He was in terrible pain.

Although his pride was too great to admit it, it muddied his aura and sent flashes of horribly potent waves of emotion flickering from his feral eyes, like chips of glacial ice. He closed his wounded hand, crying out softly at the insistent fire that burned throughout his upper body. His dark hair was drenched with sweat. Silently, gingerly, he tucked his wounded hand securely against his body, wincing as the sharp, stabbing pain subsided to a dull throb that sent waves of darkness rolling over his conscious mind. He gritted his teeth and bore it. This was not the time to show weakness. If he should weaken now, one of his comrades could suddenly cast off their guise of a friend, and be right on top of him. And yet, he wondered listlessly, why did he care? What reasons had he to live anymore? He simply went through the motions of survival, like a well-rehearsed dance, but thought no more of it then the most savage beast. He had been defending his life bitterly as long as he drew breath. And never before had he thought of why. He had nothing to go back to, no smiling child, no loving wife, and no family that would bear him up and support him. He felt utterly and completely alone.

He most likely was.

But like the tiger that stalked in menacing silence, or the coiling serpent, or the devious leopard, he was to be alone. One could not have then called him bestial, for beasts have dignity. He was apart from nature, beyond it, in a way that no one could possibly understand. From his ancestors, who had hunted together, and slept together, body to body, for warmth, he was apart. He was the proverbial lone wolf, who ran by riverside and cried out his ancient cares to an uncaring and bloated moon. The creature that looked upon the monstrosity that was himself in mirror or shimmering water pool and understood.

He understood.

The hateful tears that threatened to cloud his eyes, how he loathed them!

A piece of metal was held out to him, and he clutched it instinctively in his good hand. A ring and a token of good-will. He admired its cold beauty. “We are spirits of a different sort, you and I”, he replied gently. “There is no reason to fumble and to be ashamed, after all…what else would one expect from a thief”, he smiled bitterly. “But we are friends”, said he without thinking. “Aye?” He slipped the ring onto his left hand. “And I would have you trust me”. He settled back in the saddle, a tall man, and rail-thin, in black. One had the sense that if he positioned his limbs in a certain way, he would resemble a spider often found in people’s closets.

He looked at her and his eyes were steady, lion’s eyes, as he turned his stallion towards the light. The sense of adventure and dread boiled in his stomach, the sense of journey begun, and the sense that was right and wild. He was mastered by the power of life, the perfect union of body and soul, everything that he was, and everything that came before him. He was a ranging creature now, overtook by blood-lust, hunting down living meat, the forest wraith, drawn by warm, flowing blood. He was the warrior that knew the old tricks that lived within him, old as life itself, and that took delight in the work of each seperate muscle and sinew. And he was the lone wolf that ran alone and exultantly under the indifferent stars, and when the day was done, that sounded the ancient wolf-cry, a quiet song in a day and time when all songs were sad, save the love-song.

And even that was not his.

((Let us head out. ))

Dae rides closer to Septimus's stallion, until she is riding uo on the left side as friends often do when riding together.

Septimus had given her an in a small one, and perhaps he would withdraw it but she hope he would be more realistic than insular. "I would have let you ride with that but you said we are friends and as your friend please let me heal your hand. She transfers her reins to her left hand and reaches out with her right to take his injured hand.

A chance but she will take it. Just as she will continue to keep reaching out for him to bring him forward into the Light. That was as much a part of who she was as all her other perhaps even one of her strongest. She would try.

Silently she calls on the Light's divine grace, that power that the Light give each of his clerics and chosen ones. It wasn't hers to hoard for some important occasion but to use as she saw fit t aid those in need, be they great or small, walking in the light or walking a narrow line bordering shadow, even shadow themselves.

She would always reach out,

as she did now to Septimus.

Not demanding but offering.

If she gives her his hand she will heal it and ride on out to the Southern gate as was planned.

His eyes shifted over to her, silent and grim as her steed was directed near to his. A faint flicker of worry and distrust shone in his painfully bright eyes for an instant before it was shrouded in a maelstrom of indifference. A harsh, biting laugh escaped his throat. “You creatures of Light”, he spat derisively, his rich deep voice coloured with jealousy and uncertainty and yes, even fear.

