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The girl waited while Ryugi came to sit by the fire, though it seemed she was less concerned with waiting for him and more concerned about the status of her beverage.

Joshua pulled the pot from over the fire, removed a ceramic mug from the pack beside it, and mixed together the hot water and the tea leaves in the pot before pouring it... and finally handing it over with an annoyed grunt.

For once she seemed almost pleased; taking the mug in both hands and resting it on her lap for a moment while she sat quietly upon the stone in the large cavern.

Now that she had it, she did not seem to be in any hurry to drink it. It seemed the act of making him do it for her was enough to satisfy whatever urge she had.

"Boy."

The girl finally broke the silence, speaking to Ryugi without mincing words.

"You have much to learn still, but there is promise in you. Become my servant."

Her head turned to the side, and she looked to the Angaran expectantly.

"He's too soft." Joshua cut her off suddenly.

There was no sudden jumping to his feet to object, nor was there any attempt to make an intervention on Ryugi's behalf by doing something as dramatic as attempting to remove either one of them from the little sewing circle that had been set up. He sat up against a rock on the ground with one knee pulled up and his arm resting upon it. Casual, but insistent.



"We're not all like your precious Uriel, little girl. Playing the Good Shepherd is harder for most of us than it was for him. Maybe you've become blind after all, if you can't see past the success of your favorite toy."

He glared at her from across the fire. Staring straight through the little puppet she liked to wear just to goad him. It was clear to the both of them that there was no love here... perhaps there had been once, long ago when she had made his contract, but very little remained from that time.

"Maybe in a hundred years. Maybe in ten. But not yet. He's too soft for it. He hasn't lost everything."

"Uriel is an exception. The boy will learn to accept it."

The girl looked sideways to Ryugi once more and shook her head.

"Anyone would be lacking if you compare them only to him."

"Don't be a fool! You saw him in the cave! There's no chance, you'll just end up hating him like-"

"You've never obeyed the rules. The boy is proper enough to respect the code."

She scowled at him, her little fingers white against the ceramic cup in her lap as her body leaned forwards ever so slightly.

"Give it up," the Reaper said back unwaveringly; his heel digging into the ground a bit to push his back up straight against the rock behind him to counter the girl's glare.

"He's a martyr, not a killer."

There was a brief pause as he stared her down through the firelight, but eventually he knew the decision was out of his hands. Without another word he pushed up from the ground with a hand on his knee and walked away from the fire; pacing the edge of the lake to where the snow was still falling.

The girl raised the mug in her hands and took a slow sip of the hot tea.

"Boy, what is your decision? Will you become a servant of Death?"

The ceramic mug rested in her lap again, cradled with both hands.

(( Need to run, so no time to make a real post just yet. ))

"A pity."

She lifted the mug to her lips again, taking a small sip of the hot tea, and then lowered it back to her lap.

"Then let me ask you this, Mr. Kazamaru. Can you make a proper cup of tea?"

Holding the mug out beside her, she dumped it's contents on the ground with disdain.

The water in the pool was crystal clear, cold, and clean. Other than the layer of snow floating upon the surface of the water there did not seem to be a single leaf or piece of dirt in the water at all. It was perfectly clean and pure, and it answered any question about how such a large number of animals could have made a home in the middle of a desert like this one.



Across the pond, the man that had parted ways with them stepped out onto the surface of the water; causing only slight ripples across the glazed surface as he proceeded into the center of it and drew his sword.

With the pommel dangling from his hand Joshua touched the tip of it to the water, and like oil and water the ice separated from the surface of the pond and was swept outwards to the shore.

Now that the ice no longer covered the surface of the water the moonlight from above was able to reach through to the bottom of the pool... and once again Ryugi lay his eyes upon a graveyard. Several humanoid skeletons littered the basin, even so close to the shore. The number increased as the pool went deeper, and the bones piled up in the deepest parts.

Of course, there was no mistaking the familiar feeling of pain that came from touching the girl; or anything that had to do with the Reapers. It was the consequence of proximity, but if he was willing to brave the pain then she would lead him out onto the water.

Beneath them the bones of many were left to this pond as a grave marker. Their heads still adorned with helmets, their bodies wearing rusted armor over time-bleached bones. Some lay beside iron spear heads that had long since lost their bodies to the passage of time, others held swords and shields clutched tenaciously within bony fingers.

"Many, many years ago, when the city of Strata was nothing more than a village built around an oasis in the desert, this mountain was the home of a different kind of menace."

There was a glint of color from the bottom of the pond as they walked over it, like the moonlight reflected off of colored glass that was strewn across the bottom. At the very center of the basin there was another skeleton, one that took up nearly half the pond on its own, but the bones had collapsed under their own weight after the years and what remained hardly resembled the ignoble creature it once had been.

The teeth remained, though. The claws remained. And covered by silt and sediment that had accumulated over five millenia the scales of that red dragon still decorated the cave like seashells on the beach.

"Correct, Mr. Kazamaru."

Little D held out her hand over the water and one of the scales bubbled up to the surface; rising up to sit, glistening, in her pale hand.

"This one's name was Burnheart. He was young... much like you. He believed in things such as justice and righteousness. Always striving to do the 'right' thing."

"You know very well what happened after that, don't you Mr. Kazamaru?"

With a flick of the wrist she tossed the scale back into the water, where it slowly disappeared again into the depths of the pool.

"The humans saw him as a threat. He saw the humans as his enemy. So he did what was 'right', and what all good little patriots do when they are at war. One night he went out and burned Strata to the ground."