Chapter 2....................

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Well, I have written chapter two. Seeing how I don't ever post anymore (I'm lucky to check and respond to email) I'll just post something wonderfully already written. Now of course, let me remind everyone that this is my rough draft. That means it makes very little sense and lacks detail. But it is getting written. Therefore, I care not about how much it sucks.  That said, feel free to comment and stuff.  I probably will never actually post all 20-something chapters (but I will get to atleast ten) so ask and I can probably give you more detail on a specific character or place or thing like that.

As I have said before....Questions, comments, complaints, hernias?

Gerald broke off the time magic right as they reached were Sark was. Sicin’s cloaked figure rushed toward Sark’s pet with amazing speed without the use of magic. The creature yelped as Sicin used his own body to shove it away from the girl lying on the ground. Ignoring the fray between the two, Gerald rushed over the girl. Sark dropped from the tree above her and landed between her and Gerald. The younger man slid in the mud as he tried to stop.

Sark reacted quickly and yelled out a black spell, throwing the dark fire at Gerald. The young human jerked his staff in front of him to counter the demon’s attack only to realize the attack also blocked his own magic. Before he could think of moving, Sicin was in front of him, taking the hit and grabbing Gerald for support.

“Shield yourself and the girl,” the cloaked man yelled as he quickly turned around and pulled out his short sword.

The demon hissed and tried to stop Gerald’s movements, but Sicin ran forward at the same time. The older man slashed at Sark with one hand and formed a ball of fire in the other. Quickly Gerald rushed by and landed on his knees next to the girl. He slammed the end of his staff into the mud on the other side of the girl. His tenor voice strongly spoke the words of the spell and a white translucent light spread out from the top of the staff and surrounded him and the girl.

Ignoring the sounds of fighting going on beyond the barrier, Gerald gently rolled the girl from her side to her back. Her left arm looked pretty bad and she definitely had hit her head, but aside from that she was all right. They had reached her before Sark could do anything. The young man sighed in relief as he reached his hand up to her head to better examine the wound. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into two braids like a little girl, even though she was actually a young woman, and she was wearing some bright colors and pants.

Must be from a caravan, Gerald thought as he focused his time magic on healing the injury done to her head.

He looked up for moment and realized that no one else was nearby. There was a beheaded synth-wolf nearby, no doubt Sicin’s handy work. In the distance Gerald could hear the defeated yelps of the pack. Sark seemed to be retreating, and that would probably mean that Gerald would have to go find Sicin with the woman in tow. He sighed and leaned over the young woman, checking her head again before he would move to her arm. Without warning, her eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright. Her forehead connected against Gerald’s jaw.

“Please calm down, my lady,” he said kindly in his native language as he rubbed his jaw.

The woman’s hazel eyes were wide open and her right hand was on her head. She looked understandably scared, which turned to pain as she lowered her head and moved her right hand toward her left. Gerald reached out and gently touched her shoulder and she flinched, but did not completely shy away because of her arm. He realized that if she was from a caravan, she might not have understood what he had just said. She probably only spoke the Common language while he had spoken to her in his own native tongue.

“I’m not going to hurt you, my lady,” he said, this time in the Common language.

“I…I…,” she stammered. “Thank you.”

“Here,” he kept his voice quiet to calm her down, “let me see your arm, my lady.”

Very gently he reached over her and cradled her arm. She sharply drew her breath in but did not cry out. It obviously hurt a lot, but she was handling it quite well. Gerald examined her arm, very thankful that it was not obviously broken. The creature had ripped a lot of flesh, but it had not used its full force on her. He moved his right hand over her arm and focused on his time magic, using it to speed up the healing of her arm.

Karen gasped as the pain in her arm lessened to a sore throb. The man let go of her left arm and she immediately pulled it toward her. She flexed her fingers and felt it with her right hand. It was sore and a little tender, but that was a great relief compared to the torment it had been earlier. She looked up at the man with the nice voice. He had his head turned away and he coughed a little bit.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I am quite well, my lady,” he responded politely. “I have just been in the rain for some time.”

She nodded and then realized that she could not feel the rain anymore. Her eyes drifted to the stick standing in the ground near her. It was probably more appropriately called a staff seeing that it looked elegantly carved. A small glow was coming from the top and it pulsed down around them both. Karen blinked in surprise as she watched the rain hit it and slide off of it. It was like she was underneath a glass dome.

“Sorry you can not really stand up inside the shield, my lady,” the man said. “I was in a bit of a rush.”

