Step Eight: Storm the Keep

"No, I'm not impressed. The Prince is an idiot. What he did was incredibly stupid. Sole heir to a throne should not have risked his life trying to get back the rightful crowned. Could have sent the Reef into chaos. Damned idiot. Should've considered his priorities."-Lyse Ravenwood

He was a blazing bonfire of anger. The grief would come later, once he knew for certain.

For now he really just wanted to punch something. Repetitively. He was thinking, perhaps his own head would do. It was still throbbing. And, as they came up on the rise looking down on the Gate, an odd, sudden flash of dizziness overtook him for a split second, and he felt like an entire glacier ran down his spine.

Either the twins didn't notice his sudden reach for a nearby boulder, and the swift, rapid shake of his head, or they assumed it was something having to do with the stress of his missing sister being thrown inside the Black freaking Garden of all places. They planted themselves behind some rocks, and he did the same, discretely taking out his knife.

Looking at his reflection, he saw his eyes were burning brighter than normal, though gradually fading back to their usual steady glow. Mara? Had she tried to contact him? It had felt like it; he hadn't been trying to use his powers. But the connection wasn't meant to exhaust the person on the receiving end; it had never done that before. Was there something wrong with her?

Perhaps she was trying to break the same block I encountered earlier? Such a barrier of nothingness could not have been broken through so easily. Or maybe she'd already broken it, and his own symptoms were simply a side effect of her trying to contact him while exhausted?

For a few moments, he considered trying again to reach out to her, but his head was still reeling from the strange occurrence. He got the feeling that if he tried to use his powers now, he might pass out. His mind traveled back to the incident where he'd put himself in a coma after accidentally disintegrating a small Cabal fleet.

And he did not need any more weird questions about the powers that came with his heritage. Plus, passing out would not look good on the pride and dignity side of things, not to mention put him at a severe disadvantage on the fighting side of things. So, though it ached to do so, he cast the idea of reaching out to her aside. Sorry, Mara; there's too much at risk.

He was in a bad fighting condition enough as it was. His head hurt, he was exhausted by the heat and lack of sleep, and to top it all off, he was now shaking as his entire body felt like it was made of ice. There were still spots dancing at the edges of his vision. His throat was parched and scratchy, and his body was tired of the heat and desperate for warmth at the same time.

He'd fought in worse conditions. The mission for the cure included. He sidled up to the two Guardians discretely, trying to control his shivering. Alf brought his binoculars down, and handed them to Uldren so he could look.

"We got four Minotaurs, two Hobgoblins, and a Hydra in play. Looks like a patrol." he informed as Uldren brought the binoculars up to his own eyes, holding himself stock still. He glared through the lenses at the Vex, a snarl pulling at his lips. Damn killbots.

"Lets kill them." he told the brothers. "But wait until they start to leave. They'll open the Gate to go back into the Garden, and that's when we go after them."

"Sounds like a plan. Let's try to get as close as we can so we can follow." Ethan agreed, nodding. Uldren returned Alf's binoculars, and together, the three of them slunk down the rise, alongside the cliffs.

The Prince of Crows could relatively copy the fluid stealth of the Hunter, but Ethan was hopeless with any sort of grace. Uldren winced at each sound the Titan's heavy armor made. How the heck are we supposed to get close with him making all that racket? He was surprised they hadn't been sensed already by the Vex.

Close to the ruins they stopped, all crouching. They were in the shade, but the sun-baked part of the sands was so close, it was incredibly tempting for him to step out into the light and warmth. Earlier, the shade had offered little to no difference in temperature from the full light, but now that his blood was filled with ice, he longed to tip his face up to the sun.

Instead, he crouched alongside Alf and his clumsy, armor-clad brother, waiting patiently for the Vex to open their Gate again. They didn't have to wait long.

"Go, go, go!" Alf yelled. The three of them rushed forwards into the light. It made no difference in the coldness that had gripped him, and he took his hand cannon out of his holster as they ran up the steps.

Ethan stopped to shoot a Minotaur, sliding up to it and pulling the trigger twice, the close-range shotgun round blasting the Vex to pieces. Uldren took aim and killed one of the Hobgoblins before it could go through the gate, and he leapt into the swirling white after Alfie.

He endured a sensation that was about as pleasant as falling off the Certech building. When he was spat out into the open again, feeling quite a bit more nauseous for the experience, he was greeted with the sight of the Hydra and other Minotaurs, as well as the last Hobgoblin. He lifted his gun, fighting the urge to keel over and/or vomit, and shot it in the abdomen, causing it to collapse in on itself an die.

Alf was already on the other side of the room, trowing a grenade at the Hydra to distract it while Uldren got his bearings right. Decidedly portal-sick, to add to his dizziness, he rolled to the side as one of the Minotaurs fired at him, avoiding the blow.

Ethan charged out of the portal, getting thrown onto his side, tripping over himself by the sudden warp. Uldren ran to the sidelines, trying to take cover in his new, mossy, rocky surroundings and recover his breath. He backed against a pillar sticking out of the wall, and fired at one of the Minotaurs several times. One of them loomed over the disoriented Ethan, and the Titan rolled over at the last second, avoiding a stomp on the chest. Aiming his shotgun, he destroyed it like he had it's brethren earlier.

Uldren put his hand cannon in it's holster, and took his rifle off his back, aiming for the Hydra, which was trying-and failing- to get at Alfie, who was just too fast for it to hit. He didn't see Ethan take care of the last Minotuar.

The Hydra turned in the Reef prince's direction, the shield rotating around it open near it's eye. He fired repetitively, and it shook and swerved in mid-air as each bullet hit it's mark. Ethan threw a grenade over it's shield before it could fire at Uldren, and it turned to shoot at the Guardian instead, leaving it's back open to Alf and himself.

They both fired, and the damage became too great for the Hydra to handle. it spun out of control as a bullet did in it's hovering systems, and the creature of metal began to self-destruct.

As it went down, however, it spun right in Alf's direction. The Hunter's eyes widened, and he ran for cover, but it was already too late. The Hydra exploded, and Uldren thought he saw blood blossom on Alf's right side as he was thrown against the wall of the cave.

"ALFIE!" Ethan screamed, rushing forwards.

This... is not good.

Alf grimmaced with pain as his brother tightened the bandage around his abdomen. His helmet now removed, it revealed his face to be human, roughly approaching middle-age, with a square jaw, gray-green eyes, and short-cropped sandy blond hair.

"Careful, brother; it took me a while to get this six pack going. Abs like these don't grow on trees, you know." the Hunter tried to joke, though his voice rang with pain. Uldren was taking the opportunity to sit down while Ethan adressed his wounded twin. He was pretending to sharpen his knife with feverish tenacity, when in reality he was trying to get his nausea under control.

Pull youself together, Uldren. He snapped at himself inwardly. You have a job to do, a task to complete; don't let a little headache and some portal sickness stop you.

He flicked his shoulders, sitting taller and fighting back the weakness. The area around him would give even the most experienced scout the creeps. The whole place just screamed out at him not to be here, and his instincts wailed at him to leave. There was a sense of wrongness about everything in this Garden.

Not just physically, with the treeless floating leaves and the eirry green glow, but the air itself seemed to press in on him, making it harder to breath or think or do much of anything. He supposed that was the result of the Darkness festering in the Heart of the Garden.

And Mara was in here somewhere. Was she still alive? He had to scour the cave, look for signs of a trail. It would be hard to find one, what with the battle that had just taken place messing up all the evidence. It would be hard, but he could do it . He could-

"Hey." A nudge from Ethan snapped him out of his thoughts. "You okay?"

"No." Uldren snorted."I just got tossed through a hole in space/time. My sister is trapped in a Vex-infested cesspool of Darkness, and now we're down a man. No, I am not 'okay'."

If Ethan was offended by his tone of voice, Uldren couldn't see it through his helm. "I meant physically. You've been acting odd."

Uldren let out a dry laugh. "What would you know about 'odd' and 'normal' for me? Quit pretending you know things you don't. Tend your sibling, prepare to establish a camp. I'm going to find Mara's trail."

He got to his feet, ignoring the spots that danced in his vision, and strode past the Titan with purpose in his steps. He was feeling a little better than he had been. He approached the spot where they had roughly came in from. He froze, crouching down, as he spotted a dark blot on the floor.

The moss was torn, perhaps from their own entry, but it was Awoken blood without a doubt, and he felt something inside him twist and rear it's head in roaring rage. So, Mara was wounded. Damn Tay!

He could see a rough trail leading in the direction of the only exit, and the thin hope that she would be hiding in one of the caves that dotted the room faded. He'd been hoping she'd have been unconscious or deep asleep in one of them.

