A half a world away, queen Eliza was worried sick about her eldest daughter. After their last conversation, she had paced the palace halls, and was unable to stop thinking about what ills her daughter had faced without her. Her husband, Augustus, received the vague history of their child with great sorrow and made it his goal to make the Heroes’ lives difficult. A diplomatic man, he raised the costs of their supplies, which they got mostly from the Magi kingdom, and made sure that every port they reached had a reason to search the vessel. While Angelina loved personal attention, she hated people checking over her ship, she kept secrets for a reason.

Eliza, who would normally join her husband in his matters of state, felt feeble and couldn’t do much with her frayed nerves. So in the hope Diana would contact her again, she had taken to sitting on the stone bench beside the lonely willow tree. The summer was warm and the sun bright on the green Greed river. The willow’s branches swept along the surface of the water as the breeze carried the smell of fish and algae constantly. There she sat sentinel for days on end.

On a pillow, the queen Archdruid knitted the tightest scarf anyone had ever woven. When she was pregnant the first time, she discovered that besides reading, she didn’t have anything to do with her hands that wasn't magic. A baby growing within her, magic was too much stress for their little heart. Her reading was always interrupted by a kick or having to rise for the restroom. So she took up knitting, as countless mothers had done before her.

Now her magic was not responding to her will, and if she didn’t keep her hands busy with yarn and needles, then she would erupt with destructive force any time she got upset. Which with so many unknowns and the fury towards the Heroes, was often. She knew she was a wreck. A shadow of the person she had been before. Why had she been so bloody stupid? She should have cried with Diana more. She shouldn’t have hardened her face and her speech. From her familiar, she saw how foolish she looked, the stone-faced queen.

She had to be that once. The young yet wise soul, daughter of the greatest Druid the public would ever know. The Orchidrin line had nearly ended when her sister decided to be a Cleric. A Druid was too difficult for her, so the mantle fell to Eliza instead. Many times in the last couple months, she wondered if maybe she was damaged beyond repair and the line had already passed onto her oldest.

Luann was dead and she couldn’t go five minutes without being reminded of that fact. Her sweet little girl. Eliza saw her in every stage of her life walking about the palace. Little five year old Luann rose up on her tiptoes to watch her mother read in her recliner. Her bright green eyes looked over the leather, crinkling in a smile. As clear as day she heard the giggle as she reached for her and the child hid in response. Eliza morphed into a lioness, following her youngest with a growl. Those big green eyes grew in fear, but the giggle broke out again as her mother returned, tickling her love. Her high voice cried for her to stop, breathless in laughter. The queen embraced her tightly, smelling the gorgeous smell of her child’s hair. All her magic couldn’t compare to the one she had made in love. That armchair now made the queen cry on sight.

The lithe twelve year old Luann she saw sitting in the open air garden of the palace, not far from where her eventual killer was stopped. The young girl sat sideways across the roots of the ancient oak tree that grew there. Multiple pillows were taken from couches, smudged with grass now, cushioning her from the harsh bark and roots. She held a book high over her face, how she read it in the thick shade of the red oak’s boughs, Eliza didn’t know. Her daughter looked over, popping a sunflower seed in her teeth and spitting the shell away from her mother’s feet.

“What?” Luann had asked simply.

Without a word, the queen grabbed pillows from the couches outside the courtyard, the few Luann had left, and threw them down beside her. As she lay, shoulder to shoulder with her daughter, she snagged seeds from the bag and began to eat them too. Luann jokingly told her not to eat too many, she only had a five pound bag of them.

Every age, every moment, of that pale skinned, redheaded, and green eyed girl ran about the palace and its grounds. Her long legs and small feet carried her around the stonework. Any footfalls she heard made the queen jerk her head, thinking, maybe, just maybe her daughter was back. Luann danced from place to place. Did so many things on a whim.

Diana however moved with such confidence and purpose, even as a child. She didn’t fear her mother morphed into any kind of animal, the pudgy girl (who hated the descriptor, though her mother loved her for it) and her bounty of red curls hugged the queen in any form. She always wanted to know more and wouldn’t give up until she did. Her and her much younger sister constantly butted heads over Luann’s lack of commitment. They still loved each other deeply, balancing one another out.

