The calm before the storm..... *no wait, it's after*

[Jade Priyellis]

Jade woke up with a start. He had been having the same recurring nightmare again. Jade sat upright on a bed that he did not remember lying down and going to sleep on. It was all so weird. Everything was a blur, Jade did not even know how he had managed to find himself on a bed in a semi-well-decorated room. Dazed, Jade blinked a few times, steadying his vision and clearing his eyes of the tears that would always run down his face after each of his nightmares.

Jade turned around, taking a closer look at the room around him. The room was neither small or large, more of in the middle. There was a dressing table in one corner of the room. The bed that Jade was on was in another corner of the room, with the foot end of the bed facing the dressing table. On the other side of the room was the door, with a chair and a warm, still-lit fireplace beside it. Although the room was not as grand as the one that Jade had in his home long ago, Jade could feel a sort of homeliness and warmth flood through his body. This feeling though, faded quickly, as Jade was reminded that he might never be able to find his parents and feel a true feeling of warmth and happiness ever again.

Jade looked at himself ins mirror. He was surprised by the face that stared back at him. Jade had not looked into a mirror for so long, at least a year, actually. His face had grown so much, such that Jade could not recognize it as his own anymore. The only part of his face that remained was the gold eyes that Jade had. His previously cheerful and joyous eyes were now corrupted with such a solemn look. Jade reached out with his hands and touched his face. Would his parents even be able to recognise him when he had managed to find them?

[Sabin]

Sabin smoked a pipe as he stared into the distance from the balcony of an in somewhere in town. It was a miracle that he had somehow managed to save the boy and escape the hellfire that was the Bernese arena at the same time. The boy was knocked out unconscious and the two had to rest in an inn for a couple of days. Until now the boy was still asleep. Sabin was quite worried if the boy had suffered too much trauma. Whistling to himself, Sabin walked in back to the room he had booked. He was tired of staying outside, thinking of the bloodshed he had seen and the dragon he saw. He was used to the battlefield but this was massacre. He shook his head in disappointment, thinking what the future would hold for him.

In the room he saw that the boy had finally woken up. Sabin gave out a sigh of relief. "I see yer finally 'waken, laddie" Sabin said.

[Jade Priyellis]

Jade was startled by the men's rough voice. Jade was so preoccupied that he did not notice the sounds of the door opening and of the man's footsteps as he entered the room.

"I see yer finally 'waken, laddie", the stranger said with a rough voice that sent a few shivers down Jade's spine.

Jade immediately poised himself to launch his Fire spell at a moment's notice if needed. Jade did not think that the man that Jade was now facing was entirely trustworthy. The main crux of the problem was that Jade did not know how or why Jade had woken up in this room. To make matters worse, the stranger's body build was like that of a pirate or a bandit. As an instinctive reaction, Jade remembered what he had learnt in his two years of traveling about not ever letting his guard down when Jade was alone, not even for a second.

"Who are you? What do you want with me?", Jade said, with a trembling voice that was halfway between that of abject fear and hostility.