Whether they were days or years that passed with every step, it was sometimes difficult to tell. Even this far to the west, the sands still blew across the back of her ankles as she walked down to the river to wash. She could feel the river beneath her feet, having slipped off her sandals. She could feel it, the way the stones washed to sand over the years, until she could feel the migration of the water down the cliffs towards what was, indeed, a river.

Kendra fluttered in the air behind her, little wings buzzing at her ankles quite merrily. ~What's that?~ she asked brightly, curiously.

"It's a river. Come on." And she led the way down the bank.

~Shouldn't we tell Feivel where you're going?~

"I'm sure he'll figure it out," Janice said dismissively, feeling in the earth that people had not been this way for quite some time. Quite a very long time. "He's usually very good at finding me."

~I don't like him.~

"I know."

~Why are we staying with him?~

Janice shrugged as she began the descent of the steep hill towards the river. Trees lurched over the water, and nothing too dangerous seemed to be lurking beneath the surface. She paced the shore barefoot for a while, detecting nothing with sharp teeth in the silt.

Nothing within recent years, anyway.

Slowly, she unwound the silks from her face. Her other two eyes opened blindly, rolling wildly as they gazed into the sun. She felt her twin's jaw work silently in the sunlight as she shed her heavy gloves, her thick dresses, her many layers to keep the sand and dust and grit out of her life.

She drew a comb and sat on the bank, feeling the sun wash over her skin, the ages over her soul, and idly combed her hair, humming a song long lost to this age.

"I can't believe you're talking dogs," Gershwin sighed as the three of them ran and jumped and cavorted around Tem and him. "I can't believe you ate my horse."

"It would've been better fresh," the grey male, Lenarvix, insisted.

"It was slaughtered in front of you! How much more fresh do you need it?"

"Alive. Breathing."

"Lady, you test me," he breathed under his breath. "If we get horses," he said, glaring at Lenarvix, the surly wolf-cat-thing glaring up at him as the white-with-wings Kodavix and the brown whip-like Murar chased each other around, "you're not going to eat the ones we intend to keep, you got that?"

"Will we get to eat some you don't want to keep?" Lenarvix drawled. He was clearly the one in charge around here, or at least ostensibly in charge. Whether or not he actually held any power over the other two remained yet to be seen.

"We'll see how narrow an escape it is and whether we can sell them for something."

"Sell?" Lenarvix drawled. "Who would you sell them to? They're meat on legs. They're made for running down, tearing into."

Gershwin glared indignaltly at Tem.

If his face was any indication, the old man was greatly enjoying this. The least he could do was be subtle about it.

Camphor stared into the darkness as Faline slept, draped across Quetz's scorched green scales. The dragon's lazy orange eyes were trained on him as he let his hands work a knife across a block of wood from his cart.

How they got out here, why they even came out here, he didn't know. He couldn't fathom.

He'd been pulled, he knew that much. He knew that he'd come here on impulse, led the way until the compulsion left him. What he needed out here, what purpose he served, he couldn't grasp. The compulsion had left him completely.

He glanced towards Quetz. "Have you been out this far before?"

*Faline comes from the coast. She's told me stories.*

"But you've never been?"

The dragon didn't shrug, but Camphor got the understanding that he wanted to. He wouldn't wake his sleeping bondmate. It was that simple.

*I don't blame her,* he drawled lazily. *I wouldn't trust me not to burn all she loved to kindling, either.*

"That's quite positive. I'm sure you reassure her at every junction."

*Of course,* the dragon hissed quietly, flicking his tattered wings to warm themselves in the heat of the fire. Quetz was already practically in the fire.

"Haven't you wanted to see the sea?"

*Why should I?* the dragon drawled. *All that's there is water. There's nothing alive in water.*

Camphor boggled at him. "What?" he asked out of impulse. "You know there's fish and plants and--"

*None of that's really alive. None of it has a mind of its own if you let it loose. It'll do what it's always done. A fish will swim as it's always swam. A plant will grow and wither. Fire... Fire cannot survive in water. Fire will never survive in water.*

"Well..." Camphor said, trying to see why the dragon sounded like this was impossibly deep. "No," he admitted, still compeltely lost. "It generally doesn't."

Quetz looked smug for a long moment. *She says the sea is like the end,* he said at last.

"I've heard similarly," Camphor admitted.

*I'd like to see it once.*

"To see the end?" he asked.

The dragon turned to glare at him, and Camphor felt his skin actually crawl for just once. *To prove her wrong.*