Upon stepping outside, Kendath decided wisely upon not returning to the docks. But he did sight a familiar figure just strolling past the emporium. A closer inspection and a tap on the shoulder revealed it to be an Adanil. "Coming?" he asked, gesturing for him to follow. They went right by the butcher, still standing outside and glaring at three unconscious workmen sprawled outside his door. Kendath considered retrieving his grappling hook, before a more prudent trickle of common sense displaced it. Determinedly avoiding the butcher's gaze, he quickened his pace.

They entered the general market throng, to which Kendath didn't find it difficult to lose direction. Navigating his way through the venders and tents, he maintained a veneer of omniscience as he sagely steered them down twice the wrong street.

Ironically, an aesthetic sign of a bed and crown granted him his bearings. He picked his way through the hovels to the southern end, where he stood beside a crumbling wall to wait for Merrin.

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Merrin would have been hopelessly lost, but every so often she came upon a patch of vibrant puddles and was guiltily reminded of the wasted barrels of brandy. It was by following these that she eventually worked her way back to her original indication of location, the infamous Queen's Bedchamber, and followed the street down until upon rounding a corner she found Kendath and Adanil.

Scraped hands stinging as she swung herself down from the wagon seat, Merrin gave the irritable horses a wide berth and came around to indicate the cart of barrels with relief. "Dragons are much better than horses," she opined fervently. "Some of it spilled but I think the one we want is still there."

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Kendath nodded his satisfaction and glanced both ways down the street. No guards, no signs of pursuit. Still, they couldn't hope to get far with such a perspicuous wagon. He began unfastening the horses, and after an agitating battle with the leather straps finally had both draft animals free. He procured some rope from the wagon and looped it around both horses' bellies.

"Two to a beast," he decided, then grunted as he lifted the first barrel of Grapewing Brandy. He owed the workmen more credit than he'd initally handed them. Slinging the weight onto his back, he staggered over to brace the barrel against the first horse's flank. He made a grab for the rope to secure the barrel onto its back. Unaccustomed to this unusual burden, it shied away, transforming all his efforts to moot. "Help me," he grunted at Adanil.

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Figuring that Adanil could probably assist more in the area of carrying heavy things, something Merrin couldn't do, she cautiously moved around to hold the silly horse's head. Admittedly, her merit here was also questionable, but it was better than nothing.

She found herself anxiously glancing both ways down the street for pursuers, something she hadn't had time to do before, and when the impossible horse nearly stepped on her toes gave up worrying about it and concentrated on retaining her smaller appendages. It did have rather large teeth.

Making a dive for the other beast's lead rope as it wandered away, Merrin found herself attempting to restrain both of them and made a mental note to acquire some more experience with horses. If they ever - when they got back to Vryngard. Being at birth a peasant, she should know more, but the only horse she'd ever owned had been a very old grey mare who didn't bat an eyelash even when two-year-old twin boys ran about underneath her. And really, who wanted to ride a horse when you dreamed of dragons?

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Adanil smiled slightly as he tied a barrel to the other side of the horse. As he had thought, the Dragonriders seemed to be no better than inept at handling horses. The creatures actually seemed to shy away from the two, as though they could smell the Dragon on them. It wasn't all that funny, but anything humorous was good at this point--Adanil's days had been far too dark recently.

He fastened the rope securely, in a knot that would hold in the face of just about anything, and turned back to heft another cask. They weren't heavy--not especially--but they were bulky, so he couldn't tie two to a horse at the same time. Kendath would just have to settle for getting the other barrel, grumble about it as he would.

Adanil's smile disappeared at his next statement, though. "We're not short on time right now," he said pointedly, "so why don't you tell me why you're here now?" He didn't expect that they would be happy with him for posing the question at that time, but hopefully they would answer, instead of putting it off. They might do that indefinately. He definately didn't want that to happen.

Knotting the last barrel on, Adanil grabbed both horses by the reigns so that Kendath and Merrin would see that he wasn't leading them anywhere until they answered the question.

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Merrin let go the horse's bridle, biting her lip. Adanil had every right to know everything about them - after all, his village would still be standing but for them. But where to start? She glanced at Kendath, troubled. From the beginning? He would not thank her for that.

"In - in our time," she began, and then realized that was not the best place. Forcing herself to be blunt, Merrin looked Adanil in the eye. "We're from the future," she stated. "Two thousand years in the future. There - there are crystals there - or rather, then - that can send you back in time. The dragons in our time are smaller. They're - they're dying." Merrin halted, completely at a loss as to how to continue. She struggled on, groping for the words. "We needed to find out why. So the Council sent us - Kendath and I - and our dragons back in time so we could know how to keep the dragons from dying altogether."

