A Life Unsafe to Live

[Kezaa (retired)]

This was a lengthy walk from his appartment in Hogsmeade, backed with the still far away dawn that was still far from the distant horizon behind him. In his dream, the old man from the weapon shop told him to stay away from Jesika. And judging from how helpless Kez was to help her in that one instant, it seemed that it would be better if he didn't bring any trouble upon their home.

And speaking of trouble, it seemed to have risen from deep within Kezaa's shoulder, a sharp pain that could not be derived from any immediate or notable source. He thought to have it looked at in the hospital wing once the nurses had awakened, but Kez could almost not help but wonder if there was anything to do about it. It seemed to be every bit as astral as the stars in the sky above.

Or lack there of.

There was only one star that shined in the sky. And there was not a single cloud above. With Kezaa's sharpened eyesight, he knew he would be able to pick up on the radiating bits of plasma in the heavens, even through cloud cover. Something was seriously wrong with the world. Or was it just Kez? He almost couldn't help but wonder if cognitively assigning blame to himself would infact elliminate the option from the equasion, but all the same, there was nothing else that made sense.

The dirt path Kez treaded on was the only thing that made any noise. The distant chirping of crickets halted as Kezaa's impending presence came across them. The small woodland creatures turned tail and retreated in the roadside foliage as he drew near. He stared out into the lake. He almost wondered if his presence was threatening enought that even the waters would part with his footsteps.

Clutching his shoulder tightly, his lethargic steps advanced towards the vast expanse of reflective night blue. Something about this hour of night made him.....unstable, somehow. An odd, vacant smile appeared on the blonde boy's lips.

Hrm, maybe what I need is a dip. A good, long one....

[Hikalyn Sarello]

Strange though it might have seemed, Kezaa was not so alone this night as he might have thought. One other figure sat nestled in the sand only a short distance away, visible only as a dark silhouette against a crystalline canvas and sitting so utterly still that it would have been easy to miss seeing it altogether.

Almost all her time that wasn't spent at the Ministry, now, was spent here at the lake. On those rare occasions that she did bother with the now unfamiliar phenomena that most people called 'sleep', she simply did so at her room at the Chateau Hotel in London. The Slytherin common room was almost more unfamiliar to her now than it had been when she had first arrived here at the school, ...how many years ago? She doubted any of the students now winding down for the evening back inside even remembered her name.

Hikalyn might have been lost somewhere within her own thoughts, but she wasn't so far gone that she didn't hear another quiet approach.

Rule number one: Never let yourself be taken unawares.

Rousing herself well enough to twist around from where she sat, the raven-haired woman's eyebrows rose as she took the moment necessary to compute and recognize the beach's latest addition. The school's Head Boy, she had hardly seen her male counterpart beyond a bare nod in the hallways, and now it seemed she was coming across him at every other bend of the road, so to speak.

Rising easily to her feet, Hikalyn moved towards him, stopping a few feet away. "Nice night," she remarked off-handedly, affecting not to notice the vacant, somewhat eerie smile that twisted Kezaa's lips. She had never been one to let things show, aside from which, even the most murderous of expressions wasn't capable of eliciting so much as a flinch from this girl.

"Sure have been running into each other a lot lately," she continued in that same light tone. "So how are you tonight, Kezaa?"

[Kezaa (retired)]

The Head Girl and Boy, despite the fact that they knew almost knew nothing about each other, did infact have something in common. They wanted out. Just as she was an unfamiliar face to most of the Slytherines, there was likely next to no one that knew Kez after his death. He assuredly did not go to the wing after that, and he made due just fine with the limited duties he took upon.

Or at least, he thought he was okay. The fact of the matter was, despite his youthy outward appearance, the Head Boy was very much not a 'boy' at all. He had outgrown that many years ago, and these changes were apparent when one looked at him close enough. Kezaa's glimmering sapphires were infact very muddy towards their swirling centers, boiling over with troubled thoughts of a past that refused to step out of his way.

"Hikalyn. Whatever would you be doing here at such an absurd hour? You know there'd be nothing to come of this but trouble if both the Heads were to just leave the school at the same time." he pulled out, immediately assuming that they were still playing the perverbial game of chase. He thought it was interesting, the way this beautiful lady liked to approach topics so indirectly. It was a wonder if she ever got around to addressing any serious matters in this way.

