That was all he was really conscious of, the running. He'd been running ever since he'd left the burning fortress, and the last thing he really remembered clearly was that he'd crossed the Toto bridge some time ago.

Fatigue had set in on the boy, and even his Youth Brigade training wasn't helping him put one foot in front of the other any faster now.

{Can't stop,} he thought. {Have to keep going... have to warn Muse that the Tenzan region has fallen... have to tell them that Highland's on the way...}

Fortunately, though it was night, Muse's windows burned with light, shining from the hill in back of the city and forming a beacon for Makoto to focus on and keep plodding in one direction. For a time that the boy was never certain of he kept moving, lifting one foot and dropping it to the ground as fatigue seemed to pile weights of lead around his limbs.

It was the upslope that eventually defeated him. As he lifted his back foot for what *had* to be the ten millionth time, it encountered ground ahead of schedule and caught, unable to proceed forward. His balance lost, Makoto crashed to the ground. It later seemed to Makoto that he must have been *just barely* outrunning his own fatigue in that headlong plunge to Muse, because the moment he stopped moving it finally caught up.

The young Unicorn Brigade survivor's eyes slammed shut like prison doors and he went spiraling down into unconsciousness.

Inside Muse, a certain redheaded bodyguard was having disturbing dreams, just as she had been for the several nights before that.

{{Bloodlust}}

{{Hunger}}

{{The hunt}}

Tonight's dream, however, would turn out to be a bit different than the rest.

{{Curiosity}}

{{Anger}}

{{Lashing out}}

{{Pain!!}}

{{Fleeing..}}

Stifling a cry, Oulan awoke with a jolt in her bed in the Muse City Hall. Sitting up, she took a moment to make sense of the cacophony of images that she had been bequeathed by her link to the ancient mistress of the Moon Rune. "Dammit, Sier, what've you gotten into now..?" the redhead asked aloud.

A glance at the window revealed that the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. {Well, I'm not going to get back to sleep soon after that - I might as well do a quick check of the walls before reporting to Annabelle for the day,} she thought, grabbing her Ninja Gear and dressing herself.

The rays of the sun woke Makoto from his faint on the ground. He dragged his eyes open, then the events of the past day came rushing back and he snapped up to a sitting position, half-expecting to be lost, or worse, have been captured by the Highland army.

He was pleasantly surprised by what he found. "Hah! I fainted right at the base of the hill Muse was built on!" he chuckled, then got up and headed for the city gates not far ahead. {No matter what happens,} he thought, {I have to get in and warn mayour Annabelle about the fall of the fort.}

Makoto ran up to the gate and pounded on it with the butt of one tonfa. "Hey! Is anyone there?" he called. "Please, I have to get in! I have news for Lady Annabelle about the mercenary fort!!"

Oulan was just jogging along the top of the wall near the gate when she heard two voices raised in an argument.

"Look boy, I don't care where ya' from or why ya' here, nobody gets into Muse in time o' war without no permit nor permission. You's already said t'me y'ain't got neither, so sod off."

"Dammit, I'm serious here! The Mercenary Fort in the Tenzan Pass area has fallen, and Highland has an open door into your front yards over the Toto bridge!! If you won't let me in, then send someone to tell Lady Annabelle!"

The second voice was young, male, and vaguely familiar. {Now where've I heard that voice before...?} Oulan wondered, stopping her jog and peering over the edge of the wall to see.

The first voice was one of the Muse guardsmen - {one of Jess' favorites,} Oulan noted darkly - and he was doing his best to stonewall the owner of the second voice into leaving. As the guard droned on about having heard every excuse around, *including* the 'Highland is coming' gag, the owner of the second voice stepped away from the gates in exasperation, letting Oulan get a good look at him.

He was young - fifteen or sixteen at most - and in good shape, with a thatch of unruly brown hair held out of his eyes by a Circuret similar to the one Oulan wore. None of this was really exceptional, but the boy was carrying something that let Oulan identify him.

Hefted easily in his hands were two of the largest tonfa Oulan could remember seeing - and she remembered exactly where she'd seen them too. {It was when I was in Highland once - I visited the dojo of Genkaku. Those tonfa were in the hands of a scruffy brown-haired boy far too young to use them well, but who had been determined that *these* were the weapons he liked, and they were what he would train with, so there!} Oulan smiled as she placed the recollection. {So this is the boy Genkaku raised!} she thought as she called out, "Hey! You at the gate! Open up and let him in, I know him!" she yelled as she ran for the nearest stairs to ground level.

Makoto had been pleasantly surprised when the redheaded woman - who seemed familiar - had ordered the guard to let him into the city. He was even more surprised when she clapped him on the shoulder the moment he was inside and said, "So what brings Genkaku's grandson to Muse?"

"Huh - wha? How did you know-" Makoto stammered, then cut himself off. {Geez, that was dumb!} he berated himself. {I don't want to advertise being from Highland in the middle of Muse!}

The redhead just smiled at him. "You probably don't remember me, but I came by your dojo to train a bit with Genkaku when you were just beginning with those," she said, gesturing to the Twin Heaven Fangs.

Makoto blinked. "Oh! Yeah, I remember you! The *really* tall lady who practiced with Grampa for a while! Ou-something, right?" he asked, thinking, {Wow! Am I ever lucky - what are the odds I'd meet an old aquaintance who'd get me into Muse?}

The redhead laughed. "Oulan. And how is your grandfather?" she asked, causing Makoto to lose his smile.

"He's dead - he died while I was with the Unicorn Brigade, not that there are any more of us left," he said, trying to contain his bitterness.