Merrin went red. A nineteen-year-old dragonrider - gods, she couldn't even handle a horse - entrusted with what was likely the most important quest since...forever. Along with a Meiltha-turned-Renegade whose allegiance even now could be considered doubtful. Of course Adanil must wonder why them. "I'm - I'm chosen by the gods. Blessed" - here she cringed slightly - "if you will. I don't know why they chose me, but that's why the Council sent me. I needed to choose a companion." Merrin carefully avoided looking at Kendath. "I - I chose Kendath."

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Kendath secured the last barrel to the draft horse's back, to which the irritable beast kicked out, nearly sprawling him in the dirt. Leaping to the side, he glared at it. For all in the world, it seemed to snigger back. To his extreme petulance, Adanil had no difficulty with the beasts whatsoever.

The sizable cart, most of its burden still piled in the back, was now in the center of the offal-infested street. A conspicuous signpost if he'd ever seen one. Thinking prudently that they'd best leave as soon as possible, he reached for the reins. But all notions of a hasty escape were involuntarily relegated to the back of his mind at Adanil's question.

The farmer was so annoying. But then again, how could Kendath blame him?

He listened with waxing unease as Merrin poured out the entire story. His face remained dispassionate, but the undercurrent of a scowl grew with each bit of information. Did she not know the prudence of equivocating? He doubted Adanil would betray them of his own volition, but even the strongest men morphed quite loquacious in an iron maiden. And the Shadowers were far more creative to resort to such mediocre torture.

"The Crystals were destroyed upon first usage," Kendath stated bluntly. "We also establish a daily telepathy link with the powerful mages of our time." That, if anything, should give any Shadower potentate pause.

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Merrin's perplexity at this fabrication was evident for only a fraction of a second before she carefully altered her expression. A remarkably calm reaction for her, apt as she was to show her emotions quite plainly on her face. The art of bottling up such emotions was one quite unknown to her. If they were destroyed how do we expect to get back? she thought irritably, and added very quietly, "We do trust you to keep our secret."

Or did they? Merrin resisted the compulsion to glance at Kendath wonderingly. Perhaps trust came not as easily to him as it did to her... though Merrin had to admit she gave trust far too easily and more than occasionally had it flung back in her face.

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The emotions crossing Adanil's face ranged from shock to disbelief to awe and back again. It wasn't too far from what he had expected, but it still caught him off guard. "Two thousand years in the future?" he whispered incredulously, his eyes wide. "And you came through a portal that is now missing?"

He could choose to doubt what they said, but that wouldn't be fair of him. So far, they had done nothing to mislead him--why would they do it now? No, he believed them. He didn't have much of a choice in it, either.

"If this portal was created with a....crystal, and it's gone now, how can it be recreated without using a crystal?" It did not make much sense to him, but he knew next to nothing about magic, beyond which he had heard it stories and tales, most of which he was beginning to doubt profusely.

----

Don't kill me for the short post....

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"Get Gyre to explain it," Kendath returned irritably, too lazy to elucidate and too proud to admit he hadn't a clue. He began to snatch the reins from Adanil's hands, then thought better of it. The horses didn't like him anyway - why bother? He strode past to take the lead. Both Adanil and the draft horses plodded steadily along [hah... funny I am...], the casks of brandy strapped to their stolid backs.

The security at the north gate was more rigorous than Kendath had anticipated, even for a rookery of knaves like Port Dragonhelm. The two youthful soldiers more lounging than guarding the gate allowed the few merchant caravans leaving before noon easy access. There must have been something uncanny about Kendath and party because suddenly both soldiers woke up.

Glancing at their vigilant expressions, Kendath felt sorely tempted to bid them go back to sleep. But even a pathetic conversationist like him knew that such words were not generally conductive to efficacious conversation. Thus he settled for a more tactful version.

"You appear sleepy."

At least this caught both soldiers off guard. Uncertain, they exchanged bemused looks and hefted their halberds. The first cleared his throat and demanded, "State your name and your business, good sirs. And lady," he added as an afterthought, sighting Merrin.

"Ken, Merra, Adas," he introduced with a cheerful smile that gifted him with lockjaw. He attempted but miserably failed to conceal his wince as he continued with an equally miserable peasant accent, "We're cousins, if you catch my drift. We're on our way to see... ah... mammy and papa for... ah... late Midsummer's Eve. See the brandy?" He resisted the urge to punch himself.

Both soldiers stared in bewilderment dangerously bordering on suspicion. "You're farmers?"

He didn't blink. "Yeah."

Eyes narrowed in suspicion. The second soldier prodded the tip of his halberd at the barrels of brandy. "How would peasants afford Grapewing Brandy?"

At that moment, Kendath decided it was best to simply shut up.

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Merrin hastily attempted to rectify this mess. She was quite obviously not a peasant, garbed as she was in dragonrider's clothing, which was unfortunate as she was likely the only one of the three who could have successfully passed as one. And the 'cousins' story was blatantly not true, as the difference in appearance between her and Kendath especially was rather striking.

