Wind caressed Raviathan's cheek as he walked through the deep forest. A breeze lifted the long strands of his hair, sweet as kisses. Silvered moonlight allowed him to pick his way along the little-used path. More than anything, the solitary walk in the dark of the wood eased away the tension that had been a constant ache in his shoulders.

Above, the leaves of ancient trees rustled, almost like whispers or laughter. Raviathan had never seen such trees in his life, not in the journey to Redcliffe or the quick crossing through the hinterlands, certainly not in the Korcari Wilds with its bogs and twisted brambles. Raviathan couldn't name the trees, only knew a few of the most common. It gave the forest a sense of mystery, these trees that towered far overhead, taller than even the fortress of Ostagar.

Ferns brushed against his thighs. His fingers trailed against their rough texture, and he breathed in the clean scent of deep forest and lush earth.

"You don't belong here."

Raviathan turned to find the voice. It sounded rusty, like old hinges. An old crow regarded him, a shadow among shadows, save for its red eyes.

"You should leave."

The wind that had been soft turned cold. Tiny barbs of ice scraped his cheeks. Raviathan hunched his shoulders, drew his cloak tighter around him. The tree limbs above him stretched as he watched. They grew, thickened, reaching out, twisting together, blotting out the night sky. The wind grew, ice cutting his exposed skin.

"Leave."

"I can't." There was a mission, something he had to do. What was it?

"Leave now."

"I can't." The chill buffeted him, harsh as a slap. When he braved the cutting wind to look back up at the crow, more than a dozen perched along the tree limbs, all regarding him with red eyes glowing bright in the darkness.

"We will eat their eyes."

Eat their eyes? Whose eyes? He had to turn his face away as the ice slashed his cheeks with tiny needles. Wetness trickled down his face and neck, soaked into his shirt. Was he bleeding, or was it the snow? Needles, scratching and scraping, stinging. Wind lashed his face. Wind? Wings. Claws. Raviathan stumbled back, batting away the crow.

"Eat your eyes."

Beaks snapped at his fingers, powerful enough to break his delicate bones.

"No!" He flailed, stumbled over the underbrush he couldn't see. "Get away from me!"

Sharp talons ripped the skin at his face, tore at his neck. Raviathan yelled, tried to punch the birds away. He rolled to hide his face from exposure, his arms the only shield he had from the talons that scratched the back of his skull. The crows picked at his cloak, pecked bloody grooves, bit his ears, raked at any vulnerabilities he had.

Snaps and scrapes continued to torment him with no release in sight. Raviathan yelled, swung out his arms when he could, cowered to protect his face when the talons sought out his exposed skin. Still the claws came, the talons struck, and those horrid beaks kept digging further in.

Snap, snap, snap.

Raviathan panted, not quite sure when the onslaught stopped, only that he cowered in a ball. He shook in the aftermath of the attack.

Carefully, he unwound. He stung all over as if having rolled in a patch of stinging nettles. Raviathan could feel the brush of ferns and bushes, but no light permeated through the forest. He touched his face gingerly, trying to figure out the extent of the damage. Sticky blood coated his skin, crusting in the cold wind to a tight mask. The gashes had rough edges, lacerations from ripping rather than the clean cut a blade would make.

When his fingers reached his eyelids, there was no outward roundness from his eyes. He couldn't blink, the skin of his eyelids felt torn, pulsed with dull pain. His fingers probed, and with a sickening clutch of his gut, Raviathan felt the empty, tattered interior of his eye socket.

His skin stung where he touched open wounds, fingers shaking as the enormity of what had happened came to him. Blind. Can't heal what's gone. A pressure at the back of his throat warned him, and he bent over to vomit. The acid burned, a negligible pain compared to the rest. His stomach heaved in painful contractions, forcing him to empty everything he had.

Blind. He was in the woods, alone. How was he supposed to find his way out of the forest? Thorny bushes scraped hard branches against him as he rose. Stay? Hope for rescue? Who would come for him?

He took a few hesitant steps before his foot caught in a root. The tendons gave with a pop, a sound like an egg breaking, as he fell. Thorns poked at open wounds as his world spun in the fall.

Raviathan's breath caught. He lay, paralyzed, from fear or pain or grief, he could not say. He would starve, or die of exposure, lost and vulnerable, no help and no way to save himself.

