I woke up the next day, colder than ever. I had about half a dozen blankets on me, but it felt like I had none. I decided to just stick it out, and I stepped out of the hut. I held the red book from my father in my hand. I was shaking a little, but I seemed to be getting used to the cold. I held the book in front of me, and opened it. It was written in scribbles, but I could read it. It’s title was written by a thin piece of thread being stitched through the red leather cover. It said in Vinaya, “Mac Tire Kaya,” which, though it was my second language, I could not read. The first page had a beautiful pencil sketch of a coyote on it. The second had the title again, and then my father’s name: Beldas Nysiir XII, and it said, again in Vinaya, under his name “Felthred Diyn Efionyd,” which I also could not read. But the rest of the book was legible. It had basic facts about several species of  lupine creatures, such as a few species of foxes, coyotes, and wolves. And after that, facts about Lupius themselves.

“The life-span of a Lupius  is usually around three hundrred years, but before any of their kin celebrates in the bounty of our long life, heed this ware, the years are long, cold, fearful, lonely, and filled with strife.

“Hm,” I said to myself. “Dad was a real charmer.” but then I remebered something. I went to James, who was still half asleep. “Hey, didn’t you say I lived until someone killed me? And same for you and Naru?” I asked. He looked at me with one eye, and said, “I lied. Do I look ninety-three to you?” “Oh...” I said.

I walked back outside, climbed up in a tree (which was surprisingly warm) and continued reading. There were several types of Lupius: wolf lupius, coyote lupius, and fox lupius. It also had information about Nullroth, such as sketches of their weaponry and their culture. It had diagrams, charts, and notes about roughly every humanoid creature in Falacia. My father had spent a lot of time on this book. I decided I would save it for the ride to Mortha Daileth. I shut the book, slept for an hour, and then walked back to the freezing cold shore where our boat was docked. It was a small commercial freighter, that was already scheduled to go to Mortha Daileth. It was not of Annumreale origin, and we were allowed to stow away on it until we got to Mortha Daileth. Me and the small Annumreale were the coldest, as we shivered as we walked. But my teeth chattered loudly and my breath was shaky. Not a single sound could be heard from the Annumreale, who simply stared into space apathetically. At times he looked bald, as his hair blended right in to the snow in the background. His feet, now that I was close to them and could see better, were animalistic, like a fox’s but bigger. He walked on the pads of his feet, and the area between the balls of his feet and his ankles were bandaged. The thin fur on the back of his ears were coated in frost. He had a small lock of his hair braided in blue and green beads. I hadn’t noticed before, but he had several elaborate tattoos on his shoulders and upper arms. He had many scars along his bare back, like he was whipped. And he probably was. His lips stayed pursed and he didn’t seem to breathe. His small black nose was frozen, a thin layer of ice coating it. His hands were still bound. His ears were pierced several times. He turned his head and saw me staring. He looked at me angrily for a moment with large, yellow eyes, and kept walking. We were loaded into the boat, and we saw what we had to live with until we got to our destination. For a bed, we each had a pile of hay with a blanket, but I didn’t mind. A bed’s a bed. We all sat down, and Ebaele blessed us as he shut the hatch door. “May your journey be safe.” he said quietly, and then shut the hatch. It wasn’t dark, as we had several portholes, but still. Ebaele had said that once we were out enough at sea, we would be able to walk around upside. It was quiet, as everyone, except Ustian and I, were half asleep. James was already passed out on his pile of hay, snoring loudly. Ace just stared at a floorboard, eyes squinting in the dim light. Don was staring out the window, his eyes half shut. I got on the deck and looked around. There weren’t many people besides us, only about a dozen sailors and six ship-hands. I climbed, holding the book n my mouth, up the masts with a blanket slung over my shoulder. I finally reached it, my hands throbbing with ropeburn, and to my surprise, found a family of crows. They didn’t seem to find me much of a threat, so I took out the book, sat down and began skimming through. My father was extremely good at pencil sketches. But while I was looking through some of the back pages, a leaf  (resembling a pine sprig) fell onto my lap. It had been outlined in the book, with several notes around it. As I read them, my heart fell. It was labeled, ‘theigarim.’ actual, real, honest-to-god theigarim. The kind that killed off any hope of a loving family for James. The kind that killed the minds of both his parents. The kind that destroyed James life. I held it in my hand, and curled my hand into a fist. It crumpled in my hand, and I shoved it into the pocket of the back cover. Around the leaf’s outline, it said: “do not under any circumstances, use this. This vile, hideous flora is a killer of life, a giver of momentary release and a lifetime of pain and horrendous agony for all that care for you. I have included a sample of it in this journal as an example, as to warn yourself to stay away from it.” my heart fell again and again. Theigarim. I felt unclean holding it. So I put the book away, hid it under a floorboard in the lookout, and stared at it. Like one would stare at a rat or something unclean. I was scared of it. Scared of what it could do. It wasn’t alive, smart, or even an animal. It was just a leaf. A leaf that could destroy lives. As I stared at the vile, hideous thing under the floorboards, my mind kind of, changed. My head felt light. I was dizzy. With horror, I thought I had somehow smelled the theigarim, or touched it, or inhaled it. My mind spiraled into the hundreds of possibilities of what could have happened. Then, I shut off. I felt nothing. It was like when Elpha had helped me redeem myself. I wasn’t anything but thought. Then, slowly, I began to feel. No, I didn’t feel. I saw. I was a bystander. The world around me was grey. A still, unmoving, dead grey. Then, color seeped in to the picture, and there was motion. I was in a palace. An area of a palace that only noble blood could tread on. And from the corner of my eye, I saw a door open. And, dressed in elaborate clothes like a prince, complete with a decorative rapier, out stepped a Lupius. A real Lupius. Small, the size of a child, but with intelligent green eyes. Tawny-red fur covered it. It was looking down, as if ashamed of what it was. And I thought it was a he. It was walking, dragging it’s feet, toward me. He wasn’t quite looking at me as much as he was looking through me. When he touched me, I separated. The balance that kept me, and I was pure thought, like particles of dust, was thrown off, and when he left, I came back. When he stepped through me, I felt all of his thoughts. Felt them. Thought like, “why was I born,” and feeling of hate for everyone, especially himself. Right then, I wanted to change. I willed myself to. I had to. I didn’t care how much it would hurt, I just had to. To show him he wasn’t different. Or, more likely, to show myself I wasn’t. I followed the Lupius as he stepped down the huge staircase. And then, I realized where we were. Orathenamene. We were at Orathenamene. WHEEEEEEE–CHK-BRHOOOOOMMM!!!!!  A screaming whistling, like a girl’s scream rising to a man’s yell, a smash and an enourmous booming noise tore through the air. The chandeliers shook, the ground trembled. The Lupius screamed in terror, and ran to a window. I did too. And what I saw was one of the most horrifying things I have ever seen. As he looked upon the thing outside of the window, he said, “may the stars above guide us, when all other lights are dimmed, for that is when the stars will shine most, when all hope is gone.” he had his eyes shut, his head turned away from the window, a tear going down his cheek. He was praying. Outside of the window, an immensely huge machine, in the shape of two huge egg-shaped objects leading up to a shimmering head-like part with two huge, unmoving, razor-sharp mandibles at least a mile long, and a beak-like part in the middle of the two mandibles, covered with tiny (at least in contrast to the rest of the ship) shimmering, wings, like dragon-fly wings, and billions of bright blue eyes. Millions of larger ones covered the carapace of the ship, with six pairs of huge blue wings at the base of what appeared to be the head’s neck and two on the back of each egg-shape.

