Stars Over Dalaran

[Caira Ayryn]

Caira had nearly forgotten her mission, and had it not been for the scroll’s soft crinkling in her bag, slung lightly off her shoulder, the girl would’ve surely given up and somehow tried to climb back down. However, the easiest way down, was up. Funny how that kind of thing worked. But the prime tried to see this reason, and convince herself that belaying was the best option. Her stomach and mind held in suspense as the fear clenching her stomach and throat began to ebb away with the soft squeeze of her eyes. I can feel the ground, I know its there, however far down, I’m stable, my hands won’t slip again, I can make it to the top. But Caira didn’t know this, and doubt clouded her mind. Her fingers were now trembling from the cold of the air and the fright that had surged through her. Her worst fear was falling, and if she waited any longer, the girl was sure she would slip, and be delivered less-than-ideal first death.

A face was brought to mind, though fear trickled still with the droplets of water that now found themselves speckling on her nose. With her greatest will, she tried to hold on to that face. To hold the pale image behind her eyelids as she focused on all that she could sense and touch. The pounding of the water, the stability of rock, not the wind that was vigorously trying to tear her away from her perch, but the nook she found herself clinging to on the narrow steepness of the waterfall’s adjacent wall. She did not think of her own foolishness, how it would’ve been so obvious to avoid had she given it simply an ounce of thought. So easy, it would have been to avoid her fear entirely. Instead, she pictured her own face, looking back as though through a mirror. And in this face, her own, she saw the chance of victory, glimmering in her bright, violet eyes.

It was funny, with her eyes closed, the fear began to lessen. Though she could not feel her numbed fingers grasping the rock, she knew and sensed that they were there, and while she felt isolated, pushed to a ledge or cliff face and told to jump, Caira couldn’t help that find that feeling stranded, and pushed to the edge of destruction, was something of an achievement. To go above one’s limits and expectations, even when there may be a downfall, greater than one could even imagine. Caira held her breath now, and swore the horrible terrors of fright off, and they receded on command, to the corners of her mind.  

Caira was free. The tightness of her chest finally left her, and she gladly took the chance of inhaling an emancipated breath. The air filled her with new life, and the girl felt the knots in her stomach lessen, albeit they did not dissipate completely. Imbued with new strength, Caira found her muscles craving to climb to the top once more, this time, there was a chance, a good chance, that the girl would make it safely to the top, but there was no chance that she would be looking down, until she was safely there.

Before the girl knew it, she had crawled to the top, and as she clutched the edge of the flat stone surface, she sighed a breath of relief, and painstakingly heaved herself up and over the edge. “Ugh, finally...” She muttered to herself, and found she did not even notice the flood of cold water pouring over her. She had more or less found herself in the stream of water, just before it tumbled over the thirty-foot drop, however now it was as though she was the rock, for the force of the water could not move her.

...

Orbs of light hovered over her overturned palm, and suddenly the object she was thinking of took shape. A tool that would be pounded into the waterfall, and a very sturdy, magic-weaved rope, that would assure her a better venture down, than she had found up. Easily she put these tools to work, and her hands, though cold and shivering, were easily commanded by her all too calm instruction. Soon enough the rope was tightened and sturdy around her waist, and the girl was belaying down, she had seen it done in books, though some ways were better than others, it was easy enough to know that it would be harder on a slippery surface, and harder still, inside the turbulence of the waterfall. Caira hoped, that the cave was near the top, because she guessed after ten feet, the weight of gravity on the water would double if not triple, making it not only harder to hold the rope, but harder in all aspects of the descent.

Why hadn’t she sensed out for the mouth of the cave when she was climbing? Caira sighed at her obliviousness and decided that the fear and deadliness of it all was enough to distract her from the points that would have made the most sense analytically, on her mission.

Without further delay, Caira began to belay. Her hands gripped the rope, and silently she begged to them to hold on for her life, because if they didn’t, that’s what it would cost her. She took a breath, and hoped that they’d have the power and muscle to let her survive the last part of her trip. Her muscles tensed, and she grasped the rope, feeling the slight tug of it around her waist as she lightly took a jump down.

