The officer who had threatened Gerardo in Cair carried Rein Bow back to the poison shop which proved that dreams really do come true... even the bad ones. The interior was entirely decorated with conserved pixie corpses, and although the shop had much more to offer, this was the only aspect that grasped Rein's attention as ruthlessly as the officer grasped her. The sadistic owner of this shop had her kind suspended from the ceiling, framed and hung on walls, cased like bugs, tied and strung together to make wreaths and garlands, displayed on shelves like porcelain dolls; they were dressed up in ruffles and bows with their faces painted in ways that were unnatural for pixie-kind, and altogether the scene was really quite horrific. If Rein had been searching for comfort at all, she most certainly would not have found any form of it in here.

Rein wondered if she had known any of the pixies hanging around the shop personally and a feeling of dread sunk into the pit of her stomach. She couldn't help but timidly examine some of the bodies for familiar faces while also fighting the bile that rose into her throat. To her relief, she didn't recognize anyone. However, her search was less than thorough, so the possibility of having known someone there still lingered in the back of her muddled mind. After all, she was only able to quickly scan the area for a short moment since her captor was in a hurry to hand her over to the shop owner.

The officer progressed behind the front counter and through a door which led to an office. Here, the owner of this horror show sat at his white desk and shuffled through a mess of parchment while mumbling to himself and swearing under his breath. His human body emulated the color of a blue ogre, which was coupled with the appetite of one.

The officer cleared his throat to get the owner's attention. The ogre-human hybrid looked up from his work with fiery eyes, immediately fixing them on Rein. Then he bared his rotting teeth at her with a bloodthirsty grin. It seemed all anyone had to do to make this creature happy was bring him a live pixie.

"Ha ha!" the hybrid exclaimed leaning back in his chair. "Jed, you found another one!"

The officer laughed along with him. "Of course I did. And this one was harder to get, too."

"Was it now?"

Without paying much attention to Jed, the ogre-human mix lifted himself out of his wooden chair and slowly maneuvered around his desk. Not once did he take his eyes off of Rein, who cowered in the officer's hand. He studied her intently, his sneer never leaving his grotesque face. Now directly in front of Rein, the hybrid glanced back up at Jed, who stood a least a foot taller than him.

"It's a feisty one, eh?" He diverted his gaze back at Rein. "How much trouble did it cause you?"

"Most of the trouble came from its owner," answered Jed. "I almost had to kill him to get it."

Still shaking in Jed's hand, Rein felt a bit irritated at the way they referred to her as an "it."

"Did you now?" said the hybrid as he hungrily assessed Rein. "What's your name, Butterfly?"

"Well it's not Butterfly," Rein spat, desperately trying to hide the tremor in her voice.

"Of course not. So what is it?"

"... S – Sun."

"That name sounds familiar," he said, glancing to Jed for confirmation. "What's your last name?"

"Beam," Rein lied.

"You deceitful little imp," he growled. "I killed Sun Beam yesterday. Now give me your real name!"

Rein's little heart fluttered inside her chest and a wave of emotion rose from her core, demanding a release.

"That's my name!" she hollered. Then she immediately descended into uncontrollable weeping.

"Keep quiet!" Jed ordered, squeezing Rein in his bulky hand. "There's no need to shout!" He looked back at the hybrid. "It's not a real issue, Mazyr. We both have more important things to attend to."

"If you insist. Toss it in there." Mazyr pointed at the cream-colored door opposite his desk.

Jed snapped something onto Rein's ankles, which pulled her down with such heft that he had to grip her tighter so she wouldn't slip from his hand. He opened the door Mazyr had pointed to and revealed a deathly cold room beyond it. Before Rein could see what might be lurking inside, Jed tossed her in. The weight around her ankles quickly brought her down to the stone floor and they both bounced a couple times before laying painfully still on the icy ground.

The door closed just as Rein sat up to fully assess what was happening. She rubbed the side of her head and wiped the tears from her face as everything steadily sunk in. Sun Beam. Someone she knew, which most likely meant there were others. No, she couldn't think about that then. She peered down to see what was attached to her feet: a single cuff clasped both of her ankles together and was weighed down by a ball and chain. Another sob escaped her throat, but she quickly regained control and breathed a few calming breaths to try and regain composure. She needed to be able to think clearly if she was ever going to get out of this alive.

Besides the beams reaching through the cracks in the doorway, Rein was the only light in the room. She glanced around at what she could only assume was a giant storage room used to house a personal collection of dead pixies. It was sick, evil, and cruel. The room was lined with rows of shelves which displayed glass cases entrapping her kin. Many even contained more than one body. After taking a closer look at them, Rein noticed that these ones hadn't been as pampered as those she observed on the sales floor. In here she was able to decipher the terror each one felt during their final moments. Some appeared shocked, others seemed to be in eternal agony, and some wore sad or pleading expressions on their faces. Rein couldn't read the countenance on a minority of them as they had been squashed or burned beyond recognition. Her ultimate observation was the fact that their bodies were encased in their final state: mangled, tortured, crushed, beaten. They hadn't even been cleaned before they were preserved; simply left with revealing gashes and missing pieces. Rein fought back a scream, but her body demanded relief. It wasn't long before she lost the fight and leaned to her side where she heaved up her breakfast from that morning.