The queen saw the hole Luann’s death punched through her daughter. She foolishly thought that if she stayed stoic, at least for a while, her eldest daughter would return to her. It was so terribly stupid. Oh gods, it was only two weeks, my love, just return and I can make it up to you, she thought often.

Lost in thought, the queen had managed to make an awful knotted mess of the scarf in her hands. Yelling in frustration, the green wool ignited and she threw the smoldering mass and the needles into the muddy soil of the shore. Wiping at her face, she whimpered pathetically. Where was the Archdruid queen, had she died with her youngest?

Up in the willow, her familiar Castor, the red tailed hawk, squawked. She was fed the memory of people approaching. No one dangerous, not a soul could enter the doubled security of the castle now. She turned to see a tall man and a short woman exiting the forest grove that grew wild outside the palace walls.

Eliza stood, straightening out her Weaver clothing top and skirts, wiping her eyes and sniffing deeply before clasping her hands. She had forgone her armor, sitting the whole day on a bench, she didn’t need it. Castor landed on her shoulder, she did her best to take on her natural regal composure.

The guest had known her since she was a child, and scoffed a laugh at her state. Lobo Whittaker, son of the Paladin, was a hard man to fool. His hundred and ten years on the world had given a great deal of insight. What he saw with one remaining eye was more than most would ever see. From his black greatcoat he brought out a bundle of tissues, handing them to the queen.

“At ease there, Lizzy, no need to pretend for my sake,” he said, his voice as gravely as a rock polisher. His gauntlet hand patted her shoulder as he passed her. He stood on the shore, gazing out onto the expanse of the river, waiting patiently for her.

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Relaxing, the queen tended to herself, looking at the Court Mage that had escorted Lobo. The ivory skinned Rose sat in the grass, picking at it violently. She was just as broken as the queen. Her and her brother Iris blamed themselves for the assassin getting in and Blodwyn escaping. The small woman and her large burgundy coat was a gifted Sorceress, but she hardly used any magic since that night. It used to be that her feet never touched the ground, now the wraps on them were dirty from walking everywhere. The dirt fell off her skin, so much was still automatic for her. She looked at the queen now, blinking her long colorless lashes, her solid pearl pupils so sorrowful.

“Do ya want mah to leave, ma’am?” she asked, having long since dropped her “proper” accent.

“No, you’re fine, Rose. You could use more sun,” the queen said with a deep breath.

The young woman squinted up at the sky. “Aye, I guess…”

“To what do I owe this visit?” Eliza said, turning to Lobo.

The One Eyed Wolf laughed. “Well, yah don’t read yer damn mail for one,” he drawled, shaking his head.

She sat back onto the bench. “No, I have not, I’m sorry,” she said. “It started to gather, and now it’s become far too much to deal with.”

“As it does,” the Paladin said, rolling the ashen remains of the scarf with his boot. “To summarize my letter, and two others I sent, my youngest told me all about meeting yer girl, and I about knocked the sense out of him. I said, ‘Warren, ya damn fool, why didn’t ya go with her?’ He’s too gentle, yah see, not like his old man. He’s afraid, he thinks being the grandson of Warwick ain’t good enough. Well my pa joined the Heroes ‘cause he knew they needed him, if anyone needs a Paladin, it’s yer daughter. So, tell me Lizzy, where the in the hells is yer daughter?”

“She’s with the Heroes--”

“Wrong!” Lobo cried.

She jumped at the sudden exclamation.

He pointed down at her, from his nearly seven feet of height, a dark shadow over the queen. From out his white beard and half burned face, (the same disaster that took his eye, welding the lid shut), came his yellowed smile. He had a habit of chewing tobacco. “Yer daughter ain’t within a hundred miles of those old fools. Not now, at least. See, I been listening to them reports. One week she mentions that everything is all good, then she goes on to praise those damn lycans. I don’t know your girl like I know you Lizzy, but I know you pretty damn well. It ain’t like when you served now, if those Heroes find living Ash Makers, they're gonna wipe ‘em all out. You and yer daughter got integrity, the lycan is out of the damn bag, she ain’t staying with them. So once again, Lizzy where is yer daughter?”

Blowing a long breath from her nose, Eliza folded her arms. “What do you plan to do with this information, Lobo?” she asked. “Your son is in the armed forces and you can’t move him around freely.”

