As silence descended, Feyrith came forward, his demeanor changing from his old self.

"Yes, that would be good." He said, monotonously.

Narrowing my eyes at him, I sighed and gazed at Callahan.

"Can you guys go to Graymore on your own?"—cocking my head towards the elves, I continued—"I need to escort them."

He nodded, "We can go on our own."

He, and every other human here, seemed to know each other—were they all from Graymore?

After the humans left, I gestured for the elves to follow me. From there on, we carried on North, to Elvon.

***

With the sound of a crunch, I stepped on a withered leaf, walking with a slow gait as the elves were getting tired. They were hungry.

'Ugh, another pain in the ass.' I thought, biting back a groan.

Aria—I wasn't sure. the sisters were too identical—stepped toward me, parting her lips.

"We should camp for tonight."—then, scratching her neck, she continued—"and I think we need to hunt some beasts. People are getting hungry."

Holding the urge to sigh, I nodded. At least I'd get some alone time hunting. All these people and their attention were making me go bonkers.

"I'll hunt something," I stated, not in the mood for others to interject. Just as Aria opened her lips to say something, I interrupted. "Alone."

A bit awkward, she nodded and twirled around to face the elves.

"Stop! We're camping here tonight!" She shouted.

Quickly getting out of there, I ran for the deeper parts of the forest. When I inferred that no one was near me, I slumped against a tree, letting out a long-suffering sigh.

I should be with my family, maybe try and fill the gap left between us, but here I was finding excuses to even do that.

I sat there uncomfortably for a while, then shifting my attention away from the family topics—which were giving me a headache—I stood up and started peering around In search of some game.

After walking for a while in the noisy yet strangely quiet forest, I noticed some movement behind me.

Ignoring it for now to not cause suspicion, I continued walking. I knew that someone was following me, that much was obvious, but I didn't want whomever it was, to run away.

As the time passed, I sneakily gulped down Dor, letting it rest in my stomach. Then, flaring Dor, I kicked against the tree trunk right in front of me.

I coiled around, pushing forth with the help of an explosion and throwing in a punch at whoever it was.

The boy froze in place and my face paled slightly.

It was Feyrith, and he was going to get hurt real bad.

'F*ck!' I thought.

Cursing at my luck, I tried to stop my fist but failed to do so.

I just had to punch with my newly acquired arm—which I definitely didn't know how to control well.

Feyrith stared at me with his eyes opened wide in horror.

But . . .

Nothing happened. My arm disintegrated, twirling around Feyrith's head, making sure not to hit, and morphing back into my arm.

"Whoa . . . " He muttered, dumbfoundedly.

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"How did you do that!?" he exclaimed, showing excitement—or any emotion for that matter—for the first time since I'd met him.

Veins bulging on my head, I breathed in and out, calming myself.

"Can you teach me how to do that?" he asked, hope lacing in his eyes.

I shook my head. I didn't even know how I'd done that. I still had to learn to control my weapon. It had cost me an arm, and I wanted to believe this weapon wasn't useless.

His shoulders slumped. Then, as if he got an idea, he looked up, beaming at me hopefully.

"Then, can you teach me anything else? Just a little bit?"

Glancing at him, I started walking with him tailing right behind me.

"Please?"

Heaving a long sigh, I opened my mouth.

"What do you want, kid-"

"I'm not a kid . . ." he kicked a rock away.

"My . . . " He started, shifting uncomfortably. "I mean, I don't know anything about Pyromancy—other than that it can do anything. I was never taught. So, can you teach me."—seeing that I was going to disagree, he added—"I can reward you with Dor—higher tier."

Noticing he had my attention, he continued.

"If you teach me, I'll give you Dor, I promise."

I halted, thinking about it. I needed Dor, and money, a lot of it. And I wasn't too keen on asking mom or Leia about it.

"Okay." After thinking for a while, I nodded, sitting down on the ground. "What do you want to learn?"

Sitting in front of me, he picked up a stick and started wiggling weird shapes on the ground.

"Um, you see," Shifting in his place, he continued. "I asked my sister to teach me, but she disagreed. Said that I'm still a kid. And well . . . Dad, he too busy to even talk to m—"

"Get to the point." I interrupted him. I didn't have time to listen to other's stories, I didn't care.

After an awkward silence, he parted his lips, "I don't know anything. They never let me touch any books related to Pyromancy and—"

"Okay." I raised a hand, stopping him.

Rubbing my chin, I muttered. "Let's see."

Shuffling through my pocket, I took out Dor.

"Have you consumed this before?" I asked.

"Yes, only once, when I got my spark—"

"Okay. No need to talk about sparks. Let's just focus on Pyromancy for now." I interrupted.

"You see, if I low down the complicated system for your measly brain to understand, Pyromancy is the process of burning Dor," I said, showing him the red Dor, shimmering slightly, casting the red light on my hand.

He looked at it in wonderment, but before he could have any thought about touching it, or inspecting it, I gulped it down.

"When you consume it, in other words, 'eat' it, the Dor travels from here''—pointing from my neck to my stomach— "to here. It stays here, inside the stomach; waiting to be burned, or . . . To come out through the, well, through excretion." Seeing his face cringe slightly, I chuckled, remembering the first time I had come to know of the same fact from Caleb . . . Oh man, those were the simple old days.

