The words tumbled from his trembling lips like the babbling of an old, crazed man. He spoke of Heralds, the true Sith. Then he spoke of the Empire, a wasted space, and a galaxy waiting to be reclaimed. With this, his tone changed, growing more robotic in nature. [i]Like he's reading,[/i] the blonde thought, her gaze never wavering from the blank scroll. Her small frame shuddered.

This time, it was her turn to comfort her friend. With a single, fluid motion, she returned her lightsaber to its rightful place on her hip. Now lit only by the red-yellow light of the cube, the Knight let the scroll tumble to the dirty floor. It rolled a few feet before settling against the base of the shelf she had drawn it from. Both hands, small, but firm, grasped Yerbol's arms. Instinctively, her thumbs stroked the cloth of his robe, a small and ineffective, but genuine gesture intended to calm him. She leveled her hard, cold gaze on him. "Listen to me, Yerbol," Leoria began, her tone steady, supported by all of the calm she could muster. "You need to relax. You need to calm down, do you understand? I don't know what is happening to you." [i]Or if anything is happening to you. Maybe you've just gone crazy. That paper was blank, was it not?[/i] "I am going to help you." [i]Will I help you the way I helped those troops?[/i] This thought caught her breath in her throat, and she could only give a choked gasp as her companion pulled away. She was left, arms outstretched, as he slumped to the floor. The cube he had held fell to the ground, and without thinking, she scooped it up. Now clutching the only light source, she focused on the boy. Something was wrong.

"Yerbol," she cried, and then more urgently when his hands began to crackle with energy. "Yerbol!" Lightning. His fingertips danced with the same electricity that she had seen before. The same electricity that the troops had used. And she had killed them. [i]I'm going to have to kill him too.[/i]

"No," she growled softly. Her better judgement warred with her immediate sense of panic, and her hands shook as they held the artifact. "No, I won't. I can't. I won't." It was hot, so hot. A fine layer of sweat dusted her brow, shimmering like diamonds in the dim light. Why was it so hot? "Yerbol," she said once more, voice now only a weak groan. "Please, stop. Please. Its hot."

And then it wasn't. It began with a cold breeze, drifting from no place in particular. It was impossible, of course, as Leoria had just checked for openings. But there it was. Her damp skin grew cold beneath the impossible breeze, and as her jaw dropped in surprise, she watched her own impossible breath condense, and carry away like smoke. In the darkness, something had appeared. Something [i]impossible.[/i] It flickered oddly, seeming to blink in and out of existence, but she could not deny what she saw. A layer of snow.