i felt like a bad writer for making such a short short pathertic little chapter, that i wrote another one. a longer one. and here 'tis. Maybe i won't feel like such a failure after this. I could have stuck this together with 5, but i am lazy. oh well. enjoy i guess.

It took us almost three hours to reach the Byrnja's encampment. I was asleep for much of the ride and barely remember our entrance into the camp. It wasn't until the next day that I realized that I had no idea where I was, and only the slightest inclination as to with whom I was now living.

I was woken that next morning by a shaft of brilliant light. Food had been laid out for me and no one appeared to be nearby. I had fallen asleep on the wagon I'd come in upon and the horses were still harnessed to it. I waited and watched, surrounded by thick trees, sure that if I ventured out among them I would quickly be lost. I finished my meal, dusted off my clothes and jumped down from the wagon. As I walked towards the horses, I heard a soft footstep behind me. I turned to find that man whom I had met more than a year earlier.

He was still beautiful and he was still dressed in black. He was the brother of Sezjah, and I could see the similarities in his face that named him as her kin.

I found myself with nothing to say as he approached me and ran a hand lightly over my hair.

"You've grown…" he remarked with a bit of a smirk. The humor was lost on me as I attempted to sound as cold and aloof as he did.

"Of course."

His smirk grew into a grin, a beautiful grin with teeth still too white and still too sharp. The last time I had seen him his eyes had been black and eternal and I had found myself wanting to be lost in them. Now they were a bright ash gray that, somehow, did not seem oxymoronic. Streaks of silver highlighted them as I looked up instead of at his pale fangs. The immortal's eyes seemed the most human part about him, despite their unearthly color, and yet they took the breath from my lungs and stilled the blood in my veins. I was immediately entranced.

After a period of time, it may have been several moments, a minute or a lifetime (I wasn't sure and I didn't care), his face became serious and he blinked, breaking the gaze that had held me so fast.

"Do you know why you are here?" he inquired.

"I have nowhere else to go," I responded, a little confused. Surely he would know as well as I why I was here, after all, hadn't his sister asked for his permission to keep me?

He got down on one knee in order to get closer to me and smiled a sad slow smile. "You are here, little one, because I wanted you here. With my sister you will be safe, and you will be mine."

The words were spoken lightly, and for a split second, the idea of belonging to this gorgeous stranger seemed almost nice. I must remind you, I did not yet know anything of his world, of this world, and I saw no reason to be truly afraid.

He withdrew, stood up and looked coldly down at my multi-hued gaze for a long minute. His face was like polished marble in snow and showed nothing of his thoughts. I wanted to see something on his face, emotion in his eyes, anything that would promise me further conversation with this being whose feet I probably would have kissed. And so I asked, "Wh- What is your name.?"

A small crack appeared in the buffered stone, " Call me Silver," he replied. "And I never did bother to ask you yours…" He waited for a reply.

I gulped, stood straighter, took a deep breath, I had always liked my name, and responded with what he would later refer to as 'all the dignity of my blood mother'. "You may call me Rikka."

"Rikka," he mused, "Rikka…". He seemed rather troubled by this announcement. "No that won't do…" He cocked his head and looked down at me. "How would you like a new name, a public name. I will call you Rikka, of course, but your common name… How do you like Adriana, or Kali?

I was sorely tempted to pout, but the name Kali seemed a strong one, and I immediately took a liking to it.

"Kali... that's one's all right I guess."

Later I would discover that he had named me after a Hindu goddess of death, but that discovery would not be made for many years and at that moment, we were both satisfied.