This story was written with the consent of the following characters and their players:
Zenrya
Zhirrisk
Lasika

This story contains some sensitive themes. I've done my best to keep it to insinuation and metaphors, or similies, or whatever the term is. So the story itself is technically clean, but the things that happen in it can be very upsetting.

---

The little room gradually darkened as the sun dripped below the forest's canopy, but that didn't stop Nakori from continuing to scratch out backwards letters in her notebook. She sat hunched over the desk, tongue peeking between her fangs, as her letters spiralled away down the side of the page. With no room left to write, she slid the paper off to the side, where it floated onto her daughter's head.

Strawberry carefully took the paper from her head and laid it on the floor. The chubby little kit kicked her legs and tail in the air behind her as she worked on translating the words onto a fresh page in her much neater script, occasionally rolling onto her side to hold the original paper up to the dying light.

The pair worked in silence for some time, broken only by the occasional hiccup. When it was too dark to continue, Strawberry rose to fetch the lamp from the wall, and Nakori held it until it glowed bright again.

The walls fluttered in a brief breeze, colourful drawings of tube-shaped critters and anatomical sketches scaled from floor to cieling. In the corner to Nakori's right, Lasika lay curled up on a cot, snoring peacefully, hugging a collection of Strawberry's toys to her chest. The other half of the room was devoted to a massive collection of coloured string; wool, silk, even a few lonely strands of titanese. Pins and nails kept the conglomoration together, sticks and branches tied firmly in place among the myriad knots, straining to keep it all from falling in the middle. A mess of connections, intricate, delicate, beautiful, and completely, utterly frustrating to comprehend. The room was too small for anyone to get enough distance to make out the shape. They simply had to believe Nakori when she told them it was a map of Lasika's thoughts and memories. Then, once they looked closer, they could see the massive gaps, where no threads passed through, and all the thousands of dangling ends tickling the floor.

With her latest paper half finished, Nakori rose from the desk and sat on the cot next to Lasika, laying her paw against the dozing woman's arm. The snoring stopped, and Nakori's eyes fluttered shut. Strawberry stopped scritching her quill and waited, ear swiveled towards them. Nakori carefully ran a claw through Lasika's cheek fur, tracing it up to above her ear, and pinched, her own ears flicking at the sensation. Then she took a fresh thread of silk from her pocket, and began to connect it to the map. Then back to the desk to make a note of it.

She did this again, and again, and again, as she had been doing for the last several years.

Eventually Strawberry yawned herself to sleep, suckling the end of her quill. Nakori continued to work, until at last the door opened, and Zenrya came in carrying a tray of small dead rodents.

He placed it on the desk, and went to work massaging his wife's shoulders and neck, his tail brushing along Strawberry's back.

"Dinner, love," he whispered, nuzzling his chin into her mane.

"Mmhm."

She continued to scribble her findings.

"Your little scribe is exhausted. Do you need someone to take her place?"

"I think... I'm almost done with notes for today. We can finish tomorrow..."

"Will you take a break then? Or maybe tonight?"

"I'm not tired. Maybe tomorrow. To catch up."

"We'd all like to see you. Moonshine misses you. Almi misses you. Ginger Bean misses you. I miss you."

"And Lasika?"

"Of course we miss her, too. Gods, if I could just punch her memories back into place, I would. I would punch them so hard."

Zenrya sat down on the cot, combing Lasika's tangled mane with his claws.

"It breaks my heart to see her like this," he whispered. "And I think you need a break, and some sleep."

"I'm not tired."

"Nakori..."

Zenrya sighed as he gazed at the mess on the desk. Nestled among the towers of notes and drawings were empty ink pots, empty bottles of mocha coffee; Nakori's paws were stained Tenemlor-black by spillage of both.

"Don't forget to eat. I'll take Strawberry for dinner."

"Mmhm."

He stood back up and leaned over Nakori to give her a kiss on the nose.

"Will you come to bed tonight?"

"I'm not tired..."

Zenrya nipped at her right ear, eliciting a growl and another hiccup.

"Didn't mention sleep."

Nakori smacked her tail against his leg, and leaned backwards to nip him in return.