“Cannot you leave us well alone?”

He stubbornly angled his face away from her. “Perhaps I am happy the way I am, yes? “. He shrugged painfully. “Perhaps to you good creatures… my…injury…is a type of atonement, a way to repay the many many wrongs I have done in my lifetime”. He shook his head. “But no, it is nothing so noble, for it shows nothing but my lapse of judgment, my temporary stupidity. Pain is good, child, it reminds us of our failings”.

He glanced at her, confident in his argument.

She was reaching out to him.

He shuddered violently as if she had struck him. The Light was calling to him, calling to him from her in a burst of pure light and sound, like an airy aura, almost tangible in its reality. He stared at her in wonder, a masked longing in his dark eyes. He had been a creature of shadows his entire life, shrinking from light, a creature of darkness, waters, and swaths of mist. And here was life, here was freedom, here was Light. Blessed Light! Wicked, Tempting, Light! The Light that poured from the sun, that nourished the earth, the Good Light. Like a decaying snakeskin, he longed to slough away the years spent in the darkness, straining for a voice, believing himself chosen. It had been a lie.

“Don’t let go”, he murmured quietly, heartbreakingly.

“Don’t let me fall”.

The man of shadow breathed through the agony and clutched her hand with the desperation of the drowning.

And surrendered to the Light.

Dae saw Septimus’s face as he begin to repudiate her offer of aid... Not only his words and his every movement were like he was with drawing from her. Only from this man had her offers of aid been met with such a negative reaction, and quiet honestly it hurt her to watch him do so, but she wouldn’t let it show, nor would she withdraw her hand. He was hurting, yet unwilling for her to help him.

“By the Light he was a difficult man,” Dae thought to herself. He walked in shadows and seemed happy when they swallowed him up. But she would not and could not just leave him and so her hand remained out.

Even as Septimus's words rang out she senses a slight change. His aura flickered, not dimmer, but brighter. It was only a flicker and it happened so fast that she was not sure she sensed it or just wanted to sense it. Then it happened again. She wasn’t sure who was most sastonished when he put his hand in hers. The look on his face was one she had not expected to see, vulnerability. It was so surprising to her she held his hand a moment before looking down. Summoning the divine power granted her by the Light she cast Cure Moderate wounds.

A bright light pure white, brighter than daylight surrounded Dae’s hands. As she held his hand between hers the glow surrounded his, She didn’t need to look at her hands she couldn’t That vulnerable look still was there in his eyes and she couldn’t look away, that and the fact that he had reached out to her. Dae was trying to deal with that as she healed him.

“Light, thank you for your healing grace,” she intones out loud as she collects herself. Finally releasing his hand, Dae needed to say something into the silence between them.

“As long and I am with you, if you need help, I will help you. If you need healing, I will heal you. If you want to talk, I will listen. Whatever you need, ask. Whatever I can do, I will.”

Turning back to the route Dae had chosen for the two of them. She nudged the big red mare forward. “We have the longest way to ride to get to where we are going.” Dae sets out weaving her mare through the morning traffic on the back streets then out onto the main thoroughfare. Reaching the Southern Gate she flashes a ring at the guards and rides out of the city to the woods to the south. Once into the edge of the woods, out of sight, she turns to the north and makes her way quickly through the woods setting a good pace though nothing that would overtax her mount or risk injury to the horses.

Zara rode out on her new palomino mare and came up beside the High Priest, Alex Trueblood. Funny how some peoples' last names seemed to fit then so well, like a cleric to the God of Secrets called Trueblood.

"We need to get going, as I need to go into the Brown Sector and and get some peppers. Would you happen to know where that sector is located?"

"And while we ride, could you tell me of you deity. I have read his name but do not recall all of what her stands for."

when the ranger rode over to join Oko he then nodded and said "South gate and the we circle arround to the temple mentioned. Can yourr friend keep up with the horrses?"

Turning his horse he then started towrds the southgate. Eager to be on the way at last. His horse noting that same eagerness was practally prancing wanting to run and not very happy about being held back.

Scarebaby, scarebaby
Where do you run?
Out in the graveyard to have you some fun?
Dancing with skeletons
Up from the ground?
Doing a jig
On the burial mound?