A splash of icy water trickled around her ankles, and surged up to her shins. As Caira remained idle, the stream of water continued to roll around the legs that parted it. Caira soon found it reassuring that she did not have to look down, but up, to belay. The rocks were slippery under her toes, and she was ready to inch her way down yet again, the squeak of her shoes told her the rubber soles protested against the sudden movement, yet still, Caira softly jumped down what seemed to be another foot. The water was heavier now, on her ankles, and tumbled past her with great force. It had also grown in volume, instead of reaching her shins, she now waded waist deep in the gorge of bone-chilling water. Her teeth chattered, and her fingers that had warmed up slightly while summoning the rope and tethers, had now fumbled to keep a secure hold on the rope.

Another small jump down, a foot of rope was released from the thing fastened securely around her hips, and Caira was glad she had summoned a rope enchanted to be water-resistant, because at this point, she was sure the bindings would have started slipping. Yet again, the girl’s feet pushed off the wall of rock, and this time, she got a mouthful of rushing water, and its weight pounded against all the seams of her body. Suddenly she felt a lurch in the security of her waist, fear struck her, pounded in her chest with more power than the surging water around her. Fear that she did not pound the thing holding the rope at the top of the waterfall in enough to hold the weight of her and the water, the fear that she had made another foolish mistake, the fear that she would fall once again.

...

The tightness around her eyes had been squeeze so hard, that the creases at the corner of her eyes began to ache. It kept out the water, that was good, and she could sense without her sight, but now she found that her only option was to trust the rope, which didn’t seem all that sturdy after that last thing, yet staying here, frozen like she was, seemed like the worst option of all. The tumbling of water all around her, her own hesitation, it made everything seem so loose. Will I soon fall? I will, Caira thought, If I don’t move.

One more push off the ground, and Caira’s foot missed their mark. She swung as though on a swing and braced herself as her skull knocked into a wall of rock, while her feet no longer made contact with anything. Seeing stars, Caira’s vision grew blurred, and she found that no longer was she being battered and bombarded with water. Her lungs that had held her paralyzed breath began to ease with relief and with this exhale, an intense ache began to form on her forehead.

Though, through it all, she knew she had found it, the gaping mouth of the cave.

With her ears still ringing, Caira rubbed the pain from her forehead and descended closer to the floor, thankful that suddenly the roar of the waterfall seemed less thunderous, and that she had fallen under its veil, save for the small trickle that dribbled down from the line of her rope. Loosening the clip around her hips, she slowly was let down until her weary feet met the ground. She stepped out of the belt like she was getting undressed and left it there, hanging at the mouth of the cave, as the Prime dared to venture into the darkness, in order to find the truth.

...

Black, fabric-covered legs took her far, and as the elite technology was adjusting to the newfound air, it began to dry her clothes in no time at all. She warmed up, thanking the Coruscantian tech, and wiggled her toes to bring back the feeling in them. Caira could sense out the shape of the cave in the darkness, but she decided it was safer to summon her own source of light. After a moment, there was a bright, beaming light shining down from her palm, one that illuminated the rigid cave walls, which seemed to gleam and shimmer with the fresh light.

It didn’t seem as though the darkest corners of this ... place, had seen sun in ages, for it was murky, and smelt dank and of mold. The scent of moisture was potent as it reached her nose, which crinkled at the sudden rank smell, so much that she could not wipe the taste from her tongue. She gagged, yet continued onward, the dark walls of the cave illuminated as she walked by, and Caira thought that the whole place looked alien, and gave her an eerie tingling feeling creep up to her nervous hands.

After a small amount of walking, she assumed that the walls had been charmed, yet again, reminding the girl who had spent too long in the dunes, that she was in Camelot once more. From the outside, the stone carrying the waterfall had appeared to be a pillar, high and steep on all sides, but on the inside, there was an endless expanse of space, one that made her legs tired of walking.

On the scroll, Caira brought her light source closer to the paper’s ink, it seemed it hadn’t gotten wet, since her book bag was charmed, she breathed a sigh of relief, had it been destroyed, she would’ve had to find her own way. The girl suddenly realized that she had not even faced the worst of her problems, as she looked at the text drawing of the book, she remembered that it was in fact, cursed.

“How am I supposed to even touch it?” she found herself asking to the empty echoes of her own voice. She tread on, pausing every so often as she heard a suspicious creak or click, rebound off the walls. After assuring herself that there was no danger, she nodded to herself and carried on. If she stopped the entire way, who knew how long it would actually take to get to where the book was actually located?

