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It had to be Conrad. Had to.

After the dream that had forced the selkie Fa'e to sit upright in bed screaming, Caoimhe had been in a terrible mood. She knew that the face she saw was Airi with the same blunt assumption that she made about most of her life. How many rainbow haired women came calling in her dreams? Airi was the first. The last time Caoimhe saw Airi, the Mother of All Fa'e had helped her. Now, it was time for Caoi to return the favor. The second she saw Airi like that, she knew it couldn't be something she imagined. Caoimhe dreamed about oceans and songs and, even in her nightmares, it was never as bloody or pained. Any anger Caoimhe might have felt at having the dream forced upon her dissipated when she felt the pain of the one who had given her another chance at life. The dream... was terrible. It was the second part of the dream, however, that had the youth Fa'e still reeling.

Upon waking, Caoi struggled to write down all that she had learned. She pictured Dustin's face yelling at her if she forgot anything. She pictured Sei dropping his gaze to know that she had failed. And then, there was the selfish reason -- finding Airi could mean rebonding to Gristla. Though a part of her wanted to talk to Dustin or Sei about it first, Caoimhe was too impulsive. She had hardly been awake for thirty minutes when she made the decision to find the one name she recognized in Airi's plea. Niyati? Caoi had no idea who that was.

Then there was Conrad.

To say that Caoimhe hated Conrad would be an understatement. Sure, he brought her from Aranorn, but he also disappeared at the moment that Caoi needed the most guidance. Gristla and Caoi had never seen a toilet before. Caoi tried to attack the toaster the first time it shot out toast. For that, she could not forgive him. So, of course, it was he who could answer her questions.

For Airi -- and for herself -- Caoimhe threw on a cream hoodie and black running pants. Her feet slid awkwardly into laceless converse shoes, and her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail. It was almost 4:00AM, but Caoimhe left her house at a run. The girl had no idea where to find Conrad so she went to the only place she could think of: the Fa'e HQ.

Or at least what remained of it.

When she arrived, Caoimhe was panting. It was colder than she expected, and she shivered from head to toe, hiding her hands in her pockets. Well... she was here. The HQ looked like a burned out, rotted corpse of the place of warmth and harmony it had once been. Caoimhe loved her seaside shack with Gristla, but the HQ had been her home for the first year that she lived in Gaia. In its walls, she learned about Gaia, about technology, about reading. Now it was dead. Would she join it too?

The moment of peaceful introspection was broken by a surge of stress and guilt. Conrad. She had to find him. Caoimhe looked left. Caoimhe looked right. Then she took a deep breath, cupped her hands on either side of her mouth, and started to shout, "CONRAD. CONRAD! COOOOOOOONRAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE, YOU TRANSPARENT a*****e! COME OUT HERE! CONRAD! CONRAAAAD! COOOOOOOOOOONRAAAAAD! AIRI IS MAKING ME TALK TO YOU. AIRI. AIRI NEEDS YOUR HELP! AIIIIIRIIIII!" It was probably a good thing that the Fa'e HQ was not in the middle of a residential community because Caoimhe was screaming like a psychopath at 4:00AM. When she stopped screaming, her voice continued to echo over and over, the last edges of the noise she made bouncing down the empty street.

For a moment, nothing. Caoi felt her stomach drop. This was the only plan she had. She had no other idea how to find Conrad. Lucky for her, she was hard-headed and persistent. She could stand there until the sun rose, until her voice ran out of steam.

So she kept yelling.

"CONRAD! CONRAD! CONRAD! COOOOOOONRAD!"

The cloud of fairies that rose from the ashes of the HQ first brought a smile to Caoimhe's face. They were the little things that brought her to Airi the night that she was crying and miserable. They even fed her! "Fairies!" she said, taking a few clomping steps forward. "You have to help me find---" Her joy at seeing the fairies quickly dissolved into annoyance as the winged things began to tell her to shut up, yanking and tugging at her lips. When they began to stuff acorns in her mouth, the selkie lost what little patience she had shown thus far. Sucking in a gulp of air, she rocketed the acorns in her mouth out like bullets, aiming for the fairies. Only when the ammo was out did she bother to address them. "What the hell are you doing! You want me to help Airi, don't you, you winged idiots?" Caoimhe spit on to the ground, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.

She took a couple aggressive steps toward the remaining fairies, waving her arms around and swatting at them like flies. "For crying out loud, SHE sent me her. AIRI. Keep your shirts on--" And then Conrad was there in all his transparent glory. Great. The annoyance on Caoi's face transformed into a sneer as she recognized the big ole jerkface. Her first instinct was to curse him out, or make a lewd gesture, but the selkie youth reprimanded herself. No -- she had a mission. She needed to get information from him.