Few, if any, could understand the twisted emotions that had reeled through that brilliant brain, the sense that he somehow was not, the sense he could not understand. Wit and might combined to form a cunning strategist and an acerbic wit, but there was one area of expertise in which he was utterly ignorant, and that was matters of the heart. His eyes were closed as tightly as a newborns, fear and doubt melting into complete surrender. He could not control this. Fascinated and repulsed by the sensation of his flesh knitting together, he remained in silence. Sarcasm he had relied on his entire life, a way to attack and wound those stronger and braver then him, ay, there had been so many. It was only now, feeling the glowing swaths of lights entwine, wax and wane like the arrogant moon that he understood his wit to be what it truly was.

The protest of the weak.

His eyes opened for the first time.

The look in those emerald eyes was half-mad, half-frightened, but there was an underlying and poignant sanity that was not there before. He withdrew his hand cautiously and saw that it was whole. ‘Witchcraft’, the shadows spat within the cage of his mind. Septimus whimpered softly at the insistent torturous crawl of his thoughts. He shuddered at the edges of the shadows that crept in, claimed him. He hated them. Her words were ripping through his lacerated heart that by a miracle of willpower, still beat. They were kind and undeniably vicious. She was hurting him, cutting him apart with words. “Thank you”, was all he could say, his voice tinged with despair, the sound of someone who walked in the abyss. And maddeningly, slowly, he gazed into her eyes.A sudden wild sense of rebellion overtook him. “My friend”, he stated firmly.

The shadows retreated, hissing in agony.

Together they rode, in silence and solidarity.

Scarebaby, scarebaby,
Horrid you are!
With the wings of a bat,
And a face with a scar
The fangs of a vampire,
The tail of a snake
You open your mouth
And the noise that you make
Is a song that the Devil sings,
Bitter and loud.
Tell me, my baby,
Was your mother proud?

He closed his eyes, the movement of the animal beneath him regular and smooth, lulling him as they rode along. From within his thoughts rose a waxy vision of a little boy with bright green eyes and unkempt dark hair, a little boy who laughed when he was sad, and cried when he was happy. An unwanted, unhappy boy who ran by riverside and cried out an ancient song to a bloated, yellow moon, uncaring as any beast. Who played by the graveyard, and sang in a storm. A boy who wept as he plunged a dagger into his brother's heaving chest...

Scarebaby, scarebaby,
Where do you run?
Not out to the morning,
Not out in the sun.
You live in my nightmares,
You hide from the day;
And there, little baby,
Is where you shall stay.

A tear ran down his cheek.

He wiped with the back of his hand, like a small boy.

Dae exuded calm and serenity even as they rode quickly through the foest edge towards the forest Shrine of Ehlonna. While she Worshipped the Light with all her heart and soul she held the Deities of field and forest, loyalty, good, Justice and healing in reverence. It spoke to her need to have good triumph over evil. Thes traits she tried to cultivates in herself as well.

Dae turned to Septimus as they rode, noticing that prior depravation had left him at low ebb. With his permission, Zara could do something about that. She would have to approach Septimus carefully with the idea.

Whose post is it?

Zara rides out on her palomina mare and moves up to where Alex was mounted and waiting.

"A nice morning for a ride, she says aloud to the priest. I have to make one stop at a spice merchant in the Brown Sector. AS you are a resident here, possibly you could show me where that is. I need to by some peppers."

To anyone listening is would sound like a mundane converstaion. That was what she wanted. Her mind was racing forward with whats and what ifs, something her mother warned her of, It is never how you thought it would be.

The plain leather tack that Sunny had been wearing was now a deep green matching the outfit that she was wearing.

Zara waits for Alex's lead as she has no ideae where the brown sector is.

Jason trots over to Zara and Alex as they talk, Midnight following close behind.

"If you would not mind another passenger, I am curious as to what exactly is sold. My food--aside from the inn--has been rather bland for a while now."

Zara seems preoccupied. Jason makes a mental note to ask her about it later, absentmindedly stroking Midnight's fur as he waits.

Zara looks around, "Oops you were supposed to go with Ono, oops Oko. He's over there," she points to the big Felani, "I have some herbs and spices from the Elven forest and I will pick up the necessary spices good for cooking." She nods to Jason, "Dae's mother taught me about cooking."