Click clack, click click, click clack.. the sound of her footsteps meshed with the dribbling of water, trickling from who knows where. She could no longer hear the rushing of the giant wave overhead, so Caira assumed she was very far into the cave. It was getting monotonous, her trek across the stone rock that seemed as though the hole she was standing in had either been cut out by some kind of immense explosion, or had been touched by magic. Suddenly, Caira’s mind went to the pegasus she had left just sitting there, and the guilt of leaving the creature prey to the beasts of the night left her shoulders hanging lower than the fatigue that was effecting her.

A misplaced step on a very uneven surface and the knight was now falling -no- slipping -no- sliding down a strange tunnel. Her heart lurched to her throat, and her fingernails rushed to the walls desperately, hoping to find a ledge or askew edge that would allow her to slow down. The speed was immense and soon it carried her to a slow halt, as if by magic, and again, as though by magic, she was where she needed to be.

The book with a leather bound cover and a single strap clutching its white teeth together. The pages were frayed around the somewhat protected corners, and around it’s levitating form, Caira noticed a distinctive indigo aura surrounding it.

Slowly, she approached.

A single step, however, was all it took for the unknowing girl to trigger a booby trap. Arrows sprung out from the walls, and a voice thundered from all around, booming from the roof, walls, and floor, with only one word of forlorn warning, “BEWARE!”

...

“Tch.”

The girl grimaced and strained her eyes to get a glimpse past the shadows that covered the distance between her and the oh-so-coveted book. She thought the booby traps were a little cliche, and now realized why Marty had not send his best friend to retrieve the book for him. This really had been a dangerous mission, even if she had been able to foresee all the circumstances surrounding acquiring the book, she would still have to have the means to execute everything she had already done. In fact, Caira thought knowing she would’ve had to climb that cliff was enough to make her not want to do it, since she didn’t think she could anticipate her own fear very well, she was glad to have overcame the obstacle in the moment.

Yet now, she had to focus on this moment. How she would overcome this obstacle.

Letting her eyes sweep the room once more, Caira saw one rock on the floor that looked out of place, “An obvious trap,” the girl noted, and decided maybe it would be best if she slid something like a rock across the floor to trigger anymore. Then, she staged it out in her mind exactly how she would grab the book -that is, without- being assumably cursed upon touch. The solution to this was simple. Gloves.

-

In her freshly gloved hand, she held a bouncy ball, it was heavy, like a bowling ball, to simulate the weight of a normal human being... Or at least, her own weight, whether mages counted as humans or not was the least of her concerns in this thickening plot of danger.

The ball rolled along the craggy ground and bordered the edges of the mini mountains in the ground. As it sauntered along, as though perusing the isles of a grocery store with no particular item in mind, the ball’s weight triggered the next booby traps, resembling that of a domino effect.

Spikes erupted from the ground, serrated and shining as they threatened to chomp down on bone. The trap was sprung together from the ceiling and the floor, with tremendous force, like two great jaws, coming together on the maw of a beast. Following this crescendo, was the shhhhinck! of a blade coming forth from the wall and swinging out in the motions of a pendulum. Lastly, the floor fell away on the ground just before the book, and with it, her ball, which left a large, gaping hole in some seemingly less-than-sturdy rock floor.

Caira used all that she knew, and remained aware as she formed a defense and braced for the worst. She stepped over the giant spikes, around and lower than the pendulum-blade’s reaches and finally stopped at the edge of where she knew the ground would no longer be safe to walk. About ten feet away from this cliff, was the book, hovering over the ground as if it was sitting on an alter, waiting to be grabbed, read, and technically, stolen. The thought hadn’t occurred to the girl until now, but after all those traps, she certainly felt like a thief, taking what she felt the warning voice had told her to “beware” of.

Still, Caira could jump pretty high if she put her mind to it, and her body crept low, poised for the lunge not up, but forward. If the rest of the ground was destined to fall, Caira could aways try to throw a punch into a wall on her way down, she wondered if it would be worth the trouble to summon a parachute and the more cautious side of her doubtful mind promoted this notion.

With her legs ready to jump forward, the prime’s feet were quickly launched off the ground, her hands aimed and adjusted in the air, due to the trajectory that was carrying her. The gloves extended outward from her torso as she grabbed the still object while she was still straddling forward mid-air. The rush any amount of height gave her a perpetuated sense of time, rocks flew as if in slow motion, and with their raining clatter, so was her body still stranded among their barrage.