                                                                 ~~

Rein wanted nothing more than to escape this prison as soon as possible. When her stomach had settled from its protest, she strived to get airborne but the weight shackled to her ankles kept her firmly grounded. She could hardly make the metal ball roll, much less lift it into the air. She attempted to slip her feet out of the shackle, but it held her too tight. She managed to slide her boots out of the cuff with the hope that it would leave room for her feet to follow, but she had no such luck. She fiercely suppressed her panic so not to be distracted as she searched the room for something that could be used to pick the lock open, but she couldn't even find a keyhole to the device.

Refusing to give up just yet, Rein shoved the lock harder and harder against her heels, scraping it against her flesh, insisting that it release her immediately. Her crazed nerves forced her limbs to quake with a unique recipe of hysteria and desperation as she exercised every possible option she managed to conceive in her mortified state of mind. Soon her ankles bled and she was forced to stop fighting the restraint before she completely skinned herself. Even still her struggle wasn't over. She assumed her captors shackled all of their previous pixie prisoners with something similar, so how did they remove them?

Rein scanned the bodies of her kin, focusing on their feet to see if any of the cuffs had been left behind. There were no cuffs shackled to their ankles for one reason and one reason only: they had no ankles. It seemed that the only way Rein could remove the shackle was to sever her feet, and there was no way she would do that to herself... yet. There had to be another solution.

Rein felt herself grow increasingly frustrated as her few options quickly became even fewer. She studied the keyhole in the door. That was her only means of escape; her end game was to reach it. At the present moment such a feat seemed impossible and she felt like crying again. Rein soon accepted the fact that she wasn't going to remove the shackle any time soon, so there was only one thing left for her to do. If a human, ogre, unicorn, naiad, siren, or anybody else could carry her with the weight on her ankles, then why couldn't she? She crawled closer to the door and began to train her wings. She knew she wouldn't be able to pick up the weight on the first, second, or even third try, but the more Rein pushed her wings, the stronger they would become, and eventually she would make it to the keyhole. At least, that was the plan.

After what seemed like hours, Rein collapsed in exhaustion and took a short break to catch her breath. When she gazed up at the keyhole, she felt a prick of hope. Nothing more than a prick, but that was all she needed to keep herself going. She wished for more to fuel her motivation, but the reality of the situation wouldn't allow it. She had to work with what she was offered. Even as the light shining from beyond the door vanished so that all Rein could see was whatever her own light touched, which wasn't much.

The poor pixie felt weary, but she shuttered at the thought of sleeping in this crypt. She knew she'd more than likely have another nightmare, probably twice as long and ten times worse than her last. Rein had never experienced a dream before. Only nightmares. But this was the first time she actually felt afraid to fall asleep.

                                                                  ~~

Gerardo and Calder awoke from the suns' rays shooting through the branches of the trees and burning into their shut eyes. Gerardo stood up and listened to the rustling leaves and the soft chirping of small birds. Not too far to his left, he could hear the rushing Sirene River and he sluggishly followed the sound. He drank several mouthfuls of white water and then knelt there for a while... remembering what he had to do today... predicting what might happen in the process. This was the moment he had been dreading and he almost opted out again. But then he remembered what Mira had said about how he would somehow end up doing it anyway.

"Willingly is easiest."

As Gerardo's blood surged through his veins, the air became colder in contrast with his escalating body temperature. He splashed some of the icy water onto his face and the resulting shock helped him recover his breath. He needed to decrease this rush of adrenaline if there was to be any chance of success. The trick was to not think about it so much. Decide what to do, and then do it. It was that simple... hopefully.

When Gerardo had reclaimed his mental fortitude, he returned to where he had slept and found Calder grazing in the tall grass.

"I've already eaten," Gerardo said. He snatched up his sword. "I'm heading to the palace."

"Are you sure?" Calder asked after swallowing a mouthful of grass. "You have a plan?"

"Something like that," Gerardo answered as he walked away.

"What are you going to say?" Calder asked, following him.

Gerardo shrugged. "I'm going to ask to speak to the emperor."

Calder stopped in his tracks. "Are you daft?"

"Most certainly."

Calder hurried to catch up with Gerardo once he found his legs again. "You think it'll work?"

"I suppose we'll find out. Goodbye."

Gerardo made his way to the dirt road to make it appear as though he had come from the direction of one of the towns and not randomly from the forest. His boots tread raucously in the dirt and he could hear a heavy beating in his ears. The pounding grew thicker and transformed into ringing as he advanced closer to the palace. Soon he became lightheaded and felt afraid that he might pass out, but he managed to keep calm as at last, he arrived at the tall, silver gate. Four, powerfully built elves stood guard. They were dressed in white, light blue, and bright yellow beneath silver armor. Each gripped either a battle axe or a crafty spear and they glared disapprovingly at Gerardo as he approached.

"What are you doing here?" one of them asked.

Gerardo abruptly remembered that he was dressed as an Xer soldier. "I've been separated from my battalion," he answered. "I was knocked unconscious during a battle and left behind."

"Then you proceed to the nearest base."

"Our commander informed us that if the palace was closer, we were to come here to be relocated. Upon finding Vann and its base recently destroyed, I followed his orders and so I've arrived."

"I've never heard of such a policy," another guard stated.

"Are you a soldier, Sir?" Gerardo asked him. "Have you been fighting relentlessly in this God-forsaken war?"

"Of course not, however –"

"Then of course you haven't heard of such a policy. I speak with a general here, acquire some provisions, and then I'm to be relocated."

The guards glanced at each other.

"We can handle one soldier," a third said quietly. "It might be best to let the emperor take care of this matter."

"Then you escort him to His Majesty," the first guard replied.

The third one released a sigh through his nose and turned to Gerardo. "Follow me."