Oulan blinked, then offered her condolences on Genkaku's death, then asked about the Unicorn Brigade... and the two of them sat down on a bench while Makoto explained, and explained, and explained.

That night, Oulan settled into her room while the boy she'd met - {Makoto,} she reminded herself - was already snoring on the couch in the next room.

{It's been a strange day,} she thought. {That dream must have been an omen.} First she had heard the boy's tale of what had brought him to Muse, then she had used her authority as Annabelle's bodyguard to get the boy admitted and had sat in on the debriefing that Annabelle and her staff had conducted with him. {Hearing that the Unicorn Brigade was massacred by Ruka was appalling, and the news about the Mercenary Fort falling so quickly was a shock too. Fortunately, according to the Muse scouts, the Highland army is just bivouacking around the old location of the fort instead of advancing immediately, so the city has some breathing space.}

Listening to the young man answer questions, Oulan had developed a shrewd idea that he'd been hiding something. Makoto had never said anything about how he escaped the fort, or about anyone with him... but he seemed to be grieving to Oulan, who knew the symptoms as well as anyone. {He lost someone there,} she guessed as she laid back in her bed. {Someone dear to him - and maybe more than one. I should keep him with me for a while - I know all too well how losing loved ones can feel,} she thought, a pang of grief for her own murdered parents spiking through her.

Shaking it off, she began to relax herself as she'd learned on her journeys - ironically enough, Genkaku had taught her this trick - and her eyes slowly drifted closed.

Just before sleep claimed her, she had a thought. {Hey... Makoto mentioned a fuss being made about a prisoner who was taken at the fort, but never said who it waszzzzzz....}

Again the dreams came.

{{Remembered grief}}

{{Hunger}}

{{Hunting}}

{{A vision - a young woman with long brown hair, pale and unmoving on a bed in a stone room}}

{{She is prey. Moving to attack-}}

{{Interruption. Another woman, white robe, odd eyes and hair, and magic-}}

{{AGONY!!!}}

Makoto snapped awake to the sound of a scream from the redhead's - {Oulan's,} he reminded himself - room. Kicking away the covers, he snatched up his tonfa and went into the room fast, kicking open the door and charging in.

He found the room empty and Oulan sitting up in bed wearing only a thin nightshift. "What?? What's the matter??" he asked, still casting about the room for threats.

"Nothing... nothing *here,*" she managed to croak through a throat that was obviously raw from screaming. Makoto moved over to the side and got her a drink of water from the sink there. After soothing her throat, the redhead explained. "A few months ago, I - partnered - with a rather unusual woman. She and I share a bond between our minds, and since she favours running around at night, sometimes I dream about where she is and what she's doing."

"Huh. I wish I had that with my sister - I'd be able to tell her I'm OK," Makoto commented, drawing an odd look from the bodyguard.

"Trust me - no you don't," she told him gravely. His puzzled look only made her change the subject. "She was in an odd building - all stone inside - and she was... looking around," Oulan went on, pausing and looking uncomfortable for some reason as she mentioned the looking part.

{Hmm. Running around at night? Looking around - maybe where she shouldn't? Hey, I bet Oulan's friend is a thief!} Makoto thought with a grin. Filing that thought for future reference, Makoto gave his attention back to Oulan's story.

"..and on the bed in this room was a young woman - maybe your age," Oulan was saying. "I don't know if Sier noticed, but she was really pale and had a stab wound in her gut, and the girl had long brown hair-"

That was as far as Oulan got before 'Your age,' 'Stab wound,' and 'Long brown hair' added up in Makoto's mind. {That - could that be...} "...Jillia?" he said softly.

Oulan opened her eyes, having closed them to better remember the dream. "Jillia? Princess Jillia? Come to think of it, that girl *did* look like Agares' daughter..." she murmured, and was promptly grabbed like a lifeline by the boy.

"IT DID?? Jillia's alive?!?! Where?? Where is she??" he implored, the pleading in his eyes causing her own heart to ache. Taking his hands firmly in her own, she pulled them off her shoulders and looked him in the eye.

"All right, first *you* explain. How do *you* know the Princess of Highland??" she asked him, causing him to lower his eyes.

"Well..." he began, and another long explanation followed, from peeping into courtyards at age five to meetings at the Mercenary Fort and Jillia's apparent death at the hands and Rune of her insane brother.

"Yikes... that's tough," Oulan commented when the boy was finally done. By this time the sun was beginning to peek into Oulan's window again.

"Yeah... but something occurred to me," Makoto answered. "That strange spellcasting lady in your vision - did she have a hood like this, all in white?" he asked, putting his hands up to mime a large hood around a fair-size head of hair.

Oulan frowned, trying to remember. "I think so... why?" she asked, perplexed. "Does that help or something?" {Come to think of it,} she mused, {that woman looked vaguely familiar too, in the 'someone I've heard of' sense...}

Makoto nodded. "That sounds like the lady I met at the shrine in Toto," he commented, drawing an odd look from Oulan.

"When was this? You never mentioned it to Annabelle," she asked, frowning.

"I - um, it didn't seem important," Makoto babbled, then quickly changed the subject. "Anyway, Sir Flik said that was Lady Leknaat, the blind seer from Magician's Island in Toran. Does that mean..." he asked.

Neatly distracted, Oulan switched mental gears in a hurry. "Right!" she exclaimed. "I'm going to say goodbye to Annabelle - you get our stuff packed. We're heading out for Toran, and we'd better do it fast, before Highland hits Radat!"