They stood vertically, veins of blue-white flowing through them with streaks of white hot energy shimmering and streaking through, with no visible concern for gravity. smooth, deep purple/black metal and two glowing blue stripes wrapping around it adorned the carapace, and the millions of tiny blue wings that shook silently moving so fast they were just a blue blur. The colossal, titanic machine was hovering silently high in the sky, shot a shimmering white ball of light onto the ground in front of us. And the scariest part was, there were at least three dozen of the titanic machines, moving silently in the foggy distance. The Lupius was thrown back to the opposing wall from the force of the impact of the ball of light. I could hear hundreds of window panes shatter from the blow, tiny glass showering the floor.. I didn’t move. I didn’t feel anything. Shards of glass whizzed through my head, and narrowly missed the Lupius. He was, after all, a child, so it was understandable for him to cry. But he didn’t. He cursed and ran downstairs, on all fours, and shouted, in Vinaya, “Gwynydd!!! Nullroth!! Celfydda!! Nullroth en Titan ofion!!” I could make out the word ‘Titan’, but the rest was intelligible to me. I didn’t seem to have control of where I went, I only seemed to float after the Lupius. He jumped over a railing, landed, and ran to a slightly fat young man in a hat. He had a striking resemblance to Menrek. “Mentredek viosloathu nydd!!!” he shouted at the man frantically. The fat man looked as if he were mad as he stared out the window, and he fidgeted with a cane in his hand. There were people visible in the town below, screaming and running. And the fat man did nothing. The Lupius began to speak in the language of men. “You fool! We are all going to die if we do not assemble the guard!” but the fat man slowly turned, his eyes bright and dim at the same time. “Sometimes it is better to die than to live, if we must live in the threat of such beasts...” he rambled pathetically. The Lupius punched him in the face, the fat man howled. “You fool. Menrek! Gather the damn guard!” but the man simply held his hand on his face, and smashed the Lupius across the face with the cane. It broke, splinters of it sliding across the marble floor. The Lupius whimpered and fell. He shook. The small Lupius spoke like an adult, when he was really only about ten or so. Menrek was about twenty one. Blood pooled around the Lupius’ head and face. It was too much for me. And with that, the image faded. The world turned back to grey, and it all faded. I needed to know what happened, or if those huge things, I think the Lupius called them Titans, would return, or even if they still existed. I hoped to God they didn’t.