Julion sat alone on his bed in he and Dale's room, his chin resting in his hands with his elbows on the windowsill. He longingly gazed out into the field beyond the house and the distant forest. All was dusky in the forthcoming night.

Suddenly, Julion sensed an approacher and twisted around to see his adoptive father standing in the doorway with his arms placed behind his back and a nervous look upon his face. Julion ran a hand through his hair uncomfortably. "What do you want?" he said anxiously, his eyes darting from Landone's face to his feet and back again, not wanting to make eye contact for a long period of time.

"There's something I've been meaning to mention to you, Julion," Landone said slowly, drawing closer to the elf.

"What is it, sir?" Julion said, reverting to a respectful tone but feeling utterly confused.

"I..I need to...I have to get something out of the way that's been pestering me for seven years," he said as he came nearer to the bed.

Julion's eyes widened as he backed himself against the wall where he sat on the bed. "What..what do you mean?" he said shakily, his body beginning to quiver in fear.

"I mean to help the village, Julion, you understand, I'm sure." Landone said, placing a hand on Julion's shoulder.

"No!" Julion yelled. "Get your hand off me!" he said, trying to spring away yet being held down firmly.

"I've waited all too long for this." Landone said. He drew up the hand he had kept behind his back, bearing a long sharp knife. He raised it high, and an evil smile crossed his lips, excitement flaring up in his eyes.

Julion emitted one last struggle to get away, but the strength of the hulking man was too much for him. The knife came down abruptly into his side, cutting deep into his body with a sickening smoothness.

"Aiiiiii!"

"Julion! Julion..what's wrong?"

Julion blinked and shook his head. He suddenly sat bolt upright. All was dark and silent, and all he could see was the pale light from outside the window being reflected in Dale's curious eyes.

"What's wrong?" Dale repeated, sitting up in his own bed directly across from Julion.

Julion put a hand to his forehead, which was damp with sweat. "I..I just had the most horrible dream..I mean, nightmare," he said shaking his head, trying to get the image out of his head. He held his palms to his eyes and breathed deeply.

Dale jumped out of his bed and came to sit on the mattress next to Julion. He sat there patiently until Julion lifted up his head once more. An odd light seemed to pass over Julion's cerulean eyes. "I must leave now," he said simply, then stared at Dale with an intense gaze.

Dale sat incredibly still as he thought over Julion's words, then suddenly Dale smiled. " leaving tonight."

Julion returned the smile, relieved at Dale's reaction.

Dale got up and grabbed a green canvas bag he had often slung over his shoulder to gather firewood with and began to stuff various articles of clothing inside it from off the floor and inside the drawers next to his bed. "Get yours, too," Dale whispered.

Julion retrieved his own canvas bag, putting in all that he found would be useful, including the blanket off the bed and his entire wardrobe, which was not much.

Dale knelt down and started searching through the mess under his bed. "I know I have a storage of candles and matches under here somewhere." he muttered.

"Why do we need candles? Matches is understandable, but we can just build fires, can't we?" Julion hissed as he ran about in the dark, clad similarly to Dale in only a pair of loose khaki colored pants.

"We still need a map, don't we? We need to stop by the library on the way and get a map of the forest..they've got to have one somewhere, and trust me, we can't look through books by only moonlight- what is this?" Dale interrupted himself, pulling his body out from under the bed as he held out something shiny in his palm.

Julion turned to see what it was and gasped. He pulled the object away from Dale and walked over to the window in hopes of seeing it better.

"Since I've had so little time to identify it, can you tell me what that might be?" Dale said in an annoyed tone.

The elf looked wistfully at the little faceted purple jewel that lay strung on the golden chain in his palm. With a finger he rubbed off the layer of dust covering the elongated gem.

"Julion?" Dale said, standing up and walking to his side, his bare chest suddenly bathed in moonlight as he stepped nearer to the window.

"I know this necklace," Julion said in a hushed tone. Dale looked from the jewel to Julion's face, and noticed that tears were beginning to spring into his eyes. Dale looked upon him with sympathetic eyes, yet not knowing what had caused Julion to act in such a way.

"This was my mother's necklace. That day, seven years ago, I was sitting under the trees with my parents in the woods and I asked my mother if I could see her necklace. She took off her gem and let me play with it, and I still remember her smile. We were so happy that day. It was then that the wolves came upon us, taking us by surprise. They were...they had already attacked my parents, and my father frantically yelled at me to run and not look back," Julion paused to let a tear run down his cheek. "I didn't look back, but that didn't mean I couldn't imagine what was being done as I heard the screams of my mother. I ran with the third wolf pursuing me for who knows how long, and that's when I ran into you. I was still holding the necklace as I hid under your bed. Once there, I must have let go of it and forgotten it."

Dale placed a comforting hand upon Julion's shoulder. Julion separated the chain and slipped it over his head. It came taut around his neck and the jewel rested just below his collarbone, glinting amethyst against his pale skin. Dale was taken in by the simplistic beauty, and then shaking off the trance of the Elven gem, he turned away and slipped on a long sleeved tunic and boots over his pants. Julion silently did the same, and both snuck out silently into the kitchen.

"Wait, the matches." Dale whispered, going back into the bedroom, while Julion added a few trinkets from the kitchen to his pack, such as the long knife he had seen in his dream, a head of cheese, some bread, and a pan in case they didn't get to the city as fast as they predicted. Dale came back with a candle and a box of matches, and without a second thought they opened the door silently and slinked out into the night.

The sky had begun to clear yet the ground was still wet. A large number of stars twinkled above them in the midnight-blue sky, and the only sound to be heard was the routine chirp of the field locusts. Dale led the way to the library as they passed house after house until they reached the village square. The library was, as usual, unlocked, and Dale struck a match and held it to the candle as they came through the doorway. Julion walked straight to the nearest bookshelf and started flipping through random manuscripts in hopes of finding maps by the little light he had, seeing as Dale was wondering off with the candle.

"Dale? Dale, come back here! I can't see that well, even with Elven eyes," Julion muttered, still attempting to be quiet although no one was around. Suddenly a loud ripping sound split the silence, and Dale appeared from the opposite side of the room with a large smile on his face. "That was easy," he said to himself.

In his arms was a huge brown piece of parchment, looking rather fragile and frayed, and now sporting a jagged edge at the top.

"Dale, where'd you get that?" Julion said, surprised that he found such a map.

"Oh, it's the old town heirloom they've had hanging on the wall in this library for nearly a century. I can't believe I didn't remember it. It has every region and forest around our village spanning for miles, and it's very accurate, or so I'm told," Dale said as he handed the candle to Julion and happily folded the map. Julion blew out the flame as Dale slipped the map into his bag, which he wore across the shoulder like a messenger boy. "Alright," Dale said, hardly suppressing his excitement, "Let's go."

They went back down the dirt road, past the rows of identical houses, passing their own familiar residence, and off into the field in the direction that Julion had come from seven years ago. If they had bothered to look back, they would have seen the sad face of a sixteen-year-old girl watching from her bedroom window her brother and a dear friend wander off into the woods and vanish into the night.