"Eat their eyes."

"What?"

The crow sounded like he was near. "Eat their eyes. We will eat their eyes."

Whose?

Another crow from a different direction, "Eat their eyes."

Whose? He thought of the alienage. His father's sad eyes, Soris' clear blue and Shianni's hazel gold eyes, Ness' beautiful sapphire eyes that smiled when he played music for her. Not them. Please, not them.

The crows started to laugh. Their laughter carried away into the dark.

"Can't protect them," the crow laughed as he flew away.

Loose earth brushed his cheek as he crawled forward, the thorn bushes scraping along his cut scalp.

When had he ever been able to protect them? He crawled, hoping to find the path, some way back.

Something large moved ahead of him. The low growl froze Raviathan at the bone. There was no fighting, no way to run. Raviathan stilled like a frightened rabbit, immobile except for his thundering heart beat. He heard the paws land as it neared, unhurried. Hot breath touched his face, something wet dripping on him, stinging his open wounds. Above, a growl, a rumble that vibrated the air around him.

I don't want to die. Please. I don't want to die.

~o~O~o~

Spots of sunlight escaped through the canopy that rose far above their heads, the light filtering down in an emerald latticework. The warm sun and peaceful greenery helped shake the last of the nightmare from Raviathan's thoughts. Seems they had all slept poorly judging by the glum expressions and terse comments over breakfast. The Dalish hahren, Sarel, named the forest Setheneran, the Land of Waking Dreams, but that hadn't prepared any of his group for the nightmares. It had taken an hour for Raviathan to shrug off his gloom, but he had other thoughts to occupy his mind.

The Dalish! As far back as Raviathan could remember, he had dreamed of the Dalish. The stories his mother wove lived for hours afterwards when he tried to sleep. His fantasies featured finding the Dalish, of having his magic honored as a rare and treasured thing. In his dreams he would become the best warrior leader of the tribe after single handedly saving the hahren's beautiful daughter from a fate worse than death. As a child, he and his two cousins had once attempted to leave to find the Dalish, a misadventure that led them through the streets of Denerim only to be pounced upon by bullies. Maker's breath, what stories he would have for his cousins now.

Next to him, their guide Nijel wandered along old paths, a patient smile on his worn but regal face. Raviathan had enough awareness to know his enthusiasm must be trying, but the last two days had been some of the best since he left Denerim. Nothing could prepare him for actually seeing the wild elves. Stories could tell of how they lived free, but nothing could convey their attitudes towards their history and fierce devotion to preserving the remaining treasures of elven culture.

Days later, the rhythms of Dalish drum songs echoed inside Raviathan as insistent as a heartbeat. Visions of tattoos engraved in vivid colors greeted him when he closed his eyes, the designs feeling like the runes of old magic embedded in elven skin. He wondered if he could ask for a tattoo, then of which of the ancient gods he would honor with the rite, but in the end he left that ritual to the Dalish. He wasn't one of them and had little right to adopt what they held sacred. One day, maybe, he would weave feathers into his braids, or wear the leather clothing they did, decorated with beautiful wooden beads polished to shine like gems.

His mother's stories also hadn't prepared him for the tribes suspicions or for the 'flat ear' comments. Possibly the biggest schism was that the Dalish didn't consider him much of an elf, an attitude that continued to worry at Raviathan. True, he wasn't Dalish and wasn't going to take from a culture he didn't belong to, but an elf was an elf, didn't matter where they were born. He had the same feeling towards parents who pulled their children's ears to make sure they were long enough, the poor crying babes. Instead of being guardians of knowledge for those willing to journey to learn, many of the Dalish held their gate keeping of history with arrogance, an attitude that surprised Raviathan but did little to cool his enthusiasm. He could understand that attitude towards the shems, but why hold an elf's birth against him or her?

"Here. The trail leaves to the north."

Raviathan nodded though he couldn't quite make out the deer tracks Nijel had been showing him.

The elder elf laughed. "It takes quite a bit of practice, even in ideal conditions, and this soft earth doesn't hold prints well."

Thankful for the other elf's understanding, Raviathan smiled. "I'm grateful Zathrian allowed you to be our guide."

"I'm glad to still be of use! I can't hunt like I once did, but it heartens me to see our skills passed down to new generations."