Rock against rock. The dissonance of the fall rang into the air, though the girl herself could not hear it. Her gloved hands grappled around the book, and once clasped, tightened in a way that would assure the book’s fate, one that was tied to her own. It was only then that Caira could really get a good idea of what was going on. Rocks fell from the ceiling, triggered by her weight, motion, or simple presence in the space around the book. It was a good booby trap, for Caira had no idea how to go about avoiding the heavy tumble of her certain doom.

Rage-filled thunder quaked in the air around her, and Caira did her best to dodge the boulders in her abrupt vicinity. Sharp, piercing prods pounded into her skin and felt as though they dug deep into her bones, and tore at the thick layers of her skin. Caira grated her teeth and shut her eyes, so as to not lose one amongst this utter chaos. Chills. Twisting in the air, Caira felt a familiar flutter in her stomach as her hands grappled with the sides of the wall that continued to lead in the only direction she didn’t want to go: Down.

The rock walls were slippery, and Caira had accumulated some speed on her way down, momentum that would not let her stop and grab so easily to the wall, not that she had a chance to, with her oven-mitt sized gloves. She grappled with the wall and felt herself spin upside down, the air was a good medium to maneuver through, however the girl had nearly lost control of her body, and her sense of serenity. The tremendous helplessness of the familiar fear was slowly creeping back into the light of her mind.

Caira felt a sudden splash of blood freckle across her face as she twisted to get the rest of her body out of the way of the boulder that was swiftly on its way down, ready to devour the rest of her body like it had broken the bones in her left leg. Only now did she hear the crack as well as the gentle squish of ruptured vessels and freshly splintered bone.

Inches. Seconds. They were everything. There was nothing in between. Nothing but those two things that would allow her to avoid being crushed to death, while still suspended in air and time. Adrenaline had numbed the pain, for the time being, yet Caira had a feeling that it would all come cascading back, as soon as the intense ringing in her ears was whisked away. Her body had turned and swiveled, as the colossal stone rushed by her. It scathed her skin enough to draw fresh lines across her black attire. Beads of blood flew upward, speckling her more as they flew upward, compared to the direction gravity inevitably took her.

Now, however the large rocks had passed her, and she was hanging amidst bowling ball sized stones. Now was as good a time as ever, to deploy her parachute. She wasn’t even sure it would work, and surely, it would be torn through, but Caira had little choice, and she knew it. Soon she would plummet to her death, and her leg was still badly injured, so whatever plan she had invented that regarded grappling the wall seemed more or less impossible now.

Angling her body would be easy, since she didn’t have to be exactly vertical, yet simply a lazy horizontal. This would take little effort and put less pressure on her blood-spurting leg. She did this with ease, and her body soon fell flat as a bed. Her heartbeat climbed in her ears as she gulped down sand and rock alike, and was forced to face the thing she feared so much. The darkness of doom that was... Falling.

One.

Her spattered fingers enclosed in thick fabric wrapped around the hold of the parachute. There was a steady beating of drums in her ears, it was so loud, she could not tell their origin.

Two.

She felt it in her hands, round, hard through the glove and her fingers tightened. Not loosen their grip.  

Three.

Caira fired it off, and it burst out of her back like the sparks of a firework, tremendous wind was released into the air, and a shockwave flung some of the lighter rocks away from the chute’s gracefully curved canopy. Air caught the underbelly of the parachute with ease, and while punctures were still made through the fabric, and rocks fell too near to her head, Caira felt a great sense of security to know that her rate that she would have reached the ground was suddenly cut very short.

Slow. Things were going slow now. Slow compared to the fast-paced falling of rock and certain death. Caira heard the pace of the drum calm in her ears, which were instead filled with the scraping of the edges of the round, red and white striped jelly-fish shaped cut of cloth as it collided with the side of the wall. The fabric dragged in the air behind her, and along the stone-edged cliff face. A string was torn. Two. Three.

Caira dangled nervously as she watched the strings binding her little harness to the giant hand cupping the air, now with far too many holes in the design to do anything but tangle her where she hung.

In her other hand, she too held death. The book, she had nearly lost it several times, yet it still remained there as the air streamed through the fresh holes above her, distinguished and large, like that of a cheese-grater. The slow arch of her fall was now perpetuating like that of a slowly accelerating car. Her direction was out of control, and if the girl did not do something, she would soon crash face-first into the ground. Originally, the parachute had quelled her worries, but now they were the source.

