<strong>-- Explorator Thraxius --</strong>(http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=103946.msg4515299#msg4515299)<br/><hr/><br/>Thraxius stayed a moment longer, staring balefully at the board.  The burden of ages was on all of them it seemed, and some wounds never quite had the decency to heal properly.  He could have followed her, he supposed, but somehow none of it felt right.  His heart wasn't in it, and he doubted hers was either.  But he didn't regret that evening in the slightest, and hoped earnestly that another chance might present itself in the future.<br/><br/>With an idle gesture he deftly moved his King out of harm's way, and with the other hand he produced a strange device from the folds of his robe.  It looked somewhat like a conductor's baton, but made of black metal etched with a tracery of green light.  When he placed it on the tabletop it remained perfectly balanced, as though by some internal gyroscope.  He pressed a small button on the side, and scarlet light bloomed from one end in a brilliant array of holographic petals.<br/><br/>He grumbled all the way back to the labs, overcome with a sense of juvenile foolishness that he hadn't felt in many long years.