"I'm almost done this cluster... I think, if I can... move this set of nerves... and connect them to the part that... umm... makes her wings grow back... then I can get her to transform into an owl and give Strawberry rides... you're already not listening!"

"Guilty." Zenrya chuckled, then had to hold back a larger giggle as Nakori tried to drink from an empty mug. "If you want more coffee, you'll have to come out and eat with the rest of us."

Nakori reached into the pocket of her skirt and dug out her fob, giving it a quick rub. A moment later, a cup of steaming black coffee popped into existance in her other paw.

Zenrya huffed, and bent down to gather Strawberry in his arms. She gave a yawning trill and buried her face in his neck.

"Thought I told Zhirrisk to steal that from you."

"Lasika got it back for me! Also, there's some other stuff of his in that bag by the door. She wasn't sure what I wanted."

"Alright... I'll stop distracting you. But remember to eat this time. And wake Lasika for her meal, too. And... Nakori..."

"Mm?"

"I've given it some thought. And I think you should go to Ker'Leor."

Nakori raised her head from the and turned to stare at him, the hind end of a rat dangling from her lips.

"Was it only one nightmare?" Zenrya asked. Nakori crunched her rat a few more times, then swallowed.

"Um... yes..."

"Then it must have been a really bad one, to keep you up for all these weeks."

"I never told you I had--"

"You didn't have to, love. I'm going to ask Zhirrisk to take you up there. If you visit Whiteburn, no sacrifices. That's my one rule."

Strawberry chirped, snapping instantly awake.

"Can Auntie Whiteburn come visit?"

Both parents froze for a moment. Zenrya spoke first.

"Auntie Whiteburn is very busy and probably shouldn't come give Yoakena any more shark lessons this year."

"OAWOOOOOOOOOOO!" The kit thrashed in her father's arms, fake tears fogging her little spectacles.

Lasika woke with a start at the noise, scattering Strawberry's toys up in the air, which in turn startled herself even more when they landed on her face, and she leapt up with a knife in each paw, hissing, tail a-bristle; Nakori's desk exploded in a shower of paper and coffee as she too was caught up in the confusion, her link to Lasika's mind and body still fresh. The sudden tension transformed Strawberry's fake crying into real crying, and she clawed at Zenrya to try and get behind him. All the kerfuffle caused Ginger Bean, the ferret, to pop out of a desk drawer and scamper in a panic around the room, trying to find the door, knocking over a portion of the brain map construction.

It took a good ten roisaen to get everyone calmed down again, and Zenrya used the chaos to pull Nakori out of their home.

At last all the Dozypaws sat outside their door, sprawled across their picnic cloth, crunching away at dinner. Lasika leaning against Almiwey, Almiwey leaning against Zhirrisk, Zhirrisk leaning against Zenrya, Zenrya leaning against Nakori, and the kits all crawling over each other to find the squirrel Tiramisu had dropped by accident, none of them aware that tiny Lucia had caught it and was slowly torturing it by chewing its hind leg.

Just another evening at Silverclaw Hub.

~ ~ ~

The red moongate shimmered shut behind her, narrowly avoiding the tip of her tail. Zhirrisk's arms flailed as he shouted at the city gates:

"BEHOLD! THE MIGHTY CITY OF THERENBOROUGH, BELOVED OF CHADATRU! MARVEL AT THE CLATTER OF STEEL AS THE PALADINS RUN AMOK LIKE INSIGNIFICANT MOTES OF DUST! WITNESS THE ETERNAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE FABLED TEMPLE! DROP YOUR JAW IN AWE AT THE SPLENDOR OF ITS COMPLETE MISMANAGEMENT OF RESOURCES AND WO--"

Nakori swung her travel satchel around and clipped the back of his head, sending the visor of his shark-shaped helmet slamming shut, muffling the rest.

"You are going to get us arrested!"

"And? It's pretty rare to come here without getting arrested for something."

Nakori thought back on her treasure hunting adventures with Whiteburn, hiccuped, and slowly nodded.

They turned and stared down the dusty road to the west.

"You sure you don't want to get any closer?" he asked. "Rest in town while I set a beam up at the altar?"

"No. I like this road. There's some places I want to go before I get there..."