Things are never that easy. He chided himself. There were a few other droplets of blood scattered in the area, in the direction of the tunnels, but some around the room as well. He checked a curios spatter on the back wall, and wondered where it had come from before finally registering the stinging pain on his neck, just under his jaw.

Aside from Alf, he'd been closest to the exploding Hydra; he must've gotten hit by some shrapnel, and this theory was confirmed when he noticed the chink of metal embedded in the rock next to the splatter of his own blood. He pinched it between his thumb and a finger, and tossed it to the ground with a sneer, insulting that which had injured him. He reached up that same hand to feel the cut, and stared at the red-purple liquid that now stained his glove.

There wasn't a lot of it, thankfully, though he could feel beads of blood running down his throat annoyingly. He wiped them off with the back of his hand to relieve the sensation, and tried not to think about the day three years ago when he'd nearly bit the dust for good, and he found himself subconsciously tracing the scar on his neck. He'd spent the months following his recovery adapting his fighting style to better protect his throat; he wouldn't be caught off guard like that again.

Then, his thoughts drifted to the sensation of Mara using her powers to keep him alive. His heart forced to keep beating, his brain forced to keep working, all the while his body screaming torturedly for death. While one's survival instincts usually were against death, he'd traded those instincts in for a desire to die the moment she started doing that. He'd wanted to scream at her to let him go, so unnatural it had been. Ever since that day, he sometimes, very rarely, couldn't shake the feeling that he was living a half-life of sorts.

Could he do something like that? To save her, if it came to it? Did he even have the mental capacities to save someone? The mere though of Mara being that wounded sent a violent shudder rolling up his spine. It won't come to that. It can't come to that.

He brought his hand down, and strode in the direction of the tunnel entrance. Ethan was still tending to his brother. Bessy and Groot hovered alongside their respective Guardians, and as he approached, Bessy zoomed up to him angrily.

"Great plan, genius! Now Alf is wounded, and we don't know the way out of here!" she yelled at him, voice surprisingly loud for a being of her size. Anger flared up inside him.

"I had nothing to do with the direction the Vex happened to blow up in!" he snapped back at her angrily. He didn't like attitude in his inferiors, be they Crow, Guardian, Awoken or Ghost. "So what if he's wounded? He's right here. Mara is wounded, and we have no idea where she is; get your priorities straight."

She walked past her, the two Guardians watching them, Alf looking mildly offended, Ethan emotionless behind his helmet. Bessy whirred angrily, and charged into the back of his head full force.

"WELL EXCUSE ME MISTER HIGH AND MIGHTY!" He kept walking, eyes trained on the ground, looking for Mara's trail, ignoring the Ghost. She made another angry sound. "JUST WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING!?"

"Where else, you blind robot; I'm looking for my sister while you all sit around complaining. Because apparently, you're about as competent as the last set of Guardians I worked with." he turned to fix his golden glare on them all. "They were both idiots."

He was hungry, tired, parched, cold, and had the headache of a lifetime. His nerves were at their limits. If all he found was a corpse, he didn't know what he would do with himself. Admittedly, the twins were much more competent than Silverhawk and her bumbling Warlock companion.

"Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to finish what I started." Without waiting for Bessy's rage-filled response, he turned and left, walking with purpose. He wasn't about to let someone else's wounds slow him down. Every second they wasted here cost Mara a second of life. Would she still be alive, after all this time?

She has to be. He refused to walk out of here with a dead body cradled in his arms.

He didn't make it far before noticeing a pattern. Scuff marks in the stone, like something metal had scrapped against it. Rips in the moss, as if something had caught on it. There was a pattern to it that didn't look Vex. Now away from prying eyes, he allowed himself to shiver from the coldness that was still pressing in on him. It was fading now, gradually, but he was still chilled to the bone, and his head still throbbed.

His stomache had also calmed down, and was complaining loudly about the lack of food. He hadn't eaten since dinner the previos night; he hadn't had the chance to grab breakfast before rushing to the docks and chasing after Tay.

Which only added to the anxiety of his hunt. He kept hearing shadows and Vex. Though his eagle eyes scanned the ground, he moved at a rapid pace. Mara was in here somwhere. He had to find her before something else did. She could be running or fighting for her life right now.

He was beginging to consider if he was well enough to try reaching out to her again when he heard it. A whirring, like an engine struggling to work. It was coming from between the wall, in the corners of the Vex stone.