"We will take off for the spice merchant and then the west gate and you two are to go out the east gate. Ah and here comes Oko. Remember 5 miles north of the North Gate is the Shrine of Ehlonna."

"Alex, if you will please lead the way to the brown sector, we can get going."

Window panes come crashing down
Amidst the tears and pain
Vanishing hopes are gone and flew away
Up above through twilight

Bloody hopes and bloody love. What uses were they to him? Aye, he had loved once, when he had been a younger man, with smoking blood running hot in his veins. He smiled grimly. Too oft had he seen his own blood, pumped fruitlessly from his wounds by a healthy but dying heart. He had despaired and had cast off his own nature, driven by his body’s blindness he had found himself a mate, and like all good creatures, reared a family. But in troth, this was but a shadow and a dream, for he was always apart. He guarded them devotedly, and followed their child’s’ adventures with padded footsteps, helplessly in love with his golden-haired girl, his green-eyed boy.

Shadows cast across the floor
Reflections of the past
Trembling thoughts of one
Dwelling deep within the soul

“They will find me, you know”, he intoned softly, breaking the seemly impenetrable silence between them. He shook his head. “Were you never curious to know of why they search for me so diligently? Of why those damned hounds intend to track me until the ends of the earth?” His words were cautious, carefully chosen. “I killed a man “, he whispered hollowly. His head was down, his dark hair obscuring his murky emerald gaze. “No, not killed”, he reconsidered, clutching his hands on the reins until his knuckles showed- bone-white, yielding up the faint pink scars of legendary fights across them.

“I slaughtered him”.

He laughed suddenly, harshly. “I was only a child when I did it”, he murmured brokenly. “I did not know then that death is permanent. I was angry. I wanted only to silence him. But he kept moving. And screaming. “. He shuddered violently. It was if he was reliving the memory, not simply speaking of it. He bared his teeth in a grimace. “I plunged my dagger into his chest. A nick would have sufficed; even then, I knew the uses of poison. But I drove it into his chest up to the hilt. Blood flowed out, splattering on my face, my hands”. He shivered. “My arms were drenched up to the elbow, like dark-red gloves. And all the while he was screaming. Begging. Pleading. I struck him until he was still. And the worst part was that I felt nothing. No sadness. No fear. No remorse.”

“I slaughtered my brother”.

A mystical sense of reality
Captured by the craze
All in bewilderment
Of the shock in the wave

His eyes were far away, a demon dwelling within the pupils. “ I have been paid twenty times oer for the death of my brother Primus. My body still bears the marks of his beatings that I suffered as a child. And my heart bears the knowledge that although I never laid a hand to them, I slew my family in cold blood. “He smiled bitterly. “ Vengeance. It is the way of beasts and men of the ocean.” Tears shone in his eyes. “I found their bodies on a winter morning, in our cottage by the sea. My wife…she was holding the children. She was holding their hands”.

An awful click sounded in his throat.

“They were all dead, shot through the heart”, he whispered, the salty tears cascading violently from his eyes now, his slight shoulders shaking. His pitiful, emaciated form seemed to draw up on itself, and his eyes were sad.

“All dead”, he whispered softly, like an incantation.

“All gone”.

Creatures of the dimness
Chattering amongst the green
Everything slows in stillness
What is this we see?

The ramblings of a half mad man, but it was also more than that. Dae didn't think he had meat to say as much as he did.,though the real truth of this stroy had not been learly revealed, just bits and pieces. He had killed his brother without remorse. He had a wife and child who had been killed and blamed himself for their deaths, though he said also that it was not by his hand. Most likely what he had said was true. tTough the the sequence of events, the causes and the effects were still unknown. Dae did not delve into this now. That he had said anything was a step forward.

"I am sorry for yor losses. I cannot imagine how terrible this was for you." responds Dae to what she can say and feel. "Light, watch over their souls," she said outloud
And over this man who needs your grace, she thinks to herself.

"Let us hurry now. The shrine should not be far off." Dae urges the big red mare forward into a gallop as they move to the edge of the woods into more open ground. The long legged mare stretches herself out responding to Dae's encouragement to run.