"Right... Well, I'm only ever just a thought away. I'll be around 'til you're done. Have some old haunts to visit."

"No getting arrested!"

Zhirrisk managed to look completely innocent as he rummaged around in a bag of what sounded like little bones.

"Pfhah. They'll never even see me. Maybe I can sneak one onto the Baron's throne... pointy end up..."

Nakori sighed and shook her head as the moon mage fizzled out of sight, her eyes following the tell-tale heat-shimmer of air until it blurred into obscurity.

"He is going to get arrested," she said, as she set out down the dusty road.

>I hope you brought lirums.

There was a long silence in her mind before the inevitable reply.

>Errr...

She sighed again.

---

The first mile or so was uneventful; the usual wailing and howling in the distance, the embarrassed silence when she wailed back, as if whatever creature that had issued the call was thinking to itself, "I sound like that?"

The sky was an endless spectrum of violet as the sun began to warm the night away. The summer heat had barely time to dissipate from the landscape overnight, yet in the blink of an eye, she found herself struggling through snow as deep as her chest. The cold hit her like a charging rock guardian, knocking the breath out of her, fogging her vision--and then her spectacles were gone, and her clothes were gone, and no one could see her if they even knew to look, her cream white fur the perfect camouflage in the boundless field of snow.

She could see their tracks, and tried to shift her course toward the furrows they left behind, but the more she struggled to follow, the further away everything became, until she couldn't even hear the droning of the marching song.

She looked up again at the sky, and realised it was not dawn, but dusk. The feeble light was fading, and the temperature was dropping. Her whiskers drooped from the weight of tiny icicles, her whole little body a constant shiver. Still she plowed onward, mewling helplessly, struggling to keep her head above the drifts.

When she'd finally given up hope and given up attempting to move, a giant paw reached down from the sky and hauled her up by the nape of her neck.

"Nakori! You worthless half-wit. I told you to hold onto the rope. You never listen. Honestly, if you weren't my only kit, I'd have just left you behind. Now everyone's waiting for us, half-wit."

Nakori buried her face against her mother's fur, too frozen to cry; tears had already frozen her eyelids shut. But soon they melted, and the constant massaging of strong paws against her back brought her shivering back.

"Now I've got to carry you, half-wit. And I can't hunt with a mewling kit clinging to me. So what do we get to eat, huh, half-wit? Nothing. You get nothing, and I get nothing. Nothing but a worthless half-wit."

Another familiar voice warbled in the thin night air.

"Shouldn't keep calling your kit a half-wit."

Belette! Nakori's ears perked up, happy to hear her old friend, her protector, her mentor...

"If she really is one, she wouldn't understand anyway."

>But I'm not, am I? I understand...

>Eh? What are you asking?

Zhirrisk's voice booming in her head caused the snow to melt away, the blinding white giving way to a blinding afternoon. She blinked dazedly, turning around carefully. The road was nowhere in sight. She took her spectacles off and wiped the dust away, but it was no use.

>Um. I might be lost. It's fine.

>How do you get lost on a straight ro--ah, uh, hold on, I'm sure I'll be out of the dungeon soon, I'll come find you when I'm oh blast it Yavash is--

Nakori knelt down and fished her canteen from her satchel. She was still shivering, even though her fur bristled with the warmth of the sun. It was only a memory...

Or had it been a dream?

Or, as the only other alternative was... a nightmare?

Not like any of the nightmares she'd had before, though. But she didn't usually have nightmares while awake, either. And here, of all places... Here.

She took a deep drink of water and pointed herself the way she had been when she had awakened, and continued walking, and remembering.

Belette, before her accident. A good hunter, and... a good heart. Before the years withered her away... They hadn't gone hungry that night. Belette had shared her kill. Plucked some blurry dot out of the sky with a single arrow, just like that, and then there'd been owl meat, just a sliver, and the half vole still digesting inside it, which no one else had wanted. They'd stopped marching... Here.

The dusty plain looked no different from anywhere else. But somehow, she was sure she knew. Was this how bards did it, she wondered, kneeling again in the dirt. As much as she liked to joke, she was no bard. A songwriter, certainly. That was different. This... this pang in her soul, this was... Something divine.

