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"I'd sure hope so. I am not very fond of close, dark areas, after all. It makes me," Jhovam hesitated as he tried to find the right word, "It makes me nervous."

Jhovam swallowed slowly as he gazed at the stone walls around him. The shadows caused by the rough surface and the flickering lamp was not too comforting to him. In fact, they made him even more worried. If only Ygrashmak didn't shut him out, but the thought of his dragon recalled the pain and nausea that. He shuddered slightly. At the moment, he wasn't too fond of his draconic counterpart, and he felt a dislike of the bond they shared. He tried his best to resist any link they had, just in case Ygrashmak opened up. He wanted his dragon to know what it was like to be isolated from your dearest friend, and if he could, he'd make his dragon live through the pain and turmoil that Jhovam himself felt. Indeed, Jhovam was feeling quite malicious and dark, fitting of the atmosphere around him.

Visually, he only appeared to be more sullen and withdrawn as he pondered over these new, more violent thoughts. Over time, Ygrashmak tried his hardest to influence free thought and radical feelings within the previously timid Jhovam. Hopefully, in Ygrashmak's eyes, it would blend into an appropriate amount of independence and freedom with compassion and caution. Alas, he did not expect this influence to first manifest against him.

Jhovam glanced upward, as if something surprised him. He was so lost in his thoughts that he forgot his manners! Although still mulling over his dislike of his draconic partner at the moment, Jhovam tried to be a good slave.

“I thank you dearly m’Lady. It means a great deal to me.” His words sounded rehearsed, but enthusiastic. With a deep, graceful bow, Jhovam tried to show how good of a slave he could be. He knew how to thank women for items that he most certainly didn’t deserve, and he was about to flaunt these skills.

“Alas, I am not worthy of your delicacy. I am forbidden to consume alcoholic beverages.” Jhovam gestured to the wine, which he could easily smell from here. It was a gift and a curse when you work in a medical tent; alcohol has taken its toll on his patients. “But please, do not let my limits halt or distress your own enjoyment.”

He bowed again, then looked around the room as if he never saw it before. In fact, he didn’t pay any attention when he entered. If he was going to ‘live’ here, he would have to know as much about it as he could with all the time he head. Or, at least the time that isn’t devoted to returning back to Elric estates.

Jhovam didn't contradict the woman, but simply nodded slowly. Even if she said it wasn't forbidden, he still wouldn't drink. It just didn't make sense to him, after all. There are plenty of drunken idiots out there without him adding to the number.

"Might I ask where I am? I mean, this does not look like the draconian land I was once in. It is more . . . normal. Not so big. But there are dragons in it." Jhovam realized this and seemed quite interested in the answer. After all, he was here against his will. He might as well know, under the stars and sun, where he was. He unconsciously shuffled his feet and looked down, as he usually did when he inquired about something.

Jhovam followed the woman to the base of the ladder, his brow clearly frowned in worry. T'k? Kay? Dragon?! This was all so new to him, and he couldn't remember any geography at the moment. T'k . . . Kay . . .

"The nation of Tok?" Jhovam inquired up the ladder softly, knowing very well that the woman probably did not hear him. He heard his old mistress discussing Tok. She did so in a very hushed tone, which was unusual for her. He first thought it was a person, but that didn't make sense in the context of the conversation. Slowly he realized that this "Tok" was a place, and all he could decipher from it was that his mistress did not like it at all, and was even afraid of it.

Jhovam sighed heavily before mumbling an incoherent sentence. "I am not in Feretris anymore."

Jhovam was mulling over his own fears and feelings in that dark room. What was truly going on? Why did the voices mean by "own kind"? Who was this woman? Was this all a trick - or worse, a joke? Was he going to be trapped here?

Questions bloomed in his mind like cherry blossoms in spring, and he didn't know what to do with them all. Sighing to himself, he meandered to his cot, and then plopped onto the cushion. Holding his head in his hands, Jhovam felt a wave of fatigue from the day's activities flow through his tired body. As his eyelids grew as heavy as lead, Jhovam leaned over and promptly fell asleep. Not even a cover or blanket covered the worn-out slave, but he didn't seem to mind.

At once, Jhovam's consciousness drifted out into the bond (as usual) and grew. What he would see would have scared him beyond any other fear he has ever felt as well as a sense of exhilaration.

Jhovam slowly opened his eyes, feeling the weight of the sack on top of him. As a slave, he was use to being awoken at inconvenient hours during the night. The instinctive response of moaning, complaining, and being generally unpleasant has been disciplined out of him. Slowly, he rose and wiped a bit of the tiredness out of his eyes. He felt exhausted, as usual. However, he would have done his best to hide it from the eyes of a female, even if this woman wasn't from Feretris. It was a blend of fear, habit, and courtesy.

"Of course, ma'am. I will assist you in - wait, what? My playmates? Young dragons? Mount?" Jhovam gawked at the woman, then flinched horribly as if bracing for an attack, His arms flew up to shield his face from an unseen foe, and his body shrunk back. His face contorted in fear and terror completely uncontrolled. To him, women were about to force a horrid experience at him, one fueled by his own emotion and feelings. And to him, the woman standing in front of him, heavily shadowed by the underground chamber's poor light, was a mistress in full wrath. Her raven hair would have seemingly crackled with energy as the innate magic flew at Jhovam.

Poor Jhovam. His mind hasn't recovered from the pre-mature, forced switch Ygrashmak bestowed upon him. Jhovam's own reality seemingly shifted to his emotions, uncontrolled and uninfluenced by his own logic and reason.

Jhovam looked at the woman with heavy tears in his eyes. He hastily nodded before grabbing the sack and bolting up the ladder. He felt horrible and terrified; nothing seemed to be concrete around him. The woman he was talking to seemed to shift between the form of a pale-skinned blond woman and a mistress. The shifts were subtle, mild, and yet Jhovam noticed. He could not grasp why, nor what, and his mind seemed to fall apart whenever he tried to think about to subject. At the moment, he just did as he was told.

He looked around the valley that was solely illuminated by the silvery moon. He always liked the moon, but did not know why it was not counted amongst the deities. When he started pondering that, he fell over. For a brief moment, he saw the stars as a whole, the moon as a sphere instead of a disk, and the sun as a beacon of flame instead of life. He saw things as they might be, but were not.

Once his brief hallucination wore off, he slowly rose from the tall grass. His hair had dry pieces of the foliage in the untidy locks. He seemed to be slightly confused, but his expression was lost in the heavy shadows.

Jhovam seemed frightened. Very frightened. The big lizardy things are talking! More lizardy talking things! He backed up from the two dragons slowly.

"P-p-please, I d-do not know how to fly! I c-can't! I f-f-f-" Jhovam gulped heavly. "I f-fear I can not do it."

Jhovam looked at Sherel with a panicked expression, then back at the white dragon. She was beautiful in the silvery-blue light of the moon, but the beauty barely calmed down his growing panic. Jhovam did not like hights, and he would assume that the flying portion would involve hights. What great logic.