Even after four days, Ursa Tudor had not yet gotten comfortable in her bed, which was surprising as she had spent a whole week of resting on hard earth. The Cavallonian bed was just as hard if not harder straw under a sack and it made Ursa thankful for when her biological clock forced her eye's open.

"Look who finally decided to wake up." Hamanymu's voice rang from her left.

The Cavallonians had provided the people of Avalon with multiple massive halls that were lined with bunk beds which they had been using to rest. She had been sharing a bunk bed with Pyrrha, which had proven to akward to say that least. Chris had been separated from them with a room in one of the upper towers.

Hamanymu was not clad in any armour, but rather some plain scarlet red and black clothing, though strapped to his side was his sword, Imwami.

"Morning sleepy head, finally decided to join the waking world." he teased her with mock bow and while Ursa viewed it as childish it still brought her smile to her face.

"Good morning to you too... where are you going?"

"Thor passed by when you were performing a reenactment of sleeping beauty, the Cavallonians just offered him a position in a hunting party and his inviting party a and party b. So get dressed so let's roll out." he seemed enthusiastic about it.

"Sorry, i can't." Ursa replied as she stretched her stiff neck.

Hamanymu's face morphed to one more resembling a sad puppy as he whimpered, "b... b... but this could be great bonding experience. Even Chris and Pyrrha will be there, and we all know that those two have some serious hormonal tension."

" I don't think we need it that badly, I've been around you, Thor and Chris for more than ten days. Plus I doubt hunting and killing animal will bring Chris and Pyrrha any closer to each other."

"Come on Ursa when is the last time that we spent time together without some stressful near death experience hanging over our heads."

"I know that, but I have to research about this place and also the vision that we saw in the Shade." she was really sorry but she couldn't forget the white city of her dream.

"Can't you take a break for once from the monster known as studying who has so imprisoned your sense of fun?"

"Hamanymu, after everything that we have been through over the past few days, don't you want some answers to any of it?"

Hamanymu sighed throwing his head backwards in an overdramatic fashion as he groaned " Fine, professor Tudor, I can't really stop you."

Ursa couldn't stop a slight chuckle from escaping her lips, her friends foolish jokes had this unfortunate affect upon her. " Shut up you goof".

"And yet here the goof has made the unmovable stone that is Ursa Tudor smile. How fascinating a thing is life."

" Okay, you win." Ursa needed to end this conversation least she burst out laughing. "The last thing I need are the other knights thinking of me as some kind of weirdo."

" I win, amazing. Now i just need a cookie to celebrate my victory." Hamanymu was now posing like bodybuilder who had just won a competition.

This was the last straw for Ursa and she burst into tears and opened her mouth to a flood of laughter escaped filling the entire hall and drew confused glances from the occupants of the room.

This chuckle fest was brought to a halt by a voice coughing hard enough to draw their attention and snapping them both from fits of laughter. Standing before them was the Paladin and Vortiguard, Hector Mychana.

Ursa stood up as Hamanymu straightened himself and the two placed their right fist over their chest, the military protocol when addressing a senior officer.

" Aeris Tudor, Aeris Mulengu, at ease." he ordered them and they followed his orders, though they remained tense in the presence of a Paladin.

"Aeris Tudor, you have been selected as part of communications with home soil." Hector delivered his words in an monotone voice said a face that was unflinching like stone.

Communication with Avalon had been opened a few days ago and people were chosen at random to speak to speak to their loved ones on the other side.

It was an obvious damage control tactic to end the chaos back home. Ursa wasn't complaining though, it meant she could speak to her parents and calm the headless chickens that they had no doubt become.

"Thank you sir." she acknowledged this order and Hector Mychana left wordlessly.

"So you finally get to speak to the folks?" Hamanymu asked her.

"Yeah." Ursa was now putting on her boots. " How about you, how did it go?"

Hamanymu had been chosen to speak to his family yesterday. She had avoided to ask him as she was reminded of the strained relationship he shared with them, running into minefields wasn't a hobby of hers.

"Honest to Leza, it went well, no yelling or telling me about how I am acting like a child so everything is good it seems." Hamanymu said to her.

