Behind their retreating backs, the cave entrance rumbled and collapsed in on itself. Outside, the rain had subsided to a weak drizzle that seemed about to abate entirely.

Ghyreian slid down from her horse and started a small fire on the damp ground. She dug in her saddlebags and handed out elven rations. "Dinner," she said gloomily.

_________________

"And what a feast it is..."

Edwin muttered as he grabbed the rations offered to him, he sat down by the fire and cursed the rain once more as, if just to make sure. He took a bite and kept on dreaming of a warm in with proper food as he liked to call it. Yet his thoughts then diverted to an odd side path as he gazed at her, why was he even sitting here in the rain? Because of himself? Edwin swalloved the dry ration down his throat and hmhed slightly.

"Why are we here?"

He suddenly asked.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

Halfway through chewing, Ghyreian choked on her dried fruit. She stared at him as if he'd gone mad. "I asked you to come and you agreed," she replied slowly, emphasizing every word to measure his reaction. "We're on our way to the Ruins of Goodlund to see if we can procure any knowledge or artifacts the looters missed..." She raised a feathery eyebrow.

_________________

"True, but I was not speaking of this journey..."

Edwin answered with a slightly lowered as he glanced back at her and decided that as she did not understand the whole wideness of the questions at all. It had been pondering Edwin for sometime and it was better to spit it out than to torture himself with it.

"You are an elf with hundreds of years ahead of you, I am a human with mere half a decade, if I am lucky that is and I do not die into a feaver that I might catch in this rain. So, my real question is... what when I pass away? Shall I be just another fool to help you along the way or will you actually honour me more than that in the end?"

Edwin asked with his eyes nailed at Ghyreian, watching her expression and even one hint that might give away what she was thinking at the moment.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

The question caught Ghyreian completely off her guard. Wondering bitterly what it was about Edwin and all his philosophical interrogations, she chewed her lip and mulled over an answer she didn't know herself.

And what was the answer, really? Over the years, she used the term "friend" flippantly, and it just so happened that most of her "friends" met unfortunate ends by her own hand. Certainly, Edwin had come into her life as nothing more than a human ally by way of convenience. Yet had he come to mean something more over their many trials? Had Ghyreian Nightsong truly learned the meaning of friendship?

"Let's just say you're the first companion whom I haven't attempted to murder in his sleep yet," she said dryly.

_________________

Edwin suddenly smirked as, if he had suddenly realised something, but his reaction seemed rather superficial.

"Ah... so I have achieved the point where you will try to kill me while I am awake?"

Edwin hmhed and shook his head, he gazed at the sky and tsked.

"Let us be truthful, all the way from the inn of the last home to Ergoth you used me as a tool did you not? It was only under forced circumstances and orders that you travelled with me to Pax Tharkas? Then after that it was your drive for the dragon crystals? What is the excuse this time? Something at our destination that I am not aware of?"

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

"I've garnered enough respect for you to know that killing you, alive or asleep, would be no easy feat," Ghyreian reflected truthfully. She paused, then continued, "If you want the truth, for a long while I thought you a hopeless and naive human imbecile. No offense, but I still think you're a fool whose robes are a bit too red for my liking." She ensued this with a wry grin.

Seeing Edwin in all seriousness, she sighed and let the grin slip from her face. "I actually don't know why I asked you to accompany me," she admitted. Not liking his method of interrogation, she retaliated with a question of her own: "And if you think me such a calculating lowlife, why did you oblige?"

_________________

Edwin was slightly taken back by her answer and her question, but simply chuckled at her words as she thought him to take her for a low life.

"On the contrary dear Ghyreian I find you one of the most intellegent, clear minded and enjoyable persons to travel with... but you tend to get blinded by your greed for power that is all.... perhaps I feel obliged to see that you won`t go down that path once more yet in the process I do not wish to be viciously backstabbed by you"

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

"As long as we don't repeat something like the dragon orb episode, we should get along just fine," Ghyreian returned flippantly, though she couldn't deny her faint embarassment at his compliment.

She tucked away the remnants of her elven rations and found a relatively dry spot to unroll her sleeping bag for the night.

_________________

"Indeed we should..."

Edwin said as he quickly smirked at the memory, but it quickly faded away as Ghyreian turned her eyes his way and Edwin took a comfortable position against the tree as he stared at the sky.

