Vampires, drakes, and infidels, oh my.

The first thing I remember upon waking- or, kind of waking- is being able to see when I shouldn't. I was in a box, and it should have been pitch, but I could see, if not well, and there was a voice. It kept telling me to wait, and, not yet, and frankly, I was getting impaitent with laying there.

Then suddanly there was pain and I couldn't see anymore, and the lid was being tugged off my box after I pounded to let anyone outside my box know I was awake and pissed off and wanted out, even if whoever was out there wasn't someone I should let know I was awake. In fact, the person who yanked up my lid turned out to be a very small child who also just happened to be a vampire.

I was, absurdly, not shocked, though I pulled my dagger on her. She pointed and told me that was who I should be fighting.

That turned out to be what looked like another vampire creature made of some kind of brain-matter.

And for one moment I was terrified. I've gotten used to Big 'N Scary things wanting to eat us by this point, and in comparison, this thing, that seemed to be ignoring Ann and I- for I could see Ann, sitting up in a box near mine- for the most part, was about a nine and a half on the Freaky As Hell Count, but not anything that was worse then, oh, I don't know, say for example a giant, half-rotten vampire in the land of the dead, 'gaurded' by other, smaller vampires that looked like that wanted to rape you or eat you or both. Or neither, which is even more freaky.

Frankly, Primov's 'brothers' give me more chills then Primov himself.

No, this thing, as far as I can remember, shouldn't have been anywhere near as mind-blowingly frightening as that ordeal, but I was about twice as frightened as I had been then. And in that moment, the thought I had now makes my stomach tie itself into itty-bitty knots of nausia.

I thought about Damon, and I don't mean wistfully or angrily. I mean, as if I'd not forgotten him. I thought that I had to get out of this and get back to him, because he would have fought like hell to get back to me.

I am just going to sit down and cry. Son of a bitch.

No. Absolutly not. I've made my choice, I've made up my mind, and my subconciouse is not allowed to start confusing me again!

I like that curse, 'son of a bitch'. One can manipulate it to fit any situation, depending on how you speak it.

I have the vaugly disturbing feeling I'll have cause to use it alot in the very near future.

Anyway, up I got my little ol' self and in I charged, Damon or not, fear or not. And when we had the thing, just when we had him- the vampire child apperantly in charge stopped us from killing it. Him. Whatever. It seemed to be a strange matter of honor, of a sorts. I'm sorry, honor is all well and good, but I'm not used to letting something scary and mean walk away.

Not willingly.

But that is what these kids wanted, so we let him go. And the minute he went, so did all thoughts of my husband. The kids took us through the sewers to get us out of the city- and I tell you what, we had a near miss with that little beauty, with all of us playing tug of war with Meyone against this gaint-black tentical THING that grabbed him for a second time and tried to drag him away. We got him back, though, and as we recovered, questioned the kids. We found out that Aveendale had been like this for a long, long time- a city of mindless drones walking around, with very little people who were capible of thinking for themselves but could do nothing about it, terrorized by this black thing that had attacked us- and that was just one of many.

These attack had been the whim of their sire, it turned out, or they were pretty certian, at any rate; and the kid said he'd let the- thing- man- go because it was 'right'. He seemed pretty intense about doing things because they were right.

We said our good-byes, and they slipped back into the city; I found my anger at Meyone for nearly killing himself had spluttered and died out in the time we'd taken to talk to the kids, and the verbal slap I wanted to offer had turned to putty in my mouth. Ah, well, it's Ann's place to repremiand her big, strong body gaurd, anyway.

Oh, that could be taken an entirely naughty direction, if I'd picked a differant way of phrasing it. Allow me to giggle privatly for a moment.

I'm better.

Oh, what? She's allowed to tease me mercilessly and I'm not allowed to return the favor? After the number of poteinally embarressing situations I have suffered through thanks to a certian elf, I am going to milk this for all it is damn well worth.

Anyway, we crept up in the direction those kids had told us to move, and found yet more brainwashed people and gaurds blocking our way out. Meyone thought to bully-boy our way through; Ann and I thought a distraction might be in order. But for now, we went back down to the feild we'd popped out on and slept.

The cows woke us.

The oh. Well, we're just in a lovely bundle of shit now. thought brought me, at least, fully awake.

In the end, it turned out we could use the cows. Ann had the idea to start a stampede, and Meyone and I both took to it instantly.

Sadly, we all got seen.

Strangly, those who had seen us let us go.

We took advantage of our temporary good luck- with us, good things don't last too long- and ran for the hills. We didn't stop until we came upon a small refugee camp of others who had fled from Aveendale, or stopped people from entering. The man there knew very little of Fera or anything we needed to know, really, and was in the long run less useful then more information-wise, but he told us his grandfather was a 'dreamer' as well, and had spoken of this 'stone eye'.

We stayed with these people for the night, and told them- or rather, this man- our ideas and theries regarding the stone eye and Jhonna. I just hope we didn't give them false hope.

None of us know, really, what's going to happen, even if we do figure all this out. And while we're starting to be able to see the picture, it's missing some pretty big chunks and up for interpritation.

We left the next day, pretty damn content with ourselves. We'd gotten out of that mess alive and we, hopefully, had some information for Jhonna. We were nearly to Fera, and with any luck, we'd be gone in a matter of days.

I'm more curiouse then ever to find out more about my little pretty rock after everything that's happened. And yes, I did say 'my'. It wound up in my pack, and while I'm sure that's just how things happened, there's no real reason for it, I'm still a touch possessive of it after carrying it around all this time. My responsibility, just like us winding up on this lovely little dream spot in the first place.

But like I said, good things? Good luck? They don't stuck with us too long. And when we nearly got home free, a dark shadow passed over head- one, I belive Ann said, she'd seen before- and a drake and it's rider swooped down and asked us to play.

And it would have been so rude of us to say no.