“It’s fine,” Karen said. She decided he had really beautiful blue-hazel eyes. “Thank you for saving me.”

“It was my pleasure, my lady.” He smiled as he remained knelt beside her.

“My name is Karen.” She decided that her dream just got a whole lot better. She felt comfortable around this guy, a big contrast to what she felt from the shadow man.

“Just Karen, my lady.” He had his head tilted, listening to some noise far away.

“Karen Tayzlie Cipher if you must know.”

“You are married Lady Karen?”

Karen looked at him in surprise. “No,” she said. “What gave you that idea?”

“My apologies if I have offended you Lady Karen.” Karen struggled to not snort as he spoke. “It is just that the only women who have long names are those married or those of royal lineage. And I thought I knew all those of royal lineage.”

“It’s fine,” Karen said as she pulled her legs underneath her, trying to get a little more comfortable. “I am not from any sort of high class as far as I know. My parents just like the way the entire name sounded.”

He moved his hand and grabbed the staff. He obviously wanted to touch the thing sooner, but he was not going to reach over her. The moment she had moved her legs his attention went from whatever he was listening for, to holding the staff. It did not move with his touch, but it seemed to be a relief for him just to touch it.

“It is a very lovely name, Lady Karen,” he said, the sleeve of his long jacket dripping near her feet.

“It’s just Karen. No title.”

“My apologies,” he said politely, “but every lady deserves a title.”

“You really don’t have to,” Karen said, knowing what her roommates would say about a guy like this. “I am no one important so Karen is all right. Or you could call me by my middle name. A lot of my friends call me Tayzlie.”

“Karen is fine,” came a voice from ten feet away.

“Sicin!” The man was on his feet in seconds, pulling his staff up.

“Ah,” Karen gasped as rain suddenly dropped on her head.

“Sorry Lady Karen,” he said as he looked over at the person who had spoken. “Sir, I am going to attend to your injuries.”

Karen looked over her shoulder. The man behind her was wearing a long cloak to protect him from the lightening rain. He had the hood pulled pretty far over his head and certainly looked dark and imposing. The look on the face of the man who had fixed her arm was that of stubborn determination as he looked at the cloaked figure. He had said the name of the man in cloak. He had called him Sicin, and as Karen looked at the cloaked figure she knew it was him. This was Sicin. This was the hero she had created. She was actually going to seem him in her dream. She was going to kill any of her roommates if they woke her up before she got to see him.

“Do not argue, sir,” the man next to her said. “I know you are injured.”

Sicin shrugged, indicating that he did not really care. In fact, Karen got the impression that he was only going to let his injuries be treated now so that the other man would stop bothering him about it. The rain stopped all together as the man with blue-hazel eyes excused himself from Karen and walked over to Sicin. She watched, trying to not look obviously fascinated as Sicin pulled off the long cloak he was wearing.

She was quite sure she went bug eyed. It was not because of the hole burned into the back of the cloak. Sicin, her Sicin, had grey hair. His face looked young, but he had grey hair. Karen had heard from someone that red heads grey faster than other people, so maybe he was a little older than she thought. That seemed ridiculous though because after all, he was her hero. So it should work as she says. But it was not.

The other man made Sicin turn a little bit so he could get a better view of whatever injury Sicin had. Karen had stopped blinking as she got a profile view. He had long ears. Long pointed ears. They were positioned and oriented like normal ears, but they met back at points almost an inch beyond the back of the head. His silver grey hair was just barely long enough to make a little tuft of a ponytail near the base of his neck.

The tail was the biggest surprise. Not the ponytail, but an actual tail. Her Sicin had a wolf-like tail. An honest to goodness grey, slightly bushy tail poking out underneath the leather jacket he was wearing. He was not human. Karen knew without a doubt that this was her hero, but he was not what she expected. The only thing that still held to her original idea was that he was indeed well built and looked about six foot one inch tall. He pulled off his leather jacket and looked over at Karen.

“Take it you’ve not seen a Diamen before,” Sicin said in a bored baritone voice.

“Ah, no,” Karen said, flushing with embarrassment. “Everyone is human where I come from.”

Sicin snorted in what was probably disgust. Karen stood up, flexing the fingers in her left hand again. They felt really stiff, but that was better than pain. She walked over to where the two men stood. The other man looked to be much younger than Sicin, but she really could not judge age in another race. The younger man did not seem to notice her, he was too involved in doing the same strange thing he had done to fix her arm. Sicin turned his head and looked at her. There was no emotion, good or ill, on his face. He looked at her with indifference with his grey eyes. Grey irises that were rimmed ever so slightly with black and had the same weird yellow streaks that the shadow man had. Karen shivered at the thought and Sicin continued to look at her.