[Hikalyn Sarello]

Hikalyn arched an eyebrow, not bothering to supress the ghost of a smile that played about her lips at his words. What was she doing out here, indeed. "A lecture?" she asked, her voice faintly teasing. After all, she obviously wasn't the only one out at this 'absurd' hour, as he'd put it. Then she just shrugged. "I'm here because I'd rather outdoors than in," she remaked casually. It was a true enough statement in its way. It just came nowhere near to approaching the entirety of the thing. Whatever that was. "And I prefer the lake to, say, the graveyard." She punctuated that thought with another flippant shrug, as if it hardly mattered. Maybe it didn't.

Nothing much seemed to, anymore.

She paused, apparently taking a short moment to consider his words before coming back unconcernedly with, "There's also eight Prefects around to do pretty much the same thing we do." Now that little hint of a smile broadened into an outright smirk. "Besides, so long as everyone's in bed like they're supposed to be," something which she and Kez both knew was about as likely as having the moon drop out of the sky and onto a breakfast platter; there was always someone who decided that the rules were there for everyone but them, "nobody will pay any mind."

[Kezaa (retired)]

"Point taken, Hikalyn. However, you still didn't give any real answer to my question." he said, turning to let his gaze fully meet with those amythst irises of hers.

"Its not normal to just be out roaming about like this at this hour. And as per usual, you're alone." Kez was not exactly sure why he felt the need to air his concerns for this woman the way he was doing in that moment. But something was about to happen to him. Or something was coming for him. And rather than ordder her around, he felt it might have been more prudent to just tell it to her like this.

"You.....you've always been alone. Every time I have seen you in the past, there never seemed to be anyone in your life outside of academia. I don't have a clue why, but I just...."

Was Kez seriously about to say what he thought he was going to say? He never knew anything about Hikalyn. How is it he was able to empathize with her feelings so well despite the fact he knew not what face those feelings took on. Perhaps it was just her eyes; the emotions in them never seemed to match that wide smile that she was so used to wearing for everyone. He wondered if anyone had ever actually seen her smile from the bottom of her heart. Easing into a gentler, un-reprehensive smile, Kezaa's gaze stared about as deeply into her eyes as he could for anyone, to see if there was any impact to his next words. Such a curious girl.

"I just worry, I guess."

[Hikalyn Sarello]

If Kezaa had smote her between the eyes with a blacksmith's hammer, the action could not have surprised her any more than his words now just had. The candor of his assertion, so completely unexpected, had set her right back on her heels. It was rare for thing for her to lose her composure, and an even more rare thing for her to let someone else see it when she did, but for a long moment the only form of response she could offer was the astonished blink of purple eyes.

He was right, of course. She really hadn't answered his question... and these days, it seemed, she always was alone. Somehow, she had never really thought of that particular fact as anything remarkable. Just another part of the way things were. Or at least, it had been, until she heard someone else say it out loud. Someone who, though practically a stranger to her, had just voiced more open concern for her than she'd heard from anyone, even her friends, in a long time.

Ah, just admit it, Kalyn. You haven't let anyone close enough to give them a reason to be concerned, have you?

Her smile when it came, tempered by a thread of caution though it was, was quietly appreciative and, for once, the real thing. "Thank you," she said quietly. It was on the tip of her tongue to add that he didn't need to do any such thing. It was second nature to her to brush such sentiments away with a wave of her hand, but thinking about it, she rather doubted he'd believe her if she did. Thinking about it, she wasn't entirely sure he would be wrong not to. Say the words "I'm fine" often enough, after all, and after a while you even come to believe them--and it really doesn't matter if they're true or not.

For the first time, she broke away from that probing gaze, to turn her own stare thoughtfully out over the placid, shadow-shrouded waters of the quietly rippling lake. "I...I can't stay inside because it feels so confined, I guess," she answered slowly, her voice very soft. The words were ambiguous enough that they could have fit right in with her earlier, light-hearted response, but the tone in which they were spoken made it clear that this was something very different, indeed. She wasn't really speaking about physical barriers. Perceptive as he'd just shown himself to be, Hikalyn didn't doubt that Kez would pick up on that.

