Thank you for your review. Truegold-dragonstar, I used those other people in the story, just so as there would be a way for Blazewind to meet Belfire. Also, I do not want to write a story with just the most basic of characters and plots. It seems that it would be quite a boring story that way. Also, I will have Blazewind make those observations later in the story, about other people. Thank you for you advice. I hope that you continue to enjoy the rest of the story.

Chapter five. On the road.

Belfire and Blazewind were fully soaked to the skin as they reached the town of Renfield. The rain had been coming down for two days, and Blazewind was beginning to fear that the creek, along which they rode would flood. The water level was steadily rising still, and was now splashing over the banks in heavy waves.

"I think," said Belfire, tying up his horse to a post outside of the local inn, "we should check in here for the night." Blazewind nodded.

"It will be better to stay here tonight, then try to sleep, sheltered under the trees again," she said.

"It works alright when it has to," Belfire said, "but it is nice to be in town now."

Belfire entered the old inn, with Blazewind fallowing, and asked for two room, to which the innkeeper handed him two keys.

"Creek facing room, or street facing room?" he asked Blazewind, holding out the keys.

"Hmmm... hardly matters I suppose. Okay, road facing room please."

"Well... goodnight then. I will see you in the morning."

"Goodnight, Belfire. I am so exhausted. It will be nice to get into a proper bed tonight bed."

"Goodnight, Blazewind."

The two traveling companions closed the doors to the rooms, and Blazewind got into bed. Tired though she was, she found herself unable to sleep. She lay in the darkness, looking around at the dark silhouettes of the objects in the small room. She knew that she should not mind traveling, and staying in strange towns. She had been traveling for so long now. She could hardly remember the time that she had a true home. It had been so long now. The road was her home. Why tonight, she wondered, was she not at home on the road. Maybe it's the rain, she told herself, grateful that at least there was no thunder. She wondered if the rest of Belfire's party had made it to wherever they were now bound for. She knew that the three of them lived in nearby towns, and Belfire still had a long while of travel ahead of him to reach his village. She wondered a lot about him. She had come to understand that he was the sort of person that would reveal information asked of him, only if one actually asked. He was not, it seemed, the type of man that would just talk about himself for the sake of talking. Blazewind had always been quite good at reading people. It was a skill that she had learned to develop over her years as a bard. She knew that it was a big help to her to be able to do that well. Belfire however, was such a hard person to understand. She got out of bed, and sat late into the night working out the sound for a new ballad she was composing.

The two of them stayed at the small inn another night, as the rain began to slow, and finally stop sometime in the night. Blazewind performed for the slowly gathering crowd in the downstairs tavern, and Belfire sat talking to a young female elf in the corner. Blazewind sang her songs, then left early with Belfire, after a fight broke out between two drunken men.

"I see you made a friend last night," Blazewind commented cheerfully the next morning at breakfast. She buttered her toast, and took a bite, noticing in disgust how stale the bread was.

"Who, I... oh yes. Her," Belfire answered. "I do believe she is the daughter of the tavern's owner. Oh... what was her name... I cannot recall." He leaned over the table, close to her ear, and finished with, "drinks too much too if you ask me. Drunk out of her mind last night... and flirting shamelessly with everyone in sight."

"Oh," Blazewind said. "I hoped for your sake that you may have found..."

"I know what you are going to say," Belfire answered, with a laugh, "and I hardly think so. A girl like that is the worst kind. Besides, she is not as pretty as you."

"Huh?" Blazewind dropped her toast onto her plate, and sat looking at him in shocked surprise for several seconds.

"What in the world?" she finally managed to blurt out.

"My god," Belfire exclaimed happily. "That was the first time in my life I have ever seen a bard speechless."

"You really think I am pretty," Blazewind asked, still surprised. "I... I hardly think that I..."

"You really are a beautiful girl you know Blazewind. For you to not believe that is selling yourself short."

"Th... thank you," Blazewind muttered. She stared down at the table top, feeling for some strange reason, embarrassed by Belfire's compliment.

"Today I think we can make it about sixty miles," Belfire was saying. "That will take us as far as Belmoore."

"I am familiar with that town," Blazewind said. "We must have been to the east of the territory that I grew up traveling in. I remember singing on a corner there, until I gathered enough people to tell my stories to. It was in the woods to the south of there that that boy joined our troop. Annette told Jamis one night that she had brought him in with the hope that he would marry me. That boy ruined everything our troop ever had..." She had been rambling on, thinking out loud.

