unlatched his claws from the splintered wood he'd been clinging to. It wouldn't have done for Press to have seen him perching on the sill, but he'd wanted to listen in on their conversation regardless. Hence, the eaves.

He dropped gracelessly to the ground, barely managing to turn himself around so he would fall on his feet rather than his back. It would probably have been far more convenient to simply turn into something more suited to hanging upside down – namely, a bat – but he was averse to the idea. He was not a vampire. At any rate, he tended to limit his transformations when the stakes were low.

Once he was sure there was no one around, he dissipated into smoke and flew up to the window. He drifted through the barest crack and observed the sleeping Travelers for a moment to be sure they were, in fact, sleeping, before resuming his human form. He'd been pleased to overhear the girl's mention of her journals being ready for delivery, and silently located her satchel. Sure enough, two thick rolls of paper were tucked neatly into the pouch. Her last two journals. He extracted these, stood up, opened the windows, and took on a new form. His avian one wouldn't suffice – the journals were ungainly, and wings would cause too much ruckus.

Had anyone been outside the inn at that moment, they may have been somewhat concerned to see a massive, jet-black feline, mouth stuffed with scrolls, slinking out of one of the rooms of Kren's inn. The beast looked large enough to drag a small child up a tree. But no one was around at the time, so the creature was able to pad away from the building undisturbed and get somewhere quiet and secluded.

Saint Dane managed to find a low bench just outside of town and well off the beaten patrol path. He took on an innocuous Milago form, pulled out a small bag of tak-light he'd snatched from a light post – though the substance had been the bane of his campaign here, he figured he may as well put it to good use – lit it up, and unfurled a scroll.

A quick scan told him that this was her latest one, so he re-tied it and looked at the other one. Ah, that was it. Yesterday's mail. It was important to read them in order, after all.

It vaguely occurred to him that he was entirely too eager to read the girl's pathetic little scrawlings, and he checked himself before settling into it.

…I get the feeling Tarek was pretty annoyed at being left behind, but it's not like I could show up at the lab with a total stranger in tow. That would make it pretty hard to convince them that I was trustworthy…

…then his eyes flashed blue, and my legs just about gave out. It was him. Saint Dane.

…too much. This was all way too big for me. I don't even want to think about what would have happened to me if I hadn't moved. How could Press put this all on my shoulders? What gave him, or anyone else for that matter, the right to demand anything from me? I needed to get out of there…

He smiled smugly at her accounts of him, not even bothering to try and quash the feelings of blatant satisfaction her terror conjured up. He'd been refining the art of fear for centuries. He could make a vulnerable man jump in front of a subway train with the briefest of looks. Frankly, a bit of vanity was justified.

He finished the journal and moved on to the next one. This one was somewhat less satisfying to read. As amusing as it was to read her account of the chase – muddy little huts, indeed – it was still an account of his defeat, and he couldn't help being irked by it.

And the brat, Jani. His lip curled in disgust. He was baffled at the obvious affection the young Traveler seemed to have for her. What was wrong with her? Did she forget all the grief the little beast had given her when she'd first arrived?

This girl was entirely too forgiving.

He read up to the end and was left curious. She'd mentioned that she was going to have to talk to Tarek about Alder's death, and she surely must have by then, though he hadn't been around for it. Had the boy been kind, understanding, forgiving? Or had he been vengeful, grieving, revolted with her cowardice?

Cowardice. As though she'd had a choice. She'd had little more choice in running than that homeless man had had in jumping in front of the subway train. As she was clearly beginning to learn, the gaze of a Traveler was a potent tool.

His eyes drifted back over some choice passages as he lazily took it all in. Already he was becoming absorbed in her writing style, and because he had nothing to do for the rest of the night – an evening off was an uncommon treat for him – he leafed back and forth through the pages at leisure until a voice tore him from his pursuit.

"Oi! You there! There's still a curfew, you know!"

His eye twitched in irritation at the disruption. A knight was cantering up to him, looking none too happy. "Just because we got ourselves some new lights doesn't mean you can just go wandering around wherever you like! And look at this place, right by the forest, don't you know there are animals out there? I'm surprised you haven't been–"

His tirade was cut short as his eyes met the demon Traveler's. Saint Dane sensed every muscle in the man's body spasm into tension as he locked in his gaze. The knight started to shake, and Saint Dane pondered what to do with him. He wasn't fond of such distractions.

Alas, he was sadly short on mineshafts and subway trains.

After a moment's thought, he shifted his gaze, allowing the man to relax – until those piercing blue eyes dropped down to his steed's. It took but a glance to instill the animal with such terror as to make it bolt in mortal fear. What came out of that horse's mouth was more akin to a shriek than a whinny, and in an instant it had whipped around and was running at full gallop in the opposite direction. The knight had been thrown half-off by the force of its turn, but was clinging to it for dear life.

