The dance was not an overly difficult one, and their steps to the music were slow, but Merrin found herself concentrating with undue intensity on where her feet were going and did not for a moment register his words.

"A journey?" she repeated. They were close enough that she had to tip her head back, chestnut hair falling over her shoulders, to scan his face, and tripped slightly. Hastily righting herself, Merrin wondered with a pang of anxiety if perhaps she was not home for as long as she'd thought - though with people like Je'id around, who wanted to be home?

"Did he say anything else?" she inquired, glancing up again at a lull in the music. "I suppose it involved me."

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Kendath graciously ignored her stumble. After all, he'd only stumbled twice in the past ten minutes. As she looked up into his face, he once again found himself on edge and made a point to avoid her deep cobalt eyes. "He said you're blessed by the gods," he said with a shrug. Remembering something else Sage had mentioned, he quoted as an afterthought, "'She will undertake a perilous journey across the world... and across the rifts of time.'"

Here the ballad drew to a serene, melancholy close. After a brief pause, a rapid allegro ensued. For a moment all conversation was stalled as Kendath found himself hard-pressed to keep his feet in order. He and Merrin fairly spun and twirled across the dance floor. Perspiration beaded on his forhead every time the dance called for him to throw Merrin out, then reel her, preferrably gracefully, back in.

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Merrin's mind whirled along with her slender white-clad form, and she was sure she was completely missing some important aspect of the dance. For the umpteenth time she questioned the strange judgement of the gods - By the stars, I was nineteen but a month ago! And I'm years behind all these riders in training...

But it was hard to think coherently when rainbow colors swirled around them and music rose to the vaulted ceiling - and most distracting of all, Merrin's fingertips tingled every time they left Kendath's and she avoided his eyes - why, she knew not.

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(don't worry, i trust you my dear, you Melda and Curi have been the one who've really kept this going, if it wasn't for you're spontaneouse idias this would have died long ago)

Evlyn and Jemx span though the clouds, gasping for breath.

Far below Semri noticed thier absance, she looked up, and far above her saw them labouring. Fools...they will die at that hight...i'l collect the bodies if i ever come this ay again

After about half an hour they finally lost consiousness and fell from the sky. As they fell Jemx noticed a group of dragons and a fire many miles away. A few seconds later they hit the ground, and darkness descended.

(could that be the Renagade patrol?)

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Made by Lembas

Don't drop her... don't drop her... don't drop her... The mantra, his own perdition, echoed in his mind every time Merrin came spinning back into his arms. As they melded into the rhythm of the dance, he found himself strangely elated. When was the last time he released himself like this?

At last the dance ended with a grand coda and appreciative applause. Kendath wiped his brow and glanced with a wry grin at Merrin. "That's all from me. You dance magnificently."

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Merrin grinned back, equally and oddly gleeful, stooping to rescue the hem of her trailing ivory skirt from dragging in the path of feet as music began for the next dance. She felt an unexpected surge of regret as he let go her hand, and realized in surprise that at no point during these two dances had she been as awkwardly self-conscious as she had in the many with Je'id.

Indeed, the entire evening now seemed a sweeping blaze of light and music and Je'id's manipulation had faded into indifferent memory. Though still Merrin determined she would never reveal how neatly she'd been tricked.

"You're not so bad yourself," she returned with a teasing blue-eyed glance, laughter behind the playful compliment. Then after a moment in a more serious tone, as they moved away: "But please - do tell me more of what you spoke to Sage about."

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Even as far away as Captain Myrdas and his patrol were, they couldn't fail to notice the great dragon fall like a behemoth jewel from the sky, and it was with slight trepidation that the resounding thud was heard. The patrol themselves had been just then preparing for their return to Vryngard - some day's journey adragonback.

Myrdas, scouting alone with his reptilian counterpart Verrina, swiftly noted the location of the dragon and in a moment his own, a sleek sapphire wyrm, had launched herself skyward.

Touching down in the midst of the six others that made up the patrol, Myrdas glanced at the moon and picked out three of his companions. "Nerias, Reina, Knorr, your dragons - there's a crimson [Jemx is red, right?] dragon a few minutes' flight from here, north by north-east. You'll oblige me to check if they're alive and if so find out their affiliation. We still depart for Vryngard in the morning."

With a few raised eyebrows the three departed, two men in their thirties and a slightly younger woman.

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(Melda, please could you send out that renagade patrol...otherwose i'm all alonesome)

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Made by Lembas

((I'm working on it now - going to edit my previous post as soon as i've found out a couple things))

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(((thakies, you're a star)))

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Made by Lembas

((eeek doub;e post..no matter))

(no dried blood, so black in some lights.....but crimson in others i suppose...ok why not)

Jemx simply lay there unable to move or even think coherently, he could harly breath and his wings seemed to be broken. Now he could not heal himself an Evlyn like they had formerly. Garthag and Semri, followd by the fall had taken too much out of them. Evlyn did not tir either, but muttered in her subconsiuse state.
"Crystal...Semri...Merrin...Crystal...StarCrystal...SEMRI!!!...Merrin...Merrin.."

