He didn't know what he was still doing there.  His injuries were healing enough to the point that he could travel without discomfort.

His mission was also accomplished . . . sort of. He could go straight to South Window and get that written permission, so he could go to Radat and shove it up Shu's ass, so he could get a boat to go to Banner Village, so he could take the incredibly long and dangerous mountain road back to the Northern Border of Toran, and get scolded by Gremio and most of the country for being gone so long.

" . . . . . . . . "

Okay, so maybe it wasn't the best plan in the world.  But, unfortunately, it was all that he had to look forward to.  He had gone through so much just to get back here to give up now, dammit!

Young Master McDohl stood up and stretched his limbs.  A few painful popping sounds later, he sat down really quickly again.  Perhaps he wasn't as recovered as he originally had hoped.

Struggling to his feet again, McDohl wandered to the west a little to the beach by the side of the river.  He sat down on the sand and reached into his pocket for some of the dried rations he's been living on for the past 2 years.  Biting off a chunk, he started chewing absent-mindedly.

Young Master McDohl watched the river as it lazily drifted downstream, stretching his legs a little.  His jaws froze in the motion of chewing as a gigantic octopus raced along the river at the speed of a fast horse, hitched to a wagon on water skis, with a little kid wearing red and minding sheep in the back.

"Merry Christmas!" Yuzu shouted to McDohl as the water sleigh and Abizoah sped off into the distance.

Young Master McDohl just sat on the river bank ... frozen in place.  He slowly raised his hand to look at the remainder of the dried ration still in his hand, dropped it, and calmly got up to walk back to the encampment.

" . . . . . . . "

He sat down, the same dumb expression on his face, and just passed out again.

Oulan struggled along through the forest toward their improvised camp for Lord McDohl, hampered by her double burden of friend and - ally? Weapon? {I haven't carried a sword, much less a two-hander, for *years*- I'm just not used to it any more,} she thought ruefully. That brought up another point. {I'm going to need practice. I used to be as good with a sword as with my hands and feet, but I'll bet fifty potch my skills have gone down the tubes in the past few years.} The bodyguard smiled wryly. {Good thing Alex-neechan won't be around to see me fumble with this - she'd have my hide for getting so slack.}

The thought of Alex reminded her of her other sister-in-spirit, whom she was currently hauling over one shoulder. She paused for a moment and set Sierra down gently on the ground.

"Okay, Sier, you need to wake up now," Oulan noted, half to herself. "We need to get you some blood before we get back to McDohl - given that the only vampire *he* knows is Neclord, I don't think he'd react very well to you."

The silver-haired vampiress simply turned over onto her side and pillowed her head on her hands.

"Rrrrr..." Oulan grumped. Reaching out, she gently shook Sierra's shoulder.  {I need her to be at least a bit awake before I give her blood,} she thought nervously, {or I could end up a drained husk before Sier knows what's going on.}

The shaking was having little affect. Sitting back and pondering her options, she decided on one and bit back her distaste. {I'm going to hate doing this, but...}

Scooting back to a kneeling position at the edge of the clearing she occupied, Oulan squatted down and concentrated on fear, trying to send her unease down the bond to Sierra. From the way the albino twisted in her sleep, Oulan assumed she'd been successful.

Then she played one of the dirtiest tricks she'd ever played in her life.

"AAHH! Sier! Neclord's got me!" she screeched.

Sierra bolted awake. "OULAN! Hang on, I'll... um..." Her outburst tapering off as she took in the peaceful situation in the clearing, she fixed the sort of glare onlya vampire could muster on her friend.

"You do realize that I'm going to get you for that."

Oulan squirmed under the glare and smiled wanly at Sierra.

"I had to wake you up before feeding you. Come on, let's get this over with and get back to McDohl," the bodyguard suggested, unbuckling her wristguard again.

Blood.  The warm, sweet tingling of blood as it caressed her tounge and rolled down a parched throat. So alive, so powerful, so free; it gave her everything.  She could drown in it as it enveloped her senses...

"SIER!  I'm not the bloody ocean here!"

Her trance interrupted, the vampire looked up and regained a more coherent sense of her surroundings. Anyone else would have looked chagrined.

"Sorry," she shrugged, "So why exactly are we tracking down this guy?"

"He *was* a hero of the Liberation Army and a friend of Lady Cleo's.  We can't just leave him lying in some ditch.."

"That's the spirit, slave!" the arit itself exclaimed.  The old man, it seemed, was tired of being ignored.

"Take the demon to be destroyed by the Soul Eater! Atome for your shameful aid to a heartless monster!"