From what Raviathan could glean through whispers and suspicions, Nijel wasn't supposed to do more than make sure their party didn't get lost with the secondary mission to find some trail of the missing hunting party. The education Nijel imparted wasn't authorized, and as Raviathan wouldn't be able to join the clan, prohibited to outsiders. "Have you trained many hunters?"

"Oh yes. My sons and daughter, nieces and nephews, my eldest grandchild, and even two flat ears such as yourself. I must say, for someone city born, you have remarkable skill with the halla. Many in the clan are thankful for what you did to help aid Elora in caring for them."

"It was nothing." Raviathan was not about to spill his secret magical ability even to the mage-sympathetic Dalish.

"Nothing? Our halla keeper is most skilled, and even she couldn't solve that mystery."

"Though there are no halla, we do have many animals in the cities. A calm hand is all. Do you get many city elves?"

"On rare occasions. There's Lanaya, who you've met. Most are like you, eager, willing to learn, and full of some of the strangest stories that have been traded around for generations beyond counting. The stories one told about Dragon's Peak seem fantastic."

"Never wanted to visit a shem city?"

"I've thought of it. Just for the experience. I've been to Lothering and a few of the holdings on occasion. What I see reminds me why I stay away."

Raviathan laughed at that though the subject was a bitter one. "Can't say I'd recommend them, especially considering the travel to get there."

"You have traveled far then?"

"From Denerim to Redcliffe to Ostagar, Lothering, and here."

"Ethn ghi'las mar aravel."

"What does that mean?"

"Safety guide your long journey." Nijel proceeded to translate each word along with the delineations.

"Aravel? I thought those were the landships you use."

"It's the name we've give them, but the word means 'long journey', like the way march once only referred to a mark of land, then as the journey between marks, but can also refer to the movement of an army, a march. We don't have much of the old language left, just bits now, but it's a word from before we needed landships, from before the time of the shemlen."

Raviathan fell silent as Nijel continued on about Arlathan and the old gods of the elves, a lecture spotted by observations of the forest. Raviathan's chest ached at the monumental loss of history, his history, his cousins', father's, all the faces in the alienage he remembered, strangers at Ostagar bound by elven blood, the elven family in Lothering. We weren't meant for the lives we lead now.

~o~O~o~

The low fire popped as Raviathan poked a log into a better position. Once he had heated the moisture out of the wood, the fire no longer struggled to keep alight. Fire came to him as easy as breathing.

A low moan sounded from Leliana's tent. She had been thrashing in her sleep since Raviathan took his watch, the last of the group to do so. He glanced over at the tent as if he could discern her dreams.

His own dreams had been troubled of late. Shadows moving through the forest, hunting him. In these quiet moments he had time to reflect. Maker, his temper was starting to scare him. He raged after his mother died, felt that hot rage turn cold when Solyn died two years later. He knew injustice, knew anger, but he had never lashed out at other people like this.

Of course he knew why. Ever since his Joining, he felt hunted. Everything that happened afterwards just made his situation worse and worse with no relief in sight. He now had a bard who lied about her profession, a giant of a man who wore his disgust for Raviathan like a coat of armor, and a templar of all things. The Maker had a twisted sense of humor. That was the only sure thing he felt anymore.

Twenty years to live. If he lived. Death stalked the alienage like a starved cat. No one who grew up there thought of death as a stranger. Not a stranger, but Raviathan never felt the limit of his life before. Twenty years. Half his life was already gone. To think in those terms, it staggered him. Even if he could have children tomorrow, they would barely be of marriageable age by the time his death came.

He would never reach the age his father was now.

He would never have children.

Try as he might to make peace with that knowledge, both of his short life and dreams dashed, he couldn't get over the sting. And that didn't even account for the terror that loomed over him, shadowed his every waking thought, haunted his dreams.

Too much. Too big, too powerful, too annihilating evil.

How does one person fight a god?

Anger was the only thing that kept Raviathan from collapsing into tears, too paralyzed to go on. At times he could justify those moments when he had lashed out, and other times he kept going over what he had done or said and felt like an absolute shit.

Every single blight had destroyed nations. Not one country escaped the barren lands left from darkspawn invasions. Not one was left untouched by starvation, massive deaths from battles and attacks. Whole villages, cities even, gone. Nothing left but ruins and ghosts. Ferelden's fate would be no different. This country, the only home he had known, would be crushed.