She drew in a deep breath. The gesture was accompanied by another fragile silence, one that lasted until she made herself keep going, in as honest an answer she'd given since... when? She couldn't even remember. "It's the same thing with people, really." It was almost a relief to let the words leave her mouth. She could hardly believe she was doing it. Unconsciously, her voice dropped both in volume and in pitch, until it was barely audible over the whisper of water washing over sand. "It's just... freer, when you're alone. More space." Safer, was the word she really wanted to use, the word she had almost used. So much more secure when the world was held at arm's length. Truth be told, letting someone in even this far was something she found more than a little uncomfortable. And for the life of her, she had no earthly idea what had possessed her to do it.

Stillness followed. Far from the smile that she was so accustomed to showing the rest of the world, her expession, molded by quiet shadows, was thoughtful, almost troubled. Her eyes flickered closed, for the barest fraction of a second.

When they opened again, their usual intensity was back in full, a change so sudden that the expression she turned back on Kezaa could almost have been termed as fierce. "What about you, then?" she asked, mingled concern and curiousity colouring the question. She offered a faint smile, as if in an attempt to soften the abruptness of the words, but the query was deadly serious. Normally, she wouldn't have been so straightforward with someone she barely knew, but... "I don't think there's a word you've just said that doesn't apply to you as well, and the last couple of times we met, you seemed rather... distant."

She held his gaze steadily. That more than her words was an invitation of sorts, or maybe a challenge. A challenge to do exactly as she had just done, to step even slightly out of those comfortable, protective barriers.

After all, as the saying goes, all's fair in love and war...

[Kezaa (retired)]

The girl had him pegged, in almost every concievable way. True, he had displayed very little reason for one to not be concerned. And no doubt it was not just the Head Girl whom could see this; it was scribbled all over his face, etched deep for any and all to see. MH had outgrown the need to have him as Head Boy, for he had obviously been doing it just as long as his female counterpart. If one were to just watch from afar, rather than directly address him, that masque of a smile the two had been reputed to wear would not be even remotely visible on his viseage. Bleak, shadowed, heavily laiden with worry, Kez was a man torn appart.

"Well Hikalyn, fair is fair I suppose." Kez finally began after a tiresome thought. He had a bad feeling that he was going to regret dragging this innocent woman into his dilimas, but it seemed there was little talking his way out of this. Pushiing his long bangs to the side he felt the cool breeze pass over his moist forhead before Kez began.

"I doubt you hold any interest in the sob story of a washed up fool like myself, so I'll spare you the melodrama with a quick question. Have you, ever felt that you basically had all the fullfillment you ever wanted in life, but were too afraid of embracing it? Like if you let your guard down for even a second, that once sweet reality would shed its skin to become a nightmare?" Kez paused for a moment, allowing Hikalyn to answer or at least absorb the question for whatever it was worth.

"Well, that's how I have been most of my life. Yes, on the surface most people viewed me as the love-sick hopeless romantic Head Boy whom was too wrapped up in the afairs of his perpetual goddess to even give a spare thought to his surrounding world. The fact is though, I was always all too attentive of my surroundings. I was careful to not let any danger creep into the life of Jesika because of her obvious importance to me. But no matter how I ran, how well I hid, or even when I fought, things just seemed to take a turn for the worse." Midway through this tangent of his, Kezaa's gaze averted the cool purple gaze of the Head Girl. He quickly found himself enamoured in his own thoughts, and that of the environment as well.

"The most dangerous thing I could have done to Jess though, was come back. I should have stayed dead."

[Hikalyn Sarello]

The long silence that had followed her thrown-back query was one that she'd more or less expected. If Kezaa was anything at all like her--and by this point, she pretty well figured that he was--then it wasn't by any means an easy thing she was asking him to do. She didn't repeat the question, however. He would answer eventually, she was sure; she was perfectly willing to give him a few moments to let his thoughts fall into place. After all, when she'd been on the receiving end not so long ago, she'd surely needed a few.

She was quiet while he answered, sensing that it wasn't so important to talk, but rather to listen. Even when he paused, leaving a space for her to respond to his words, she only nodded to show that she knew what he meant. Perhaps she knew a little too well. But it wasn't important, and she didn't want to interrupt the flow of his thoughts, so she only inclined her head in answer.

By the time he finished, Hikalyn suspected that he was talking to himself more than to her. He was no longer looking at her, and his last helpless words hung opressive on the air.

"No," she said, a simple, unwavering contradiction to that heavy-handed statement. Quietly as it had been spoken, something seemed to shatter with that utterance. "I'm sure she was overjoyed to have you back," she continued, her eyes seeking his again, "no matter the possible dangers." Now it was her turn to pause, knowing that those words, however true, weren't nearly enough.