The blade could go on for hours, the albino knew, if something wasn't done.  While Oulan rolled her eyes, Sierra methodically gagged their erstwhile travelling companion.

"Do you think I'm scared, old man?" the vampire smirked.  Oulan, in the meantime, gave an inaudable sigh.

"IN any case, McDohl could be alot of help against Neclord.. you know that," her friend breathed.

Indeed the vampire did; recruiting the bearer of a true rune would of course be beneficial.  Giving a curt nod before continuing down the overgrown path, Sierra surrendered to the sensibility of the situation.

"C'mon, Oulan.  Let's get going."

Yet the albino's outwardly neutral demeanor belied the thoughts which lurked within.  The vampire had seen enought emerald leaves aglow with sunlight and pretty eggshell skies in her lifetime to devote the walk's mental activity to more pressing matters.

This so-called "Lord" was not to be trusted.

She had heard the stories from Oulan, of course. Charismatic young man rises from near-obscurity to lead army to victory with his spectacular leadership and fighting skills - the standard tale when it came to this sort of thing.  Her friend might as well have told her that McDohl was seven feet tall and breathed fire on a regular basis.  Of course, the youth had emerged victorious in one of the more spectacular coup d'etats of recent history... but it was what he had done after the war that mattered.

The worthless creature had abandoned his people after the civil war he himself incited, yet still dared to call himself a Lord.  The worthless maggot deserved to be a mortal.  How dare he deprive them of his protection - if it was worth all that much - and refute his duty to help them when he was needed the most!  He still had his people, his, power, his life, his - *their* future; and he had thrown it all away. Worthless, worthless scum.

The maggot's existance mocked her; a life so similar to Renny's but much more malignant in it's feigned purity .

"Sier?... Yo, Sier!" a voice emerged.

"Hunh... what?"

The owner of said voice quickly caught up to the vampire and smiled.

"You're not falling asleep on me again, are you? You seem kind of spaced out and we're almost back at camp..."

Taking notice of her surroundings for the first time in at least ten minutes, Sierra realized that the blur of green and brown which surrounded tham was indeed familiar.  How could she have been so blind? At least Oulan had noticed where they were; otherwise the vampire might have led them into a monster nest or worse. Sierra would have to be more observant once they met...

". . Lord McDohl!" Oulan called, and Sierra gazed past her friend to spot a patch of red amond the whirlwind of flora.  The scarlet abberation had to be the young man .. and it didn't seem to be moving.  As the two dashed towards their potential companion, the albino reflected that perhaps the day wouldn't be so bad after all.

Young Master McDohl slowly stood up and shook his head when he heard the shouting coming from distance. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the bodyguard and the pale-faced woman running towards him.

Closing his eyes and opening them again, he noted that his strength had returned rather quickly.  He felt better than he had in a long time.

Glancing down at the ground, he saw a large clump of herbs.  He realized with a start that he fell into a patch of the same herbs that they made Medicine from.  He was soaking up the healing energy for awhile.

Smiling, he finally turned to look at the two women who had been watching over him.  Inspecting them as they approached, he took stock of what little he could get on appearance.

The larger woman was very muscular and her complexion indicated that she may hail from one of the more northern kingdoms.  While she was tanned from the sun, the bodyguard was still very pale, a skin condition that comes from life in a mountain area. The same skin condition was shared by the Dwarves back in Toran.

But the other . . . .

The smaller woman was almost a complete albino. Pale down to the slightest features and carried herself as a person of great importance.  She, like the other, had a fighters' build, but hid it behind robes and other nobleman clothing.  Something about the albino gave McDohl pause.  If he didn't know any better, he would have sworn that she was dead.

"Don't worry." McDohl said with a slight smile. "I'm alright.  Thank you for taking care of me."

Oulan gave the young hero a quick smile of her own. "Hey, anything for a friend of Lady Cleo's," she replied.  Sierra simply looked away and shrugged with an indifferent 'hmph.'

Giving her soul-sister a brief frown for her rudeness, the young woman gave the war hero another grin as she posed a new question.

"So what brings you all the way into Jowston, Lord McDohl?  You didn't come to your land's traditional enemies just because of Neclord, did you?"

McDohl laughed nervously.  He was a bit surprised that Oulan knew Cleo, but quickly recovered.

"Actually, I'm on my way back to Toran right now. I sort of . . . had an accident involving Viki, our teleporter and well . . ."

Oulan giggled. "I've heard about her! Last time I was in Toran, Lady Cleo said she'd gotten involved in some sort of state accident and left looking for what she'd lost." The bodyguard broke off as the truth sank in, albeit a tad late.