“Are you all right, um, Sicin, isn’t it?” She felt very silly. Half of her was expecting to wake up any moment, and the other half told her that she was.

“He is quite all right, Lady Karen,” the younger man responded as he handed Sicin back his jacket. “Please accept my apologies for not introducing us.” The younger man held himself in a formal manner that matched his speech as he swept his arm in the direction of Karen. “Master Sicin, may I introduce you to Lady Karen of Cipher.”

“It’s just Karen,” she told Sicin.

“Lady Karen,” the younger man said, “allow me to introduce you to Master Sicin fa’Storm, Lahtromy Naydrawg,” he paused, probably guessing that Karen did not understand what he had just said, “Guardian of Ne…the Garden.”

Karen nodded politely at Sicin, really not quite sure what kind of greeting to give him. She did not understand those words, but she did realize that guardian meant someone important. Sicin himself had his eyes closed and he looked just a little bit annoyed. Karen smiled awkwardly and looked over at the other man, wondering what kind of titles he had.

“I am named Gerald Ryder,” he said.

“What he means,” Sicin interrupted before Karen could respond, “is that he is Prince Gerald Atticus Ryder IV.”

“Oh, pleased to meet you Prince Gerald,” Karen said in surprise.

The Prince looked very composed, and yet murderous at the same time. Sicin himself had a twitch of a smile for about half a second. Karen looked back and forth from the two of them. Her hero was looking like a stick in the mud while his sidekick was a royal prince. Maybe she had gotten them mixed up. Her subconscious probably knew this better than she did.

“I am not in line for the throne, Lady Karen,” Gerald said with an easy smile. “You may just call me Gerald.”

“Very well Gerald,” Karen straightened herself a little, realizing how absolutely soaked she was.

“Fire,” Sicin interrupted, talking to Gerald. “We’ll camp here.”

Karen looked around. It was indeed dusk, which would not be good for her wet clothes. She turned her head and noticed a black, headless carcass nearby. This was a very strange morbid dream suddenly. Really strange because the black shapeless mass looked almost like it was evaporating.

“Lady Karen,” Gerald said, pulling her around so she looked at him. “Do not look at the creature. You have already had a frightening enough day,” he said as Sicin walked by them toward the dark thing. “We will find a place to rest while Master Sicin deals with our safety.”

Karen nodded vaguely. Shock seemed to have caught up with her as Gerald gently took her arm and escorted her away from where they had been. It felt like her mind could not decide what was going on. Nightmare, dream, brain damage, or post-traumatic stress syndrome. They were all just possibilities now, and she did not want to think about it anymore.

Gerald carefully set some of the wet branches he had gathered next to the small fire. The spelled stone in the middle would keep the fire from completely dying, but it would not really be big enough to dry and warm people. Everything had been so soaked earlier that getting the fire going looked like it would take some time. He looked over at Karen, who was sitting on his cloak, while he arranged a few more sticks on the fire. She still looked a bit dazed as she massaged her left hand and he guessed she was probably from a very sheltered community. It would account for her strange clothing and her surprise at magic. She had probably been taught that such things were only found in stories.

“The fire will be bigger soon, Lady Karen,” he said as he walked over and knelt by her. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“You don’t need to,” she said with a smile.

Her manner told him that she was actually less dazed than she looked. In fact, the dazed look in her green-hazel eyes was probably a result from her thinking. They had not said much after they had left Sicin to deal with the synth. The creature itself had been trying to reassemble itself when they left, but he did not want to tell her that. He did not want to risk her perhaps getting hysterical, but she did seem to be handling the situation better than some people had.

“May I check on your hand, Lady Karen?” Gerald asked.

She nodded, smirking, no doubt, about his speech. That was quite all right with him. She had a very pleasant smile. He took her left hand and looked at it, already knowing what he would see. There were faint scar lines that would fade in a few days, and it was probably a little sore.

“It will feel much better after some rest, Lady Karen,” he said, letting go of her hand.

“You can just call me Karen,” she said, laughing a little.

“I am sorry, my lady,” he said politely, “but I cannot do that.”

“Because you’re a prince?” she wondered.

“That is part of it, Lady Karen.”