It was his responsibility to fight the blight, and he already knew he would fail. How did anyone keep their sanity when faced with that?

A violent kick from Leliana's tent pulled Raviathan out of his thoughts. A few minutes later she emerged with her bedroll draped around her shoulders.

"Seems bad dreams are getting to all of us lately," Raviathan said, his voice low so as not to wake the others.

She nodded, staring at the fire. They sat quietly a moment. Raviathan wondered if he should start getting breakfast ready. If the rest slept as poorly, they would be up earlier than usual.

"You're good at keeping the fire going." Leliana held her hands out to warm them. "I could barely keep embers alight."

Raviathan shrugged one shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

He hadn't wanted to talk about his dreams either. He set a pot to boil then added the beans that had been soaking for the past hour. Salt pork, dried carrots and tomatoes came next along with the few herbs Raviathan had gathered the day before. "You haven't spent much time in the woods before."

"No. A few hunts back in Orlais, but not like this. We had huntsmen to track and servants ready with lunch."

"You had servants?"

"Not personally. I was invited on hunts by patrons."

"Sounds like luxury."

A wry, humorless smile twisted Leliana's mouth. "There is a cost, no doubt about it, even if it's not your gold. Nothing is free in the Imperial Court."

Is that why she left for Lothering? Something to do with the Orlesian nobles? Possibly a scandal she wasn't ready to speak of. "Why did you join us?"

She stretched her back and neck, then arms, probably wanting time to formulate her answer. "Seems we will speak of dreams after all. The night before you came, I had a dream, but more than a dream. I believe it was a vision."

"Tell me."

"In my dream, there was a great darkness. We think of darkness as an absence of light, something frightened away by the tiny light of a single candle. Darkness may hold the unknown, but there is no power to it save what we conjure in our own minds. But this, this was far more. The darkness pressed like a physical thing, dense and real. It loomed over the world, blotted out the sun. I do not know if it was alive, but there was… it was not unthinking, and that alone is terrifying. Then I heard a great and terrible noise, one that made me ache at the soul, as if my bones would be crushed. I stood on a peak, watching as the darkness unfolded. When the darkness swallowed the last remaining light of the sun, I fell. Or maybe I jumped."

Raviathan sat for a moment, a fist pressed against his lips and eyes focused on the fire as he thought. "And you think this darkness is the blight?"

"What else could it be?"

"You seem certain this is a vision."

"There is more." Leliana shifted and huddled in her bedroll. "I woke early and decided to walk through the gardens to gain some clarity and distance myself from the remains of the dream. In the Chantry garden, there grew an old rose bush. It was an ancient, twisted thing. Gnarled and grey, full only of thorns. Nothing grew from it, not for years according to the other sisters. When I went to the garden though, it was a miracle. Overnight, a rosebud had formed and flowered. I saw this bush the day before, knew there was nothing but dead wood."

Raviathan stared at her, lips parted.

"You believe me." Leliana beamed. "I can see it. Who but the Maker could have given such a sign? Especially in the midst of winter when no roses bloom. It is like he stretched out his hand to show that even in death and ugliness, there can be beauty. You just need faith."

That was her reason for joining them? Maker's ass. He kept from laughing at his own curse, but he felt older, more cynical in the face of Leliana's naivete. She wouldn't understand, and he couldn't explain, not without giving himself away. The bitter laughter stayed close to the surface, ready for an opportunity to escape. How the Chantry hated magic, locked away any who had it, tore children from families, and here, here was this sister who thought his magic was the Maker's hand.

If the Maker watched them, he must have an incredible sense of irony.

The discussion ended as the others woke. Breakfast was ready by the time everyone had their equipment packed back up. They cleaned up, left, and Nijel continued his lectures on the forest, which Raviathan was grateful for.

The two spoke in low voices ahead of the rest, one elf imparting his wisdom to another, a wisdom that would only be shared with kin and not the rest of Raviathan's party. In that act of keeping secrets, Raviathan felt he had gained a precious trust from the Dalish, even if Nijel was not the sole representative of the clan. That Raviathan was deemed worthy enough to be a student gave him enough of an emotional boost that he could forget his darker thoughts before dawn.

Nijel smiled with time-bought patience. "You're as eager to learn as the others from the city. A shame that you will not be with us permanently. I have to keep reminding myself to keep from expecting more."