Her paws balled into fists. She hiccuped.

>Just you wait. I'm getting to you. I promise. I have something to take care of, first. I know there's nothing more important than the gods... but this is, to me. And then I'll return. And I will take whatever punishment you have for me. As I have been.

She thought about digging. The ground was thick and dry, and it would be hard. But the bones would be here, just beneath her. The old man who couldn't take another winter night, and all the scraps they couldn't carry. She could dig it up, and know for certain this was the place.

She stood, instead, and shielded her eyes as she scanned the horizon. That smudge looked like the edge of a forest. Were those mountains? Maybe. This wasn't the way she wanted to go, but it would get her there eventually.

---

She took the wraps off her feet and let the cold stream numb her toes and wash away the dirt and dust. The woods were dark and peaceful, compared to the afternoon's blaze. She shrugged out of her pack and sat still, leaving her body, reaching out...

Birds, flitting above her. Something large snuffling in a bush, far away. Tiny fish in the stream. Little insects flicking about in the water. Further away, a bear, lumbering drowsily. The air stilled--dozens of small animals beneath the earth, twitching in burrows. Thousands of flecks of life, strung along through the dirt, circling around a nest of thousands more...

Further up the stream. A woman, her heart pounding. A man kneeling above her, calm, but furious.

Nakori grabbed her pack and ran, growling and snarling, the Paralysis forming in her mind's eye. There was a crowd when she got there, Prydaen and Rakash, standing about, watching the couple in the stream. She fell to her knees, suddenly exhausted, and several pairs of strong paws grasped her shoulders, holding her down.

The Rakash woman in the stream began to twitch, her furred muzzle bellowing bubbles. The man shifted his weight, putting his knee on her chest, his paws tightening around her throat.

It was over, eventually. The man stood, and simply let the body drift on the gentle current.

Nakori was lifted up, still sobbing, and led away, through the cluster of tents set up around the stream. Food smells and rhythmic music swirled through the air, louder and louder, then quieter and quieter, until the only music was the awful drone of cicadas.

She could barely pay attention to her surroundings anymore. It was just blurs, and her lip tickled with the drip of snot and tears.

"Your name," said a deep male voice, somewhere in front of her, "is Nakohu-Koribaha-Hrupori, correct? The useless half-wit?"

She merely nodded. There was some whispering. It went on for a while.

"Do you know why you're here before me?"

"N...no..."

"Because you must be punished. This, to preserve our peace with the Rakash. You broke their law."

"What... what did I do? I don't understand."

"Of course you don't understand!" Foul breath and snarl-spit flecked her face, followed by a blinding-hot smack, claws gouging her cheek. Then a sigh.

"The Rakash have rules, rules which we obey. Rules that you do not. We do not lie with them. Your body has tainted one of their hunters' most prized mates, and so he had to cleanse her. And so we must cleanse you. Have you anything to say?"

Nakori bowed herself, head touching the ground, sniveling and hiccuping.

"Of course not. Do what you will with her, and see her cleansed."

The paws gripped her again, lifting her, dragging her away, and the burbling of the stream grew louder once again. In the distance, she could still make out the pitter-patter of drums.

They did not force her into the water until the woods began to brighten again. She could just barely make out their faces as they pushed her under, and their fingers around her neck felt warm in the freezing water. She didn't fight it. She drank as much as she could, before there was no more air to swallow with the water.

She awoke on the bank, coughing and spluttering, a gentle paw patting her back.

"That is clean enough," said the familiar voice of Belette. "She is but a half-wit, and it is the fault of us all that we let her disobey. She has learned now, she is cleansed. And now you see how she can be useful. Give her to me, I will teach her to dance. She will dance for you, and for her food. She will have worth. Tell the Elder this. And if that is not enough, then the Rakash can have her, I say. Go! Tell him. And they can have me as well, if I break the law for sparing her. Is that enough?"

Nakori curled up, shivering, purring loudly to soothe her aches, too sore and too tired to move any more. The rustle of grass let her know the hunters were away to deliver the message.

"As for you... you iditoic child... Liskery, come here, help me carry her to my tent."

And once again, she was lifted, carried...