"Oh my . . . you mean . . . she lost *you!?*"

The young man sighed.

"You make it sound like I'm a set of house keys. So I wound up north of Highland . . . way, WAY north of Highland, worked my way back down here, then tried to get passage to Banner Village to get to the Toran road, but the trader there had me get him permission to trade with Toran.  Lord Granmeyer then had me see about taking care of the 'monster' in North Window, which turned out to be Neclord.  Was that why you were there?"

Oulan grinned ruefully. "Actually, I heard from friends in town that some crazy pale-haired woman had gone to take him on alone, and ended up riding off to the rescue."

She glanced back apologetically at Sierra, who scowled at her but seemed to be in a slightly better mood for some reason.

"Didn't turn out so well . . . if it weren't for a few stunts with spell scrolls Renny would've had us both for breakfast," the redhead finished.

"Renny?" Young Master McDohl repeated, confused.

"Oh! I'm being rude," she apologized, trying to cover her slip of giving away Neclord's mortal name.

"I'm Oulan, a professional bodyguard, and this is Lady Sierra Miuret," she introduced with a sweeping bow and a flourish aimed at Sierra.

"Charmed, I'm sure," the albino intoned, inclining her head slightly at McDohl.

So, the mortal had disappeared in a teleportation accident.  Grounds for a stay of execution certainly, but the jury would be out on this one for a while.  He might not deserve the vampire's hate, but her respect was an entirely different matter.

"Umm . . . yeah," the youth replied.  "Lady Sierra?  I don't think I've ever heard that name before.  What are you the lady of?"

Oulan immediately turned to the vampire with a warning glance.  Honestly, did her friend think that she would be foolish enough to give up her heritage to the mortal boy while they still needed him?

"The Tribe of the Moon."

"Tribe of the Moon?"  Young Master McDohl was really really confused.  That sounded like it could have come from several regions.  The Grasslands for starters.  Or maybe south of the Warrior's Village. Maybe it was located somewhere in Harmonia.

"Yes," Sierra deadpanned while beginning an exhaustive visual dissection of McDohl.  It wasn't the way he looked which was important, however, but the way in which he reacted to her stare.  The bodyguard, in the meatime, was about to make a move to disrupt the rather uncomfortable silence which had arisen until the vampire spoke again.

"I could ask the same of you, mo -cDohl."

The gaudily-dressed Lord gave her an odd look; her stare giving him the creeps.

"Well, I'm from Toran.  I live in Gregminster and my father, General Teo, passed away a couple years ago.  I guess you could say I was in civil service before my accident."

"Yes, yes.  I know *that*," the albino interrupted, drawing a large grey cloak around herself to ward off the enroaching night air.  Catching herself before she mortally wounded their prospective alliance, Sierra kept her opinion to herself.  His father . . .  the man whose government the ex-mortal had betrayed.

How could he be so flipant when the man who had cared for him since birth was dead!?  This "Lord" had everything handed to him on a silver platter - a prominent yet loving family, the responsibility that the vampire craved - and would have none of it.  This one did not deserve her respect.

"Then why did you..."

"It's getting cold out here!  Why don't we build a fire and set up camp?" Oulan interjected in an attempt to ward off any uncomfortable answers.

Okay, "Lady" Sierra was definitely burying the needle on the hostility meter; not that Young Master McDohl had any idea WHY.

There was a total reversal of roles here and it was painfully obvious.  After all, one would expect the hardened by life bodyguard to be the gruff, untrusting person, while someone who claimed to be a noblewoman would have better manners than "Our Lady of Death from Above".

And there was something about that "Lady" that really grabbed McDohl's attention.  Her pale skin was one thing.  It was almost unreal.  Not to mention the fact she didn't appear as cold as her companion, despite looking like she had frostbite.  But, on Sierra's defense, she was wearing far warmer clothes than Oulan's desert garb.

Then there was Sierra's hand.  She was keeping it just as covered up as McDohl's.  Maybe she had a rune that was causing her to be this way.  Well, maybe just a rune that caused her physical condition.  He had never heard of a "pain in the ass" rune.

Shifting uncomfortably, he felt the Soul Eater kind of react to something in the area.  There was something that was making it become warm.  It was like the Soul Eater recognized whatever it was.  Of course, by default, that fit nicely into the "Bad Things" category.

Pretending to stretch, Young Master McDohl extended his arms and did a 360 degree turn, trying to see where the warmth was greatest.  Spinning around, his arm stopped directly at Sierra.

