Kire smiled when Ysaryn described the kind of cooking she liked, letting her go on. She liked how Ysaryn was so carefree in moments like this, despite what had happened to her. Kire liked being around that. She glanced at Ruli as he and Ysaryn conversed about farming, listening in as they talked about how best to use the wood from the trees around them. He was the exact opposite of the elf woman, a cloud following him wherever he went, bearing the weight of past sins. She remembered how Ysaryn had warned her about him, and Kire sighed. Within herself were these two, and it seemed a constant battle to waver between their two attitudes, between light and dark, between looking forward and trapped in the past. 

She hadn’t immediately noticed Ruli falling behind, swamped in her own brooding, until a few more moments later. “It’s getting late,” she said, wondering if it was his tiredness or something else. “I’ll go wander off for a bit longer by myself if you don’t mind, the coffee’s hitting me harder than I thought.” She smiled at them both. “Thank you for all your help today.” She paused, hearing herself, and almost laughed at her own remark; Kire made it sound like she had been the one who asked for their help to go to Cordon. [i]Cordon…who are you hiding in there?[/i]

When she walked away from them, though, her mirth had died, the frown returning to her features, deepening as her mind went to her strange encounter earlier at the port city. [i]Gemini. Bastards.[/i] The more she thought about that aura, brief yet unmistakable, the more her rage grew. It didn’t help that it might have been a brief trick of the mind. Her hands curled into fists. Kire twisted off her Ring, secured it in her pocket, and threw a punch at a nearby tree. Pain jolted up her arm, but she didn’t care; if anything, it fueled her fury. [i]If I get my hands on any Gemini bastards here…[/i] 

Next morning, there would be one whole tree’s worth of wood added to the pile of lumber they had already brought back. Kire was asleep in her room in the caverns, her hands red and slightly swollen.