RRRRRIIIIIIPPPPPP!

Caira’s worst nightmares burst to life as violet eyes watched the parting of ways of both halves of the center of fabric, torn so certainly across the middle, like a broken heart.

...

Streams of air swirled around her, her arms flailed, yet still Caira managed to hold onto the book with an extension of a single set of her firm fingers. The other hand however, had lost its glove, she felt the cool flow of air around her hand, until a rock crashed into it, and was tossed gently on its way back toward the ground. The helpless, hopeless girl could sense the ground growing near. A light could be seen now at the bottom of her dismally dark doom, ironically, it was white.

Strangely enough, she hadn’t yet screamed. She saw the inevitable unroll before her as harsh as its stoney reality could be. Yet she faced this death, with the way she had always been. Hopeful, sure, she was afraid of falling, yet, new life had a way of renewing lost dreams. Sure she would have failed, but she would have the opportunity to come back, she assumed, with new life. Caira could get the book, dig it out from underneath the certain rubble, and deliver it to the old man.

It was all possible. It was all probable. Sure, opportunity looked bleak when death was the only outcome of falling to one’s death.

The girl readied a charge in her fist, because maybe she could brace her fall by creating a shockwave in the earth, but she doubted it would be powerful enough to do what she the speed of her body told her was nearly impossible. Still, the light grew in and around her free hand, and Caira grew nearer and nearer to her own oblivion.

...

Instead of closing her eyes, Caira challenged herself to keep them open. For too long she had been blinded by fear, and she would not die that way, even if it was said to not be a permanent fate. The girl watched as it came. The ground slowly grew. Her eyes quickly widened. She was not ready to die, no matter how much she had convinced herself she had been, yet, there was nothing to do. The rocks around her were small and would only wiggle in the air when she touched them. Panic leaped from her heart, she had imagined a noble death, and this was not one the knight was willing to accept.

I will not lay down and let death take me. Her thoughts fought, her mind pleaded, but still, there was no savior of a thought that would allow her to live, or deliver her from her most current crisis. She shook her head disdainfully. How could this have happened? No. She wouldn’t fall into that void of self-pity ever again. That bastard had taken enough from her.

“Screw this.” Caira felt her fist round and extend downward, into where the ground would surely be within another fraction of a second. There was a burst of color and sound. Vibration radiated everywhere, magic collided with rock, which collided with more rock. Crevices tore into the ground in a spiderweb of cracks. Breakage of stone which she had created. The impact had created a significant shockwave, which she had bounced her entire body back from its inevitable landing on the ground, and drove her straight back up into the air. Lighter, this time, Caira had just ten feet to fall and her flank welcomed the ground, and the pain along with it, like it was an old friend.

Nothing, save her left leg was broken. The cursed book had been flung aside, Caira had valued her life more than the security of the book, but while that was partly true, she took the calculated chance that the book would survive a small drop more than her own bones would, and had released it with intent to grab it when she had landed.

The ground was sweet, gravity’s stability was even sweeter. She lay there, rocks the size of coins tumbled and poured from the cave’s ceiling far, far above her. Her appendages had sprawled out, and Caira’s lungs had taken only a single breath before a sharp throbbing brought her to life once more. Foot. Bone. Blood. The information streamed back into her mind, and then she remembered the all too terror-filling sqqqquiiiisssh of her own leg as a rock had crushed it.

“Ouch... Tskk.. God...” the girl muttered under her breath and bit hard into her lip in order to stop the agony-fueled tears from forming. Too late. They began to stream down her cheeks as though they knew how sharp the menace of reality actually was. There was no mirage to relieve the pain. If only there was some way to lessen it, then she would not be so consumed by the rage of emotions waging inside her, from regret, to spite, to the very extend of utter vexation.

More bloody than her wound, perhaps, was that of her ego. It had been smeared and tainted by her own too-faithful confidence in herself. Caira breathed out a gust of air and sucked one abruptly back in. She continued to do this for some time, and after so much of it, Caira had realized she was glad to be alive, glad to have endured and overcome, and glad that she had done the impossible. The girl placed a hand a few inches from her injury and focused some magic, which welled up powerfully in her hands.

