<span style="font-style: italic">Wild flames flickered and danced in the night sky, licking the once-white marble pillars that stood at the entrance to the city of Lothrien. Mothers screamed for their children, only to be cut off mid-sentence by their own screams as hellfire rained down from above, channeling from the body of a long forgotten evil. He only stood in the large market plaza, staring up in a daze and enchanted by the way the fire leapt and frolicked in the warm summer night, mesmerized by how sickeningly beautiful the end of the world could be.</span><br/><br/>Aspen's body shook violently as he was jolted from his daydreams, though he couldn't figure out by what until His Eminence King Aedirion spoke his name again in that ever-steady voice. "Aspen," he said reassuringly, continuing only when Aspen nodded his head to confirm he was listening. "I need you to be focused. Do you understand what I'm asking of you?"<br/><br/>His throat felt suddenly dry, and he felt himself swallow thickly around whatever he wanted to say. "That I'm to leave for the human kingdom as part of reconnaissance," he repeated, almost verbatim how the king had put it. Pale blue eyes focused on the king for the first time since the meeting of the Council. Aspen was grateful that he was sitting down, because his legs felt like water beneath him. "You want information on the dragons."<br/><br/>Councilman Jarralt coughed politely into his hand, no doubt just as affected by the tense weight of the air around him as Aspen himself was. King Aedirion nodded once, stiffly, and he looked gravely down at his hands that were so elegantly clasped on top of the table. Lines of concentration formed at his brow, and though his face was as young as it had been for hundreds of years, in that moment the Elvish leader truly looked his age. After a moment his eyes rose again, as determined as they'd been before if not even moreso, "Neither King nor Council will make you accept this. This is your life, and we do not have autonomy to say how or if you should risk it. That is of your own accord." A pause, another councilman trying to generate some sort of white noise to relieve the tension. "You saw what happened in Lothrien, Aspen. You are one of very few that can use magic to your extent. In this moment, I... the people, need you."<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>That had been a week ago, and Aspen had contemplated that moment in the Council chamber for the entire ride in the back of Matcher's carriage. King Aedirion, his best friend, the man he considered his brother though they shared no blood. How could he ever deny him something it had taken so much to ask? He couldn't obviously, or he wouldn't be sitting in the royal carriage, accompanied by the royal escort, on his way to yet another royal capital though this one of human origin. His head lulled against the window pane, staring at the lush green fields that passed him by. It was a beautiful sight. Aspen scowled at it and shut the heavy blue curtain. There were only a few more hours until he arrived to meet the other half to this reconnaissance mission, so there was no point in getting too comfortable. He would only be disappointed.