(Hopefully this is vaguely worth the wait! Sorry!)<br/><br/>Dawn only frowned as the scarred man slowly limped toward the door, and decided not to stop him. She had a whole lot to think about. His relationship with Gort wasn’t all that strange to her, really, but anything she could say now would just embarrass him more. He’d agreed to help her, which spoke to quality of his character in spite of his grizzled exterior. And maybe Gort wasn’t all that bad either.<br/><br/>The door shut behind Johnson with a bang, and Dawn turned to look at the elfin-eared girl. For a moment, it looked like she was about to say something. Her expression was wistful, almost lost. She had so much to say, but… what if she was wrong? What if the girl really didn’t have anything to do with Muse? She wanted to take the girl in her arms and hug her tightly. She wanted to ask her how she was being treated. She wanted to promise to keep her safe. She was part of the mystery she wanted to understand so badly, but...<br/><br/>For once, she just couldn’t find the words, so Dawn just offered her a strained but sincere smile and made her way back over to Gort. “Thanks,” she said quietly. “For everything.” She paused for a moment, reaching for her coinpurse. “I guess I’ll be staying the night. It seems tomorrow’s going to be long day, and… I have a lot of thinking to do.” She paid for the room and took the tarnished metal key without another word.<br/><br/>She stopped just below the stairs. The bards were winding down for the night. A lonely lute made the only music now, and she shivered, though she wasn’t sure exactly why. The sound was strangely familiar, like she’d heard that very same lute somewhere else before. That timbre, that warmth… she’d known them somewhere before. After a moment, she shook her head and started up the stairs. If it was worth remembering, she’d remember eventually.<br/><br/>It was a cozy little upstairs room with a cozy double bed, bigger than the one she was used to at home. Through the small window, she could see only darkness, since it didn’t overlook the street; though by day, she was sure she’d be able to see all the way across the town to the forest beyond. She peered at the darkness for a moment, then shivered and drew the curtains in a hurry. She smirked a little in spite of herself. When she was outside<i>in</i>the dark, it wasn’t so bad, but somehow the window made it worse.<br/><br/>She threw her robes haphazardly on the side of the bed and snuggled naked under the covers, the cool sheets giving her goosebumps. She stomach rumbled, and she wondered if maybe she’d been a little<i>too</i>quick to go to bed.<i>All the bigger breakfast can be,</i>she reassured herself. And she was going to want a big breakfast to venture into those ancient, mysterious woods in search of answers she maybe didn’t want to know.<br/><br/><i>Will she even know who I am?</i>Muse’s jewel was warm against her chest, comforting and scary all at the same time. And that was just Muse. She could feel the distant hum of the forest’s power, dark and old. Remnants of the Kaiser’s power lingered there like cobwebs, but most of that power was a signature of the creatures that lived there. She’d be lucky if fairies were her biggest problem.<br/><br/>The too-familiar sound of a distant lute followed her into sleep.<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>A black and white scene that she knew too well: a spartan, candlelit room in the village tavern. A small stack of dusty hardcover books, worn with age. A kindly, brown-haired man, aged but not old, smiling patiently at a dark-haired little girl. Talk of spells and incantations, power and spirits. It was hard to keep her attention for long, but he managed it somehow.<br/><br/>Dawn stared. That girl had been her, once, in a time where darkness and evil had seemed like far-away fairy tales. Adorable, naive, weak. Too weak.<br/><br/>Maybe she hadn’t changed that much.<br/><br/>A gnarled staff leaned against wall next to a beautiful lute.<br/><br/>Lucian turned to look at<i>her</i>- not the child, but<i>her</i>, and young Dawn seemed to fade away. “It’s been a long time, little cat.”<br/><br/>She saw Mania’s darkness, and the nightmare everyone had shared. A false Lucian, an endless darkness, Verita’s screams. This was different, somehow. A dream, but there was a feeling of warmth, even in that black and white room, that calmed her.<br/><br/>“You’re not real,” she said, but sat down across from him. Her grey eyes met his and she tilted her head. “A memory?”<br/><br/>Lucian gave his right-answer smile. “An echo, to be exact. All people leave echoes; mages more than most. Objects, even places, can carry echoes of who we were, given enough exposure. The jewel around your neck, for instance. Its owner is… lost. Erratic. The magic within is chaotic and emotional, unfocused and conflicted.