"Hey guys let's go!" They heard Thor shout from the door and Hamanymu looked at her with an expression which practically said I am sorry.

"I am afraid that I have to go." he said before leaving her with only the remaining knights in the room to keep her company.

" Mom and Dad, time to get this over with."

XXXXXXX

A long cold shower can do wonders for a person. It packed a punch equal to a cup of hot coffee for Ursa and by the time she left the bath house she was as sharp as a sword.

As she walked down the corridors she couldn't help but admire the architecture that near rivaled some of Avalon's best buildings.

Finally she reached her destination. It was a large hall filled with many Knights and Asikari, all standing in small lines leading to large blue booths within which the devices that would allow them to communicate with their loved ones where held.

As soon as she walked into the hall she was met by a Cavallonian knight who did not look happy to be there in the slightest.

" Identification please " he asked her as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small blue metal budge with her picture upon the center, with her name, rank and official number.

"Aeris Tudor?"

Stolen story; please report.

" Yes sir." she confirmed her name before the Knight directed her to a line of her own.

After roughly thirty six minutes of being bored out of mind, she was called to enter a booth. Her booth was rather spacious on the inside with a single chair and a big screen resting right in front of her.

She pulled out her identification card yet again and faced it towards the television that sent out a green light that scanned the card before the words STAND BY appeared on the screen.

It would take another extra ten minutes before the screen lit up to reveal her parents who both sat in a room quite similar to her booth.

It had been a long time since Ursa saw her parents and now they appeared almost older than she remembered them, her father had a stubble and his brow hair had become a wild mane which contrasted paler than usual white skin. Her mother was the total opposite with dark brown mothers skin and an obsidian black afro.

Though the only thing that her parents shared was a similar posture of exhaustion with crowsfeet underneath their eyes.

"Mother, father." she greeted them, watching as life returned to their exhausted bodies.

"Baby is that you." her mother sounded like she was on the verge of tears as if she leaned forward to touch the screen it would allow her to reach her daughter.

"Yes mommy, it's me." Ursa never used the words mommy or daddy unless she was trying to make her parents happy.

"I told that she would be okay William, didn't I," her mother was getting more and excited to the point that she had grabbed her father by his shirt and was rocking him back and forth.

"Alright, alright, calm down, Susan" her father finally managed to calm down his wife. "Ursa, how are you feeling, are you okay, is anything broken or bleeding?"

Her father's mom mode always managed to make her smile especially coupled with the memory of a joke that Hamanymu once said about how she technically had two mothers.

" I am fine, dad " she decided to stand up and grant them a full view of her body to prove her point.

"I hope we don't come across as too difficult little star, its just with the number of hurt Knights and Asikari we heard about on the news and then there is what we found here at the capital. We were just worried that the worst finally happened." her mother explained and Ursa could only imagine what they went through.

Ursa knew that her parents never liked her line of work, that was something they weren't shy about mentioning to anyone who would give them an ear to listen to. She could smell that argument coming and she knew just how to avoid it.

"How are things over on your side" she interjected before arguments could start up.

"Tense that's for sure." her father sighed maybe letting what ever pent up stress he had. " Since the whole attack happed security had been beefed across Avalon. The skies are teaming with flying battleships and I swear the number of checkpoint's across the roads has increased by a ten."

"What about you guys. you weren't hurt in anyway?" Ursa didn't know how far the said attack spread.

"Nothing much than a bunch of overexcited doomsday prepares. we were still in Little Geneva. Looks like they weren't interested in the Iron lands." her mother answered "We only heard about it when it happened and we called you but you didn't answer so we came here to make sure that you hadn't..."

This topic was getting too unnerving for Ursa and shamelessly she dodged onto another question. " How is Little Geneva anyway? "

" Its beautiful, Ursa. You should really visit. We have a home at the dock and a every morning we can see the sunrise." her mother swooned in delight.

"Nice to hear... " she racked her brain after that for stories to pass the time but couldn't think on anything.