"I don't know why you're so convinced that you're a danger to your wife, but it's a lot easier to protect someone alive than dead. And besides..." She hesitated for a moment, then plunged on. Life is dangerous no matter what you do. It isn't fair to shut yourself away from people who care about you because of one potential danger, when there are so many more out there you can't avoid."

It took an effort to keep the bitter, cynical smile from her lips. Life's all one grand adventure, so get out and live it? Yeah, well... maybe one of these days, she'd learn to take her own advice.

[Kezaa (retired)]

The strange, vexingly airy smile returned to Kezaa's lips as he stepped closer to Hikalyn, just as she blurted those words. Just from the way his sapphiric eyes gleamed with a knowing light, the girl surely must have known perfectly well what he was thinking, what he was about to say.

"I couldn't have said it better myself."

During the span of their brief yet revealing conversation, some heavy-set cirrus clouds began to roll in, making a strong indication towards a violent storm. Infact they may have gone without noticing it if it weren't for the sharp winds that cut by, along with the blocking of the stars and ever-present moon. Kez glanced up, and saw a peculiar pattern in the clouds - a hole that seemed to be held in place by some invisble astral force. From that opening streamed a single ray of moonlight upon the watery surface of the water no more than ten feet out.

"I.....I am not exactly sure of what lies in wait for me in that lake. But I know its there. And I really would rather you did not see it." these words spoken yet again, without any direct eye contact. His gaze could not be torn from the subtle phenomena before them, and he knew this was not meant for anyone else's eyes other than his own. Something terrible was about to happen, and the last strands of human decency in Kez moved him to try and save this girl from any further complications in her life.

However there was nothing else he could say or do for Hikalyn. He took one last look at the no-doubt perplexed face of the girl, her onyx locks floating about her fair face, the amythst irises squinting as if to decern the validity of this situation. There was no way he could just chase her away, mainly because he feared the next time this would occure would be at a time he would least expect. With that aside, he merely felt drawn to this fate, to embrace this destiny, no matter what consequences it held for him. It was up to the Head Girl, whether she wished to share the consequences.

Kezaa's blue coat floated wildly behind him, as if drawing nearer to a minature yet volatile storm. Even his now dull blonde locks pulled themselves down infront of his eyes, almost making it impossible for him to see where he was going. But he knew where he was walking, even if his eyes were closed, even if he were infact sleeping. The trail constructed by the pale moonlight made way to a venerable platform at the end, where that one cloud still refused to budge. Standing at the end of it, Kez was still only letting his shoes take on about a milimeter of water, despite the fact that beneath him the water reached a depth of at least 6 feet. He was standing on water.

Looking around as if to check his bearings, Kez suddenly froze in midbreath, looking upon a most unnerving sight. The reflection Kez saw in the water was not his own. It did look like him in relative appearance, but his hair was indigo and cut slightly shorter. It was the murderer in his dream. Leaning down, Kez touched upon the surface with his finger on the surface, as if to feel the contact of the other man's skin.....

[Hikalyn Sarello]

Despite the fact that she wasn't wearing anything warmer than a short-sleeved T-shirt, Hikalyn barely even felt the bite of the suddenly chill wind that cut past them. Following Kezaa's glance upwards, she did notice the ominous-looking storm clouds overhead, but in truth, she was suddenly paying them very little mind. Instead, her senses were narrowed on her companion. She wasn't sure what it was that had her guard up. Maybe it was that vague, empty smile that was once again playing about his lips, or maybe it was the subtle, warning pulse in her still-dormant Nature magic that had been so fleeting she was almost convinced she had imagined it. It didn't really matter.

Something was wrong.

Soft-spoken though they were, she heard his every word as if he'd shouted them. An expressionless face turned out towards the lake, studying the surface that no longer seemed the placid, glassy canvas that it had been just a few moments ago. She'd never seen anything quite like it. The curiousities didn't stop there, however. Of course--they never did.

His cloak and hair blowing wildly around him, Kezaa was walking on the water, moving towards that single point like a man entranced. It struck her, then, that perhaps he was.

