Demon continent Alsace in the year 307 in the 10-month Asmodum on the 23rd day after the shattering of the empire.

After searching the waters she knew for signs and finding no trace of waterborne. She had to rethink her strategy. She couldn't just walk from one body of water to the next and hope that she would find something. And she doubted that the Larrua had just been lucky.

So there had to be a clue as to where she could find the waterborne. Or something else that could tell her how to find them.

As much as she racked her brain, however, she came up with nothing useful, and Lerna was no help. She didn't seem to care that she was looking for the waterborne. Lerna was more excited about being out of the city of the Larrua and back in the wilderness. Like every time she trained her arcane skills outside the city.

She recalled the conversation with Eder and reviewed it. As she had done countless times the days before, but also this time she couldn't find a clue how to find the Waterborn.

Well, I'll just have to remember everything I know about Waterborn. But what exactly did she know about Waterborn?

She knew that like Demons, they are counted among the long-lived races. However, they were not counted among the divine races like Demons or Elves, but they were not counted among the monsters either. At least she had never read or heard anything like that. Not that there were many who could claim to have seen Waterborn, let alone any who had talked to them. That was all she knew about Waterborn. That was nothing, well, there was a little more she knew, but could she be sure they weren't just figments of imagination. Was she supposed to believe that they fed on small children and brought those sleeping on the shore into their wet homes. Where these stories always differed, once the sleeping person was enchanted by beautiful singing or he was grabbed and pulled underwater to join the waterborne for eternity. The stories also differed as to whether they could be trusted or not. In one they were good and saved the country from evil, in the other they were evil and had to be defeated by a hero. And still, countless smaller details, to which one should pay attention if one had to deal with waterborne.

No, she would have to approach the matter differently, if she found no traces of the waterborne, she would have to bait them with something. The irony was not lost on her and again she remembered a story of the waterborne. One in which a fisherman caught a Waterborn, and the Waterborn promised to reward him richly if he let him back into the sea. Which he did, but the reward was not what it seemed.

Would a waterborne be caught like a fish at all? And would I want to risk my story taking the same course as the fisherman's? For a few moments, she weighed the pros and cons. Before she decided that she would fish for the waterborne. But this was only in the name of the action as she was more interested in having a good relationship with the waterborne. After all, she wanted something from them.

So she did what was warned against in many stories, she would sleep near the river. Lerna, had long since fallen asleep next to her and curled up, but she didn't want to leave anything to chance. Therefore, before she went to sleep, she cast some spells and built some simple alarm traps, before she lay down next to Lerna and tried to fall asleep.

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As she lay there trying not to think of anything, or at least trying to get her thoughts in order so she could finally fall asleep, she couldn't help but think back to the days she had spent with the Cirkati and her friends, and how on days similar to these they had just lain on the roofs of the wagons enjoying the sun and the beautiful weather. A life, it seemed to her now, which had been a lie. Even if it had not been her friends who had lied to her. Will they forgive me for running away without a word of goodbye? She was sure that her friends knew her better than her old siblings or Sia and Sappho. Yet she was not as sure as she had hoped.

In quiet moments like these, she still thought long and hard about what had happened to her in this life and what she wanted to accomplish in it. Something that had changed with the awakening of her old curse, the fire of Albia. Yet she had lived with this curse before and she would do it again. Perhaps she would find a way to free herself from this curse as well as regain her old gender and race.

With these thoughts, she finally slipped into sleep and dreamed of the future, of one in which she would succeed in all this, in which she would achieve all that she wanted to achieve, and at the end of which she would be reunited with her family.

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Something was different the last few days than usual, at first, no one could really say what it was, but it was clear to everyone that something was different. The guards were more attentive than usual and care was taken to be careful. As long as the elders didn't know what was going on, they didn't want to risk anything. They were still divided after some of the Jrayin had defied the wishes of the eldest council and shown themselves to the Larrua.

Still, Lucine and some of her friends had snuck away, it just wasn't in her nature to be as quiet and lethargic as the elders. She wanted to know what had caused this strange feeling. There was something old familiar about it, but she couldn't quite remember where she knew it from, let alone what it meant. Some of her friends felt the same way, those who were about the same age as she was.

Also, they all had the feeling that the oldest ones were not telling them something. As if they knew what was responsible for the change and did not tell them. That's why they had all left and we're looking for it.

Maybe it was the Larrua again who brought them sacrifices. It was always nice when the Larrua came, then it wasn't so monotonous. She didn't even know how long they had been stuck in this monotony. It was only because of the elders, they tried to cut them down and control them in everything. They didn't let them have any real freedom at all, not like it used to be when she was young.

They were always talking about a shadow that lay over the water and that would come for them if they were not careful. Which is why they retreated into the depths of the water and no longer lived on its surface, where they had lived just a few years ago.

Whispers broke out among their friends as they approached the shore. Something they had been doing all day, they had moved from shore to shore. Always looking for that feeling. But until now it had never gotten stronger, it had just been like an old scent that had lingered long after the person had left.

But this time they could feel it all, they were there where the feeling originated. Slowly they came out of the water, at first just so they could see something, and then more boldly, so that they were all up out of the water to their waists as they looked at the sleeping being, which was so unlike them and the Larrua, and yet so alike.

They all came closer, as close as they dared, for they could sense the trappings and magic spoken over the being. This white creature with long black hair from which horns seemed to spring. Next to the creature was a snake of a size that she had never seen before.

Suddenly she felt as if something heavy had been placed on her and she looked unavoidably into two-slit pupils.