"What happened," Belfire asked, and Blazewind reluctantly told the story of Jamis' death, after the boy planted the unknown object into his pack.

"That is terrible," Belfire said. "So, you say... you are on a mission to avenge him."

Blazewind nodded. "I cannot stand the thought that his killer will go unpunished. He is out there thinking with satisfaction, that he must have gotten away with it."

"And you say you saw him just disappear..."

"Yes. He just vanished into some soft of portal in the forest. I don't know how, but I know he must have mage powers. The portal must have..."

"Dimension doorway," Belfire muttered.

"What?"

"A dimension doorway is something used by advanced magic users as a type of teleport spell. It is basically a quick way to get from one place to another."

"He must have used it to get away from the murder scene fast," Blazewind said. "That way, he could get out before he was caught in our camp."

They left the inn after leaving some money with the innkeeper, and went outside to untie their horses. They climbed onto the animals, and set off on the next leg of their journey.

"I wonder what that object was that the boy put in Jamis' pocket," Blazewind said, after riding along with Belfire for a long while in silence on the side of a lonely road.

"I was thinking about that myself," Belfire answered. "The young man must have stolen it, and then planted it on him when he knew the owner was coming to kill the one who had it."

"I figured," Blazewind said. "But what was it?"

"Did you see anything of it that night?"

"No, nothing really. All I saw was that the boy put his hand into Jamis's jacket pocket in the evening, while the jacket was laying on the ground. I actually assumed for a while that he had taken something out of the pocket, and I planned to tell Jamis in the morning that the boy had stolen from him. Late that night the camp was raided, and Jamis was killed. I figure that he must have admitted to ownership of the jacket, and when the item turned up in the pocket, he was killed for stealing it. What I don't understand is why he was killed even after the object was found by whoever wanted it back. The person, or people who did it must have been nothing short of ruthless."

"It does seem like overkill," Belfire muttered, as he pulled his horse's rains to the left, around a bend in the road. "It must have been done by someone who was very concerned that he would take some soft of action against them... or... someone who killed him just for the sake of killing someone. It would have been a convenient victim."

"Who kills just for the fun of it," Blazewind muttered. "That is awful."

"There are some awful people out in the world," Belfire told her. "As a traveling bard, you of all people should know that."

"I... I do know that. I just still find it hard to believe sometimes, that such evil exists in the world."

"I find it hard to believe sometimes myself," Belfire answered sympathetically.

"Why are you out adventuring?" Blazewind asked, after the two of them had climbed of their horses, and sat down in the shade of an old oak tree to rest for a while.

"I wanted to get away for awhile, and see some of this big world we live in. I wanted to meet new people and have new adventures. To be honest, it was a bard that made me want to go."

"Oh?"

"Yes. He came to my village every so often, and would love to tell us stories of the road, and all the things he had seen in the world in his years of traveling. After spending my childhood dreaming of seeing these things to, I began to plan a journey when I reached adulthood. Growing up seemed to take forever though."

"How old are you anyway?" Blazewind asked.

"One hundred and seven,"

"Come on. Seriously, how old are you really?"

"I am serious. Elves live for a very long time."

"Yes, I suppose that is true. Come to think of it, I have heard of some old ages before. So, how old would you be if you were human?"

"About twenty two or so. My coming of age was at ninety eight, and we can live to be about four hundred assuming all goes well with our health, and we are not killed."

"Your people must see a lot of things in such long lives."

"Surprisingly, not really. Most of the people in the village were born there, and will die there, having never left. That is why I come out this far from home. I wanted to see something other then the places in the village. I wanted my life to mean something."

"And did you find meaning?"

"Actually, not really. Not like I thought I would. I realize now that the most important thing in life is to find love. That is another reason I traveled so far. I wanted to find a woman to give my love to. Someone who would understand me, and could accept me for who I am. I was seeking that true form of love that one cannot live without." He paused for a moment before going on slowly. "In short, I was seeking a woman like you."

Blazewind's head shot upright quickly. "Wh... what?" She exclaimed in shock. "How can I be...?"

"I do believe I am in love with you, Blazewind," Belfire said boldly, as he leaned toward her, to gage her reaction. Her eyes were open wide in disbelief, and her hands shook a little as she slowly turned her head down, to look at the dusty ground. He boldly tipped her head up with one hand, and gave her a quick kiss on her lips. She stared at him, as her leaned back against the tree.

"We should be off," she said in a businesslike manner. "If we keep going, we can make it to the next town tonight, and I can try to make some money performing." She stood up, and untied her horse from a tree, with a trembling Belfire fallowing her lead.