[indent]In his peripheral vision, Taru noticed the young blond and found his thoughts drawn to the young man. He didn’t have the look of a warrior but Taru sensed a sort of awkward potential within him. Perhaps it had something to do with the weapon the boy carried. [color=steelblue][i]One doesn’t carry a weapon like that purely for decorative purposes.[/i][/color] He found himself wondering about everyone in the bar. The obviously former military bartender, the young blond with the elaborate sword, the green eyed mage, even his anxious, moustached companion. He realised that there were many coiled springs in the Stiltwalker’s Fall tonight, the air itself seemed pregnant with the promise of violence. He felt a slight pang of shame that the thought excited him. He knew he oughtn’t be too hard on himself. After all, every man is a product of the life they have lead, and his was forged on the battlefield and tempered by bloodshed. He sighed and finished his drink.

A flicker of light brought him round and he turned to see the young mage casting a subtle but intricate fire spell over the herbs he had given him. He would have been very impressed by the young man’s arcane dexterity were it not for the hackles that rose on the back of his neck. He knew that the Frowthorn would distract the weaker Ablated and their moans and gravitation towards the Stiltwalker’s Fall would be ignored by their handlers, but he knew there would be Alphas out tonight. He knew this because a lot of people came through the gates of Dalvastre today, he knew that despite his slender years, Gabriel III was a gifted military leader and statesman, and he would doubtless send out patrols tonight. Taru knew all this because it is exactly what he would do in the young emperor’s position.

He heard the young man at the bar ask for a room for the night and hoped there would be one sufficiently far away from his own for the boy. He was quickly drawn back to the table with the two men as the mage withdrew the Sun Stone from the linen in which it was bound. It had been many years since he had last seen one, when a ‘friend’ had shown one to him. The sight of it dragged memories back up from the depths of his mind. Wonderful, painful, lost memories. Memories of her. He shook them away as the small moustached man left hastily out of the front door. He could no longer stand by and do nothing as the boy endangered them all. He turned to the blond at the bar, taking his own key out of the fold in his tunic and sliding it back onto the bar.

[color=steelblue]“I’d find somewhere else to stay tonight, if I were you, boy.”[/color] He said, looking the young man dead in the eyes.
Standing from his seat, he approached the table at which the young mage was sitting. As he crossed the floor his mind swam with everything he had seen tonight. The young blonde at the bar, the mage at the table, the Lamplighters and the sun stone, and knew there was something happening, something larger than himself, something with the scent of destiny about it. As he arrived at the young man’s table he was surer than ever that he knew him, like an echo of a former life, or one he has yet to live. 

[color=steelblue]“I suggest you find your friend before they do, and get out of Dalvastre tonight, boy.”[/color] He said. [color=steelblue]“You may fool the lesser Ablated but, to an Alpha, you’ve just lit a homing beacon.”[/color]

He couldn’t have timed his words worse. Just as he finished his sentence, he heard it. Distant but too close for comfort…the shriek of an Alpha. She was female and, before the ablation would have been a powerful mage. She could hear the arcane song and called out to it in pain. Between her cries he heard the footsteps of soldiers. Eight of them, a full patrol. Whilst the Dalvastren regiments of the Val M’ahrian infantry were far from the most elite of soldiers, he knew better than to underestimate any man whom had dedicated his life to the sword. He turned back to look at the barman whom, he could tell had heard it too.[/indent]