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Made by Lembas

Swooping down upon the prone dragon and rider, Knorr dismounted in time to hear Evlyn in her delirium mutter a name. "Merrin!" he echoed sharply, drawing close with his golden dragon Kyleren behind him, both of them watching Demon warily for any sign of movement.

Reina and her grey-green reptilian counterpart landed behind him, followed closely by Nerias and his. Knorr knelt, quickly checking Evlyn's pulse. "She seems to be delirious," he reported shortly to the dragonrider pairs behind him. "She's talking of Merrin, though."

"Isn't that the new rider in Thorone's division?" queried Reina, coming up behind him while also eyeing Jemx warily.

"She's hardly new, been in Vryngard for two years," corrected Knorr. Speaking in full sentences did not seem to come naturally to him.

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Their steps angled out into the fragrant courtyard, where they could converse in relative privacy. The night was cool, a pleasant respite from the stifling throngs inside. Music from the great hall drifted to their ears. It was a ballad once more, slow and wistful.

As they strolled through the gardens and past an ornate fountain, Kendath looked over at her. Moonlight bleached Merrin's hair a silvery bronze and set her dress aflame like starlight. Inwardly smiling, he answered her earlier question, "Not much, only that another journey is in order." He scanned her face for her reaction. "A journey that you, blessed by the gods, is destined to take."

Abruptly, as they passed under the overhanging bough of a flowering tree, he asked, "What do you Renegades know of the Star Crystal?"

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"Time travel," Demon echoed in wonder he could not hide. "That explains much. Transport oneself to the Dawn of Time, disrupt the creation of the world. Or perhaps even further back... to the birth of the gods..."

The spirit shook his head in sorrow. The Skyseekers knew not. Their only intention was to witness once more the birth of the celestial plane, nothing more. Their obsession with the skies had taken them thus far, for they believed that only when the secrets of the universe were unearthed could they truly find their inner being.

Demon's vermilion glare was thoroughly scorching. "And the salvation of dragonkin...?"

Once... once... dragons and dragonriders reigned supreme. But since that long ago battle within the valley in which you now stand... The cyclone howling about the spirit seemed to fade, as if in resignation. The spirit himself began dissolving. Something happened in the climax of that battle... a great cataclysm... and now...

The Age of the Dragon is dissipating....

"Wait," Demon snarled, lunging forward in desperation as the spirit merged with air and become nothing once more. "Wait! Why are you telling me - "

But the spirit was gone.

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Merrin reached up to break the stem of one of the flowers hanging over them, a pale pink star-like blossom that she twirled in her fingers without looking up at him.

"I've often wondered, this last while, about the strange choices the gods seem to make," she said abruptly. "I'm nobody to question their authority, of course...but the Star Crystal..."

She paused and this time ventured to glance coyly sideways and up at Kendath as they walked, a grin playing about her lips. "'You Renegades' - don't forget you're one of us, now. I myself know very little of the Crystal," she continued, pausing to set the flower adrift in the nearest fountain like a little boat in some calm sea. It spun under the moonlight. "Though it must have astonishing powers."

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Kendath leaned against the tree's slender trunk and mulled over his next words. A light breeze stirred the branches, causing petals to fall in a gentle shower. "Remember that long ago time I asked you about the tyranny of the gods?" he said quietly. The words sounded strange, even to him. Had it really been that long ago? "I am beginning to think it is not the tyranny of the gods, nor the choices of the gods that place us where we stand now. Rather, the tyranny of man. The gods may push us in the right direction, but in the end..."

He realized he must sound like that rambling Druid, Sage, so he decided to get to the point. "In short, the gods did not choose you to be their emissary. You chose yourself, by faith."

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Merrin, too, wondered if it were as long ago as it did indeed seem. She remembered that night very well. She had vehemently disliked Kendath then, detested him even...why? Because he was so unlike her, almost a child still and innocent as the flower adrift in the fountain's still pool? and he was cynical and world-weary and callous...

But now, as Merrin regarded him where he stood shadowed by the overarching branches of the tree, something very different seemed to stir within her. Something entirely opposite of fervent dislike.

"So," Merrin said aloud, all this having whirled through her mind in mere moments as she stood illuminated by the cold moonlight, "if all Renegades were faithful to the gods...the gods would be faithful to them? A double-edged promise..." she murmured to conclude.

He was shadowed by the tree but Merrin could still glimpse those dark eyes, unfathomable and full of everything that was still strange and alien to her. "How very sad, that I of all of them should have faith enough." She did not sound as though she were placing herself above them, merely wistful that so little trust in the gods remained. "So many could do it better than I."

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At that statement, for the first time Kendath saw past her stoic veneer. All this time, he'd simply thought of Merrin as humble. But now that he could examine her fully and sense the wistfulness in her voice, a very different adjective occurred. Insecure? She'd always struck him as the exact opposite - true to herself, firmly anchored, like a lone beacon in the darkness.

"Faith," he mused aloud, suddenly looking at her in a different light. She seemed more human, as if she'd just lain her soul bare before him. And himself? Certainly he'd never opened his thoughts to anyone like this in eons. "Faith. I once thought it a weakness, but now I think differently. If not for faith, would I have made the same mistakes? And could you have saved the Renegade cause like you did?" A faint smile flitted across his lips. "Will faith now grant you the strength to believe in yourself?"

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