Taking out his hand cannon, he stalked along the wall, prepared to fire at whaever Vex was waiting for him. He braced himself at the crack, and whirled, gun pointing into it to find...

A malfunctioning Sparrow.

"What the Saturn?" he muttered to himself, lowering his weapon. How did a Sparrow get in here?

The vehicle was on it's side, thrusters sputtering. His eyes froze on the sack that was strapped to the back of the vehicle. He recognized it all too well.

Martin's Deathening sack. This could only mean one thing, one thing that he wasn't sure filled him with rage or hope or confusion or giddiness.

Silverhawk and Martin were in the Black Garden. Their quest for the Gate Lord's Eye; how could he have forgotten? Why hadn't he considered this beforehand? They were probably well ahead of him; perhaps ahead of Mara as well. Were they dead? Was that why this vehicle had been left to die on it's own in a Vex wall?

It wouldn't suprise him in the slightest if he found Martin's corpse somewhere in these ruins. Maybe Silverhawk would still be alive; she was an idiot, but he was incompetent; at least the former possesed, he admitted begrudgingly, some level of skill.

If Subject Zero goes anywhere near Mara... It had taken a few moments for him to remember what Silverhawk was. As an Awoken/Human hybrid, thus far the only one know to have ever existed, her genetics had been perfect for a Certech project known as Project Zero; aka, human weaponization by means of some form of radiation that Uldren neither understood nor wanted to get any more familiar with.

From what he'd gleaned from Crow Himalay's gathered intel on the project, before Silverhawk came along, Certech had made a slaughterhouse trying to perfect the injection process. All the subjects had died.

Until they slaughtered an entire village just to retrieve one child; the child of an Awoken and an Human. Seven-year-old Heather Chancellor... who would someday, hundreds of years later, come to be known as Silverhawk, a woman he despised. While he possessed some level of minor sympathy for the monstrous things that Certech had done to her, her snarky, overly-cheerful, unrealistically childish behavior had seeded within him a deep hatred of her mere presence.

It wasn't just her behavior, though. The worst part about Cerech's experiments on her was that, in the end, they had worked. Silverhawk killed anyone or anything she touched the instant they made skin contact.

His hatred of her was based on fear as well. Fear of what she could do, even by accident. He didn't want her anywhere near Mara. His shivering increased with a violent shudder. He both hoped for and hoped against the possibility of Mara being found by them. Silverhawk was an idiot, and Mara was wounded; would the Huntress drag his sister along for the battle against the Heart. I have to stop those two imbeciles! Before they get Mara killed!

He turned and ran down the corridors. He had to get out of here, find a place where he could get a better veiw of the area. He had to find the heart, cut the idiots one and two off before they could reach it. He would have to be fast; fast as a Bladedancer on a suger high kind of fast.

But as it turned out, speed was not necessary, as when he rounded the next corner, it was to see Martin sloppily guiding Silverhawk's monstrous Sparrow... with Mara sitting on the back extension. She looked exhausted, and her shoulders drooped tiredly. Even from here, he could see that her eyes were not burning as brightly as they should have been. She had a set of scarlet Warlock robes draped over her shoulders, and she was shaking slightly. DAMN DELLA TAY TO CROTA'S THRONE WORLD! His mind roared.

Martin, too, looked worse for wear. There was a long cut on the left side of his face, bleeding everywhere, and he looked strange without his robes on, just in his tunic and a force-protective vest worn over it.

Anger sparked through him whe he saw the state his sister was in. But she was breathing, alive! That knowledge alone made him feel worlds better, and he once again forced himself to stop shivering. There was no sign of Silverhawk, but judging by the fact Martin wasn't blubbering like a baby, she was probably still alive somewhere, perhaps nearby. He was both relieved and disappointed by this.

"Mara!" he called out. His sister's head shot up in his direction so fast the Queen may have given herself whiplash.

Uldren! Standing there from on high, bold as the sun, was her little brother. His gold eyes were ablaze with both anger and joy, though he looked a little paler than usual. His gun was out, and there was a cut on his neck, which made something inside her blaze and roar with unrelenting fury.

Martin let out a sort of strangled squeaking sound, jumping backwards slightly. Mara dismounted the Sparrow as her brother climbed down the Vex stone to meet them.

"Hey!" Martin protested as she limped to her brother as fast as her wound would allow. Martin's robes fell off her shoulders, but she didn't notice, nor did she care. A split second later, or maybe it was less than that, Uldren's arms were wrapped around her in a rare moment of affection.

