Chapter two- The start of things to come.

"Rutting fools!" The old bukka spat.

"Everyone knows the ember cannot be carried to the land of youth! Fire blasted prophecy be damned!" He hobbled forward at a pace you would not imagine possible for the wizened old goat.

Ormh was a portly fellow who had lived a life of ease amongst the records. He enjoyed his food, his flame-wine, and putting the fear of the gods into young bukka that dared to cross his path.

He had an odd shape if truth be told. Buckling knees that ached in the frost, a gnarled humpback from years spent stooping over maps, and his left eye struck fear into the younglings. His unseeing eye. that was what he called it. It was misted over and gleamed with the milky pale haze of death. Some even said that it allowed Ormh to see into the otherworlds.

Dunn followed dutifully behind his master, knowing better than to interrupt a rant. He wasn't fully sure what had upset Ormh this time, but he knew it was something to do with the councils decision to lead the last ember to Tir na Nog. They would be leaving at the new moons first rise, not three days from now.

If he was honest Dunn did not care all that much. He was gifted with enough magic to outlast the wither, or so he thought. Others his age had less gifting than him, and worked hard to be noticed by the council, they were always braying small time prophecy, or using their gift to trick humans in the hopes they would be noticed by an elder and taken under their wing.

It was a fashion at the moment to shapeshift into the most ostentatious shapes imaginable as a show of magical aptitude.

Dunn was different, from birth he was gifted with a rare talent amongst Bukka- he was apprenticed from an early age and doted on by the elders, and this in turn had made him lazy.

Ormh was a gruff old goat who had little to no patience- which is exactly why Dunn followed him around. He was adored by everyone, but only Ormh refused to treat him like a godling. At first he was annoyed by this, then he became intrigued, and finally he had grown to love the old bastard like a father.

He pushed Dunn in ways the others wouldn't, he treated him well enough, even if it was with an air of frustration- he knew deep down that Ormh trusted him. That he cared for him. In his way.

"Have you stopped to give yourself a quick tug!? Rutting youths can't spend more than five minutes without thinking about sticking it somewhere! Fire and ash! Come the rut on you wisp for brained fool!!! I am late!"

"late for what?" Dunn asked

"Late for being in time to arrive precisely when I want to arrive, which makes me late for being on time. All for your day dreaming and foot shuffling. Hurry you fool! This way!" Ormh often talked like this. Words are wind they say, and Ormh was a certified tornado of words.

Dunn picked up the pace and followed his mentor half listening, whilst humming a simple tune.

"You see, they don't know. They don't see it. Great things from small beginnings. From the acorn, mighty oaks must grow! But they are fire touched. They seek only to preserve the way it has been, not the way it might be. They don't know what it must be, or what it could be, and in denying what it could be, they are stopping it from being. You see don't you boy? You understand the things we must do. What I must do."

"Mmhmm" Dunn did not see, but he did not really care for another ramble about what must be.