She hesitated on the point of going after him, and not out of concern for her own safety. The man's affairs were his own, and this was something he obviously believed was for himself to do, himself alone. And at the same time... It went against just about every instinct the woman had to let an associate--however loosely she might use the term--walk into probable danger, alone. She hadn't headed the Aurors for two years for no reason; this was someone virtually incapable of just sitting on the sidelines to watch.

Duty. Choice.

The water lapping around her ankles was an icy shock. Apparently the pathway that he had used, though still clearly marked by spilling moonlight, wasn't going to make itself available to her. Maybe this really was something for him alone. The water was up to her knees, now.

She stopped as, ahead of her, she saw Kezaa do likewise, his attention apparently caught and held by something--his reflection?--in the water. Waist deep in it by now, she wasn't entirely sure what he was looking at. She couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, not from her angle, and she had to wonder if she would have seen it even if she'd been standing right next to him.

"What is it?" she called, wondering just what it was he saw that she didn't.

[Graf]

Oh, the many secrets that filled this lake. Every bit as numerous as the molecules that comprised it, one could even assume that the lake was alive with those secrets in itself.

The lake knew of this moment, and held its breath for it to come. That one, single, ripple, that warped across the vast expanse of murky night blue, and cracking into that reflecting mirror of the cloudy sky.

A hand had indeed reached up, and caught the Head Boy's hand in a vice-like grip. The owner of that hand waited until the blonde showed any sign of struggle, bufore pulling himself from the water, exposing himself from the shoulders up. Wearing the same clothes as Kezaa, this sopping wet brute gave him a particularly malicious glare before his other hand shot up from the watery depths, nailing Kez square in the jaw with a punch. A brief moment of being stunned was all this villan needed to grasp the young man's collar and drag him in the depths with him, which he wasted no time in doing.

Already over ten feet below, the trail of moonlight was a rouse, a form of hypnotic suggestion that was induced upon both the school officials. Kez did not merely walk out less than 20 feet. Infact he had been walking out on the waters for several minutes, dallying in circles here and there, and finally ending up about a mile from the shore. And Hikalyn, still waist deep in water, had apparently not learned yet that Kez was nowhere to be seen, nor was the phantasmic beam of light.

However, this malevolent figure was very real indeed. He fluttered his legs, pushing Kez deeper down into the watery recesses. He was dying to see Kez, desperate and struggling in his grip.

[Hikalyn Sarello]

The world seemed to ripple. It was a phenomenon that would have been considered natural enough, had it kept itself to the surface of the lake like it was supposed to. But this interesting effect cut the night in half. It also managed to screen the happenings of the next few moments completely from her view.

Once the ripple had dispersed and she could see again, the woman found herself staring back down the lake towards where she had last seen the Head Boy. There he was, but he was a good deal farther out than he had been--how had that happened?

No, she realized, her eyes narrowing, that wasn't Kezaa. The clothing was the same, but even from this distance she could see that it wasn't the same man. Much too stolidly built, and there was something about him that had her Nature magic twanging a warning, the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. The goosebumps running up her arms had very little to do with the fact that she was standing in frigid water.

She bit off a curse at her rather untenable position. It was hard to move anywhere very fast, after all, when you were standing half-submerged in icy cold water, and the very fact that she was in water would render most of her earth-based magic ineffective. Just to top things off, while those few individuals who managed to acquire the use of Nature magic usually master water as well as earth, she wasn't particularly skilled in the use of the former element.

She supposed she'd just have to improvise.

A hasty enchantment had her moving towards the stranger, propelled across the water more quickly than she could have trod upon solid surface. He was thrashing, she saw as sne neared, in what looked like an attempt to hold something, someone, under the water. Three guesses who that might be. Oh, wasn't this just getting better and better?

Threads of magic, raw energy bound up in a physical form, reached out of nowhere to coil around the stranger's arms and pull him off his target with a forceful wrench, holding him suspended above the lake in their graps, his feet still dragging the water. She glanced out of the corner of her eye, hoping and expecting to see Kezaa resurface any second, but she hardly thought it prudent to take her attention completely off this pernicious figure.

Prudent. She checked a sigh. Here she was, treading water, a long swim away from the shoreline, quite firmly enmeshed in what was apparently a violent dispute that really had nothing to do with her. And now she was worrying about prudent.

She appraised the man with cool amethyst eyes and one raised eyebrow, for all the world as if she wasn't acutely aware of just how ludicrous this particular situation was. "Awfully crude way to settle a disagreement, don't you think?" she asked, her voice so casual it just barely missed open mockery. Damn, it was cold. How did she get herself into this sort of thing? If it hadn't been so serious it would have been utterly laughable...

