I guess this is the chapter all of you Gluxa fans have been waiting for. I was trying all of yesterday to post this, but my internet would not allow me. Anyways, you know the rest: read, review, enjoy, etc.

I decided to waste a day and draw what I saw yesterday. I brought another journal and drew some of the flora and fauna in the area. They seem to dislike the light. I suspect that their eyes have never been exposed to it. In other words, they're blind. On the front of my journal I drew my son. I included a text at the bottom of this page also. I miss. I miss his Dad. I shouldn't have left, I see that now. But how could I have turned down the opportunity? This is what I've always been interested in; exploring my surroundings and documenting my findings. I had been working on a research paper on the location of Atlantis before I found the Underland. Or it found me rather…

Boots' eyes were wide, her body trembling in fear. She waited as the clicking of claws got louder and louder and a shape began to form. She squinted and stopped trembling. She cocked her head to the side. The outline looked familiar, but the closer it got to their light source - the fire - the more the shadow was tinted green. Boots could swear she knew it and it really began to gnaw at her that she couldn't place it.

She saw Gregor slowly rise in her peripheral vision and turned toward him, violently shaking her head. "Stop!" She said as he hesitantly brought out his dagger. "Stop! I recognize something about it. Just give me a second. I know that shadow!"

"She's right, Gregor." Luxa whispered, also standing, her hand hovering over her own dagger. "There's something eerily familiar about it. But, I don't know any creatures that are green…" Luxa pursed her lips in concentration.

"Shadow…" Gregor mumbled, thinking about what the two girls had said and looking at his feet. "Shadow," His head snapped up and a light bulb went off, "Shadow!" Gregor smacked his forehead as if everyone should get what he was saying.

"Spit it out, kid!" Ripred growled, but Gregor just kept saying shadow and began to pace back and forth, glancing up at the approaching figure every few seconds.

Everyone was on their feet now, all glancing nervously from Gregor to the greenish silhouette. Then Gregor stopped pacing. "Everyone step away from the fire." He said, a glint of excitement in his eyes. They all looked at him like he was crazy. "Now!" He said exasperated. They all did what he asked, except Boots and Luxa, who joined him.

Click, click, click, click, click. Gregor was going to die from excitement. Even though the color was different, if this was who he thought it was he would be ecstatic. Click, click, click, click, click. Boots had a flash back. Geg-go? She snapped out of it and a confused look was plastered on her face. Click, click, click, click, click. Only a few more steps. Luxa pulled the dagger out of her backpack. If this was some evil creature and everyone else wasn't on their guard, Luxa had to be.

Gregor was practically hopping from one foot to another to contain his excitement. It was odd to see this motion performed by a sixteen year old boy.

Finally the shadow reached the fire and everyone gasped when Gregor ran to it and hugged it.

Finally it came to Boots… Ares.

"They all told me- but I couldn't believe them- and then I- but now I'm back- how did you- why are you green?"

"Gregor! Luxa! All of you!" If bats could smile, Ares did. "Oh it is so good to see you. I was preparing for my journey back to Regalia, a trip I had planned on tomorrow, but seeing as your all here! Why is that exactly?"

"Later. First tell us what happened to you." It was Ripred that spoke.

"I was saved from a gruesome death by a spinner. This spinner, Cassandra, had been shunned by her fellow kind. She had been trying to develop a new kind of thread or silk and she was testing it on wounded subjects. The spinners banished her because they believed she had been inflicting the wounds on her test subjects herself. All the subjects had been volunteers, though none of them survived the product. That was because they're wounds weren't something that could be fixed.

"Anyway, every spinner makes a different kind of silk. Certain ones make the silk into a weapon, others make the silk for clothing. Cassandra had been making silk for clothing, but she believed her thread was special. She believed it could heal things.

"After the battle, or during the battle, after I was… wounded(I can't remember much of that time), Cassandra had found me and wrapped me in a cocoon made of her thread. I thought I was dead, mother of pearl colors swirling around me. 'Is this where the dead go?' I had thought. My wound hurt greatly, but every day the pain subsided a little. One day I woke up and I was out of the swirling, sparkly colors. Cassandra had taken me out; I was healed. This cave is where I've been regaining my strength and where her permanent headquarters are."

"Okay…but why are you green?" Gregor glanced up questioningly at his friend.

Luxa responded before Ares had a chance. "It's a side effect. There are people in Regalia who have an allergic reaction to the spider-silk clothing; their skin turns a light shade of green. Ares' extended exposure to the silk must have turned him a deep shade of green." Ares nodded, signaling that what Luxa said was, in fact, true.

"But now, old friend, tell me why you're here: in the Underland and in the Uncharted Lands."

Gregor explained, parts he forgot to tell being filled in by Lizzie and Boots. Then Ripred and Luxa told of all that had happened in the city while Ares was believed to be dead.

"And you, young man, how have you been since we last saw one another?" The question was directed at Hazard who had gone and sat in one of the shadows. It made him look evil, the red-orange flames barely making a dent in the darkness that surrounded him.

Ares and Hazard had never been close, but Ares was still curious about the boy. And he was trying to be cautious; the way Hazard sat away from all the others reminded him a bit of Henry.

"Fine." Hazard answered. And while hat left much to be desired, Ares', nor anyone else's excitement could be dulled by the boy's pessimism.

The enthusiasm died down and slowly they drifted off to bed. Lizzie had Boots on her lap and she drifted off leaning against the cave's wall. Ripred curled up next to them and Hazard slept next to the cave's mouth. Ares had retired back into the depths of the cave, where he said Cassandra had already fallen asleep.

"So, what was it like, all those years without the weight of Regalia on your shoulders?" Luxa was curled against Gregor's chest as she watched the fire slowly die.

"I would say it was nice, but it wasn't. When we first left I missed everyone terribly, I couldn't properly mourn the death of Ares, my grandmother died, Boots kept asking why we couldn't go back, my Mom had a relapse of her pneumonia, my Dad had to quit his job to take care of us, and I started acting out at school. Getting into fights and stuff. My parents eventually took me out of school after I almost seriously injured a kid because of my rager abilities. That's when they decided to move us all to Virginia. My mom got better with a bigger house and cleaner air. She was able to get a job after a while of just working on my Uncle's farm. My Dad became a college professor and he would home school me after he got home from work. Lizzie skipped a grade and just excelled at everything. Boots, who now goes by Margie at school, became this wonderful little kid. I think I told you how she loved to draw and paint and all. She's amazing. Then she started having dreams about this place, started drawing what she saw. That's when my Mom forbade us of ever going back to New York, to the Underland. It got better for everyone else. Their lives moved on to bigger, brighter things. But, mine was always stuck here… This place made me grow up; it changed me… you changed me."

Gregor leaned down and his lips met Luxa's and it was then that he knew. She was his first and only love and he wouldn't allow her to marry Tasisurie, or whatever his name was. Now he just had to decide when to tell her, or ask her rather…