So it's better this way, I said
Having seen this place before


Elaine Bolaire had always been a quiet girl growing up, mousy brown hair, plain brown eyes, and a book held in her arms with all the love that most girls lavished on baby dolls. She had enjoyed the quiet and solitude that came with reading and took to new languages and puzzles like a fish to water.

When she became a hunter she had been surprised that her weapon, Arina, was in so many ways her opposite. She had expected a solitary creature, solemn, that could offer her sage advice. Instead she had Arina, who begged her to be social, whined, howled, and in general disturbed her silence. Fortunately she was in the Life division and it was there that Elaine developed the code.

Studying FEAR, runes, weapons, creatures, and the strange crossovers between her world and theirs had completely consumed her. She had managed to stumble along as a trainee and her survival had been thanks to her knowledge of first aid and a lot of dumb luck. Physically she knew she was below par compared to the other hunters. It was a miracle she could even shoot Arina, and she suspected it wasn't her prowess with the bow, but rather the bow's ability that let her hit her targets most of the time.

All of these memories came slowly flooding towards her flashes of what she imagined her face must have looked like the first time she received a book, the first time she saw a strange shadow, the first time she 'died', her rebirth as a hunter, the first time she spoke to Arina, her first mission, her last mission, and a shocked face that was not her own.

Where everything we said and did
Hurts us all the more
Its just that we stayed, too long
In the same old sickly skin


She felt a pressure on her chest and looked down at a beautiful dark grey wolf.

Arina, you're going to stay here with me?

- Of course, you are my pack and I am yours Elaine. -

I should have listened to you about the code, I should have shared my research with others, now it's lost forever.

- Nothing is ever lost forever Elaine, someone else will do the work now. -

No one will ever understand my code.

- No one ever has to, you were the only one who ever saw it, and now it's gone. -

Where everything we said and did
Hurts us all the more


I wish it weren't Arina...that will always be my biggest regret now, that all my life was spent on something that's completely meaningless now.

- You can always tell me what the code was? -

Yes, but you'll be with me so there really isn't any point in that now is there?

- Always so logical Elaine, did it do you any good in the end? -

Its just that we stayed, too long
In the same old sickly skin


The pressure increased, it felt as if Arina were heavier, her heartbeat starting to thud in a strange slow rhythm. Thump, thump, thump - ka-thump...slowing now sluggish and trying to push beyond it's capabilities.

No I guess not...

- I always wanted to be your friend Elaine, I still do. -

I'm sorry I always held you...and everyone at arms length. The code wasn't so hard, it just required more then one key. I used three, the first was the number algorithm for the alphabet. I numbered the letters one to ten starting from Z and when I reached P I started again adding a zero. Which made Q and P ten and F one hundred. Then I took my numbers and gave them all a symbol, a series of slashes and dots to represent the phases of the moon.

- Yes I remember, I was very fond of those, you have lovely handwriting. -

Thank you Arina...anyway I wrote everything in symbols but backwards so that anyone who found my notes would first need to re-write the symbols so the letters would be in the correct order, then figure out which symbol was for which number, and finally decipher the numbers into letters which was made harder by the amount of extra numbers and zeros in my key.

- Brilliant...but I'm sure a good cryptographer wouldn't have had too much trouble with it. -

Then they would have deserved to be privy to my notes now wouldn't they? Velda for example, she would have been able to read them easily.

- You really looked up to her, why didn't you ever try and be friends? -

Hunters don't make friends Arina.

- The others did...some of them. -

It didn't do them much good in the end now did it?

I'm pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness I feel like letting go


- Maybe it did, maybe they had hope, maybe they died with a connection to someone. -

I have hope, did you see Conquest's face? I think we won Arina, I'll always be connected to the hunters that died before me, and the hunters who come after me.

The pressure was gone, the wolf wasn't there anymore, darkness started to seep in.

If all of the strength
And all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this


Her heart gave one last weak thump as life faded and Elaine Bolaire died a quiet woman, with mousy brown hair, plain brown eyes, and a book full of hope pressed tight in the pocket against her chest.