[color=goldenrod][h2][center]Terilu[/center][/h2][/color]
[center]Addressing: [@Enigmatik], [@TimeMaster] and the whole Gadricluster[/center]

Ha-ha! Here there's enough people for a party. Terilu loves crowds, he loves mingling and the noise and smell of many people. It's a thrill he knows he'll miss like a lost love if ever he reforms himself, irreversibly, into a lich. Terilu looks over at Gadri, about to smirk at his apparently very beloved guide- they must be beloved, to have gathered all these followers- and then stops still when he sees the expression on the old dwarf's face. He watches while Gadri just scowls up at the giant, shields their eyes, and mumbles something irrelevant about prayer-time... and suddenly the bat's heart flutters in a nameless emotion that's between sympathy and sudden revulsion. What, would the old man rather be taking a nap? Ugh. He thinks Gadri might be too dull to spend much time around, after all.

Terilu looks up at the giant himself and is struck with a much better idea. He lets his full wingspan stretch out, ten feet wide, gently pushing annoyed walkers-by away and momentarily covering the city street, until with a monumental batting of his wings he defies his own weight and floats off of the ground. True Eratie are never ashamed to take flight even if it's a strange sight to the skinned. He pumps himself and rises up high until he's at eye level with Galaxor.

Then he sits on Galaxor's shoulder.

With his small size compared to the mountainous stature of a Stoneclaw Giant, he fits more-or-less perfectly, like one fits in a chair. And it's convenient. Who wants to walk or fly when they can ride on the shoulders of giants? He's been getting exhausted by the overheated air in this country. "[color=goldenrod]Come on, my gigantic friend,[/color]" Terilu says to Galaxor, "[color=goldenrod]let us go onward, somewhere! I'm sure we'll find something more interesting to do in this great city than follow this poor dwarf around. I've heard they have an arena here. Let's some of us go and bet on a fight or something![/color]"

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[Center][h2][color=slategray]Athulwin[/color][/h2]
Addressing: Eni, [@Crusader Lord] and [@Smike]
[/center]

Athulwin is dreaming. He knows this because, though he could never explain why to others, or ever to himself, he's often lucid in his dreams. Not always. Most of the time, his dreams are the same parade of blissful nonsense that almost every one else reports. But in some dreams, and in [i]this[/i] dream especially, Athulwin finds himself strangely aware of his own sleeping state. He knows that he is in a world of his own imagination, the Song Beneath the Song, and he knows that he'll remember it perfectly when he wakes. He has had this dream many, many times.

He stands in the forest. Not a forest, the forest: the one where he used to meet Alder, the vampire who feigned so long at caring about Athulwin so that he could try to turn him once he'd achieved real power. The trees in this part of the wood are tall, thick and straight-backed. They looked like a giant's fingers to him as a child and like the bars of a cage to him as an adult. On cue, without fail, Alder steps out from their long shadows. It's twilight.

This time, Alder says, "[color=slategray]Your eyes are starting to sink in, Athulwin.[/color]"

This dream doesn't put on the same performance every night that it comes. It isn't static. It keeps track with the passing of the years. Each time Athulwin dreams it, Alder remarks on his age differently. It's harsher each turn.

"[color=slategray]You look the same,[/color]" replies Athulwin. That's one thing that never changes. Lucid or no, he always, always finds himself saying it. The dream Alder looks at him with something that must be a monster's closest mimicry of pity.

"[color=slategray]You could've been like this, too,[/color]" he says. "[color=slategray]For what did you reject me? For an oath? Or out of foolishness? Tell me.[/color]"

"[color=slategray]I loved you,[/color]" says Athulwin.

"[color=slategray]That is no answer. If you had love for me, then why didn't you take my gift?[/color]"

The monk sighs. He's so tired. Even in his sleep he is tired. His breath turns visible in the thin air of win-

Athulwin stirs and wakes up in his fabric-heavy Caravan to the smell of fire. That scent wakes him out of the dream and burns the emotion of the whole thing out of his mind in an instant. He's halfway to standing up, aching old knees and all, before he realizes that his mobile home is not actually burning down. The curtains, pillows, blankets, sheets are not ablaze. But one thing is ablaze here and Athulwin knows exactly who it came from.

"[color=slategray]Oh,[/color]" he says to the small wisp of fire hovering in front of his open door. (He'd left it open while he snoozed, not wanting to awaken to a home that had become an oven.) "[color=slategray]I see you, creature. Knossos has sent you. I suppose this is my return for sending out the Wind to talk to him. Speak quickly: what did he tell you to say?[/color]"

The fiery wisp relays it.

"[color=slategray]Ah,[/color]" says Athulwin. "[color=slategray]Return to Knossos,[/color] [color=red]daemon,[/color][color=slategray] for I too can speak fire, and tell him that he should whisper into the desert wind when he wishes to speak to his Navigator, instead of sending an unholy thing. And... yes, tell him that I said we should keep on eye, magical or mundane, on the more naïve of the Caravan. There are some who have good intentions but too much passion.[/color]"

The wisp seems a little offended at this whole thing, Athulwin thinks, but off it burns into the air again, carrying the message back to the old occultist who sent it. Knossos is an interesting breed. Sometimes he's Athulwin's favorite pilgrim, for the knowledge and protective power he brings. Sometimes he's one of Athulwin's least favorites, for the smell of occultism never seems to fully be gone from him. So many times Athulwin has been so close to asking him for help with the Curse. But there is a thing deep inside the monk's soul that just won't let him turn to a veritable warlock for a cure, any more than he could accept Alder's gift of vampirism. He can't chase out darkness with darkness. Evil magic begets only evil things. Of that, more than anything else in the world, more than the sun rising tomorrow, Athulwin feels certain. 

His window- a wooden flap in the wall, held open with string connected to the roof- is as open as the door was, and out of it he looks, debating inside himself if he should go about outside and act his role as the Navigator. But then he stops and stares at what he sees. There's a foolish savannah dog out there, that looks like it's about to be eaten by a hyena. This wouldn't be an issue, but the hyena is a gnoll, and the dog is Malleck.

Fine.

Athulwin tries to force himself into a standing position for the second time in not enough minutes, and when he has finally worked his slow way out of the Caravan and across the open space to where the Ainok and the gnoll are staring one another down, he can just hear poor Malleck whimpering. "[color=khaki][sub]Please don't kill me.[/sub][/color]"

"[color=slategray]She won't,[/color]" says Athulwin, in a projecting voice. He'd seen Thorzna many times, with her two years in the Caravan. "[color=slategray]Don't be afraid, Malleck. Miss Scrapblast is a fine Pilgrim.[/color]"