He didn't like all of this. Not one bit.

The room was cramped and composed, stoic in the face of danger with its brown hues. Every onerous creak of planks beneath their feet reassured him. Yes, they were protected. Yes, they were safe. Skandra did not think to check himself for injuries. Any more than he thought to check himself for fleas, he supposed. If that thing - whatever it was - had wanted Skandra dead, he would be dead. Such darkness as he never could have imagined. Infinite and black. He did not know what it could be, or why it would choose this moment to strike, but he had a few ideas. Later. There was one table, arranged in the middle of the room, with a chair on either side. A map of Terestai was unfurled on this dusty, faded thing with untreated surfaces. This map was pinned down by every weapon Skandra Tyullis currently had in his possession.

( You didn't go to war with a list of names, after all. )

They walked in relative silence.

Endless staircases presented themselves, square-cut stone forming steps leading them higher and higher into the tower. Those they passed were white trimmed in gold, perfect images of the temple and of its inhabitants. More than any other time in his life Skandra was aware of what a fraud he was. And yet there was something more honest in what he was doing. No pretense. Only the knowledge that he was not, in fact, the keeper of knowledge. He laid claim to no ancient secrets and pretended no divine knowledge. Only a whisper and a hope, for a world that needed more than he could give. It was a very priestly feeling. Or at least, what he imagined the priesthood would be like. Did that make him a paladin? Was he the same as those sword-strapped loners with their angry eyes and their hard hearts? Only the lady beside him gave him any faith that it was not so.

( And that, barely enough. )

One thing you could always expect and respect about the Elves was their sense of grandeur. The White Tower was impossibly tall by any standard, reaching far higher into the sky than it had any right to, and imposing its will on the surrounding landscape. By Skandra's estimation there was no building in all of Terestai that equalled even half of its height. Out of respect for Elemmírë's history as a priestess he didn't point out that the White Tower was a massively phallic symbol, and that it ought to be razed to the ground in favor of something less terribly ostentatious, but he was thinking it all the same. What impressed as you approached the entrance to the tower was not the tower itself, however. It was the walk that got you there. Skandra had seen images of power and money, things that were built as much because someone wanted to make a statement as because someone needed to project their dominance. This one took the cake from all of them while it was beating them to a bloody pulp.

( Marble was the word of the day. )

There was little to the place, so far as Skandra could tell. It was in that old configuration that he admired so much. The walls literally shelves, built right into the structure of the thing and showing every sign of age. Wood was faded, varnish had been stripped away, and carefully configured purple cloth hung over gaps in the inventory. An odd-looking crystal ball sat atop the fabric here and there, keeping it in place, and there seemed to be no hurry to fill the space. You could see bottles full of powder, of sticks that looked like cinnamon but burned like the black powder that dwarves liked so much. Other jars were full of liquid, clear as good glass, with motes of something floating in the liquid. Perhaps it had gone bad, or perhaps it was supposed to look that way, but in either case there it was. Whatever remained of the sunlight slipped through small circular windows - almost like the portholes on a ship - and highlighted these oddities with narrow shafts of orange and red.

( Dusk was an angry time of day. )

Leir didn’t like being in other people’s homes. Not as a guest anyway. He’d climbed into plenty of windows in the middle of the night when he was called Flaithri but that was just to spend time with girls. That almost always ended with an angry father or a shouting butler; either way was much more fun than simply being someone’s welcome guest.

Nothing in the room was his. Nothing on the grounds was his. This removed any opportunity to feel free or excited. If he owned the house he was sitting in he’d be finding out how far up the walls he could scale, which balcony he could fall from and still land on his feet, and which table was best for bending a woman over.

But the house was Maeglin’s. So he was sitting alone in a room, orange and white hair dripping from the bath, bouncing a small handball off the floor to the wall and then right back into his palm. Mindlessly, waiting for something to happen. At any moment the ball might turn into a bird and fly right out the cracked window in a show of the universe’s improbability.

His sword was hanging from the back of a chair up against the wall. Above it was a framed painting of three horsemen and their dogs on a fox hunt. Leir always liked the fox better than the hunters and decided that this particular painting showed the three men in utter failure; they’d never find the fox and it would go on forever being the cunning master of its forest.

They were about to be in a civil war.