And with a splash, dropped in the stream. She sat up with a start, coughing again, blinking water from her eyes. The woods were brighter now, and she patted herself down. Clothes, her pack, her spectacles.

She must have fallen asleep and rolled into the stream.

She took a deep breath, climbing onto the grass to pull off her wet clothes.

That had been no nightmare, she realised. That had not even been a memory. She'd been there, again, every detail, every tiny thing exact. Again.

She curled up in the grass, naked, and held herself as she cried. She cried until she was hungry, and then gathered her wet clothes and headed further up the stream.

---

>"Do you know why we have teeth, half-wit? They are to tear meat. Do you deserve meat? It would seem no one believes you do. Do you have a use for us? You could. You could have a use, and then deserve meat. But you use your teeth to maim my best hunters. And so, you do not deserve teeth. Belette. She is yours. Take her teeth."

Nakori trudged wearily through the woods, covering her ears with both paws. And yet, the voices continued.

>"And since he will now never sire children, I will allow him to take her tail as well. Is this not fair? And without tail, she will not be of us. She--it--will be a tool. A useful tool. Until it breaks."

Just a little longer... the edge of the water coming into view...

>"I followed them, the hunters. There's a pool they rest in, and when they left, I rested there, too. I can't explain it, Nakori. I had energy again! I kept going, and I found this great path through the trees, wider than any we've ever seen. And something more, there were people, furless people moving along this path, with these great animals, and these... these tents, moving with them, on top of logs... And wheels! Wheels like Belette draws in the dirt, when no one's watching. Like the song. Come with me, Nakori..."

She knelt in the ankle-deep water, gathering small rocks, building one cairn, then another, and another.

>"You will not survive. Do not go, I beg you. What little life we have here... it is life. It is survival. You are young, you don't understand. There is nothing for us down that road. Our gods died in the west. The people of the east are cruel. Have I not been kind to you both? You will not find my kindness out there. Our life here is fair. It is life. You will die if you go."

>"Will you stop us?"

>"No."

She bowed her head, paws lifted in the air.

"Nakohu - my scavenger, my hunter... Demrris, watch over them, my children, now your children again.
Koribaha - my song, my voice... Tenemlor, thank you for keeping them for another turn, for sparing them the life I would have kept.
Hrupori - my treasure, my love... Eu, let me see them soon, in this life, or the next, or let us be together on the Wheel for a little while, when I return."

The lake was still, no wind to ripple the surface. The three small towers of stones cast long shadows. They would be toppled eventually, by wind, by animals, by people. But for now, they reminded her, and she remembered them.

She set up camp by the lakeshore that night, with a small fire just hot enough to dry her fur and warm her slices of ham. When the last of the light had faded from the sky, she doused the fire and continued her journey, over the rim of the lake, through the meadows, back into the woods, back to the road she had meant to take in the beginning.

She encountered nothing on the way, despite the many dangers she knew lurked in the dark. Her step was steady, so unlike the first time...

>"Shh! Listen. Hunters..."

>"Belette told them? But she said--"

>"Oh, Nakori, you lovely little snow weasel... how can you still trust her? Of course she told them. Quickly... there, look! Over this tree, hurry!"

Hunters behind, and darkness ahead. Such darkness, as if light could simply not exist beneath the leaves, and then, what luck, a hole!

Oh, what luck.

How long did she lie there, alone and bleeding, crawling along the cold stone floors as the ghastly things shrieked and flew about through the tunnels? Her face gone, Liskery gone, echoes of her tearful apologies, excuses, goodbyes lingering... How she screamed and begged them to finish her, to end her suffering, and yet, the creatures of horror ignored her, as if... as if protecting her.

And then the people in masks, dragging her further into the tunnel, lifting her, laying her on a stone altar, chanting.

Then the pain stopped for twenty years.

Twenty years of nightmares, of her soul twisting in Dergati's grasp, re-living those moments of her life that turned her heart numb, the only reprieve being the nightmares of things unknown to her, monsterous faces, creatures of darkness, the howling, whispered noises from just out of sight, and the loneliness--the crushing, enveloping loneliness, the knowledge that she'd been abandoned, that the only person to treat her like a person had taken one look at her torn face in the torchlight, dropped her with a scream, and ran away a second time. That loneliness that always felt like maybe she wasn't alone, and that not being alone would be much, much worse...