In no time, the wound was healed, and Caira was able to hobble to the mouth of the cave, where light streamed in. She whistled for the pegasus to return to her side as her eyes swept around the scattered debris for the remains of the aura-illuminated book. Once it was in her hands, and her leg adequately braced, Caira was mounted on her steed and set off to deliver the deadly prize of her journey that had so far, nearly cost her her life.

...

“So, when will she be back?” Marty calmly inquired to his companion Moony, who was on the other side of her small table, clothed in distinguished scarlet.

“I don’t know,” her voice wavered as her glass-like eyes shimmered upon the glowing white orb that was her crystal ball, “I don’t even know if she’ll be back. It’s like you said Marty, that book’s curse is more powerful than you can imagine. What point was it, to get the girl to do that if she died trying? Why not just leave the bloody book there where it’s most safe?”

“Safe? If you call that deathtrap safe, you’re wrong. Once and a while, a person or prime with the right skill set will catch wind of the book’s location and notoriety, he or she will come along, and have an unearthly power to phase through walls or teleport. This is why I sent the girl... Ayryn you say her name was? She will be able to get it, and if not, she has the same determination in her eyes when I was sent here, I felt I was destined for glory, for triumph, for-” Marty caught the look in Moony’s eyes, it was a scowl aimed at him, sourced from a deeper concern about Caira’s health and safety.

Marty stumbled on his words, cut off by the power in his fortune-telling friend’s eyes, “Well, I knew she had the right kind of heart that would allow her to overcome the utterly impossible challenge I gave her.”

Moony’s expression was a glare now, and a plainly written, “She could be dead.”

“Even so,” he continued mildly, as if Moony hadn’t given him the cue of where to lead the conversation, “If the girl doesn’t get it on her first try, we won’t see her again unless she has the book, or gives up, in which case we will never see her face again.”

“Marty, you’re talking about a girl’s life!” proclaimed Moony, obviously the more morally just of the two.

“She’s a Prime! This kind of stuff is what they do!” he protested back, obviously a bit more what Moony would call ‘morally challenged.’

“Prime or not, there’s a thousand different curses on that bloody bewitched book, what if she accidentally touches it?! Those consequences would last her for eternity simply because she’s a prime!” Moony’s reason overcame the astronomer’s stubbornness, who had now adopted a gaunt look of shock, one that allowed his pale skull’s outline to practically be seen through the aged skin of his face.

Marty inherited the eyes of a puppy, wounded and dipped his chin as he stammered, “Well I-”

“Well, you better give that girl what she deserves if she comes back.” If. This word sounded so absurd on a fortune teller’s lips, for usually, it was scarce on her tongue and more sparse on her mind.

“Now, Moony, you know such secrets are not simply mine to give, they belong to all of us.” Marty tried to reason with the woman he had known for years, yet he doubted it would make any difference, for now it was Moony who had that determined gleam in her eye.

Marty stirred some more cream into his bottomless cup of coffee, while Moony’s teapot served her a steady stream, floating in the air, and never spilling or spattering a drop. They both wondered where the girl was, what trials she was facing, and how soon she would return home. It had been several days, and no word of hawk or owl had come with news. Neither Marty, nor Moony had said it, but it was both on their minds. What if she had died?

Or worse.

What if, the book like no other, with life-defying curses like no other, had banished her to the Underverse upon a single touch. So many what ifs for Moony to juggle in her mind, she certainly preferred the ability to see the outcome of events as they formed in her gifted third eye. “So Marty, what will you do with the book when you get your... Hands on it.”

The woman’s word choice was colorful, and each of them seemed subtly amused, Marty had a special twinkle in his eye, “Well, assuming the curses can be removed, and even if they can’t, I’ll take the adequate precautions and read it.”

“That simple, huh?” Moony’s pupils looked like moons, and her neck spun around from their conversation to the entrance at the door.

“What are you...” Marty trailed off. He too, felt it. A dark ominous energy approaching. It pulsed in their mortal ears with a swell of power that consumed the whole Dalaran block. The convulsing of energy pounded in their ears and drowned out not only the soft clunk of boots ascending wooden steps, but also the soft tapping at the door.

“S-sounds like... Someone’s at the door...” Moony heard her own voice absently, “I better go... Go an’ get it...” The woman stood up, blinked, yet the fog was now heavy and her eyes were as clouded as smoky crystal.

