They all left the Sigyn's cottage after a dismissive hand gesture from the old hag. Milo seethed, not knowing where to let out all the anger she stirred. He walked off, unable to communicate with anyone, too absorbed with his own frustrated thoughts to give any attention to another.

He raced into the aging forest, determined to put as much distance between himself and that awful woman as he could. On top of it all it was getting extremely hot and humid around him, which did nothing to lessen his discomfort. He wanted cold air, or rain: something to cool him off.

As he walked deeper into the forest, the dense undergrowth started to slow him down. Vines and branches clung to him, as if wanting him hold him captive. He took a moment to look around and noted that the trees stood tall and proud. It was a forest he could have loved if not for the proximity to those vile Sigyns. He no longer felt sorry for them. Not after talking to their leader. They had to be idiots to let her take the lead...

The light grew scant, the canopy above stealing it all, and it could have fooled him: it almost felt like home. The Darkwood forest was even darker, but otherwise they were strikingly similar: the gnarly stems, the explosion of leaves. He paused as heard the sound of running water, traces of a smile appearing on his lips. He listened and his feet followed, landing him in front of a small waterfall. The soft sounds of the forest paired with the rushing sound of falling water cleared his mind enough to sort through the thoughts the Sigyn had forced upon him.

He knew that it was too late to just leave it all, he wanted to, oh yes, but no. He couldn't leave. They had him in an iron grip, and he hated it: hated the feeling of not having a choice. Without giving it much thought he removed his clothes and took a step into the cold pond, placing himself under the falling water. He took deeper and deeper breaths, trying to calm down. It helped. The relentless battering of water on his head and shoulders felt strangely relieving.

The stains of their hands upon his body washed away, he could handle it. He wouldn't let them get to him. The devastation of hearing a heart grow silent, Vito's heart, slowly evolved into simpler sadness. Vito lived, and he was going to live far longer than he would have if they had not tried. The blindness: Vito could still see, he could see what others could not... The fear of a new name, a new identity, no he wasn't ready to accept that yet.

"Milo?"

He didn't want to listen. He didn't want reality to barge in just yet.

"You are one strange Nyx, never thought I'd see one naked in a waterfall."

Vigilante... No, he wasn't here, he wasn't present, she couldn't really see him...

"MILO! Vito is leaving, get your ass out of there!"

Damn it!

"If you don't leave I'll throw a dagger at you!" he barked.

"Well, I've got all your daggers here so good luck with that!"

"You'd really think I would get into a waterfall unarmed?" he yelled. He threw the one he had in his hand, aiming at a tree next to her. A soft thunk sounded as it hit, and then he heard a peel of laughter. The last remains of agitation fled at the sound. He even felt a smile emerge as he peered out through the curtain of water to watch her. She was holding her stomach, laughing hard.

"Turn around!" he ordered, and she did.

He quickly got out and put on his clothes, still smiling. It was a relief to smile, more so than the cold water he just left.

"Okay, you can look," he said, and she turned around giving him a lovely grin.

"Naked in a waterfall, but still holding a dagger. I'm amazed!" she said, trying to look serious, but failing miserably. He laughed with her, and it felt good, really good.

"Let's go see that human off, he'll need some words of advice if he's to survive in Bankor," he said as their laughter turned into smiles.

"Oh, I don't think we need to worry, he'll have a Sigyn with him. Annie will get jealous, she'll have another red head to compete with!" she answered.

"Really, are they allowed to leave Westerland?"

"No, but we got in didn't we? It should be even easier to get out of here unnoticed." She was right, so he nodded.

There was a brief moment of awkwardness as they stood silent, but before it got too much she turned swiftly, indicating that he should follow. The trek back felt far longer than the walk there, and he realized that he must have walked quite a distance whilst in his mindless state. He was quite amazed that she had found him.

"You seem to have some decent tracking skills," he told her. She turned her head and shot him a smile in response.

"You did leave a fair amount of tracks to follow so it wasn't really a feat," she answered, and he found himself smiling back. It appeared that it was easier to continue smiling once you had started.

"Can't wait to be gone from this place..." she continued, and he could only agree. Had he been able to choose, he wouldn't have gone back into the settlement, but Vito deserved a goodbye and good luck.

Vigilante parted some branches before her and they left the forest behind. The brief respite the forest gave him whilst in there vanished immediately, and irritation picked up again. He saw the old Sigyn and chose to look away, he didn't need to fuel that emotion further. Instead he found Vito and Qumo, standing with a tall Sigyn. She looked young, but looks could be deceiving, he knew they lived long lives, just as the Gaians. She had a fierce look about her, and he wondered how that would play out between the two future companions. Vito hadn't been very forgiving about Vigilante's displays of aggression.

-----

"Good, you found him. Let's get this over with: I would like to continue our journey to Wyvern as soon as possible," Qumo said, restlessly. He didn't like to be here any better than the others. However, he knew they would need to stay on the Sigyns' good side, so he did his best not to show his unease.

