Two figures made their way through the thin forest, following a frequently used deer trail. However, their prey was not merely a roe or a buck but sport which would probably provide the pair with far more amusement than ordinary game.

The taller of the two, a young woman who's stern, determined expression seemed to clash with her youthful, exuberant face, led them down the trail, every so often tripping over an exposed root from the surrounding maple and cedar trees.

Every time she did so, a disapproving shaking of the head came from the old man following her. Upon seeing their travel-worn clothes, their callused skin, and weary bags underneath their eyes, any onlooker would have found it difficult to believe less than three weeks ago, these two wayfarers were once of noble standing.

It was not long before they reached their destination: a tiny lake where animals no doubt traveled for water. Splashing about in the water was their prey: a young man bathing.

"Are you sure this will work, Brey?" the young woman asked, crouching behind a bush as she intently studied her prey. She was somewhat tempted to try to sneak a peak at the naked man but he seemed to be doing a good job of concealing his skin underneath the water. It would be a waste of time to attempt such and activity.

"Not completely sure, no," the old man replied, taking a position just beside the young woman. He rested his walking staff in front of him and opened up a spell book he had been carrying underneath his arm. After flipping a few pages, he came to the desired spell and began to study the strange patterns of the enchantment. "The reason we're doing this, Princess, is to see if I'm finally capable of casting such a spell yet."

He paused for a moment, then looked up at the young woman. "What I'm wondering is if you are capable of using that boomerang yet?" he asked.

The young woman sighed, pulling out the weapon strapped to her belt on the opposite hip from her thorn whip. The boomerang, one of three intended for all of her companions, was a gift from a pair villagers in Tempe she had gotten to know, a token of thanks for their deeds while they stayed there. Since then, the young woman had been practicing her aim with the projectile weapon, slowly making improvement each day.

"I think I can handle it just fine now," she eventually replied, replacing the weapon in its ready position. She paused, looked at the old man, and boasted, "Just the other day, I managed to nail a flying crow with this thing."

The old man looked at her, a white, bushy eyebrow raising in surprise. "You never told me of that, Princess!" he exclaimed in a low voice.

The young woman flinched, glaring at the old man. "How many times do I have to tell you, Brey?" she said. "You don't have to call me that all the time anymore. My name is Alena, not ‘Princess'."

"Fine," Brey mumbled, his attention already drawn back to his spell book. Alena glared at him, angry for ignoring her again but said nothing more, knowing her old tutor was probably too absorbed in his work to start bickering with her.

Shortly, Brey looked up from his book and peered forward towards the man bathing. "All right," he said at length. "I'm ready to give this a try. Ready?" Alena nodded and the old man nodded back. At that, he started to focus his mind upon his target for the spell and, more specifically, the bather's skin.

Going over the desired effects of his magical abilities within his mind, Brey finally uttered, "Sap!" and pointed a wrinkled finger at the young man in the water hole. As he did, a wave of invisible energy surged from his finger into the bather's skin, rapidly taking a profound effect on his body.

His skin began to shrivel and cling tightly to his bones, loose amounts hanging in massive wrinkles. The young man started to panic, his skin's strange behavior sending fear throughout his mind. He began to thrash in the water, clawing at his skin as if something was attacking him before finally falling over with a less than graceful splash.

"I'd say the spell works just fine," Brey remarked with a wry smile.

"Will he be all right?" Alena asked, her eyes a little wide with concern for their victim.

"He should be," the old tutor replied as he grabbed his crooked walking staff. "It only lasts for around five or ten minutes, and if he injures himself in that state he should be able correct any damage." Alena nodded and stood up along with Brey. They then stealthily made their way back to their camp, leaving the bather to himself in a state of disarray.

Once the pair felt they were a good distance away from the water hole as to not be heard, Alena turned to Brey and asked, "Do you think we should tell him about it when he returns?"

Brey raised a white, bushy eyebrow. "Why should we?" he asked sincerely.

The princess looked at her tutor for a moment, a little shocked by the candid tone of his voice. "Well," she said, "it's a little mean to do what you just did to him without explaining your actions. I mean, wouldn't you worry for the rest of your life if something like that happened to you?"

"He'll find out if I ever use that spell again," Brey explained simply. He paused, looking away from the princess. "And if I did worry about it for the rest of my life," he quietly added, "I doubt it would be all that long."

Alena overheard and gave the old tutor a sharp punch in the shoulder. Brey let out a muffled ouch and rubbed his shoulder. "How dare you think like that!" she said in a mockingly stern voice. "I thought we agreed never to joke or talk about death in such a manner."

"Right, right," Brey grumbled, still rubbing his shoulder. After a moment, he said, "I forgot just how strong you really are."

"Humph," Alena mumbled, turning her eyes skyward. "You know you're such a wimp sometimes? I just tapped you."

