Raeger had started her quest with the intent of finding a good story or three, and now it seemed she'd found one.

It was a nameless city, so dank and dark that her torch did nothing but twinkle merrily like a tiny star, while the shadows and the weight of the mountain pressed down on her. Ky was curled around her waist and shivering. He might have been cold, or just scared. Ferrets could be notorious cowards at times.

At least he hadn't wet himself. Yet.

All in all, it wasn't such a bad place. Grand, cracked towers reached into the darkness, bone-like, and majestic mansions peered down at her with their broken-window eyes. Echoes whispered constantly with the sound of her progress and that of her companions. The air was a little thick, and the smell of decay definitely left something to be desired, but the interior of the city was much warmer than the spot Claira chose for their camp, so it seemed like a better idea to cut her losses and not complain.

She would admit, though - someday - that Claira was right and maybe she shouldn't have run so far ahead. That was a graveyard she she was coming up on, and a ruined chapel rising out of the rows of cracked and crumbled tombstones.

Dead end. No pun intended. And another broken cross.

There were stories about broken crosses and old, creepy churches. They usually involved vampires, shrill noblewomen, and heroes in shining armor who saved the day.

Raeger paused when she reached a section of the road that wasn't so crumbly and scratched Ky through her shirt absently. The only signs of life were the echoes of her friends' curses and the clatter of stone that marked their passage. The knights clanked like tin pans. If anything woke the dead, it would be them.

No, no, bad thought. Bad thought. She backpeddaled, forgetting the unsteady cobblestones in her eagerness to put distance between herself and the chapel. Holy ground? Pah. That never worked in the stories, and while the graveyard looked like an interesting sort of place, maybe it would be more interesting with Claira there to blast anything that might pop up--

The bard smacked into something soft and leaped forward again with a squeak, spinning around to brandish her torch like a sword - not that she knew how to use one.

Pale face. White hands. And it wasn't Claira.

Raeger screamed, long and shrill.

All the pieces fit, but this wasn't quite the story she'd planned to see herself in.



(For Kytha. XD)