Saint Dane sniffed disdainfully as he watched the display. His concentration had been thoroughly disrupted, so he rolled the papers up, tied them, and shifted back into the large, feline form.

It did not take him long to reach the inn again. Slipping into the window, he regained his human form and returned the journals carefully to the girl's satchel. He'd taken care to leave everything as he had found it. She wouldn't notice a thing.

Then she whimpered, "Stop…"

He paused, thinking he'd been discovered, and considered how best to proceed. However, when his eyes darted to the girl's form he saw at once that she was obviously still asleep…and in the grips of a terrible nightmare.

Her face was a mask of fear and strain, her sheets were tangled as though she'd been trying to run in them, and her muscles were tensing and contorting before falling limp again as her brain struggled to reassert paralysis.

Curious. Did she often have nightmares? If so, what were they about? What hardships might the girl have faced in her life to warrant such terrors – or was this a new phenomenon? Perhaps she fled from cold, blue eyes and the glint of steel and gunmetal?

He smirked. He would leave her to her dreams.

Just as he turned to go the girl sat bolt upright in bed and her eyes shot open.

He jerked still at the sudden movement. A lesser man might have been startled. He watched her cautiously, but his brows creased as it became apparent that she wasn't seeing him.

Her head was moving slowly back and forth, as though scanning the room for something. They were unfocused, though, and passed right over him several times. She was still asleep.

Eventually she stopped scanning the room and relaxed. Her head tilted as though she lacked the energy to keep it straight, and her eyes flickered half closed. He didn't want to move quite yet, though, as movement could attract her attention and cause her to wake. Instead, he waited for her to lay down again.

She sat still in that relaxed position long enough for him to become impatient. At last, eager to be gone, he lifted an arm slowly, put one finger on her forehead, and pushed her back down.

She fell back easily onto the pillow, eyes rolling up and closing, and in a moment she was entirely lax.

He rolled his eyes in exasperation. Without further ado he retreated from the room, closing the window behind him and taking to the sky.

Aria walked calmly through the tunnels. There wasn't anything there that could hurt her now, was there?

She got to the central mineshaft, but as she looked around she saw not five, but ten tunnels branching out in different directions. Each had a strange symbol carved into the stone above it, and each, she sensed, led somewhere wildly and madly different. She could just barely hear faint, jumbled musical notes echoing all around her.

Down one tunnel, she thought there was a desert. Down two more, cities not very unlike her own. One tunnel was familiar, she had been there. Or was she there now?

Two of them, she was sure, led to water, vast and deep. She shuddered, resolving not to take those routes. She hated deep water.

She couldn't see these things, but they were somehow tangible. At least as tangible as a memory. But she had no memories of worlds beyond her own, and Denduron. Whose memories, then?

Suddenly, bright, blinding light assaulted her from all sides. The faint musical notes became frantically quick and impossibly loud. She clamped her hands over her ears and started to run. She tried to get away from the light, the music, but no matter what she did it wouldn't leave her alone.

Finally, she dropped to her knees. "Stop! I don't want to go anywhere else! Just take me home!"

But home, apparently, was not an option. She felt like she was being tugged in several different directions, and all she wanted was to be left alone, to find her own way through.

All at once, darkness. She'd fallen down, and was lying on her back. A voice sounded in front of her.

"She did well. Is it time?"

The voice was a low growl, but not a menacing one. Nonetheless she sat up quickly and looked around, trying to catch a glimpse of the speaker. Her head felt heavy. Her body felt heavy.

Another voice. Another low, peaceful growl. "No, I do not think so. At any rate, she has not seen all she needs to see. She does not know all she needs to know."

Who were they? Her eyes had adjusted and she was no longer blind, but she couldn't quite see who was there. The tunnels were still there and she now she sat facing one, and it was from this one that the voices spilled.

"Is it her, though? It may be the other. The boy."

"No, I think it is her."

"The boy is stronger."

"We will see."

The voices were calming, soothing. She relaxed. Whoever they were, they weren't enemies. She sat staring towards them. The voices sounded again, concerned.

"Wait, can she hear us?"

"No. Of course not. Do not worry."

"She is looking at us."

"She cannot hear us."

"She is smiling at us, now."

"She cannot hear us. Or see us."

She tried calling out to them, but she had no breath. She tried lifting a hand to wave to them, but she had no strength.

All at once she felt a pressure on her forehead and she toppled backwards. She didn't fall onto stone, though, but rather onto something warm, and soft, and soon the darkness covered everything and the voices did not come back.

She slept.