"I'm not leaving until you've told me everything you remember of the Ayads." Vito said pointedly.

"Haven't you learned your lessons boy?" he answered, but with enough warmth that Vito only smiled in response. "Let us sit down for a moment then and I'll see what I can remember about them."

"Why don't we take this on the way? I would like to see that Vito gets across the border safely," Milo suggested. It was obviously made to find a way to leave the Sigyns behind, but Qumo didn't mind that one bit. Indeed, it was a great idea.

"Yes, I think you are right," he replied.

He turned to the Sigyn that was to accompany Vito, "Are you ready to leave?" She nodded in response, and that was that.

Half an hour later they had claimed their horses, their gear, and left the settlement with a brief goodbye and a cold nod from the old Sygin. The fierce women wouldn't help them in Westerland, and Qumo was both grated and grateful at the same time.

"What is your name child?" Qumo said to the Sigyn, realizing that they had not been presented. The mean-spirited Sygin had just dumped her with them and the girl had not spoken since, and to his own shame he had been too disturbed by events to show decent civility.

"I am Necia."

Qumo waited for her to continue, but she didn't. She pointedly looked the other way, and he let it go. Hopefully she would be kinder towards Vito.

"Will you be alright Vito?" he asked, worried that Vito's blindness would become harder to handle once they were outside of the settlement.

"I find that I can see what lies before me, it's strange, like everything glimmers with different shades, I think I'll manage to walk without falling. We'll see how the rest goes though," Vito replied, and Qumo smiled: it was very good news.

As they had put some distance between them and the settlement he braced himself to begin his story. It wasn't one he liked to tell because the wound somehow still stayed fresh in his soul. The Ayads had been close friends and allies, but neither the Nyx'gaians nor the Nei'gaians had been able to help them enough.

"The Ayads were a proud race, very intelligent whilst too aloof, sometimes thoroughly detached from their surroundings. They lived their lives, believing themselves irreproachable, and most importantly they thought themselves above the matters of man. The combination proved to be disastrous as the Human rulers both felt threatened and humiliated. Had the Ayads seen fit to care for their relationship with these men and women, none of this might have happened. As it was, the Ayads believed themselves to be safe, and did not intercept any of the plans that were forged at their doorstep. Over a single week the majority of Ayads were attacked in their homes, brutally slaughtered, many times before the eyes of their children." He paused, sadness starting to hamper his ability to speak.

"I've always wondered how humans were able to capture them in the first place, weren't they able to vanish in plain sight? Shouldn't they have been able to flee?" Vito asked.

"They took their children first, the ones that had not yet learned how to become one with the winds. They staged their attacks so carefully, had planned it so successfully that families thought the attackers were burglars, looking for valuables. As the children were threatened, they were coerced to accept ropes around their wrists and ankles. When they were fettered the burglars slit their throats. The children were treated much the same way. After those days thousands of Ayads had lost their lives, and they were gone, just like that."

"Some must have survived?" Vito continued.

"Indeed many thought that they should have, but as the last families killed themselves rather than choosing a life as refugees, it became clear that they had indeed given up after losing so many of their friends and beloved ones."

"I also have a hard time to understand why they were attacked. Surely aloofness couldn't have been the only reason?" Vito continued, clearly not satisfied with the answers he had provided so far.

"The Ayads were killed just when societies had begun to reform after the last fall of Io. After Io had abandoned the world as it stood in flames. One or two brave scholars have claimed that the Humans might have been seeking to impede Io's future return by killing off the race he had been born into time and time again."

"Do you believe that they were right?" the young man asked again, and Qumo found himself unable to answer with anything else than a shrug of his shoulders. He truly didn't know.

"My mother's story ends differently than yours do," Vigilante whispered. Qumo looked up, meeting her tear-filled eyes.

He smiled sadly, touched that she seemed to care so much for a race she had no connection to other than stories from her childhood years. "I would very much like to hear the story she told you."

"I can't tell you, I vowed never to tell anyone..." With those words she drew back, detaching herself from their group a little, but he could see tears falling down her cheeks. Her behavior was very unlike her, but he saw Milo reaching out to her, hugging her close to his chest. He heard her give off a soft laughter, and couldn't help but smile at the two of them. Clearly, he wasn't needed to comfort the crying assassin. He turned to Vito instead.

"Have you heard enough?" he asked.

"No, but you've given enough to know where to start looking," then he added, "I think they'll find each other soon." Vito inclined his head towards the two assassins, and Qumo smiled again, as always impressed by the young man's ability to truly care for the happiness of others.

"Soldiers ahead," Necia snapped, her dry voice breaking their illusion of peacefulness. An arrow lodged itself into a tree, inches to his left. It had passed close enough for him to feel it disturbing the air. Oh, he truly hated this country!