Always the eloquent diplomat, Caoimhe folded her arms and said, "You want to tell me why I had a dream about Airi covered in blood and screaming that demanded I come to your snooty a** for answers to help bring down Chaos?" She raised an eyebrow and popped out one hip. Caoimhe knew something that Conrad didn't -- or so she thought -- and she fully intended to lord it over his a** as long as possible.

Caoimhe had no sympathy for Conrad -- grim look or not. Even if he told her he once had a wife and a life or something and it was stolen from him, Caoi would not be moved. She made the decision to hate Conrad, and it would take a hell of a lot for that to change. His rampant condescension didn't really help his case either. "This isn't funny," she said, narrowing her eyes. Caoi read his soft answer as a joke, and she was prepared to react as negatively as necessary to let him know what a jerk she thought he was.

One hand clenched on her muscled forearm, and Caoi stretched up to her full height, which was sadly still under five feet. But she felt tall! Before she could let an overreaction ruin her information-gaining expedition, Conrad brought things back on course. Right. The dream. She needed to remember. "Airi said a lot of stuff. But she said that there was something that Chaos lost. And that Dream took it. Is that a riddle? Because I am really sick of riddles." Caoi sighed, shook her head. Seriously -- couldn't there just be a foot race to determine who won this battle?

After a moment, she raked a hand through her hair and tried to focus on the importance of the conversation that was happening. She could make a difference. She could save Airi, save them all. Wasn't that what she wanted? "Airi... kept talking about lost things. She said that the Fa'e, that we have pieces in us. That need to be... collected? But there was the one thing that was the most important. She called it the Heart. That was the thing that Chaos wants." The words came rambling out of her with less organization than the selkie had wanted. She wasn't the most reliable messenger in the world, but Caoi nodded as if she had been crystal clear. "She told me to ask you. Now tell me where this thing is, and I will go get it." In Caoimhe's mind, it was really that simple.

The pausing thing made the hot-tempered Fa'e want to rip her hair out. Or better yet -- rip Conrad's hair out. She showed her displeasure in narrowed eyes, pursed lips, and a tapping foot. It was a good thing she kept her mouth shut, if only to encourage the transparent keeper-of-secrets to keep talking. As he continued, Caoi's agitation melted into confusion and then despair. She put a hand on either side of her head and shook it. When she stopped, her eyes were locked on Conrad's. "You lost it? You lost it! How do you lose a freaking HEART!" Perhaps it would have been better if another Fa'e had come with Caoimhe to gather this important information. She seemed a bit incapable of processing it all at once, and her kneejerk reaction was to blame Conrad for everything. Airi might be weird, but Caoi still preferred the quiet girl to the transparent snob.

Dropping her hands to her sides, Caoimhe spread her fingers wide and pushed her palms down like she she was leaning on a table. "Wait, wait," she began, clearly still working things out in her head, "you say it was taken from her. Who took it? Tell me who took it, and I will get it back!" The typical glimmer of excitement that bounced in Caoi's eyes at the promise of an adventure was gone, replaced by a fervent desperation. This was her only hope at getting Gristla back, at saving herself, at saving everyone. Okay, so maybe the Fa'e were a really screwed up family, but they were the closest thing to family that Caoimhe had ever had.

The idea of Airi being ripped to pieces was not appealing to the girl, but she couldn't think about it. If Chaos wanted his heart, then Caoimhe would get it back. And then, she told herself, everything would be okay. Despite the prickles of uncertainty tingling in her fingertips, Caoi had no choice but to believe it was true.

Airi's... guardian? The idea of a Fa'e being betrayed by his or her own guardian was bizarre to Caoimhe. In her short life, the only constant thing was Gristla. Even on Aranorn, Gristla was the reason that Caoi was not killed immediately upon discovery. The tigress was not always loving, but she would never betray Caoimhe -- even if it meant her own life. To think that Airi had the kind of guardian who would stab her in the back... it was unthinkable. Again, the short Fa'e took in all the information with narrowed brows and a wide open mouth. "Why would a guardian EVER do that?" she said, tearing at her own hair. "And wait -- why would Airi want to free Chaos? He is the enemy!" None of this made any sense to Caoimhe, and it showed in the swaying of her head.