He was safe. She was safe. And now the Reef, and her people, were in more danger than ever before. She took a deep breath, hands gripping her brother's shoulders. Right now, they were not Prince and Queen, not General and Commander, but merely two siblings finally re-united after a day in hell.

"Damnit, you're cold!" was what he said next. He un-did the clasp that held his cloak affixed around his neck, and wrapped the black fabric around her shoulders. It wasn't as warm and didn't cover as much as Warlock Anton's robes did, but it felt better, more natural and familar. Far more comforting that the robes of any stranger would ever be. Now came what she said next.

"What in the name of the Harbringers are you doing here!?" he demanded. He made a miffed sort of snort noise.

"Rescuing you. You're welcome, by the way."

"'You're welcome'!? Uldren, you could very well have gotten youself killed."

"Heir or not, I would have come here. There's nothing you can or could have said to stop me."

"As nobel as that seems, you have higher priorities!"

"You're my sister! What 'higher priority' is there?"

"Your duty to our people!"

"My duty is to protect you."

"That is the duty of my guards."

"And I don't count as a guard?"

"COME HERE YOU STUPID MACHINE!"

Their heads snapped up to where Uldren had been just a few moments before. Looking around, she saw that Martin had gone while they were arguing. There was aloud crashing sound, and the noise of thrusting engines filled the air.

They followed the sound, Uldren helping her up the stone, to see Martin wrangling what looked like a feral Sparrow. The was a look of deep panic etched into his features as he used one fist to pound at the vehicle's controls. He had taken up his robes agains, and they had been hastily tied about his waist.

"What are you doing, moron?" Uldren sneered questionlingly.

"I'm going after Heather!" Martin replied boldly, giving the Sparrow one last punch before the machine settled on the ground. He looked Uldren hard in the eyes, a move deemed unwise by most. "Not that you care! You hate her, you hate us both!"

"She claimed she would return to wherever we set up camp." Mara reminded him. Martin reached behind himself and pulled out the now-empty pouch that had held the Gate Lord's eye. He let it drop to the ground.

"Rule number one about working with Silverhawk. She always lies." he claimed shakily. His knees were shaking, and he gripped at his wrists and hands with unconstrained distress.

"What purpose would she have to trick you?" Mara inquired. "She would not face the Heart alone?"

"Of course she would!" Martin exclaimed. "Heather is a blockhead! She'd jump into a volcano if she thought it would save one life!"

Blockhead? She didn't try to understand the City slang.

"Exactly what are you two talking about?" Uldren questioned, arms crossed irritably. He looked strange without his cloak.

"I'm talking about Heath- Silverhawk stealing the Gate Lord's Eye to fight the Heart alone like the reckless Hunter she is! Not that you care!" Martin accused, swinging himself onto the Sparrow, checking his gear quickly, as well as the russet sack that was strapped to the back of the vehicle. "You'd better hope we win, by the way."

"And why is that?" her brother sneered dangerously. Uldren didn't like attitude. She was beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable with his attitude towards Martin. The young Warlock was described by Uldren as incompetent, but he seemed fairly intelligent to her, though his battling skills left something to be desired and she probably wouldn't want her life in his hands if it came to a perilous situation.

"Because, killing the Heart is the only way to pull the Garden into normal space/time. To smaller minds; the only way we're getting out of here." The Warlock met Uldren's golden, blazing glare with uncharacteristic bravery. Oh, dear Harbringers, he didn't just say that?

"What did you just say to me!?" Uldren snarled, taking one step dangerously as Martin took a helmet out of the sack on the back of the Sparrow, and slipped it over his head with the visor still open. It was ornate, with a sort of fin running from the forehead backwards. He leant forwards on his vehicle, ignoring the Reef Prince's angry question.

"You have your sister; now I'm going to stop mine from getting herself killed." he said, before kicking on the thrusters. The Sparrow took off back the way he and Mara had come, albeit sloppily.

Uldren glared after him indignantly, and Mara watched him leave with a frown. The air felt... emptier, somehow, with the flickering hum of the young Guardian's albiet feeble, stunted Light. She shivered, and pulled Uldren's cloak around herself tighty, her leg throbbing, though less so than it would have been if Martin had not treated it.

Her brother, noticing this, put one hand on her shoulder to lead her away.

