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Late at night, a man wandered into his room and crashed on the bed, not really looking at his surroundings. The face of his angel kept him company throughout the night.

Faint morning light trickled through the windows, waking the dragon in a man's form. A contented groan escaped him as he stretched and sat up, looking around. It really was a rather nice room, but not what he wanted to see. Getting ready, Pyralis planned for another breakfast with his love, but was delayed. A note had been slipped under the door. It wasn't urget, but it couldn't be delayed. He would go check out the area again. Sighing and silently apologizing to Anna, Pyralis left his room.

Anna came to the door of his room, and knocked. It had only been perhaps half an hour, but she was ready to see him once more.

Anna beamed to him as well, and took a few gliding steps into his room. "Ah..." she said, looking around at all of the artifacts and history. The searcher within her was already buzzing at the sight of relics from elven smiths, but the letter in her hand was needing attention.
"I... well, let's just say I wrote to my grandmother about you, and of course my grandfather had to hear, too. Now, don't be too alarmed, but he has a message for you, it seems."

It was with some ceremony that Anna unfurled the letter, and read aloud, with great dignity as her grandfather would have,
"Dear sir," he says. "I have shoes older than you, boy. And I loved her first. I shall be watching." It took her so much not to burst out laughing, but Anna continued. "And so he signs it. Here, have a look yourself... boy."

Anna handed over the single piece of paper, her cheeks blushing with the awkwardness and shear humor of it all.

Anna shook her head with a smile. "Ah, you're going to have to share me with him, I'm afraid. And my Ada." She used the elvish word for 'father,' since she always called him that, even in the presence of those who weren't familiar with the language. "You'll have to watch out for him especially. He doesn't like sharing."

With light footsteps, Anna began walking around his room. It had his energy, and his smell. It was wonderful. But there was another energy coming from a sword upon the wall that she didn't like, because it was all too familiar and brought terrible memories. Why would Pyralis have something like that?
"What is this?" she asked innocently enough, but there was worry in her eyes.

"It feels like a battle I was in... At Dorian." The memories came too clearly, especially the pain she had felt when the venin arrow pierced her side. "Were you there? It was in the spring. But there was still snow..."
Snow that would ultimately turn red before melting with the heat of battle.

Anna had indeed heard that name before. She had feared it. She had feared the name of someone she barely knew in a place where everything was a threat to her very well-being.

"I don't need to understand now what I already do," she said, sounding insulted. "I know my head is constantly filled with dreams from the pages, but it's seen reality and knows it all too well." An expression clouded her face, a look between sadness and agitation. It was time to share that part of her past with him, he who she knew might look down upon her and think her weak, and who undoubtedly suffered more than she did. But she would tell it anyhow.

"Pyralis, I was traveling with my father and his entire team for an archaeology expedition within the southern Lorthéan Mountain Range. We had a group of guides who my father had hired to take us through the pass between Mount Grindle and Mount Everlast. They had really been the entire reason for the trip, guaranteeing a discovery." Anna remembered all of the forged paperwork, the fake photos... it was such a popular place for people like them to go that fooling them with a false excavation site was all too easy.

"However, when we reached our destination, there was no great underground expanse of tombs, but an entire campsite of soldiers. We had been kidnapped, and had been brought to a mercenary camp. I was separated from my father to join the archers, fitted forcefully with proper gear after being threatened with death, and only hours later forced to participate in battle." Screams filled her thoughts which no doubt Pyralis was exploring to better understand her. Images of blood pouring from wounds flashed along with the sickening grin of a dying enemy soldier. She remembered the bow he held up, and how transfixed she was in the moment, as if in a spell. She remembered how he released the string with his last bit of strength, and how the sickening pain entered her left side only moments later, right below her ribs. Even then, next to the warmth of her love, Annabelle swallowed hard.

"I was shot straight through with a venin arrow. I'm sure you know the poison they sink the tips in? It works fast."

With a nod, Anna continued. "We dropped to the ground at the same time, though he was dead by then." It was a small reassurance that the owner of the arrow was paying for his deeds in Death, something that she knew her love needed to hear. Even through the small tightening of his grip, Anna knew Pyralias was growing angry. "It's a bit of a blur after that..."

Her thoughts remembered herself reaching for her knife to cut the notch off the arrow, reaching behind her to pull it out, but not having the strength to. The venom had seeped through her body and had begun to settle in her joints. There were her agonized noises as the world began to fade, and suddenly her father's voice once more. "A'mael," he had called her, just as Pyralis did. It had been her father to pull out the arrow, but only after he had forced her to look at him. "You have the gift, Anna," he had said with such fierce sadness that even death stopped for the man. "Use it!"

Her father would always blame himself for the brush with darkness, but also for the deaths of almost everyone in the expedition group. One of the men who survived, a man named Conrad, left the battleground without a word to Anna or her father. Perhaps he did blame his ignorance for their captivity, or was just to scarred by battle to return to a dig. No one ever knew.

Anna's soft eyes turned to Pyralis, and with a smile, she lightened the mood. "They say a natural healer's first act is something to see. I... didn't exactly get to see mine, but there was quite a bit of a light show, from what I hear." The elf shrugged her shoulders like the entire ordeal was nothing at all, nothing to cry about. "And that is how I unleashed the healing gifts and pursued it."