She turned to one side, folding her arms across her chest, and tried to think this out. What could she do? What could be done now? After a moment, Caoimhe took another deep breath and then turned sharply back to Conrad. "Take me to Anya. I will get the answers by any means necessary." As if to prove it, Caoi tightened her hands into fists. The youth Fa'e was not really the torturing type, but she could make an exception. Clearly this Anya person only wished bad things for the Fa'e. If she was the cause of all this misery, then Caoimhe was happy to deliver some of that misery right back to her.

The resolve and determination that flooded Caoimhe's veins at her initial threat waned slightly when Conrad confirmed Anya's location. Oh... now? Right. Right. She could do this! The momentary lapse was smoothed over, and Caoi fixed a hard scowl on her face, nodding her head sharply. If Anya was the key to all of the answers, then Caoimhe would be vigilant -- and if necessary, cruel. Her time in Aranorn and the Finfolk City had taught her that. She could steel herself against her emotions, aside from anger.

Clenching her fists a bit tighter, Caoimhe took a decisive step toward Conrad. "Let's go," she said, though it was hardly necessary. Conrad was already drifting toward the street. Jogging to catch up, Caoimhe slowed her pace, making sure to stay exactly beside Conrad. If she knew where they were going, she would have insisted on leading the way.

Anya. Caoimhe had never met her, but she hoped to find her very unpleasant. Perhaps with a peg leg and a nasty disposition. She wouldn't be a little girl like Airi too, would she? Caoi shuddered the thought away. The selkie wasn't sure if she had it in her to beat a child, and it would seem that this task would require just that level of physical effort from her. If Anya wanted to volunteer the information, wouldn't she have showed up already to save the day? If the guardians had been attacked by Chaos, then surely Anya would know that something was wrong. Could she feel Airi's suffering? In the back of her mind, Caoimhe hoped that this encounter would be little more than a short conversation.

It didn't stop her hands from shaking.

To say that Caoimhe was disappointed would be an understatement. Her mouth fell wide open, stunned muttering pouring from her lips. Rushing past Conrad, she ran into the home only to find the insides as perfect as any other home. Was this a mirage? The Selkie Fa'e looked everywhere she could, but there was no sign of Anya. "It looks like someone cooked the house from the outside!" she shouted, wheeling on Conrad's casual dismissal of the situation. If Anya wasn't here, then what the hell were they supposed to do? Send out a ******** lost person notice?

Caoi gritted her teeth, fighting to keep the angry tears that threatened to spill out locked inside. There had been a moment, brief and shining, where she actually thought they might solve this. Inside, she received only more questions and no answers. "Where else could she be..." she whispered, squinting her eyes to hold back the tears. Frustration did not sit well with the selkie. When rage wasn't enough for her, she exploded into tears. At that moment, she was teetering on the edge of sadness. "I have to find the heart, Conrad. I have to make all of this better. Tell me what to do!" Caoimhe sounded more like a desperate child than a youth intent on saving the only family she had ever known.

Whatever it took, Caoimhe would do it. She just needed someone to help her, to point her in the right direction. Her eyes fell to the book on the living room floor. It was the only thing out of place. "The book is the only thing out of place," she said again. It reminded her of tracking in Aranorn, searching for the signs of disturbance. Sometimes it wasn't the big signs. Sometimes, the most important information could be in the smallest of places. Crossing briskly to the book, Caoimhe flipped it over and stared at it.

"What is this Conrad? Do you know this book?"

Photos, an album full. Caoimhe turned the pages slowly, fingertips ghosting over the pages. So many looked bizarre to her, others quite familiar, and one stopped her heart. The book flew across the room before Caoi was aware of throwing it, a hiss whispering out of her throat as if she had been burned. "Why does Anya have a picture of Aranorn?" Caoi barked, voice thick with emotion. "When did she take a picture of Aranorn?" Beat. "Why would she go to Aranorn?" Emotion and anger fought for equal footing in Caoimhe's chest. A part of her wanted to take the photo, to keep it forever and hide it in a book. There was no love lost for her in leaving the planet, but it was still her childhood home, even if it was an abusive one.

What bothered the girl more was the idea that someone knew she was there, had visited even, but had not bothered to retrieve her. Conrad was the one who found her on Aranorn, not Anya. So what was this woman doing with a photo of it? What did any of this mean?

At Conrad's words, Caoimhe retrieved the thrown photo album, pulling out the first photo and flipping it over. Nothing. She pulled out photo after photo with increasing fervor, but not one of them gave any whisper of communication. He might have been kidding, but Caoi wasn't. Why couldn't it be as easy as a set of directions to lead her to Anya and maybe even the Heart of Chaos?