The door unlatched in front of Caira, who could not be distinguished as the same woman. Her skin had not seen sunlight for days, so it shimmered with a pale gray light, and emitted a cold chill to anyone who were to look at her. The girl’s black, skin-fitting attire was torn in almost every place, save the indecent areas, and the glossy fabric no longer appeared black, but instead, was covered in a silvery substance that had dried. The same silver of her blood. Not that anyone looking at her would know that the metallic liquid had come from her gory wounds, some of which had healed relatively well, others however, stayed gray in scabby mounds and deeply cut gashes.

A non-responsive blink. Caira found her eyes studying Miss Moony’s face. What was wrong? It was almost like the two Dalaran inhabitants didn’t recognize the girl. It was Marty who moved faster, and before Caira knew it, he had snatched the book from her hands and covered it with a black bag. It must have been equally bewitched with protectants, because Moony suddenly came around to what was happening and sized the girl up for a second time, this time, recognizing and embracing her. “Oh my goodness dear, what has happened to you?”

“Seems your vision is still clouded, Moon,” Marty seemed a bit worried now, but was not willing to express it plainly.

“Dear girl, look at you, covered in all that blood. Are you alright? What happened?” the words were alien on the woman’s tongue, but she could not see the future where the book was involved. Something that would prove to be a powerful spell and object, if it ended up in the wrong hands.

“I uh...” Caira looked down, quite painfully, at the splint on her leg, and the sizable craters all over her skin. Finally she settled for, “It’s a long story.”

...

“I’m sure it is, I’m sure it is!” Moony’s words were oddly reassuring, like that of a mother Caira had never known.

Meanwhile Marty held the black case in his hands eagerly and peered through the part in the fabric. The old man was hobbled over his treasure, in his wheelchair the sunken shoulders seemed taller than half of his neck, his beady eyes would not leave the precious prize. It was one that would never be paid by any weight of gold, but the risk in the chance a burglar was willing to take to get it. The astronomer’s eyes continued to glow brilliantly, like they were lit with the very light he was so used to, through a telescope. Scraggly, pink arms surrounded it as though protecting the enchanted book from any imposing evil. He however, was blind to the fact that the most evil would be that caused by the book.

Caira straightened after Moony’s embrace. Not much else was to be said. The Prime, however, had a distinct curiosity about the book now, and proclaimed, “I want to know that the contents of the book, nor its power, will go to the wrong hands. And after everything I went through,” she looked down again, hoping to make Marty feel guilty, “I want to know what’s inside.”

“A reasonably request,” Marty muttered, “I may grant it, that is, if I can read it.”

“You mean to tell me you don’t know what’s inside?” Caira exclaimed in disbelief, a flourish of anger flared weakly in her stomach.

“Well, I know what is supposed to be in there,” Marty professed, “But not many have been able to hold this book in their hands, and even fewer know of its existence, or the extend of its power.”

“How does an object like this even happen to be in the Omniverse?” Caira asked, someone could have summoned it, or Omni himself.

“Only Omni knows,” a phrase well-used by all Omniversians, “But, I suppose the trade has been complete, more or less. Girl, why don’t you go upstairs and get cleaned up, and how are your wounds, as a Prime, should they not have healed in the time you took to tell us everything that happened?”

“Well by that logic everything should have healed on my journey back,” Caira gulped down the vague memory of flying on the back of the pegasus, for once she had been too weary to be afraid, and her muscles too weak to protest. Nothing had been within her power. In fact, she was barely standing. Yet, she saw the look in the old man’s decrepit eyes and was suspicious of his greed, for all humans were not raised with a monk’s restraint as she, “How do I know you won’t be off with the book then, while I’m washing up. You’ll have had what you wanted, and I won’t have gotten to see what was inside, nor the information you promised about the location of the other stars.”

Suspense hung high in the air, and the astronomer held her in it, as though she were grappling with gravity itself. “Indeed you have journeyed far and wide, and face a treacherous battle against your challenge, but do you really want to know one of our most precious secrets?”

Caira blinked, the answer was obvious wasn’t it? And yet, a feeling crept into her very bones and sat uneasily in the stony pit of her stomach, the knight of Camelot looked up to the man, ferocity in his eyes, it sounded like he had decided to tell her, but this too could have been the final test, depending on her answer, everything from the tone of her voice to the expression that framed her eyes would be evaluated, and finally, Caira swiftly took a breath, allowed her eyes to shine like daggers and slice through the air, as her voice, steady and unwavering spoke the only two definite words she could muster.

“I do.”