The Wolf grinned, scratching at his large white beard. Having retired from active duty, he grew it much longer than his brother. He still wore the spiked diadem of Psyin and his zweihander on his back. He posed no danger, but anyone with a weapon had to be escorted by someone able to stop them, not that Rose stood much of a chance against him, he was still built much the same as he was before. Now he was thinking, which was more dangerous than his steel. “I can pull a few favors, my boy is a much better guard than he is a soldier. He gave up policin’ to join the army, it ain’t fair that this war broke out,” the Wolf went on.

“Your nation is under threat as we speak. I am not up to date on every soldier’s positioning, but I’m sure he must be stationed around the Ash and Dry Isles now. The Wanshi seek to take over your nation,” Eliza pointed out.

Scoffing, the Wolf shook his head. “My youngest boy is sitting on a ship, an empty threat against an empty threat. If them damn Wanshi move forward, we’ll blast a hole through them and it will turn into chaos. It’s all a fucking dick measuring contest, one they know they’ll lose. They ain’t got a claim on our land,” he said, speaking out of the side of his mouth. “I know what a blockade is like, fucking boring. I’ve been in six of them and not a one ended in violence. Any day now we’ll settle some trade deal and they’ll sail off, back to their jungles.” He opened his hands wide, a mannerism passed down through generations, taught in training as a taunt. “Now, yer daughter ain’t here, so she must be somewhere else. I know Angelina likes to ground people, her and Fia think they're parents, stranding people until they agree with them again. They left me off in Manoware for weeks, but that was a vacation compared to staying around their nagging asses.”

“Her and her friends are in Alp’a Linn,” Eliza said with a sigh.

Lobo narrowed his single eye. “Hmm… How the hell did they end up there?” he asked.

"The most convenient place for when they picked up the Cleric. She's been there for nearly three and half weeks now. She made Angelina and Fia mad, in finding out about the cruel things they did during the war," the queen began. "It's a mess and I want to travel to where she is now." She looked over at the willow. "There's been a mist storm in that area for the last week and a half, so she can't endanger herself much in that. From my last report of Niae, an Arch Priestess there, she said Diana and her sweetheart Jonah went out into the mists and got sick. Why my daughter would do something so foolish, I don't know. I want her back, Lobo, I don't want to give her a reason to stay away."

Shaking his head, Lobo took a seat beside her, all his armor rattling as he did. "If Selena was killed, would you sit with your momma and cry?" he asked.

Eliza tensed, grabbing her hawk to hold against her chest. "My sister is alive and well, I don't need to consider such awful things," she said sternly.

"Would ya though?" he wondered. "At her age, with your lineage hanging over ya. Lizzy, ya had it easy compared to Diana, ya didn't have a major war, all ya had was yer pa's shadow. Now she's got her grandpa, you, Luann's death, and Blodwyn. That's a lot to prove--"

"She has nothing to prove!" the queen snapped. "My daughter is brilliant and plenty strong. She can keep training here in peace and quiet."

"Ya wouldn't have stayed here and you know it, Lizzy…" the Wolf mumbled.

"Stop calling me Lizzy!" she growled, glaring at him.

He sighed, standing back up. He put his hands in his pockets. "Yer girl is safe, she's got her momma watching over her. Let me help, at least. Let her do something. Even if she ends up ending this damn blockade or any of the other problems popping up since Blodwyn rose. She's young, she's got power, she ain't about to sit idle. My boy can help her. Just consider it, Eliza…" He made to walk away.

Eliza knew he was right. Though she had always appeared stiff and regal, she had been much more determined as a young woman. Had she given her daughter that through the womb? She was a wreck now, but her daughter was fighting to stay strong. The queen couldn’t contain herself or her magic. She had to stay within the castle, she had to eventually take half of her work from Augustus. The Old Wolf was right, her daughter needed more protection, more guidance. If she gave her people she trusted, then maybe one day she would return, realizing that she didn't need to fight.

"Wait!" Eliza called. "Would you like to have some tea with me?"

The Wolf grinned. He could see she was lonely. "It'd be nice to catch up, Lizzy."

“Yes, we can discuss your offer as well.”

“Alright then,” Lobo said, tilting his head to her.