“What’s the other part?”

“It is a little more habit than that, my lady,” he said, standing up. “Please excuse me for a moment while I attend to the fire.”

She nodded as he turned to the slowly building fire and carefully arranged more sticks on it. Gerald was not going to tell her the biggest reason for using titles. It was his only way of not getting attached to everyone. He enjoyed company much more than Sicin did, but he had a hard time with getting worked up about people who he would never see again. Not like the titles actually prevented him from developing emotions, but they keep them under control for himself and sometimes the other person.

Of course, right now he realized that the title was not as effective on him as it had been before. He had been in this situation before with plenty of girls who wanted to, um, show their gratitude. Since Sicin made himself unapproachable, they always turned to Gerald. Not ever girl was like that, and those ones cause him the most problem. They were usually genuinely appreciative and he enjoyed their company. Of course, most any company was welcome after working with Sicin for months on end.

He shifted a few branches again. It would go a whole lot faster if he could use his time magic, but Sicin had put a rule against that ever since Gerald had caught himself on fire that one time. It had been an accident, but Sicin did not want him doing it by himself. The Wolf-Daimen was becoming a little unpredictable lately. He had always been a little, a lot, reckless. Today though, Gerald had not had to go trekking through the woods with Karen in order to find Sicin badly injured with who knows how many dead synth around him.

“Sicin has been gone awhile,” Karen said, startling Gerald a little.

“Do not worry about him Lady Karen,” Gerald said both for her and himself. “He is exceptionally capable.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Her tone was almost that of amused irony.

“Lady Karen,” Gerald said as he turned around and knelt down next to her again, “may I ask as to where your home can be found?”

“Not around her,” she said, looking around. “I don’t think you’ve ever heard of Centron.”

“My apologies lady,” Gerald said as he searched his memory, “but I do not recall knowing about such a place. Do you perchance know the name of the largest city in the same land?”

Karen thought for a moment and then shook her head apologetically. Gerald drummed his fingers as he tried to make sense of this information. This young woman could not have come very far away for Sark’s minions to have gotten a hold of her. The only conclusion was that she came from a village of intense recluses. She had probably been raised to believe that leaving the border was a sin.

“Do you know what synth are, my lady?” he asked.

“I’ve never heard of them,” she said. “Is that what attacked me?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Why?”

“Were you alone when they attacked?” he asked as he folded his legs so that he was sitting cross legged next to her.

“No,” she said, biting her lip a little as she thought about it. “I can’t really remember what happened. It all happened so fast.”

“What can you remember?” Gerald prompted, his curiosity causing him to forget to use the title.

“It wasn’t raining.” Karen lifted her head up and closed her eyes. “A little girl had wandered away from her parents. I saw her and she pointed out what she called a dog. I don’t know what it was, but it was definitely not a normal dog. It jumped and I got between it and the girl.” She opened her hazel eyes and looked at him. “It starts getting really confusing after that. I know it bit me, but all I can remember is being in a tree, in the middle of a forest that I had not been in before, in a rainstorm. And there was that guy. He looked like a shadow and…he scared me. Who, what was he?”

“He is called Sark and he is a very strong synth.” Gerald paused as he tried to figure out how to explain this politely to Karen. “He sustains much of himself from the energy of others. His creature was no doubt after the child, but you were very brave in stopping that.”

“Hmmm,” Karen said as she bent her head down. “If I had been more aware of his intentions for that little girl, I would have hit him. Even with the condition I had been in.”

Gerald could not help but to laugh. She had plenty of spunk when it came to defending others. By her manner, he could tell that Karen genuinely would do everything she could to help defend those around her. He wished he could help get her back home. Suddenly he spotted Sicin a little ways behind Karen. The Diamen pointed to Karen and indicated he wanted her asleep. Gerald looked at the young woman smiling next to him and smiled back.

“You have had a very exciting day, Lady Karen,” he said. “Please try to get some rest. It will help your arm and your mind.”

“I don’t know if I can go to sleep,” she said as Gerald pulled out a thin looking blanket from inside his pack.

“I sure it will come easily,” he said as he softly touched her shoulder.

He gently wrapped some time magic around her as he focused on putting her into a deep sleep. Karen’s eyes fluttered and Gerald caught her as she slumped down. Gently he laid her down on his cloak and spread the blanket over her. He watched her breath for a minute, making sure she was really asleep. Sure of it, Gerald lifted his head up and looked at Sicin with narrowed eyes.