"Hey little star, how are the boys doing?" Her father asked causing her to bury her face into her hands as her black flesh appeared to a slight red to it.

"Don't please don't call me that especially when mentioning their names" she half expected Hamanymu and Chris to burst through the booth while declaring that they now knew Ursa's embarrassing childhood nickname.

"Come on kid, its just their names." her father answered.

"Be careful dad, names have power and those boys should never be invoked either by name or item." this baldly told joke managed to crack through the dark gloom that haunted her conversation with her parents so far.

"So, tell me how are the boys?" her parents never gave up, unfortunately.

"Hamanymu and Thor have gone out on a hunt and Chris is probably with them, so they are being themselves which means that they are alright."

" How are the king and queen anyway?" the question caused her to tense up a bit.

A previous debriefing had stated that the knowledge of the king and queens capture was top secret and it is not to be spoken of before civilians.

"But mother and father have always been close to Chris. They consider all my dumb friends family, maybe if they knew and i could use my echo to record their advice for him... they always had a way with words." taking a deep breath Ursa kept her face clean and without a shred of deceit she said. " They are doing great, though i think that they are a little too busy with everything going on."

"That's good to hear," her mother sighed relieved. " Its just with all the rumors."

" What rumors?"

"Something about the king and queen being captured." her mother answered without noticing her daughter's panic.

"Damn it, if this gets out there is going to be a panic, though how the hell does a civilian come across this info." Ursa coughed a bit. " Those rumors are false, mother. I mean we have all seen the king and queen in action before. Remember when she burned up an entire planet, none of these chumps could take her down."

Her mother began to chuckle. " Silly me, I should have remembered that."

" Anyway enough about me, how are you doing. We really have not spoken in a long of time." deflecting this conversation before her mother a known shameless gossiper probed further.

"Well, we have started working under the Silver-Circle institution, we might not be good with the magic but our understanding of tech has been helpful to us." at the end her parents seemed to slump their shoulders from the probable stress of being in a world where every skill that they learned in their old lives were rendered near pointless.

"Don't worry, look when this all over I am going to come and help you guys. Remember more hands on deck make the whole machine run smoother."

The light above her began to flash red signaling that her time was up. "I have to go mother, father."

" Goodbye honey." her mother leaned to the screen. " Please be safe."

" Of course." a warm feeling grew in Ursa's heart before she left the booth to the next person with her next destination being the library.

XXXXXXX

The royal Cavallon library was truly a monolithic structure of grand size. A great hall of knowledge was an active ant hill of wizards and other important Cavallonian figures who were sampling the wide arrays of knowledge that were printed upon its books that numbered in the tens of thousands. Ursa had only seen one library that would be called an equal or even greater than this library and that was the library back in the Avalonian capital.

Even on her second visit of the library she could not help but eye the marvel in awe from its many carvings and statues of Cavallon's history from one depicting king Artorias in armour that she thought looked Roman to another depicting him laying across some battlefield of sorts defeated and finally the last major image being a mosaic that followed this sequence was the image of the king and Marzhin holding hands as their free hands were raised to the air with the massive structures of Camelot raised up behind them.

"Beautiful," Ursa whispered in genuine admiration of the craftsmanship that was needed to create this wonder.

"I know, though I wish it was more romantic" a voice whispered to Ursa's ear making her jump in fright like a cat.

She turned with all the hairs of her neck standing tall and her forehead dripping with sweat as she saw the lady Marzhin herself and a young knight roughly her age with green armour and long flowing silver locks that made his soft features more cute, she flinched as William's image immediately popped up in her mind.

"Forgive me, young lady, I am truly sorry for nearly driving your spirit from its mortal coil's" Marzhin may have been apologizing but her face bore a great grin of happiness whilst the knight besides her shifted uncomfortably with his eyes more interested with contents if the floor.

"Its okay lady Marzhin. You honour me with your presence."

" Here for another lesson young miss Tudor? " Marzhin asked reliving Ursa of the awkwardness of having to ask herself.

"Yes, my lady."

" Of course, come along dear." the wizard began to walk into the thick of library "If I am going to be your book of wisdom you must at least aid me in my work."

" That sounds fair." Ursa couldn't argue with that logic and so she followed Marzhin trailing behind her with the green knight who walked in a manner that made him look smaller than he was.

"Oh the boys name is Eliwlod by the way. He is my dear Artorias's nephew." Marzhin introduced him. "He is very shy."

" Oh, you don't say." Ursa sarcastically thought as she passed a glance at the knight now known as Eliwlod who was too engrossed with anything else than the people he was walking with. "It's a pleasure to meet you sir Eliwlod."

Eliwlod just nodded his head without uttering a noise and not even spearing her glance of common courtesy and Ursa wouldn't lie it annoyed her.

"So my young dear those questions or are you more interested in trying to get young Eliwlod to notice you." the wizard's teasing was close to forcing her to have to heart attack.

"No, no, no." Ursa pleaded. "Just the questions please. I never got to ask you what the Nexus of Narratives is like. I mean, i find it difficult to imagine a place where you have a double running around a kingdom just next door and life just goes on."

" It wasn't always like that." the wizards tone of voice was laced with amusement " Our layer of the Nexus is quiet large and malleable, some parts it is an ever outstretching land and in others it is simply entire planets. These ancient wardings stopped us from going into other Camelot's or be aware of them."

They passed many book shelves before reaching a different section of the library filled with scrolls and stone tablet's of many varying size from the smallest few inches to the largest that towered at seven meters in height.

"What are these?" the scrolls and tablet's held many inscriptions from a language lost to her.

" A few old books that I collected across the Nexus after the first War of Kings which brought down the wardings and our age of discovery was born." Marzhin answered.

"War of Kings?"

"Oh yes, roughly twenty years ago the barriers and wardings began to fail and we all became aware of eachother. Many Arthur's waged war on each other, it was a chaotic time, but looking at how things are now, those times seem more peaceful." Merzhin sadly smiled. "My Camelot escaped the frying pan and leaped into the fire."

" Your own?" Ursa had thought that Cavallon was this Merlin's origin point.

"Of course dear, did you forget that Cavallon is made up of the remnants of many different Camelot's looking to survive Nimue's madness." there was a slight chuckle that escaped Marzhin's lips. " Not even my darling Artorias is my original Arthur.,"

" Wait he isn't ?. Then what happened to you're original king Arthur."

" He dead."

" Oh," Ursa shifted around awkwardly unsure of what to say as a cold blanket of atmosphere descended upon them. "I am sorry, that was insensitive of me to ask."

"Don't worry dear." Marzhin waved her off. " It was simply nature taking its course, I mean he was ninety six when he departed from this world to the next. His was one of the few Arthur's to never face the strife in all of its many alternating forms."

"This place really is strange." Ursa sighed still trying to wrap her mind to existence of the Nexus. " And here I thought Avalon, a Multiverse, Sophia, a realm of darkness and the existence of Leza was strange."

As she browsed the section of the library before they left. She caught a few glimpses of a large stone tablet that bore the lone carving of humanoid figure with a spear in hand. She couldn't make out more as the tablet was worn with age in some areas. The most striking feature though where the many tiny humanoids resting just below its knees.

The carving was crude and rather ordinary in comparison to the other great art works that dotted the library, But yet it had a feeling of age attached to it, as if it held a secret of a far off time and she just had to ask.

"What is that?"

" This my dears... yes, you two Eliwlod." the sudden attention caused the knight to look like he was close to suffering a heart attack. " This is one of the oldest records in the Nexus. Its roughly sixty thousand years old and that big thing there is what many of us theories created the Nexus."

" Created?. like Sophia and Leza type creator."

"A creator yes, on their level not at all" Marzhin answered " Leza is the origin point of all creation and his daughter Sophia is the mother of the Ancient Ones. Many of us think that this might be one such Ancient One, Oltan the Crow Lord, but that is enough Cosmology for one day."

Looking at the stone tablet even closer, Ursa noticed a small figure at the feet of the presumed Ancient One with an abnormally large Warhammer in hand. The moment that she understood it, the name "Thor." Instantly popped into her head