Nightmares, yes, but no pain.

And then, life. Her body restored, her leg healed, her tail regrown, her fangs, her ears, every bruise and broken bone mended, and a one-eyed monster standing over her, her sibilant voice attempting and failing to soothe, her words foreign, while Liskery's aged body lie beside her, unbreathing, seeping blood.

But... life.

And here she was again, kneeling before that same altar, fiddling with bones and feathers in her paws, fragments of unlucky animals she'd picked up from the tunnel floor along the way.

"Dergati... I come again, in reverence... in thankfulness... You know my soul, and it does not belong to you any more. You have Liskery's. I pray you are keeping her safe. I pray you will allow her to return, in time. I am sorry I did not come give my offerings sooner... I have had a lot on my mind, these years... My friend, Lasika, her mind is in pieces, and some of the pieces are missing. I'm learning to re-grow them, but they're not... They're not growing back right. They're empty, when I grow them..."

From her pack, she pulled out a stoppered vial of holy water and a small cloth, and began to scrub the altar clean.

"Anyway, um... I've been having nightmares a lot lately, and I was wondering if maybe you could help them stop. They're about my pride... Like memories. But they were really, really bad on the way here. They weren't like memories. Is that just because I'm closer to your power, when I come here? Um, anyway. I've been sacrificed to you twice now, and I don't want to do that again, so here's... I made this for you, I guess... its a little shrike."

She placed the amalgamation of feathers and bones on the altar. It did not look much like a shrike at all.

"And Whiteburn made this for me to give you... she made me a lot, just in case, but I think one is enough for now?"

She placed a shrike bead beside the sculpture, and knelt, eyes closed.

"I've been thinking, a lot, about the gods, and my pride. I think I understand why they came here. They had no more home in the west, and the people in the east, they are... not very good people, most of the time. They're selfish, and mean. There are empaths who want people to get hurt! And no one likes the gods very much anymore. It's been like that for a long time, hasn't it? And so they came here, and decided that there weren't any gods. And they were... worse.

"Without gods, people are worse than animals. I think even animals have gods. Because animals are better than what they were. They were something... bad. Something wrong. Something hurt, by Lyras, by the people they thought would welcome them to a new home... The things they did, and said, and the way everyone was... I don't think I can be angry at them anymore. Sometimes, but not always. I don't have the energy to be angry at them, because I'm always feeling sad for them. To live the way they did, their kits... the things they taught us... no... none of that should have been the way it was.

"I think, people need to know gods are there. They need to know there is something else, after. And its good for you to remind them you're there, even if you're not the god they like or want. Thank you for reminding me, if that's why I'm having the nightmares again. I won't turn away from the gods. You may do bad things to people, but I don't think you can be worse than the way people are without you."

She opened her eyes, hiccuped, stood up, and took the orb from the altar.

"I give you these thoughts, and more. Take from me the pain as you did before, and give me peace, please..."

She clutched the orb to her chest, and stretched it towards the altar, where it rolled from her paws and burst into the familiar tendrils of rainbow light. When the brightness faded from her eyes, she gave the altar a pat.

>Zhirrisk? I'm ready now. Give me a few roisaen to return to the road, though.

As she turned away, she thought she saw something small flit up to the altar. Looking again, she realised the small misshapen shrike of feather and bones had been knocked behind the altar, and had not been taken during her prayer.

---

The return trip to the road was uneventful. She was quick, her gaethzen lamp leading the way through the tunnels, and what little dark spirits she encountered were quickly slipped past. A faint bluish glow was waiting for her on the road, and a moongate opened shortly after, the streets of Riverhaven visible through it.

She gave Zhirrisk a hug as she came through.

"Thank you."

The moon mage squirmed, arms outstretched for a while, before gradually giving her the tiniest of hugs in return. It was just the right amount.

"Aye. Hope you didn't have business in Theren. I, ah... I can't go back there for a while."

"Riverhaven is fine... Actually... Do you know the hospital where Lasika was? I forget what street it was on..."

"Hm. This way. Are you sure you don't want to sleep first? You look, ah... terrible. All muddy and grouchy."