Iluvatar would make the right decisions. Which meant Leir would ride at his side or stand down all the same; whatever the sylvan required. Leir caught the ball again and squeezed it, watching the seams threatening to burst under his grip. He’d already dispatched a messenger to the temple historians. They had his uniform, his medals, the armor that had been crafted and measured especially for him years ago. At one point they’d been publicly shown and only taken out of the temple shrines when needed. Now? Since all the betrayal? Probably hidden away in a store room. And he’d sent a chamber man off to find Elemmire. So when there was a rap at the door he knew it was one or the other; either his belongings coming to find him again, or the ethereal woman come to speak with him.

“Come in,” he said in an almost songlike timbre.

He glanced over at the door as it cracked. Elemmire. The door swung open fully and allowed a gentle cross breeze to pull in from the windows.

“Hello,” he greeted her. There was a half empty bottle of wine on the floor next to his chair. “Want to get drunk?”

Aeotha hadn't bothered to change her clothes, but she had washed the blood from her hands. Her arms she'd bound in tightly wound white cloth, covering up the harsh red marks the shadow magic had left behind on her skin. She didn't need to ask for healing, she could heal this once she'd rested for a time. But none of them were resting, save Lady Fiaethe. She was in another room this time, and with Baila posted silently outside of her door. The man was as she remembered him being, and that only briefly made Aeotha smile. There was not much to smile about tonight. Lady Fiaethe had nearly died in Aeotha's arms. She still felt uncomfortable with the idea that the woman had nearly died right there. The Drow hadn't been prepared for Aeotha, or for Elemmire, but they had been ready to kill Fiaethe.

( They'd gone so far as to break into her room. )

There was only so much of being in her room that Aeotha could take. She could not sleep here, at least, not the kind of sleep that she needed. She was as tired as all of them, she thought. Those eyes she saw in the hallway, missing their master, their lord, or whatever it was that they called him now. She missed him too. When she saw Baila there in the hall their brief exchange of words only left her with a heavier heart. Reminding her of better times, even hopeful times, that a naive Priestess had stood beside valiant knights who thought she belonged there. She never had belonged there. Instead she'd twisted them all into a despair. It was her fault Eibhear had not survived to take care of his son, his wife, his house.. She could pin it upon someone else, and it had been his hand that had acted, but it'd been her own pride that had kept her quiet.

( Her own pride that kept her here. )

She still felt worn, even if for a brief time she'd found sleep. But she'd done her best to tell Priestess Yorilan what it was she needed to know. To help Leironuoth once he was there, to know it was something she wanted. There were problems with Dream Walking, one of which was that not every dreamer retained anything let alone everything. But she'd made it as clear as Aeotha could. Manipulating that dream scape and painting Leironuoth into it. She was worn out, but had found the time to bathe and to change her clothes. A fresh dress seemed so strange now. It was a fine thing, not as fine as that dress Lady Fiaethe wore, but different all together from the once protective robes of a young Priestess. Aeotha no longer was forced to wear such things, though she often chose to. But the rank which was written in flowing script along such things was too much for hiding out in a home. This was more comfortable and less of a constant reminder of her title. Title. Life.

( She did not know where title ended and life began, or if they were one in the same now. )

When someone said 'map room', Skandra usually expected the thing to be full of maps. They were there - endless wooden tubes capped in bronze, which could be unscrewed to reveal the carefully waxed map inside. Yet there was only one map on display. A stretch of leather had been carefully inked with the whole of Astarii's borders visible to anyone that looked. Skandra's fingers were tracing this name, that name, all of it in the tongue of the High elves. Yet always his fingers found their way back to Ra Arato Sapsa. Always he was left with more questions than answers. It was just a name on a map. It couldn't tell him anything that he didn't already know. And if this, what he despised, was any indication... then his life was not about to become less complicated. It was about to become more complicated. And the most he could hope for in all of this madness was a little bit of luck and a lot of good will. Ramga had to be the one, didn't he? Only what To had explained didn't make any sense.

( There was very little that made any sense. )

He'd read the map with a wicked hangover and a pair of bleary eyes, gloves scraping water away from the waxed parchment as best he could. Riding in the rain was miserable. Riding in the rain with a pair of women and a fellow who thought they were constantly being stalked by lions was worse. Leironuoth called it "sneaking up on my horse" but what usually happened was that all of the animals were spurred into a mad gallop. At least he hadn't done it since the border. Though he'd yet to stop laughing about it. The storm was sweeping west to east, so that they were constantly mired in it, ever since they'd gone out of Agethlea. There was nothing to do but button up his coat and live with it. Reading a map with only a clove and a set of narrowed eyes was hard enough.

