"Where is it?!" the thought screams in his head. He is in a state of near panic as he rummages through the locker in Solhaven; he hates being here, he despises this place, this Empire town, with it's knights, magisters, and royalty; to think he fought and bled for this town many times over the years; the thought repulses him.

Curses, in a mixture of fractured and heavily accented common and Tehir, flow from his lips like water as his fervent and desperate search continues, the contents of the locker scattered upon the floor about him. "It's not here" he mutters to himself as he angrily stuffs his possessions back into the locker, "only one place left to check."

He makes the trip to the town of ice and snow and stands before his locker, the one he so rarely visits. He remembers now, how and why it came to be here, so long ago, his fear, his shame, his secret, his denial.

Denial, he has spent a lifetime hiding behind it, using it as a shield to deflect the choices, the deeds, the pain and the memories... and the dreams. Her words come back to him, clearly, as if she were standing right beside him in the small annex, "You will become that which you were always meant to be, nothing more, nothing less, it is the way of it."

He opens the door, feelings of sorrow and regret course through him as he digs through the contents of the locker. Finally, he spots it beneath an old cloak, right where he left it, looking just as it did all those years ago.

He picks it up and brings it close to his face, inhaling deeply, hoping her scent may still linger upon it. It doesn't though; time and miles have erased that from everything except his memory. He hangs his head, clutching the item to his chest and thinks to himself, "Not this, please, anything but this."

His hand, seemingly of it's own volition, opens the flap and he closes his eyes, afraid to look at the contents. The voice reverberates once more in his mind, "You will become that which you were always meant to be." Slowly, regretfully, he opens his eyes; eyes that have seen so much pain and death, eyes that are so very much like hers.

His gaze is drawn to one item among the many that are inside. The way it is positioned makes it appear as a rounded chunk of stone, limestone, but he knows it is so much more; a small part of the violet geode at its center catches the light and sparkles, as if to confirm this. His fingers touch it, knowing hers once did as well, and this thought brings with it a flood of memories and waves of remorse and anger, seething anger.

"I can't do this!" his soul and voice desperately cry, in unison. "Nothing more, nothing less", her voice in his mind echoes in reply, "It is the way of it". He slams the locker closed and begins his journey southward, the subject of his search tucked safely away in his ridgeweaver silk cloak.

One thought occupies his mind the entire way home... How will he ever explain this to Phever?

General Radeek Andoran
Drakes Vanguard
Defender of Wehnimer's Landing
Black Raider of the Mir'Sheq




Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato