I'M SORRY I'M SO LATE IN THE DAY TO POST THIS! I have been busy all day, I went to the Ren. Faire! I hope you have been enjoying the story, and please remember that this is the last chapter of this story I have already written. Now I have to decide if I want to do a time skip until the main timeline would tie in to my story or if I want to continue where the timeline is for now...

-owl

Through the door, Rollan was surprised to find himself on the top of the tallest tower. The sight of the landscape took what little breath he had left away. He had never seen anything so beautiful. Greenhaven was located on an island, yes, but the bright blue ocean surrounding the deep green grass dotted with rocky patches was surreal.

Concorba's port was always murky and gross, nothing like the large expanse of water Rollan was now seeing. Concorba, also, being the industrial it was, had little green space, and the colors most common in the city were gray and brown. In that order.

"Thank you, Essix," Rollan said, grinning. "You could tell I was feeling a little cooped up in the fortress, couldn't you?"

Essix shrieked in response. He would take that as a yes. Then, bumping her head against Rollan's shoulder, she took off and soared through the sky. She looped and spun through the clouds, Rollan smiling at her as she did so. After almost ten minutes, another bird flew up into the sky from the Greenhaven courtyard. It was Myrim, Lenori's Rainbow Ibis. Essix looked at her, but didn't do anything to the other bird. They flew in circles together before Essix came down and landed on Rollan's shoulder.

Just then, the door was thrown open and Nicolai came through it, his cloak billowing behind him. He was panting, but only slightly and didn't look like he was too out of breath from all the stairs. Diata was nowhere to be seen, so she was likely in passive state.

"Hi, Rollan," Nicolai said, letting the door close behind him as he sat against the railing of the tower, facing him. "How was your first day of training with Lucette?"

Rollan shrugged. "Hi, Nicolai. Training wasn't too bad. I got lost trying to get there, so Lucette had to send Bryer to find me. I was much better than the others with close quarters fighting!" He was quite proud of himself, beating the other kids in at least one thing. Then another thought occurred to him. "Nicolai," he asked, "how'd you find me?"

He grinned. "Diata helped me. Lucette had said you took off quite quickly, she was worried about you."

"Oh."

"I think it is close enough to lunch time that we can go get food." Nicolai changed the subject when Rollan didn't give much of a response. "The cooks always make food easy to eat on the go for lunch," he added.

Rollan nodded and Nicolai began leading him back down the tower. Essix met them at the bottom, perched next to Myrim.

After the boys got their lunch, Rollan wandered back to his rooms at the top of the tower. They were exactly as he had left them that morning, nothing had been touched. Once he had made sure nothing had been touched, Rollan dug into his small pouch of personal items that he had happened to have on him when he was given the Nectar and subsequently taken from Concorba.

At the button of it was a shabby collection of lost jacks and a rubber ball he had found on the streets. While a full set should have ten jacks, he only had five. Taking them into the common area, Rollan sat down near the fireplace and threw the tiny pieces of metal onto the stone in front of him.

Playing jacks had been the only thing he ever did for fun, even if he never got to play it with Red, Digger, or Smarty. They just didn't have the interest to play. Whether he played on his own or with the occasional other street kid, Rollan enjoyed playing. The rest of his afternoon was spent throwing the rubber ball and collecting the jacks before it touched the ground.

Before he knew it, there was a knock on the door leading to the stairs. Immediately thereafter it opened and Nicolai came through. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt and had forgone his cloak, and, as he turned to close the door behind him, Rollan was able to see Diata's mark on his shoulder.

"I hadn't seen you all afternoon, Rollan." Nicolai said, sitting on one of the chairs. "I came to tell you it is almost time to gather in the dining hall for dinner."

Rollan had been scrambling to collect his jacks since Nicolai had entered the room. "I've just been here. How much longer do we have before dinner will start?"

Nicolai didn't answer that as he was the single jack Rollan had missed when cleaning them up. "I didn't know you played jacks," he said.

Rollan shrugged. "It's the only thing that I could do for fun in Concorba. I don't have a complete set, though."

There was no chance for a response to that because as soon as Rollan was done talking there was a scratching sound at the door. Rollan opened it to see Bryer standing there, Lucette further down the stairs.

"You guys are going to be late for dinner," she said. "Olvan was going to be making an important announcement tonight."

Indeed, Olvan announced the arrival of three new official Greencloaks that had been training in one of the Greencloak outposts in Eura. There was merrymaking after the announcement, and Rollan quietly left the room soon thereafter.

He found his way to the top of the tower that Essix had shown him, and he breathed in the night air with relief.

"I don't like the feeling of being trapped inside," he said out loud to the gyrfalcon perched next to him.

She let out a low warble, almost as if agreeing that she didn't like the enclosed rooms of Greenhaven either. Rollan gently ran his fingers down her wing, feeling each separate feather.

"I suppose that you hate it even less, don't you? It's quite different from the open sky," he said, sighing. "What is the pair of us to do, seemingly trapped in a place we don't belong."

"No one is forcing you to stay here."

Rollan whipped around to see someone had followed him from the celebration. The light coming from inside the stairwell in the tower backlit the person, and he could not tell who it was.