Elle Fairheart

Elle Fairheart, who had headed to Highwatch to enjoy the pleasant weather, knew, not by telepathy but by knowing Korah and Leif as well as she did, that they would likely end up in Southcrest where she occasionally napped beneath the hot, midday sun. She had been far more jubilant than she had meant to when parting with them, but knew--by way of empathy--that they needed to talk and that it was likely important. More importantly, she thought they needed her to leave them to it but would most likely not ask her to as she might to them.

This was not the only reason for her decision, however. She had been quite worried about A'Rann Adams, having spent the most time with the old man on the long walk up to Jenners from where they had retrieved the trespasser, and had seen forebodings there that did not belong to Adams, nor to the demon that fled, but from something dark enough for her to keep her lips sealed lest she scared the others needlessly. And what would she say anyway? It was just a feeling, as dark as it was. Feelings often passed.

When she arrived at the top rampart that existed at the top of the Catacombs. she had seen that Harmony and Fate were combining their abilities, which rivaled if not surpassed her own. They would've seen the same things, maybe even things she had not, in the prisoner. She hated thinking of Adams as such, she cared deeply for the man and respected all that he must've gone through in leaving a life-long appointment behind that it did not feel right to do so.

Her mind raced through the possibilities. Adams was very withdrawn and excessively worrying, which was new. The man also was quite talkative--or had been before he left Oasis--yet he spoke very little and chose to stare at the space between his feet instead.

What she also knew that neither Fate Ray'Inns nor Harmony J'Tall would say a word about it to Knight-General Adam Jenner nor any other unless it became absolutely necessary to do so. She couldn't imagine a situation in which it would be, but her mind was cluttered with so much about the White Guard, but that wasn't all. There was the smaller familial bonds between her brother and Leif, and Paige and Anton, that she couldn't guarantee such an eventuality would never come.

Yet she immensely hoped that she was wrong, that she was seeing shadows that weren't there.

Highwatch was one the highest rises of the city of Oasis, not including the upper tiers of the Tree, Sysellis, with its many plateaus, all with only a small amount of space not used up by the vegetation that grew there. She found a copse of trees in which to pass the afternoon and must've either fallen asleep or had gone into a meditative trance. She couldn't be certain which.

She and Korah shared the same bloodline, and were the only two in the White Guard to do so. Paige Altern and Anton Clearheart shared a handfasting that bound their bloodlines together and, Elle liked to think she would eventually have little ones, but had no way of really knowing with any certainty, if that was destined to happen. Often it seemed it just couldn't be more than daydreaming. Being that she and Korah both were raised Ra-Borne, born of the sun, as sun-elves, they were granted their very different abilities from the sun, though Leif Starchaser, born of moon-elves had taught them the beginning of that school of magic as well.

Even after getting to know Leif better, she often reflected on the details about the man. He had taught her a great--and others in the White Guard as well--deal about the world and about being elven, despite their contrasts to the Ra-Borne.

It was through the Moon-borne spirit he had taught them that had amplified her telepathy-empathy coupling in knowing two things: something great had passed between Korah and Leif, and that was a great feeling for her. That something had passed between young Fate and Harmony similar to that of Leif and Korah was definitely something good to feel as well, it wasn't exactly a surprise. They had grown close, any fool could see.

It was when the sun had fled west that she knew these things. And that the two separate feelings came from the center of Oasis, near the base of Sysellis, and not Southcrest. In a round about way she circled the city's circumference, similar to the way that the sentinels at later times in the night did, until she had come to her small, but comfortable home; one very close to where Korah Proudheart slept, in the Duststand Citadel.

When finally she fell asleep, A'Rann Adams was slipping out of Lord Drakkhar's chambers, feeling every bit the villain he was being treated as. Elle felt this, too. She couldn't help to wonder if she was wrong, that Adams had changed in the moths he had been gone. And not for the better.