"I guess ladies first"

He muttered referring to sleeping and that Edwin would have to stay on guard for the sake of their lives.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

[I have no experiences with the Ruins besides a name on a map and some research on the Nexus so...]

A drab gray under the moonlight, the Ruins stretched on dejectedly across the bleakly forested terrain. Standing on a rise overlooking the Ruins, Ghyreian could vividly picture the darkly auspicious Tower of Losarcum in its former days of glory, before the tyranny of Istar.

She looked at Edwin who stood beside her. Their many days of journeying, complete with scattered goblin attacks and other obstacles, had fazed them both. But as she gazed upon this bastion of magic and envisioned the power that lay within, she felt oddly invigorated.

"They say that a cursed grove once defended this tower," she commented quietly, and shivered as a chill gust of wind whipped around her cloak.

_________________

"A cursed grove? and I thought that only was only around the tower of palanthas, but should your words be true and it once defended it then we should have no worries as it is not there anymore...

Hopefully..."

Edwin spoke quietly as he looked at the ruins and gazed back at the direction they had arrived from as, if to check that another goblin group was not trying to attack them. Edwin quietly took few steps forward.

"Let`s get this over with"

He said, speaking about it all as, if it was more of a burden than his will to be there.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

Ghyreian quickened her forward pace as well, though for markedly different reasons. She reveled in the dark power that lingered about the place. Anticipation spurred her on. What secrets from those of her Order long dead might she find here?

Recalling her slight with the dragon orb, her mind faltered. A moment later she steeled herself once more. She was wiser. She would not make the same mistake twice.

It is not there anymore... So rang Edwin's words in the foreboding night air. And how wrong he was.

For though the grove itself was lost and buried by the passage of time, the enchantment still lingered. The Tsorthan Grove, it had once been named, where intruders experienced the height of their greatest passions turned against them. For what is life without passion?

As Ghyreian advanced towards the Ruins, she felt a subtle change within her. Without conscious thought, her steps slowed. Her mind turned inward towards the Art that lay at the core of her being. The Art... the magic... For what was life without magic?

Nothing.

_________________

As the two procceeded deeper into the grove, Edwin`s thoughts began to disturb and gazed quickly at Ghyreian as, if he was ashamed of something. A small grin rose to his face and his only hand formed a fist.

What would his life be without magic? Harder perhaps, but what about without others around? Without Ghyreian? For long Edwin had travelled during his youth years and enjoyed the loneliness on the road, but now it all had changed and he hated it. He hated her for asking him to come, he hated her for the fact that they had even met and that he depended on her.

Yet then again he could not deny that he had bonded with her stronger than he had ever intended to, she was a black robe after all and could never put aside her ways. The longer Edwin would hang onto her, the more she would hurt him and the more painful it all would become when she would betray him again....

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

It was a mistake in coming here... a mistake... Ghyreian, you fool... Her own perdition incarnate in the infinisimal voice screaming at the back of her mind was stamped down as she felt the magic racing through her veins. Fight it! Fight...

The Art! The Art for which she had sacrificed everything! Her family, her homeland, her innocence... She could feel herself rising beyond the boundaries of mortals. With bated anticipation she waited to reclaim the power she knew was hers -

She saw Edwin. No power. No dragon orb. Edwin - the bane of her own destruction, as she stood upon the high peaks of Ergoth that eon ago. Edwin with his familiar smirk, Edwin saving her life, Edwin...

The dagger in his hand gleamed red with blood. Her blood. She fell to her knees, for she knew her end was upon her.

And then she saw him, standing only a few feet away. Betrayal? No! Self-defense! She would kill him... only because she had to...

_________________

Edwin suddenly stopped and stared at Ghyreian, the other part in him wanted to just say something sensible and to tell her that they should not procceed for it would be their doom. But the other side in him wanted to choke the living hell out of Ghyreian, to send her dark sould into the abyss and to free himself from her.

The rational side of him told him to either walk away and his emotions screamed for revenge just to make sure that she could not hurt him anymore, no more pain. It was all a dagger strike or one spell away yet as Edwin raised his hand to act, he suddenly stopped and smirked.

"You will be the death of me"

He stated before turning around and walking deeper into the grove with his emotions ever growing, but he was determined to see this trough, to solve his own emotions and to solve Ghyreian`s true means.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!