"Anyway. When it's in there, you need to burn it."—noticing his confused look, I reassured—"don't worry. It's a natural process. You'll know how to burn it when you consume it. It's a primal feeling."

"We burn Dor for a variety of things. Use your spark." I summoned a flame atop my raised hand while saying so. "enhancing your physical strength, mental fortification, or enhancing your senses. The possibilities are endless—"

"Does that mean I can do ANYTHING with Pyromancy?" Feyrith asked.

"Not exactly anything. Maybe we can, but as of now, we can only do the stuff we know, the stuff we Helians have explored."

He nodded in understanding.

"Yeah, um, where were we? Oh, yes. You see, the people who can burn are a lot, everyone actually, though not all dare to do so. But the ones who do, are called Pyromancers."

"And there are other things as well, like—as the burning process operates in a cyclic fashion—breath control for steam—" noticing that Feyrith was getting confused, I stopped.

"Okay, That's It, for now." I stood up. "Remember that you need to learn a lot of things. Techniques, rules, limits, consequences, and exercises. There's no need to hurry it up, I'll tell you some things on the way—the basic stuff—but for going deeper, I'll need to have a talk with your dad or sister. You know, a contract for payment and all, and their permission to teach you in the first place." I explained, walking away.

"You have to teach me!" he begged. "They are not going to agree. They think that I'm not good enough. That I'm weak. They don't even let me out—"

Raising my hand, I interrupted him. "Look Feyfey, let me give you some wisdom. Listen carefully and etch these words inside your brain: you should never open up to strangers this quickly, not give them information about yourself, and neither should you trust a stranger—heck, anyone for that matter—so quickly."—then pointing at myself, I continued.—"and that's what I am: a stranger."

As he grew silent, I kept walking.

Trust.

A fickle word indeed.

So hard to build, yet can crumbles apart with but just a single word.

"Don't trust anyone but yourself," I said, speaking from experience.

The rest of the walk was quiet; giving off a sense of solitude—which was to my liking, like always.

I killed some animals on our way back, gathering enough so that everyone at the camp could eat. There were animals here when I'd come before as well, but I'd just wanted to go in a bit further.

***

We continued our journey north, to Elvon.

We didn't spot any vehicle, I wish we had. But the route we took was rarely used, hence the lack of travelers.

Though my suffering came to an end as a tall wall appeared in the distance, with some soldiers patrolling atop. It was quite high, but still, nothing compared to Aegis.

Man . . . Why was I even comparing this wall to the Aegis, THE Aegis, in the first place?

Chuckling dryly while getting some weird glances for doing so, a sigh inevitably escaped my mouth.

"Finally."

We were going to reach the border In a little while, I could drop the elves and go back to Zavier; report back to my sister—as she'd been the one to assign me this mission—but most importantly:

'I miss my daughter.'

***

'What's that?' Doryu's voice chimed inside my mind.

'What?' I shot back.

'Look in front, you dolt.' Doryu grumbled, annoyed at me for some reason

'Hmm, why is he angry? Did I do something?' I thought.

Not having the time to think about it as I saw what was in front after squinting my eyes, I almost coughed up blood.

'Lady luck? Did I annoy you?' I asked, looking at the sky. 'I was your favorite boy toy, wasn't I? or was that nothing but a fantasy of mine?'

We were, quite literally, a few hundred meters away from the wall.

A squadron of elven soldiers scuttled towards us, riding on their fierce-looking horse beasts. Weapons in hand. Swords, bows, axes, but most importantly, flintlocks.

I gulped, hoping that there was someone reasonable, whom I could reason with.

I stepped forward, seeing them stop a few paces in front of me.

I raised my hands. I didn't want to fight them, god no, do you think I'm an idiot? I just wanted to have a talk with them.

I definitely did NOT want to annoy some noble, I already had a lot of nobles to handle. And since my mask had been broken, and my face was visible, I didn't want to make enemies.

A horse came toward me, its gait slow, a soldier in armor sitting atop.

I squinted my eyes, the soldier had a pin on his armor.

'He's a Venturer.' I inferred.

Now, I really, really wished that things turn out peaceful.

I gazed at his face, only to find it covered in a silver helmet.

The horse halted and the soldier hopped off, taking off the helmet, revealing blonde hair, but more importantly, leaving me a bit speechless.

Recovering instantly, I 'smiled'.

The soldier wasn't some arrogant prick, it was a breath-taking elf.

A girl to be more precise, a young girl. Maybe in her early twenties? I don't know.

As she walked towards me, I gazed at her face; thin eyebrows, a small nose, and then my eyes met her sky-blue eyes.

Stopping in front of me, she parted her lips when suddenly, I saw a shadow bolting from the corner of my vision.

Startled if this might be a stupid attempt at assassination, I peered away from her widening eyes to the shadow I'd seen.

My tense shoulders relaxed slightly, seeing that it was Feyrith.

He ran, jumping into the girl's arms silently, not caring if the armor would hurt him. He mumbled some incomprehensible words as he tightened his arms on the armor around her waist.