"Is that a problem?"

"No, not really. I keep trying to match you with the young ladies of the clan or the ones near who are of marriageable age."

A sad smile touched Raviathan's mouth. "I'm afraid I am no match. If I ran away a half year ago... but then I was still a child." Maker, how different my life would be. But then he would never have met his Ness, and she was worth all the heartache and lonely nights. When he thought of fighting the blight and the impossibility of the task, it was her face he saw to give him hope. She was his rose, his reason to keep going, a sign of the Maker's love if there ever was one.

Nijel's hand on his arm brought Raviathan to attention. The elf motioned to the path before them, then got the attention of the rest. He gestured for silence then led them to a rise off the main path. From that vantage point, the party could see the brown bear that wandered in a small grove by the side of the trail.

"Normally I would say to leave him." Nijel said, shaking his head sadly. "We've been getting blighted creatures lately. Their anger and disease is a plague. From here we can shoot in safety."

Leliana and Raviathan both readied their bows. The bear howled with the first shots, whipping its great body around to find a target. From the vantage of safety, Raviathan couldn't help but admire the bear's thick muscles and power. To be a bear, with deadly claws longer than his fingers, thick fur to stave off winter, and mounds of flesh to keep from starvation and injuries, that would be an impressive step in the fight. Granted, a bear against a god wasn't but a small step, but it was huge for Raviathan.

Leliana fired the killing shot, an arrow into the bear's eye.

"Looks like he already got one soul." Nijel pointed to a body in the glen.

When they approached for further inspection, the body turned out to be a templar. Nijel's knuckles turned white on his gripped bow, his expression turning to cold rage. "One of the shems to hunt our clans and kill our keepers."

Alistair shifted, uncomfortable, silently pleading Raviathan to keep his templar status secret. Even Leliana looked abashed.

"Mother and I often dealt with these fools, bent on finding lone witches who lived in the wilds, as if we posed any danger to them."

"All we want is to be left alone. To find our own peace. But the shemlen harass us at the borders, or come to hunt us."

"You have my sympathies, Nijel," Morrigan said.

"You as well, daughter of the Witch of the Wilds. Why humans fear magic so, it is beyond me. Our keepers are leaders but so much more. We would be lost without them."

Behind them, Sten growled.

Nijel shook his head at the body. "I would not honor this one with a funeral, but leaving the body will only provide a vessel for spirits to haunt. Come. We will burn him."

That was more honor than the templars gave Solyn. Raviathan remembered her body, broken, violated, covered with her own blood, left in garbage to rot. Those templars couldn't have been bothered to toss her body into the bay less than half a block away. No, she was a warning to all the other apostates. This is what happens to those who defy their laws.

The burning had to be done by Alistair and Leliana as the rest were too angry or in Sten's case too apathetic.

"Your mother holds an honored place among us, Morrigan," Nijel said.

Instead of the vitriol Morrigan usually displayed at the mention of her mother, she gave Nijel a respectful nod.

"You don't seemed as bothered by magic as most city elves," Nijel said to Raviathan.

He shrugged in response. "I never understood why people feared magic."

Morrigan pursed her lips to suppress a smile. "A sensible attitude."

~o~O~o~

Raviathan sighed. This idea, intriguing though it was, just kept dancing out of reach of comprehension. "I keep running up against the same problem."

"You're thinking too literally. This is magic, after all."

"But magic follows laws just like everything else," Raviathan protested to an unsympathetic Morrigan. "The law of the conservation of mass. How do you go from being eight stone to a bird that weighs less than a sword? What happens to your clothing? Your equipment?"

Morrigan's impatient snort returned his questions. "From whom did you study such limiting magic?"

Frowning, Raviathan picked at a dirty fingernail. His hands had been getting so shabby lately. "The person who taught me was from Tevinter."

Maker, he was tired of feeling incompetent all the time. Ever since he left the alienage, the world seemed bound and determined to make sure he knew how small and inexperienced he was. Kidnapped, beaten, nearly killed a half dozen times. The only time he had been forced to deal with the prejudice of humans was when he left the alienage. Since Vaughan's invasion, every single day he had to deal with their contempt and disgust.