<br/><br/>“But I<i>wanted</i>an echo. I wanted to find my students, if any lived. And here you are.”<br/><br/>“I thought you were dead,” Dawn said softly. “When the shadows devoured Vale, I looked everywhere for you. All of the places you said you’d been were as dead. Ghost towns, just like Vale.” Between monsters, people, and overwhelming loneliness, she’d almost lost her mind back then. Maybe she<i>had</i>lost her mind.<br/><br/>“I made an enemy of the Kaiser by trying to seed his downfall. It began as a quest for vengeance against Sovereign, one of his demon lieutenants. I thought, if I couldn’t carry out my own revenge, I’d find those with the greatest magical potential and have them do it in my stead. I was driven by a cold bloodlust.<br/><br/>“But I grew to love my life as a bard, and all of my students. I grew soft, and I eventually stopped seeing you as tools of revenge. But by then, it was too late. Sovereign followed me, and all of the towns I called home were destroyed overnight. I wanted to search for you, to see if anyone had survived, but I knew Sovereign was following me. If I found you, so would he.<br/><br/>“So I left behind an echo before resolving to defeat him myself. Forgive me, Dawn. I failed you and all the others. My plan to defeat that demon… it was lose or draw. I never expected to return for my lute, and I never did, did I?” Lucian, normally so full of confidence, looked at her with the eyes of a broken man. She couldn’t be angry. She’d been angry enough then, enough for a lifetime.<br/><br/>She reached for his hand. “Your seed of vengeance worked, though. The Kaiser’s gone, and we only met one of his demons. Whatever you set out to do… you must’ve done it, Luci. And even with all of the terrible things that happened, I wouldn’t be who I am today without you. And the world might still have been that dark, hopeless place.”<br/><br/>Lucian grasped her hand in silence for a time, and the black and white room slowly gained clarity and light. “Thank you, little cat. This echo can rest at ease, knowing you’ve become a fine young lady, and that the world is a brighter place now. I understand now why the lute’s been played so much more recently.”<br/><br/>He was quiet for a long time. Suddenly, he brought his head upright so quickly she thought his neck might snap. His grey eyes burned into her.  “What ever fate brings you to Mist’s Hollow, stay away from the Mistwood. There is a darkness there that I fear even the Kaiser’s death cannot banish. If I never returned from that ancient and shadowy place, then more than just echoes may linger there.”<br/><br/>There was a quiet, persistent knock from somewhere. Dawn glanced at Lucian’s staff, but it was still in its place. The fabric of the dream began to twist and knot.<i>What happened to you in that forest, Lucian? What did you do?</i>She opened her mouth to speak, but it was like she was speaking underwater.<br/><br/>She grasped his hand tightly. “I love you,” she tried to say. Before he unravelled, he gave her hand a squeeze and nodded, his eyes sparkling. The dream fell away, and the echo of a man she’d once known was forever silent.<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>Dawn found herself sitting bolt upright in bed. The promise of daylight glowed behind the curtains, and judging by the sun, several hours had passed since sunrise. She’d had strange dreams before, but the only thing like<i>that</i>she could remember was Mania’s dark trance. That had really been an echo of Lucian, just like the jumbled echo of Muse at her breast. If his hunt for Sovereign had brought him here, then there was no telling what waited in the woods.<br/><br/>There was a quiet, persistent knock from the door. Dawn rubbed her eyes and hopped out of bed, stretching a bit before opening the curtains and practically throwing on her robes. Like she’d thought, she could see all the way to the forest from the window, but the view was even less comforting now.<br/><br/>“Coming,” she called. Maybe Johnson was ready to go already. A bath and some breakfast were in order first, though, no matter how late it was. Ten, maybe? She shrugged, unbolted and opened the door, and blinked. It was Muse’s ‘daughter’, adorable as ever, and with a basket full of what smelled like breakfast.<br/><br/>All in all, maybe the person she was least prepared to face in the whole world. She was pretty sure the cat-tailed girl wasn’t normally on room service duty.<br/><br/>Dawn’s expression mirrored her thoughts almost exactly, but what she said was, “Hi. That smells like breakfast.”<i>Obviously food smells like food, dummy. Bed hair, unmade bed, can’t say anything interesting. Strong start on getting to know your… ancient elven friend/more-than-friend’s maybe-daughter?</i><div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>