That was not good.

Moving behind her, just in case it was beyond Sierra, he did the same stretching exercise.

Sierra again.  Oh, crap.

Young Master McDohl looked out at the setting sun and felt butterflies in his stomach.  Something about "Lady Sierra" was setting off the Soul Eater rather fiercely.  He felt the same kind of buzzings whenever Windy and her part of the Gate Rune decided to make an entrance and when he went with Jowy to get that Blade Rune.

Ah, but it can't be that bad.  Their path would probably deviate at some point and Sierra and her bad vibes would be out of his hair.

"Well, I think I'm going to be heading off in the morning to the East."

Oulan leaned over to Sierra. "And us?" she whispered.

"You know more than me about how Neclord acts. Any ideas on where he might have gone?"

Sierra frowned.

"He'll be seeking safety somewhere, and more power to defend himself from us in case we got the Star Dragon Sword," she murmured back. "But as to exactly *where* he'd have gone . . . I don't know," she finally sighed.

"Then we might as well stick with McDohl for now. He's headed for South Window and Radat; both are good trade centers where we can pick up rumours as to vampires or any likely targets that Renny might go after, like more 'brides,'" Oulan whispered sourly.

"After that, we can just continue around the city-states searching for him if we have to."

Sierra nodded reluctantly, and Oulan turned to McDohl.

"We might as well head in that direction, too," she said.  To her surprise, McDohl appeared no more enthusiastic about this than Sierra did.

{I know why *she's* on edge - the bond keeps leaking her feelings to me, she doesn't like the fact that he's not with his people. But unless he's been put off by Sier's manners - or lack thereof -} she frowned at Sierra briefly - {there's no reason for *him* to be upset.  Help is usually welcome on the road.}

Picking up her verbal thread, she continued, "We're looking for Neclord, and it's a cinch he's not still in North Window after that explosion, so we might as well head for a city and check out the rumour mill. Or there's a private investigator in Radat, if we don't hear anything in South Window - he's supposed to be really good.  Would you mind if we travelled together that far?"

McDohl groaned inwardly.  Oh, this was just the perfect end to an equally perfect week.  He gets to travel with Red Sonya and the Ice Queen.  Oh well, it's probably better than nothing.

He nodded slowly and relaxed a little.

Some time later, Sierra got up noiselessly and prepared to leave the camp, but felt Oulan's eyes on her before she'd cleared the tree line.  The bodyguard's eyes seemed to throw a question across the air: {~Sier,where are you going?~}

Sierra briefly considered not answering, but then the persistent woman would probably follow her, and Sierra didn't really want that - not now. So she flicked an answer back along the bond, as much sentiment as words: {~I'm visiting home, Oulan - the village *you* inspired me to create. And I want to be alone.~}

Oulan rocked back on her blankets, stunned. {I didn't know she could do that when she wasn't biting me!} she thought, then shook her head and tried to recover her wits.

McDohl was calling her...

"Oulan?  You listening?"

"Um!  I'm sorry, I just wasn't sure if I heard a predator there.  What was the question again?"

"It's your Sierra," he repeated patiently, glancing in the direction she'd gone.

"Do you know if she has any . . . odd runes or anything like that?  She seemed really touchy around me . . . and she gave me . . . bad vibes.  I can't explain it any better than that, but . . ."

Oulan swallowed.

"I, um . . ." {Oh great, now what do I do?} she thought to herself, trying to come up with an answer that was neither lying nor giving away too much.

Finally, she swallowed and started to speak.

"First, I want to make it clear that you do *not* talk about this with her unless she brings it up first, and second, you did *Not* hear it from me.  Is that OK?"

McDohl nodded, and Oulan continued.

"All right. I know Sier has suffered a tragedy at Neclord's hands like what he did at North Window years ago, only worse, because he betrayed her and her people.  So there's the attitude accounted for. And she doesn't have any really *unique* runes... but she does have a Darkness Rune - I've seen her use it in battle.  That's supposed to be the lesser version of, well..." she nodded at McDohl's right hand. "Would *that* be reacting to it somehow?"

Sitting back again, she waited for a reply.

A very uncomfortable conversation later, McDohl just wandered around the woods.  He watched the trees, occasionally catching a glimpse of . . . something that appeared to be a flying squirrel.

Tighting the bandanna on his head and pulling his glove tight, he walked back to camp.  Sierra was gone and Oulan was doing her "pretending to be asleep" thing.

In the morning, they would be off to South Window, so he could report on his progress.  He may not have killed Neclord, but at least the guy would be taking his blood intraveneously for awhile.