The Dalish had been a relief from the constant judgment of humans, but any tranquility he might have gained was shattered when that qunari glowered at him, and there Raviathan was, the small, pretty elf. As a bard, his only use might be as some exotic bird in a cage to sing for nobles, but to the giant, this pretty elf was worth less than a servant. The qunari's narrowed glare made it clear that Raviathan was no leader, no one who could command respect despite his reluctant position in their group.

Annoyed, Raviathan squared his shoulders. Solyn's education shouldn't be dismissed so easily. "My teacher was quite good."

"Good, perhaps, but limited." Morrigan's eyes grew flinty. "You asked to learn. Are you so arrogant to think the discipline given you is the only useful knowledge there is?"

At that he had to take a moment. He reached inside himself, saw his magic shining like his own personal sun. When he reached for magic to power a spell, usually to heal but lately to defend, it was like touching a second heart in his chest. That heart beat magic through him as essential to his life as his flesh heart beating blood. During meditation, that sun floated inside his chest in a place more vast than the night sky. The purest white light, blinding if ever seen by a visible eye, was like looking into creation itself.

Touching his magic had the effect of cooling his mind, making him feel more, both uplifting his thoughts and purifying his passions. His heart of magic cleansed like fire, burned away confusion and ego, filled him with hope and purpose, clarified his muddled mind. Months had passed since his last meditation. In the absence of meditation, his temper flared, his doubts ate away at him, and his pride took the place of patience.

"No, Morrigan. I'm sorry. I just wish I could understand how this works."

Mollified, Morrigan sat next to him and ate a few of the winter berries Nijel had scrounged. "You know how the Fade works. For every item, every creature, every virtue and vice, there is one form of that, perfected through the thousands of sleepers over thousands of years. When I say raven, the word is only a sound, but the thought is another matter. The meaning goes beyond words to the Fade itself. It is the concept that you are becoming. And that concept filters through your sense of yourself. That is when the form becomes yours. When you fully understand what 'raven' is, what that means in the most singular of all possibilities of 'raven', in all of the complexities, forms, manifestations, then you can incarnate that idea into the physical."

Raviathan let out his breath in a huff. "So. Even as a bear, I'll be a smaller, darker bear."

Morrigan laughed. "Is that so troublesome?"

Only that I'll never be as strong as any creature whose form I take. Maker, is that my destiny?

The dull fear that chased him, always there, just below his conscious thoughts, came to the front. The respite of his dreams no longer provided sanctuary from the day. The blight. The archdemon.

His Joining stole the last peace of mind he would ever have. The best he could do was forget the fears that hunted him, but they found him, bit at him in the night.

What could one small elf do against an archdemon? He couldn't fight off a bear on his own. How in the Maker's name would he be able to stand against that monster?

Dread festered in his stomach, leeched his hope, made him want to give up and run just as he was starting.

Duncan, where are you? I can't do this. I can't be responsible for all this.

Raviathan studied his hands, dirty but his skin no longer splitting. Thankfully, he had been able to trade with a Dalish for some lanolin. The dry cracks along his knuckles and the backs of his hands began bleeding after the party had left Lothering. He flexed his fingers, testing the repair he had done to keep them supple enough to finely manipulate magical energies after the damage that combat wrecked on delicate nerves. The process of healing his hands enough for the subtle work of magic needed to be balanced with the skin toughening that swordplay and archery brought.

What would it be like to look down and see bird talons or bear claws?

"What about your mind? The brain of a bird is vastly different than what you have as a human. Do you think differently? How do you keep who you are, your memories and intelligence?"

Morrigan's face puckered in annoyance. "Are you not a mage? How is this so difficult to understand? You are part of the Fade. You are merely bringing that aspect of the Fade into the physical. Is this no different than bringing fire? Fire that does not need fuel to feed from? No spark to create, nothing to continue its existence other than your will that it be so?"

"It's not the same."

Her strange, yellow eyes pinned him. "Make it your will that this be so. That is all you need."

The concept continued to slither beyond his faculty. Raviathan could almost catch it, could almost feel this thing she tried to teach, but the maddening understanding continued to evade him in the misty shroud of his thoughts.

"But… your clothes and equipment…"

Morrigan's disgusted growl carried as she walked away.

AN: i haven't been totally dead all this time. you can check out a tarot card pic of rav on my deviant art page under "usernamesaresilly". also, no more delays on 'eyes of wolves'. expect a chapter every other week for this section... unless something goes horribly wrong.