"I'm not tired."

"As you say."

They walked in silence for just a while.

"Did you have any visions there? Of... Liskery?" Zhirrisk asked.

"Um... kind of. Memories."

"Oh. Alright. Anything from Dergati?"

"Just a favour... that seems the wrong word for it. A reminder."

"Okay."

Nakori glanced up at him, his dark-furred face barely visible inside his shark-shaped helmet.

"She's not okay. I'm not okay. But she's there. I know she is there, and... someday, we'll find someone who wants to be there to take her place."

Zhirrisk nodded.

"This is it," he said, gesturing at the next street. They came to the building, and Nakori glanced behind to see that he had vanished.

"I'm just going to have a look around for myself," said the shimmering blob of air beside her. She rolled her eyes, and shook the rusted iron gates a bit.

Two orderlies appeared, both male, an elf and a gor'tog. Both hushed her for shaking the gate before one asked, "Do you have an appointment?"

"No. Can I schedule one?"

"Yes, we can do that. Which patient are you here to see?"

Nakori hiccuped and tilted her head back to gaze up at the sky, trying to remember.

"Lucia," she said.

"Blast it, not another one! Look here, Lucia is not accepting any visitors. Too many questions about this blasted crown fiasco, you lot have upset her far too much. If you're just here to bother and pester--"

"My name is Nakori Dozypaws. I'm Lasika's doctor. I've been taking care of her, studying what... what you people did to her. Can I speak with Horace Applescott?"

"He is no longer with us. And we have yet to recieve many of his files back from River Crossing. If you wish to view them, you should speak with Kaelie Rudeone."

"Hold on, hold on," the other orderly, a Gor'tog man, said. "Dozypaws? Why, I heard you were tortured by Geva. Is that true?"

"Yes, it was horrible!"

"How did it feel?"

"Horrible!"

"How did you survive it?"

Nakori took a deep breath.

"Because it was not the most horrible thing to happen to me."

They were quiet for a while.

"I suppose we can let her in to look. It's not like we didn't break the rules before, right?"

"Alright... alright. But the files stay here this time. I've already gotten an earful for letting those out of here in the first place..."

>I've got them.

Nakori tilted her head, blinking at nothing in particular as Zhirrisk's voice echoed about in her head.

>Got what?

>The rest of Applescott's files, and some other files on Lucia and Lasika.

>That was... quick.

>It's just a hospital. It's hardly the bastion of courage and selflessness that watches over an entire province and is teeming with patrols of highly trained soldiers, and I sneak around in those for fun.

>Okay, but you are putting them back after!

She smiled at the two orderlies.

"Actually, if you can just tell me where Mr. Applescott lives, maybe I can go bother him at his home?"

"Er... alright, yeah, sure. I'll go check, think we have his address on record..."

There was a thump and a clatter from down the street. Nakori moved to block the view.

"So, ummmm... I think I'll just walk around a bit, and come back for the address in a few roisaen? Will that be alright."

"Yeah, sure," the remaining orderly said, shrugging. "Not like there's anything else to do on gate duty."

She beamed and shuffled off, grabbing Zhirrisk from the ground, hauling him away down the nearest alley.

"The walls are very slippery on the other side," he grumbled, adjusting his helmet into place. It was slightly dented. Apart from a few bruises, she didn't sense any damage to him. "Here's the files..."

"Keep them, for now. Can you go get a room at an inn, so we can read them in private?"

"Aye... any preferenes?"

"A nice one. Not a rowdy one."

"Right. Let you know where and which, when I get there."

As he shuffled off down the alley, she went back out front and waited. There was a distinct air of embarrassment when they returned.

"Hallo again! Do you have the address?"

"Afraid not, miss Do...Dozypaws? No, er. We seem to have misplaced some things... Would you terribly mind coming back another day?"

Feigning an annoyed sigh, she nodded.

"I am going to have words with people in charge! But I am too busy today... also I think there is someone trying to climb the wall over there?"

The orderlies glanced up and began barking orders, vanishing from sight. An elven man with wiry hair and a mad grin waved down at her from the top of the wall. She cautiously waved back before he was yanked from view.

---

END OF PART I