A Sunless Dream

Rage was an emotion typically an outlier from the range of attitudes that Kai had displayed to the cohort, even in the direst battles against foes far stronger not once had he been pushed to such rage. However, the look in his eyes caused both Effie and Nephis to step in front of Cassie fearing an attack from the ethereal looking saint.

Holding up her hands in a placating fashion, Effie tried to calm Kai down by asking him to breathe slowly. Although this turned out to do more harm than good as time passed for further the rage, he possessed tripled. Unable to contain himself any further he continued "You caused the man to hurt himself! You robbed him of his freedom!" he punched the wall of the building, causing it to tremble under the force he possessed.

The air around him seemed to bend to his will as it took the form of a three headed dragon plated in gold, flickering in and out of existence so quickly it seemed like an illusion "I'm sorry for my outburst, but I...can't look at you right now. Cassie." He turned, staring her dead in the eyes. Though her eyes were hidden behind her blindfold the darkening patches that appeared and began to grow indicated to all in the room she was crying.

"Make it right." And without another word, Kai flew out an open window quickly crossing the horizon. The cohort remained stunned in silence, even Jet's rage paled in comparison to what he had just expressed. Although he could relate to the situation much less than some of the other members of the cohort, his righteous nature could not allow him to let an injustice from his friend remain.

Her closeness to him made it much worse. He thought of himself a man who surrounded himself with people of character, however as he heard her speak his mind tried to deny the words coming out of her mouth. His flaw, however, could not allow him such respite.

Back with the cohort, Effie finally had her chance to say her piece on the matter. Although she didn't have much to say "You've heard it enough times already, so I'll cut through all the bullshit. Find the man and make things right." There was no humorous undertone in her speech rather, cold and brute honesty was all that could be detected in her tone.

After Effie's departure, Nephis and Cassie were left alone in the room. The air around them was melancholy and neither of the two had anything to say. No words of courage, no words of advice, no cold rationality to apply. The words Sunless had said to Nephis rang through her head like a church bell 'Stay the fuck away from me!' his voice was filled with fear, a carnal fear. The look in his eyes reminded her of a trapped animal who would cut off it's own arms to escape.

She couldn't allow such an injustice to remain on her conscience.

Gathering herself, she raised her hands to her eyes and felt the wetness of tears on her eyes. Had she even noticed she was crying? Why were the emotions of a man who by all rights was currently a stranger affecting her to such an extent? She had no answers to any of these questions and so the only way to respond was to move forward.

Like she always did.

"Cassie" she called out, currently her friend had fallen to her knees with her hands to her head. She was crying so much her body visibly convulsed at the utterance of her name, Nephis was unable to discern what she was muttering under her breath and so she called her name once more. "Cassie" she repeated, making her way over to her and placing her hand on her shoulder hoping her firm grip would give her the facade of possessing strength that she knew damn well she didn't have.

"You need to get up, we need to find him and do something about this" she said, it took every single ounce of her strength to force her sadness out of her tone. Slowly but surely, she pulled her friend to her feet grasping her by both shoulders, temporarily pulling her out of her stupor of sadness. "Can you help me look for him? You've already seen what he looks like" she asked, she kept her voice low as to not elicit any further emotional outbursts from her friend however it did little to calm her.

"And say what?" Cassie replied, the words were said so softly that Nephis didn't register what she had just said. Before Nephis could ask for her to repeat it Cassie joined Kai in breaking their typical emotional patterns and yelled at Nephis "And say WHAT!" she screamed, there was nothing she could offer him, and she'd be lucky if he didn't attempt to kill her on the spot.

Joining his life again would be selfish. She had made him suffer enough.

Nephis was taken aback by her emotional outburst, when was the last time Cassie had yelled, at her no less? Regardless, she shook off her surprise and continued "We'll tell him we have a way out of the chain that binds him to me, try and fill in our missing memories" this idea placated Cassie slightly. Although, Nephis could tell that she wasn't completely sold on the idea. However, before she could continue Nephis felt the steps of the fire keepers running up the stairs on their way to her room.

'What could they possibly want now?' she thought to herself, though her annoyance was not aimed at the survivors of the forgotten shore. Her ire was not something that could be removed simply through rationality right now, she needed a goal or something to take her mind off the extreme injustice that plagued her conscience.

Hearing the gentle knocking on the doors, she motioned for Cassie to gather herself in her bathroom and turned around rubbing her face once more to remove the redness from her eyes. "You can come in." She said, her voice so stoic it would take an extreme expert to be able to discern her true feelings.

Nephis turned around and was greeted with the sight of two fire keepers who looked like it took everything to remain on their feet in her presence. Before she could ask them for the purpose behind their visit, they had already began speaking "Anvil, King of Swords has designated us on a mission to assess the strength of a man within God Grave called 'Lord of Shadows' and if he is a threat, we are to eliminate him. He is currently located in the death zone which is highly populated with great beasts, and we are ordered to proceed with caution" he finished.

Although she attempted to resist the urge to raise an eyebrow, her attempts quickly failed as she thought curiously of the man who called himself the Lord of Shadows. Amongst awakened, there was not a large amount of people who possessed abilities relating to shadows and amongst them there was only one in which she could think of...

Was Sunless.

Supressing her desire to express her excitement, as well as fear at the prospect of coming into direct confrontation with the man she simply gave them a nod which was all that was needed to signal them to leave. Times of departure did not need to be discussed after all, she was Changing Star. She decided when it was time to leave.

Making her way into the bathroom she found Cassie washing her face looking into a broken mirror. Shards of glass surrounded her and Nephis was certain she would have been cut if not for her transcendent powers, although she almost certainly knew what had happened it would have been bad manners to not ask anyway "What happened here?" she asked, Cassie looked up at her with frustration written all over her face.

"It's Mordret, he wishes us a happy trip to God Grave."