"You'll have to excuse him," she offered with a smile - artlessly charming in that she was entirely unaware of her own disarming innocence. She took a step closer, as if to engage the skeptical guard in a hushed confidence. "He's been into the brandy, I'm afraid. We're second cousins, and Uncle Ghiar and Aunt Hilna have a vineyard in" - a barely perceptible hesitation - "east Nyrria." Merrin hoped fervently that Nyrria had not changed much in two thousand years. "We're only bringing home some of Uncle's unsold brandy."

She was almost startled at the glibness with which this story was fabricated, and wondered at herself in some alarm. More than likely there was some gaping hole in this spontaneous fib and it was about to be pounced upon.

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The fact that Merrin was female may have positively impacted the youthful soldiers, for they exchanged glances and relaxed their halberds. "My parents live in Nyrria, just east of the Forks. Pa works in the fields. Does your uncle live near Silvenstream?"

Deciding this exchange was dangerously spiraling the wrong way, Kendath intervened, "No. Uncle Ghiar lives in hell. Can we go now?"

Both soldiers glared daggers, which told Kendath that he wasn't making any friends here. Nonetheless they stood back and waved them past the gate. Beyond the north gate, a terrain etched with jagged promontories vindictively slapped by ocean breakers stretched before them. Wagon ruts in the street defined a road that cut all the way back to Baste.

Wyvern and I are to your west, Gyre projected.

To their west was a maritime forest capable of effectively shielding a dragon pair. The three humans trudged off the main road towards it. As they climbed the slope, Kendath glanced obliquely at Merrin. "Into the brandy?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

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"I didn't see you coming up with much," retorted Merrin, grinning impishly. "You'll forgive me for saying, I hope, that that was the worst fabrication of circumstances I've ever heard."

Their path wound haphazardly up the rocky slope, and Merrin hastily removed her foot from where she'd been going to step next when a small avalanche of crumbled shale was unexpectedly produced by the pressure of her boot. "You don't endear yourself especially," she continued, scanning the ground. "Besides, I'm sure it's very good brandy. Worth getting into."

Another grin to indicate she was teasing. Merrin squinted up at the sky, intensely blue and almost completely cloudless. The sea behind them shimmered with the heat, and she reflected that it was just as well she'd left her cloak with Wyvern.

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"Speaking of which," Kendath returned just as glibly. "Remind me to skewer the dwarf when we return." And his facial expression stated quite blatantly that he wasn't teasing in the least.

The maritime forest's cool if humid shade provided some respite from the heat. Their boots cracked quietly on the deciduous ground as they ventured deeper, following their dragons' mental presences. The treetops swayed gently in the sea breeze, carrying a salty scent that Kendath had experienced all too much of these past few days. Port Dragonhelm was not an incident he'd care to repeat, whether or not his gumption froze over.

"I don't need to endear myself to anyone," he muttered at length, miffed that Merrin held him in such low regard. "My charm is simply misunderstood."

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This was the grossest understatement of terms Merrin had ever heard, and she was quite baffled as to how she should respond. The words 'Kendath' and 'charm' decidedly did not belong in the same sentence. So what was it that she liked - loved - about him, then? Why did the touch of his hand make her tingle, the rare flash of a smile make her likewise grin...'low regard' was not the phrase for what Merrin felt about Kendath.

Merrin gave herself up for lost and regarded him helplessly. "Misunderstood," she muttered incredulously, shaking her head in consternation, and grinned reluctantly. "That's putting it mildly."

There was another silence. Merrin refrained from cautioning him not to skewer the dwarf - they needed the diminutive sorcerer, however annoying, but she was sure he knew it.

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Knew it Kendath did, and the pestilent fact was making him more than a little irate. He glared at Merrin just for the bliss of glaring at Merrin. His glaring was cut short the instant they broke through the trees into a large clearing, when Gyre planted herself before him and demanded a briefing. He indulgently offered her one, finishing with, The guards think I'm the son of a rat.

You never cease to amaze me. Shaking her head with a sigh, she helped her rider and Adanil unload the brandy casks from the horses, whom stood quivering in abject terror, ears completely laid back and eyes wide with fright. Likewise, Gyre stood unthreateningly still as Kendath strapped two of the barrels to her back. Once all the barrels were secured to the dragons', she asked, What do you suggest we do with the horses?

Throw them off a cliff.

You are the son of a rat. Be sensible for once.

I am being sensible. What do you care what we do with them? Unless you're hungry, just leave them here. Kendath climbed into the flight saddle.

Gyre curled her scaly lip. Horseflesh doesn't suit my tastes. Backing up as to not trample the draft beasts in her volatile takeoff, she spread her wings and took a monumental leap into the air.

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