Page 122

been an elf, or perhaps a tall man. Something unthinkable had happened within this creature's soul, and had changed it. Had turned it black, along with the creature's heart and skin. He had once known what it meant to be "among". He had once known something that may have been friendship, may have even been love... but those days were long, long behind him now. Whoever he had been, he was now Lepothreco, and so forever would he be.

He watched. He watched far, and he watched long. He watched with bitterness in his blackened psyche and hated. He hated, but he hated thoughtfully. He was clever, and his cleverness had a razor's edge and a needle's point. He played out scenarios in his mind and on the walls of his icy abode. He planned.
And above all, he sought. One item which had evaded his far gaze for decades, and perhaps even centuries. Time twists and warps in the writhing tendrils of the ether. It stretches to the horizon and forever beyond it. So, it is hard for us to see, hard for even him to see exactly how long he has walked the skin of Avarae.

The item he sought so fervently for so long had lain dark in his sights, and almost denied its own existence. Its existence had, in time, become legend and myth. The legends ceased to be told, as temporary minds forgot it one by one. The item was lost to the ages, and Lepothreco too began to doubt.

This item had blazed forth in his sight upon the moment of its finding. This item had a painful whiteness to it in his far-sight… A powerful force of knowledge shimmered bright with every turn of its sacred pages. It was a firebrand, a lighthouse to those who could see it. It called.
This item which had cleverly skipped on the edge of his perception for so very long... was now coming to him.

"Theaetetulas... all your protective spells won't keep your precious learnings from me. I will hack through them like an axe through corkwood."

Page 123

"The Good Prince Otheriun, grandson of Caldethra, shall remain always prince and never king. His father, King Morfae, disappeared only a few short decades after he accepted the crown. His body was never found, nor was there any report of his death. When Eldora had given up its search of their lost king, the people begged Otheriun to take the throne. He refused. He was raised in the learnings of the great Histories as his beloved grandmother, and refused to take his father's crown. He did ascend to govern Eldora, but shall always sit in the chair to the left of his father's. Until the old king is found, or until he is said to be dead, there the Good Prince will always remain, waiting for his dear father's return."

Saure gave a sigh of amazement, closing the tome. "So, Otheriun is the current ruler of Eldora?"

"One would assume." Fred responded, inspecting his claws.
"Hm. Can I have that map again?"
Fred had been resting on the folded hide-parchment, and rolled to one side so she could access it.

After the sun had reached the crown of the sky, the clouds had broken and the wind had quieted to a chill breeze. Saure had been able to remove two layers of clothing, and they had admired their surroundings for the first time. Sparse clumps of snow lay about here and there in the spindly brush, but green grass poked through in places as if to spite the season. Leaves blown from the receding forest far off to their left clustered on the edges of the road. All manner of creatures bustled about between the odd bush, boulder and tree to either side of the hard-packed road. Craft-horn elk drifted in a loose herd here and there, the bucks tossing their ornate and majestic racks. Saure had spied several lesser gryphs flitting from tree to ground and back again, white with their winter coats and plumage. They slunk alongside the road, watching them with bright black orbs of eyes and quarreling with one another over a fieldmouse or large insect. She loved the little feather headdress they would splay when angry or intrigued.
Fred had pointed out a single pygmy drake gliding on the breeze, and the two of them had watched it till it had