( He'd had too much whiskey, probably. )

Stairs shouldn't shake as these did. Skandra paused at the foot of them, one boot still on the hard floor, and placed his hand on the banister. The corridor was seven feet wide, and the stairs took four of that, leading up to the next level. When the grip grew hard the banister creaked. He never shifted his hand, never tried to make it sway. Only a hard grip. On his face a smile erupted. It was steady on his face as he climbed them, these shaking stairs, each step heavier than the last. Wondering if perhaps he'd put his foot through them. While these questions had occurred to him every time he'd gone to check on her it was the first time he'd tested his supposition. There were so many things he did not understand about himself, these days. About Elemmire and the stone. The stone he'd not returned. Its time was coming soon. He needed to be ready.

( Those questions made him plant harder heels on the stair. )

For a moment, he didn't think such a thing was possible.

In the aftermath of... whatever the hell it was that had happened here, this section of the city remained deserted. Early one morning he'd heard shouting, and the rattle of armor, but it turned out to have not a thing to do with Skandra Tyullis or the ones who were with him. Which was a lucky thing, considering that Elemmire slept more often than she awoke - and that was usually just to treat herself to a gulp of water. They were not running out of time. They had already run out. Tomorrow was the day. Skandra had not quite framed it in these terms for the stalwart companions that were tolerating his bossy, churlish ways - but tomorrow either Elemmire was going to die, or they were. All other options had been eliminated by now. He couldn't imagine what sort of things were happening in her mind. Or what sorts of images she was seeing in the darkness of her eyelids.

( Probably better if he didn't. )

At first there'd been no talking. Only a bit of sleep for souls that were exhausted, despite the restorative effects of ... what he'd done. Skandra couldn't imagine sleeping after something like that, but his mind settled easily into the rhythm of rest. Hat brim pulled over his eyes, mouth slightly open, the Immortal had begun snoring in earnest. Of course no one complained that he was keeping them awake. That he remembered. If they had, their words were lost in that oblivion reserved for those who were doing something vastly more important than conversing with shrews who complained about snoring - namely, sleeping. But the sleep he found was not the sleep he wanted. Or even the sleep that he needed. Instead his throat was dry, but he took a drink, and the water plunged him into a sea of madness as before. Time that had no meaning. Voices he did not know, arguing about something he did not understand. The visions he saw along with those voices were half-formed and strange. A great hand, the size of a building, covered in runes and symbols of ancient times long forgotten. The hand made a fist. The voice belonged to it. And Skandra drew his sword at its coming.

( It made no sense. )

For a moment Skandra did not realize he was seeing the world in white outlines and black star-drinking shapes. Not until a void that was shaped like a former compatriot was whispering about exhaustion to him. Not until his eyes were drifting skyward, and he was scratching a day's worth of stubble with a bloody wounded hand. You bet everything, and if you lost, you doubled up to make back your losses. That was how it was supposed to work. In reality sooner or later you would lose it all - because nobody had an infinite bankroll. He was starting to feel some of that loss now, starting to wonder if it would be worth it to keep going. Another bet, twice what he'd lost, might save the day. Might ruin him. There wasn't enough time to search for answers. From the corner of his eyes he saw two white shapes clinging to each other, filled with the void, light-less and bland as they shouted incoherently. One staggering step forward. Two. Heat was in his boots, on his legs, but he could not make himself pay attention to the heat just yet. There would come a time. The time was not now. Not yet.

( They still had so far to go. )

Skandra was beginning to regret some things.

Onainat, who'd insisted that she was the perfect person to drive their wagon, was going entirely too fast. She seemed possessed of a madcap glee that he'd not seen in her in quite some time. Skandra didn't like telling people they were insane but he was starting to think they needed to have a conversation. Hanging onto the side rail for all that he was worth, and picturing his death beneath an overturning carriage and ten tons of horseflesh, was more than he was capable of just then. Instead his eyes snapped back, over his shoulder, to the distant rumble he heard from the rear. Whatever it was, it was probably unrelated to them. Probably someone causing another, wholly unrelated ruckus in the city? He never paid attention, but he thought they might have been demolishing one of the old court buildings today. The skyline looked different. He kept looking back until he thought it would make him sick, and then he turned his eyes to the front once more. Onainat was urging people to get out of the way by shouting haphazardly at them. And he was starting to suspect that she'd never done this before.

