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Dax only nodded. Its sight and scent he had grown used to, but never tired of. He immediatly started down one of the twisting paths. Something he had said had particularly caught his ear and, therefore, stuck in his mind. "Would you ever try to block the sun yourself, Sayael?" he asked. Though he understood the sun was made of his enemy's element, he couldn't imagine a world without it. "I know I'm not really one to convince you otherwise, but a world in complete darkness would be hard to find joy in."

"That's definitely.. a fully thought out schedule of events," Dax said, not sure if he was either surprised or impressed with the Darkness prince's looking outcome for the future. "It must be a burden to your mind. I know if I had something like that boiling in my thoughts, I wouldn't be able to push it aside until my death. Or, at least, until it actually happened. When I was younger, I always claimed I'd be the first ruler to bring peace to all seven kingdoms, but it was never that simple. Now that I'm older, I see what a naive child I was. It's not peace the kingdoms will bring, but destruction upon one another. That's all anyone has to offer, it seems." He reached up to once again remove the bothersome mask before turning his gaze to meet Sayael's own. "You don't seem at all bothered by the topic of war."

"A 'war' child? My father wouldn't even let me in the same room with a weapon until I was seven," he said. They soon came upon a small, quaint-looking bench, just where Dax stopped. Slipping his arm out of Sayael's, he sat himself down. "Neither of us may be here to see that day, though." He bit his lip before taking a deep breath. "Because I think.. I want to go with you when you leave the borders." It was a hard, inner decision he had to make, but he believed this was what he really wanted.

Jillian nearly jumped as the other's voice brought him out of his temporary stupor. He turned around quickly, a slight look of aprehention on his face. "Oh, it's...." He sighed and closed his eyes, not sure what to tell Faryn. After all, not many people understood... But then he smiled. After all, it had to do with Faryn's kingdom, so why not tell him? "Hmmm... Do you know what a blood stone is?" He turned back to the small red jewel. "A blood stone is... it's like... hmmm... When a dragon - the old dragons, not the small ones we see today - dies from bleeding - not natural causes like age or sickness - then the very last drop of blood that drips from its heart becomes a blood stone. The blood stone is like... all the dragon's power... it's dying breath, its fury. The Ice Kingdom can't have known how powerful a blood stone is, else they'd keep it locked up in secret... Hmmm... Anyway... this particular blood stone..." He smiled and turned back to Faryn. "Did you ever learn about Isfahel? He was the prince of your kingdom a long time ago... This dragon... do you see the small spiral of purple in this stone? Only one dragon... that was Maur, the Black Dragon. Anyway, Isfahel at last had to kill the dragon by means of shortening his own life... He came back to the kingdom, the dragon's blood stone in his hand, and died on the threshhold of palace. That was the day before his twenty-first birthday... If he'd lived one more day, he would have inherrited the kingdom... The greater irony of this was that if he had inherited the kingdom, a curse put on him by one of his own brothers would have been lifted and he would have lived many more years before he finally died... That brother - Sornin, if I remember correctly - then inherrited the crown, but died of unhappiness and regret, wishing he had never cursed his brother."

Faryn had, of course, heard of this story through the countless hours he spent with private tutors. He'd never heard what became of the stone however, and was surprised that Jillian had recognized it so readily. "I learned the story, same as you Jillian," he responded with an undercurrent of irritation in his voice, "It's a 'tragedy.'" Though with the typecast rolling of his tongue, Faryn showed no attachment or sorrow with the word. One could've thought he was talking about his favorite cereal with this matter-of-fact tone. "Anyway, what you could enlighten me on is how the stone got here. Because I believe we had scouts scouring our Kingdom looking for it following his death. I don't like it one bit that the Ice Kingdom is displaying something that's practically a family heirloom here."

Faryn stared at the stone with mild interest. "What a waste for it to stay here. I doubt Father knows about this," he commented. Faryn moved past Jillian and gazed out the frosty-edged window into the garden below. He observed these same princes seen earlier on the ballroom now sharing what one might think would be the beginnings of an intimate moment. Not hushing a scoff, he turned from the window and folded his arms in a guarded manner. The Ice Prince skipping out on his own party to play 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours' with another royal? Pathetic.
"Jillian, just take it and let's go home," he said, voice leaving very little room for opposition.

Faryn stared at him with cold, 'I-can't-believe-you' eyes. "Surely? Surely, you can't expect me to walk out of this room without a family heirloom that they don't even know the sentiment of. It's a single gem to them. I have millions. They can have a different one," he countered. Gesturing out the window, Faryn made the rude remark, "It's not like pretty boy and the goth royal are going to do anything about it. They're having one of those weird things... what do you call them? Moments? Romantic impulses?"

Although supremely wrong, Faryn didn't seem to know or care.