Lake Austin

Time: 11am CST (12 noon EST)

Location: Britain Hall

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Marouk stood and stared at the night sky.  There was a long chill in it that ran down the length of his fingers and crawled along them to his shoulders.  It seeped into them and bleed into the bone.

Behind him a shadow moved and it came into the moonlight.  Hard shimmering scales fell upon the ground as they shed.  “Have you told them what you  learned yet?”  The voice spoke, the ground trembled as it did, and moved beneath the massive clawed pillars.

“Not yet.”  He pulled the hood over his face tighter, so that only the slightest bit of skin remained, and his breath the only evidence that anything really lie beneath the heavy cloth.

Large speckled eyes came into view as the clawed thing moved out into the middle of the Mongbat village.  Time Without Dreams looked down at the other Weld in his black cloth and magically transfigured human skin.  “Why do you stay as such?  You as dark as the sky, more midnight than the night sky itself.  A shade of pales and sunlight now, the two of you both.”

He looked up at Time Without Dreams.  “The books are as small as these hands, they fit better into them.  What were we before if not closer to them?  Do you remember?  If you remember you will not say.”  Marouk stared sharply at the larger Weld, that took several steps back as he had spoken the words.

“You talk more like she does all the time.”  Time Without Dreams responded curtly.

“You do not approve?”  The voice slipped from the hooded robe.

The other tilted his great scaled head with it’s rainbow speckled eyes.  “A leader must question, he must not just approve of things but understand.  You would not understand it yet, perhaps she will tell you when you do.”

Marouk let a sly curve cover his lips, shaping his mouth.  “So she does know.”

The other shifted a bit and the long tail of it brushed against a tree scraping some of the bark onto the ground.  It spilled into the silent night and made audible thumps as it landed on the dirt.  “Too clever now.”  A large puff of air blew some of the dirt aside as the great Weld let out what sounded like a large sigh.  Whether it sounded tired or disgruntled, the one in the robe could not tell.

“I will tell them when I should.  Just like she will tell me when she should.”  He pulled the hood tighter as the cold chill washed over the length of his back beneath the cloth, sliding down the middle, pressing against the spine.  Marouk shivered and then turned toward the fire, making his way closer to it.

Behind him the great shimmering thing merely slumped farther to the ground, content to slumber in the cold.