( Then again, neither had he, if... )

"You're a legend in your own mind," the fellow sneered.

"Then you shouldn't have a problem calling it," Skandra answered his sneer with a more powerful edition.

The brown-coat's face lifted. "Heads."

At the first ring of silver on stone, Skandra lifted the crossbow he was clutching like driftwood at sea and shot his opponent in the stomach. With a single high-pitched squeal the man's soul picked up its feet and fled into the afterlife.

"Well that was womanish," Skandra informed him.

( Somehow they'd stumbled into chaos. )

It stank.

Of fear, anxiety and perspiration mixed with other musty smell of wet hay in the still air.

The White Riders had thrown the entire group that they had gathered at the auction into a single windowless grey holding cell with nothing but concrete walls and metal bars for company. Displaced of their usual setting, the group first milled about, expressing their outrage at the top of their lungs until they realized that there was no one around to hear their protests. The weaker ones found themselves crouching near the floor, overwhelmed by their own anxieties and exhaustion to do anything but weep while the stronger sought to break free – to varying effects. From her corner, she watched as the mages tried to throw their magic at the metal bars to no effects. Basic incantations that invoke the various elements of fire, air, earth and water went unanswered as though they were all caught in a space where no gods or power could reach them. She watched as their faces crumble with despair as they stared at the empty space between their hands expectantly while the more desperate ones threw themselves against the bars, trying to pry the metal rods apart with their bare hands to no avail. The despair of knowing all that you have is not enough Something that she knew too well.

( He will come. )

This was where he belonged.

Uathis was not a man of complicated tastes. Those around him thought of him this way because of the appearance he created, because of the lie that was his every step and thought and action. In reality that was a show - for those he allied himself with, and those he allied himself against. You could stretch illusions for a long time if you were keen enough to do it. This Elemmire - he knew her by another name, but he doubt the idiot with his basket hilt knew anything about that - kept a great many secrets it seemed. Last remnant of a cursed mountain home. Twice cursed, for the life she should not have led, and yet here she was. Uathis didn't think she knew that he knew - but it was hard not to stare dangerously at someone when you were used to staring dangerously at someone. That he was even here was a testament to the utter stupidity of Skandra Tyullis, his comrade Leironuoth - not the real one of course - and this pair of she-witches that trailed along behind them.

( Women should not know magic. )

It was easy to mask the jealousy Aeotha had suddenly felt in that room there with all of them. Easy for her these days to let the calm of Lorien sweep over her. She now knew, or at least thought she did, why it was that Leir had always appeared to in place, so easy back in the days when he was the only chosen of Lorien and Aeotha was a simple temple priestess. Because Lorien commanded a calm. She was a Goddess of Love and Peace, even if many had gone to war in her name, and many died for the same thing. Aeotha did not like shopping. She was much more at home with the old robes of a Priestess than the newer, finer dresses that she wore now. The only reason she ever changed to them was because she had to. The High Priestess station commanded more presence dressed in finery's than the old robes. Part of her enjoyed the finer silks and the fitted design of them. She'd never miss the too starched, or the scratchy feel of some of the robes she'd worn as a girl.

( But she did dislike shopping, especially in a human city, a great deal. )

Skandra Tyullis slouched in a corner, hat over his eyes, rolling a pair of dice around in his palm as he watched. There was no sunlight to trouble him save the muted white glow which descended from the skylight, as early morning hours broke upon the city of Agethlea. There had been trouble last night, or so the stories went. Fighting in the city. A lord's manor burned to the ground, stones and all. A great battle between White Riders and assassins, from the Red House some said. Led fearlessly by this fellow named Eragos Feareborne, whom people seemed to fear more than respect or like. At least, they talked about him the way cowards did. And his sometime-lover Vera of Beit-Orane had saved the High Lord Arand's life. Agethlea was not the sort of city where violence had become commonplace. That meant the city was bubbling with talk. Most of it over how long these two adventurers and heroes would live before someone took their lives away from them. It wasn't the reason he was slouching. He did that to escape roving eyes, who - having no eyes to meet their own - took no notice. There was a long line, here, and they wanted to be done with it before the next battle for freedom broke out in their midst.

( Rich men always made him feel like sneering. )