"Wardon, look!" Thirteen-year-old Rayson Umor proudly held up a handful of eggs. The eggs were a sight to behold, and in the dappled sunlight that filtered through the dense forest like golden flecks, they gleamed every color of the rainbow, except for green. Ray, as he was known to his friends, was obviously very delighted by his find- after all, eggs of the dwarf dracon were very difficult to find, since they gleamed in with perfect union with the common mushroom patches in the forest.

But the chilly, cloaked figure walking ahead wasn't as exuberant as Ray was with the find. "That's nice."

The cold tone of voice was enough to make him shiver. It would have scared him too, if he did not know who the voice belonged too.

The voice belonged to Wardon Ridelta, his guardian, mentor, and trainer. How he had been assigned to little ten-year-old Ray was unforgettable…

Ray still remembered his first encounter with Wardon.

"So this is the boy?" Wardon asked quietly. Before, he had been hidden in a cloak's hood. The cloak itself had been mysterious enough- a black cloak mottled with dark brown and dark greens and grays. But the chilling voice that asked if this was the boy was even colder than the winter draft coming in from the open door.

Wardon had been a dramatic sight to behold- the wind howling through the door, the cloak nearly unmoving in the great gale. But the smooth lower half of the face was cold, uncaring beyond all- it was like looking at the lower face of the god of ice and indifference. The thin hard lips, the nearly gaunt face…But when the hood came off, young Ray was enraptured, absorbed in…

The face. The sleek hair, somewhere between blue, silver, and black at the same time, was cut in the style of the People of the North. The cheekbones were high, and the skin very, very pale and smooth and unblemished… But what caught the young boy's attention most of all were the eyes.

Usually eyes would radiate something, like a cheery disposition or even icy apathy… But Wardon's crystalline icy blue eyes radiated nothing. No clue to what lay beneath, no windows to the soul like the poets claimed. And those eyes still held nothing, exactly like Wardon acted, only with icy indifference, as if the world could burn up in hot flames and he would care-

"Boy!" the cold voice called angrily, startling Ray out of his memories. "What are you looking at, do you want to get to Seaport with your eyes in your head or not?"

"Uh, yes! Guess what?"

"I don't have a choice, do I?"

Ray jumped around the arctic cold figure, his brown hair and blue eyes alive with excitement. The two were a fascinating contrast- a hyper, friendly boy with shining eyes and a cute, boyish face, and an apathetic man with cold features and uncaring aura.

"We're meeting Nadila there!" Ray screamed in excitement and attempted to give Wardon a hug, but was swiped off mercilessly.

"That's nice." Again, the same sub-zero, uncaring voice.