"Come on; we set up camp this way." He said as she turned obligingly. We? She decided she was too tired to ask. She was a little upset about his treatment of Warlock Anton, but she was too tired to scold him right at this moment.

She felt a trickle of sadness in her heart as she walked away, knowing full enough well that there was no way somebody with battle skills like Martin Anton's could survive a battle with the Heart of the Black Garden.

Silverhawk crept alongside the walls, eye scanning every crack, every detail of the immobile Vex that littered the walkways, searching for any sign of life, and her hand placed firmly on the handle of Ol' Reliable.

Walk'n round the creepy hallways, walk'n round the creepy hallways, walk'n round the creepy hallways... she looked up.

"Hey Westley, what time is it on Earth?" she asked out loud.

"About five thirty in the morning. Why?"

...at five-thirty in the morning. She finished, satisfied with how good the words fit in with the tune of "what do you do with a drunken sailor early in the morning?"

"Nothing. Just curious." she told him, humming the tune to herself as she slunk along the halls. Turning a corner into a hallway that let out into the open, she froze as a loud, rhythmic sound filled the air.

Clunk, thunk, clunk, thunk, clunk, thunk, clunk, thunk.

Creeping closer to the exit, she came up on the right-side wall, and peeked around the corner.

It was Vex. Hundreds of Vex, all marching in order along the other side of the wall she was backed up against. She pulled her head back, heart pounding . She flatened herself against the wall as the Vex began to turn, marching right past the entrance of the hall in a never-ending crowd of solders.

She took out Ol' Reliable and held it with both hands, bringing it up to her face, finger on the trigger and ready to fire the moment she had to take aim. She took several deep breaths, terror pulsing through her. She heard Westley make a few reassuring whiring sounds in an attempt to calm her, but all it did was make her feel more lonely. She closed her eyes.

I sent him away to protect him. The Heart of the Black Garden is no place for a Warlock like Martin Peregrine Anton. No matter how many times she had said this in her mind over the past quarter hour, she still felt like an utter failure; like a warrior heading into battle when they had glimpsed the future and known they were going to die. And she probably was; at least if she did, perhaps it would make the Heart think the threat had been neutralized, at least for a little while; it would give Martin and the Queen some time, at least.

Like she should not have sent him away. Like she was regretting saving him. And that's what hurt most of all; the selfishness. All she could hope was that him and the Queen would live long enough for more capable Guardians to come and kill the Heart. She shut her eyes tighter, fighting back the tears.

Please, please be safe. Please don't die, Martin. Please... make it worth while.

So, Silver's in self-sacrifice mode. Martin most certainly does not approve. And WEEE! We reached 50 reviews! Yay!

Guest: She's talking about Uldren's irrational emotional tendencies. As we can see, he becomes very rude and risky when he's put under extreme stress.

Sovietshadow: I loved "Meet the Robinsons". One of the best movies EVER. And I think the Queen is more of a pancakes person, to be honest. The Kell of Waffles can keep his favorite pastries all to himself; I think the only one he'll actually have to share with is Martin.

alienraptor: Perhaps it's your name that gives you a sixth sense or something, LoL.

FeiryWarlock: Alas, I cannot block readers. I don't think that function exists yet, LoL.

MaybeALittleBroken:*bows sloppily* I'll be here till thursday!

Order and Chaos: Did you notice the Meet the Robinsons reference? The Minotuar fight is going to be frabjous, blazing, all those happy things!

Amberstar of Thunderclan had some ideas for a series of short stories about the Iron Lords, and then went off about how none of the RoI characters are listed in the Fanfiction archive yet. You'd expect at least for Shiro-4 to be there by now, but no. Well, I guess Variks isn't on there yet either,a nd he's been around for years... WE MUST FIX THIS!

Submit for Uldren, Shiro, Efrideet, VARIKS mostly, Amberstar's going through a Felwinter fetish for some reason so request him too, thank you fanfiction readers PLEASE! it is driving Uldren crazy that he's listed as "Crow" and not his real name! I'd tell you guys how to submit for a character, but I've been told multiple times and still can't reatain the information because I'm so scatterbrained and my PM box is fill with so much junk! I got a 70-something part conversation with MaybeALittleBroken going on in there, and half of it is about stuff like kitten antics or how dumb waffles can be at tapdancing or how magical Variks is being!(?!)

Next Time: The final battle begins, and Martin breaks out the Captain America references!

Cheers^^!