"‘Tapped me', huh?" Brey muttered, rolling his sleeve up to make sure there was not any major damage. It revealed a white, bony arm with a deep, purple bruise just below the shoulder. The old tutor looked up at the princess, his eyes demanding reparations.

"Oh, you'll live," Alena sighed, flinging an arm in his direction, "and if it really bothers you, Cristo can always fix it up."

"No thanks," Brey said, rolling his sleeve back down. He swung his arm around a few times to make sure no serious amount of pain would impair him when using it.

The pair continued back to the camp without further discussion. As they walked, Alena took her whip and slashed at a few overhanging branches or wrapping it around the trunk of a nearby tree. The violent crack of her whip occasionally caused birds to flutter from their perches in the trees and take refuge in a calmer area of the forest.

Seeing the birds take flight, Brey was suddenly reminded of something the princess had mentioned while they were at the water hole. "So," he said, looking up to her, "you hit a crow with your boomerang, did you?"

Alena started to smile. "Yes, I did," she beamed as she put her whip back at her hip and grabbed her other weapon. She began fondle it between her hands, tossing it back and forth with dexterity any juggler would envy.

"Tell me, then," the old tutor continued, "why didn't you bring back the carcass? I mean, it wouldn't make for much of a meal but at least you could brag about it at the campfire."

The princess' dexterous movements of the boomerang ceased, the weapon falling onto the ground as she paused in mid-step. "Well..." she began, her cheeks turning slightly red to match her short hair.

"What is it?" Brey pushed, although he already had a few guesses.

"I...lost the...carcass," Alena mumbled, looking away. She heard her old tutor start to break out in his characteristic cackle and quickly added, "But it wasn't my fault! Some sort of orange dog stole it from me before I could get it."

"Orange...dog?" Brey said between chuckles. "You don't mean a fox, do you?"

"Is that what they look like?" the princess asked, momentarily forgetting her humiliation. "I honestly didn't know. I've only seen their coats and tails on some of...the...things..." Her voice trailed off, a morbid thought entering her head.

Brey ceased his mild laughter upon seeing Alena's troubled mind. "Don't try to think about that too much," he said, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. "It's just a way of life. We've been wearing the furs of animals for centuries. If our ancestors hadn't started to wear them, it is a good bet we wouldn't be here today, most of them having frozen to death."

Alena looked at Brey for a moment and a smile cracked her lips. "You always bring out the worse case scenario, don't you?" she said, slightly nudging his shoulder. He flinched and Alena quickly withdrew her hand, forgetting the old tutor still had a tender bruise there. "Sorry," she muttered.

"It makes you thankful for what you have," Brey stated dryly, rubbing his shoulder.

"But we've gotten off topic. You were saying you hit a crow. That takes some fine aim since they aren't all that big." He paused, eyeing the princess with an intent eye. "How about a demonstration?"

Alena sighed, bent over to pick up her boomerang, and said, "Fine. What's the target?"

Brey rubbed his long white whiskers for a moment, surveying the surrounding forest for a suitable target. "There," he said, pointing to a large knothole high in a cedar tree. It may have been a nesting home for some small rodent or bird but, at their distance, neither could tell and did not think much of the consequences if anything did still live there.

The princess nodded and lined the target up before releasing her weapon. Her follow-through with the boomerang was smooth and the projectile flew through the air gracefully. However, Alena's aim was far from perfect and it sailed too high, hitting an overhanging branch before dropping ungracefully into the bush.

Brey looked at her for a moment, a tiny smile cracking his aged face. Alena flushed a deep red. After a moment, she blurted out, "Well, let's see you do it!"

"Me?" the old tutor exclaimed, an incredulous look flashing across his face.

Realizing she had caught him off guard, Alena said, "Yes, you!" Perhaps she would get a chance to humiliate her tutor for a change.

"Well..." Brey muttered, rubbing the back of his head.

"You did get a boomerang too, didn't you?" she continued, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Yes, but-"

"Then you should be able to use one as well." Alena bounded off into the forest to retrieve her weapon. After a few seconds of searching, she came back, her boomerang extended towards Brey in her right hand. "You have better aim than me, anyway," she continued. "After all, you're the one that was bragging to the peasants of Tempe how you hit a hiding rabidhound from fifty paces away with that ‘Icebolt' spell of yours."

"Actually," Brey muttered, "it was more like twenty paces."

"Whatever," the princess said, rolling her eyes slightly. "You still have to at least try."

Grumbling, the old tutor handed his spell book over to her, snatched the boomerang from her grasp, lined up the target, and released the weapon in a single, rapid motion. He flinched momentarily, the bruise on his arm slightly impairing his throwing arm but was quick to ignore the pain, resolutely gritting his teeth through it.