OOC: Grah, sorry it's such a load of crap.... I blame Kalyn. She was being difficult. Again. *exhibits bite marks*

[Kezaa (retired)]

Kezaa's body went limp, stunned from the surprise of having a firmly clenched set of knuckles graze his jaw with a solid impact. Kezaa oddly found his body even more incooperative, even after having his senses awakened by the blistering and choking cold of the lake's water. It felt as if......he had only awakened from a long nap. The kind of nap where unrest plagued the sleeper and the most refreshing part would be diving into water just like this.

Kez knew that as long as he were submerged, every action he had, including living itself, held a limit. He had no room for any of his actions to be wasted. The man's body lied horizontal to the surface as he gripped onto Kezaa's collar, permitting him no leeway to the surface. Kicking would be ineffective underwater, particularly at this angle. And his punches would also lose their stopping power by the time they would stretch to meet his attacker.

Losing air fast, Kez began to thrash as desperately as his clothes and body would allow, trying to remove the stranger's leverage over him. The guy's unblinking stare did not falter; he knew everything Kez was about to do, and the water gave him plenty of forsight.

Going limp, Kez hoped the ploy of playing dead would at least lower the dark stranger's gaurd within those last crucial seconds. However, that was not neccissary, as Kez beheld etheral threads lace around his attacker and pluck him from the surface. Air bubbles escaped Kezaa's mouth as he fluttered to the surface, sputtering mouthfuls of fresh air.

[Graf]

Dripping, drizzling, the young man furrowed his brows in irritation as he was whisked from the water, much the same as a disobediant child having his ear pulled by his naggish mother from an important task such as ruining his house with grafitti. Graf's ever present contempt was apparent in the way he tilted his chin up with a mild sneer of defiance as he eyed the attractive Head Girl.

For him, it was interesting to be levitated so. Graf shared a small portion of Kezaa's sharp wind technique, but he much prefered the radiance of the reckless fire in his fingertips. He pondered if this woman could handle it. Switching to an expression of mock innocence, he leaned forward just as the Head Boy burst from the watery surface, and spoke.

"Well dear me, if it isn't our rather striking Head Girl. Come to play as well?" his voice was airy with jest, shadowing the undertone of threat as his eyes glistened dangerously. Tearing at the fibers that held to his right arm, Graf dove down, hanging upside down in that suspended air as he reached into the water. He then plucked Kez out with an alrming ease, holding onto his chest despite his limited allowance of holding aside from the Head Boy's clothing. His hand held onto something very straight and round, like the hilt of a blade, in Kezaa's coat pocket. Denoting a hint of maroon at the base of the growth, the handle elongated more from Kezaa's chest. A small fountain of crimson erupted from the Head Boy as a sword was finally drawn from the boy's torso. The same sword that Kez pilfered from the store many nights ago. He had little clue as to the sword's true nature, for it was no mere ornamental object for occasional killing. The thing thirsted for carnage, and lusted for the thick crimson life in all living creatures. This cursed object lied dormant in the Head Boy's body, feeding instead off his emotions since he obviously could not be so easily swayed into killing like other humans.

Graf's murderous gaze disappeared beneath his indigo bangs after letting a final glint escape. Submitting to the murderous internal commands of this cursed sword, a faint smile of satisfaction spread across his lips as he stretched his arm out, plunging it straight into the Head Girl's abdomen.

[Gavin]

OOC: Say the word, and I am 'poof' gone.

BIC:

A soft whisper of footsteps.... on water?

"Hey s***stain." Called an unexpected voice.

Gavin squatted calmly upon the waters surface, perched upon what appeared to be a floating stick, which shouldn't have been able to hold his weight in any case. He was clad in his usual regalia of urban punk; camouflage pants, a black hooded sweatshirt, a black knit cap, and combat boots.

In his hand dangled something severely deviating from the norm; a long-barreled pistol forged of glossy black steel with gold highlights, giving it the appearance of veins of gold glinting from the mouth of a dark cave. He rose slightly, arm bringing the small cannon of a weapon up to aim unerringly at Graf.

"I got a present for ya'." And fired, a gout of flame like dragon's breath exploding from the barrel, sending forth its deadly package across the water towards Graf.