The pair of them watched the boomerang lazily fly through the air, nearing the target. Alena had expected it to fall short, fly wide, or perhaps not even spin properly. However, the princess' mouth fell slack as the boomerang sailed through the air and hit the target dead center!

It glanced off the knothole and started its expectant return back to Brey's waiting, wrinkled hand. Once back in his grasp, the old tutor turned back to the princess, handed the boomerang back to her still outstretched hand, and took his spell book back. "Now," he said without so much as a pause, "if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to the camp. I'm hungry."

At that, the old tutor began to make his way back to the camp again, leaving Alena standing in the forest for several moments with her jaw still slightly agape.

* * *

The pair of travelers sat around an empty pit where their fire had been the previous night, one munching on some dried meat as he read his spell book, the other nonchalantly eating some bread while she still kept an amazed gaze on her old tutor. Brey had twice already asked her to stop it but Alena could not help it, his earlier ability with a boomerang still vivid in her mind. However, their uneasy silence was suddenly interrupted when a rustling from the bush drew their attention away.

Alena jumped up and ducked behind the log she was sitting on, placing a hand on her thorn whip. Brey, however, remained still, his arm slightly straying to the walking staff leaning beside him on the large rock he sat on. As the bush's rustling continued and drew closer, a somewhat distinct, complaining voice was heard, lightly swearing on "Zenithia" and "the Master".

"Relax, Princess," the old tutor said, smiling as he eased his hand off his walking staff. "It's only Cristo." Alena shot him an annoyed glare for reverting back to her formal address but did as he suggested, standing back up and taking a seat on the log again.

A few moments later, as well a few more curses later, out stumbled a young man with a somewhat hawkish face. A thin line of whiskers occupied his chin despite the fact he had shaven only a day ago. His deep, brown hair, normally a mass of waves and curls, was slicked back at this point, suggesting he washed it in the last hour. His traveling clothes were well worn, even supporting a few bloodstains from a few of the battles he had seen while on the road with his companions. In his hand was a copper sword, somewhat duller than a blade of its caliber should demand. The reason for its dullness, though, was not from extensive battles but from misuse. By using the blade for cutting down branches in the forest, a few bits of the sword had been gouged out.

"Get lost again?" Brey asked, glancing up from his book as Cristo emerged. His comment brought forth an amused chuckle but neither of the old tutor's companions shared in it.

"It wasn't my fault this time, old man," Cristo shot back, annoyed the first comment he heard upon returning to the camp was Brey's characteristic antagonism.

"Oh?" the old tutor said, raising a bushy eyebrow in mock surprise.

"I'll have you know," the young man continued as he pulled a branch clinging to his wayfarer's clothes, "that I went through a traumatic experience while bathing."

Brey put his book down, placed his hands on his knees, and leaned forward. "Well, tell us about it!" he said, feigning surprise with wide-opened eyes.

Alena rolled her eyes in disgust, quickly realizing what her tutor was doing. While she had warned him before to stop it while they were on this journey, she kept her mouth shut. After all, the princess was guilty of this sort of treatment to her appointed bodyguard before they all left the castle. If anything, Cristo had been dubbed the party's object of ridicule. Alena wondered if maybe it was she and her bodyguard's turn to give Brey that title soon.

Cristo, meanwhile, was beginning to spin some wild tale about what transpired at the water hole. While he got the part about his skin shrinking right, the bodyguard also added a horrific fight with strange, demonic creatures.

To Alena's surprise, Brey was listening intently, enthralled by Cristo's tale. That just did not seem right. Her tutor normally would roll his eyes in disgust. The only possible reason for his action was he was planning on setting the bodyguard up for another one of his practical jokes. The princess knew just how sensitive Cristo could be if his morals or religion of Zenithism were attacked and she did not wish to see him hurt in such a manner, especially since the bodyguard had gone through enough for the day.

Just as Cristo was describing how he slew a fourth out of five attackers, Alena stood up and nearly shouted, "All right! That's enough!"

Both men stopped what they were doing and looked at her, bewildered. She did not wait for them to ask her what she was doing but pointed an accusing finger at Cristo. "Just stop with your idiotic story, Cristo," she forcibly said. "None of that ever happened or else we would have heard it!"

Brey's eyes widened in surprise and Cristo's jaw fell slack. "Princess," the bodyguard stammered, "I...I...only...was..." He suddenly stopped though, finally realizing something that Alena had said. "What do you mean, ‘you would have heard'?" he asked.

The princess rolled her eyes, gave out an exasperated sigh, then pointed an accusing finger at her old tutor. "He made your skin shrink," she explained. "He used some new spell called ‘Sip' that-"

"‘Sap'" Brey corrected nonchalantly.

"Who cares what its name is!" Alena nearly screamed at him. "The point is that he was the one behind it, and he was probably leading you into another one of his attacks on your religion as you spun your stupid story."

Cristo looked at Brey. "Is this true?" he asked. Brey slowly nodded in response. "Why didn't you tell me?" the bodyguard exclaimed, taking a step toward the old tutor.

"Spells of this sort usually work better if the castee doesn't know its being cast upon him," Brey calmly explained. "Your mind would have fought it if you had known."

"Why you..." Cristo sputtered in rage. He grabbed the hilt of his sword and lunged towards the old tutor. However, Alena promptly stepped between the two, outstretching her hands.

"I don't believe the two of you!" she sputtered. "We've been on the road for nearly a month and the two of you still haven't changed a bit! You're acting the exact same way when we first started off in Surene." She lowered her arms, giving Cristo a trusting look that he would not charge through her to get to Brey.

"I personally can't take much more of this," she continued. "So, either it stops here, or we'll just go back!" At that, the princess wandered back to her log and sat back down, grumbling incoherently.

Cristo stood still, his sword still in his hand but no longer raised as he took in Alena's words. Brey, too, sat still, absorbing her words. After a moment, the old tutor muttered, "She's right."

Both Cristo and Alena looked at him, somewhat surprised Brey would have agreed. "Think about it," he continued, looking up at his companions. "We've wandered endlessly through the harsh climate of the Santeem Mid-Range, eluded searching parties, and single-handedly even saved an entire village from the tyrannical dictatorship of a creature with control over wild, dangerous wolves. And what do we have to show for it? Hardly anything."

Brey's words hit Alena and Cristo even harder than the princess' did. They considered their current predicament, each with different agendas, yet all working towards the same goal. Their battle prowess and magical abilities had increased over the journey, their understanding of each other had grown as hidden, dark chambers of their souls had at times surfaced. And, in the end, they were no different than before, nothing to show for their growth.

After a few moments of the silence, Brey broke it. "Alena's right when she said we are going to have stop this petty bickering," he said to Cristo. "As we near the Wild Lands, we are going to have to be on our feet to watch out for bands of orcs that inhabit that realm. We cannot do this effectively if we are constantly putting each other down. We have to be able to trust one another if we are going to get through safely."

"You're...she's...." Cristo stuttered, turning his head between his companions. After a moment, he finally heaved a sigh, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "You're both right. I was acting foolishly, and selfishly, and-"

"We get the point," Brey said, holding up a hand to stop Cristo's characteristic repenting. "So, as of now, I will no longer play cruel practical jokes like I did today." The bodyguard nodded thankfully.

Brey then looked towards Alena, who had been watching in satisfaction that her companions had been able to resolve their differences civilly. "We'll just practice our spells on the Princess," he said with a light cackle.

Alena's eyes widened in horror, then furrowed her brows, charging at her old tutor with a playful tackle. The two of them tumbled into the dusty road and tossed about, the princess grasping the old tutor in a light chokehold. Cristo, feeling somewhat left out, charged forth to Brey's "rescue" as the three of them play-fought in the dusty road.

* * *

Later that day, when their camp had been packed up, the three travelers continued their journey. It was not long before they fell into their usual formation, Alena leading with Cristo slightly behind to help the slower Brey in case his old age caught up with him as they walked.

They path they walked on was the Old Merchant Road, a route merchants from the eastern countries would traverse in ancient times and, if were too poor to come to Santeem by ship, still did. However, it was a seldom-used road and the surrounding forest had been quick to reclaim its domain. Old trees towered on either side, younger ones sprouting on the very edges of the grassy path. Caravan trails could still be made out beneath the small grasses and bushes that dotted the road but weather and time had conspired to nearly wipe out the legacy of ancient trade. Still, the Old Merchant Road was noticeable enough not get lost in the surrounding forest and the wayfarers made good time during the day.

It was near sunset, though, when the three of them picked up the sound of activity ahead.

"What is it?" Cristo asked as he strained to hear.

"I don't know," Brey muttered. "I think it would be best if we made a discreet approach. It could be just a caravan or wayfarer but, being close to the Wild Lands, it is best not to take any chances." The others nodded in agreement and they stealthily approached the source of the noise in the surrounding forest.

Soon they came upon the cause of noise. On the road was a small wagon with two strange beasts at the front. One was crying out in a panicked screech, while the other seemed to be asleep! On top of the wagon was a single man, wielding a small hatchet to try to keep his attackers at bay.

The attackers were six humanoid creatures, though slightly smaller than an average man was. They had mottled, brown and orange skin, with large, pointed ears and squinty eyes. Their hands were small, sharp claws and a thin tongue too long to fit in their mouths hung loosely as they attacked the helpless man.

"What are those things?" Alena asked, nearly entranced by the sight. "Are they orcs?"

"No," Brey said, a frown forming on his aged face as he gave his reply. "Troglodytes."