The day trickled on slowly.  With nothing to do and no real duty to
perform C'aranth resigned himself to studying in his room.  He didn't much
study as look out on the green at the world below.  He watched the dragon
hatchlings exercise and people walking across the green.  Some wandered;
others had a definite purpose.
	C'aranth had left the drawing pad and the smeared ink drawing on the
floor.  It reminded him.  "Wasteful."  He muttered the word at the
painting.  
	He looked at his hands, the pink flesh of the left rose out of his black
sleeve, the lines arching to the fingers.  The fingers tapering to smooth
nails as he turned it over.  The right hand was gowned in black leather,
covered smooth and only the form of a hand without the detail.  He knew
what was under the glove, a pink mass of smooth tissue without form just
like the glove.  It was the form of a hand, but not the hand.  It lacked
the lines, the hair, and the nails.  It was a pink mass trying to be a
hand, but lacking all the things that define a hand.  
	He snapped the book he was browsing over shut.  Setting it back in its
proper place he then walked to his string that held the scales.  He ran the
scales between his forefinger and his tumb, feeling the hard dried ridges. 
Six total, six dragons he killed with his hand.  A year ago he would have
despised himself for the deplorable acts.  But it was as if the moral
anchor that held him near that shore snapped.  He was set adrift now, and
it felt strange.  Actually, what felt strange is that he felt nothing.  He
felt neither pride in his work, nor loathing.  Just drive, it wasn't
enough.  
	He reached past the scales to a small bottle.  It was glass, about the
size of his pinky.  The bottle was glass and held a clear liquid.  He
turned it over letting the pristine liquid tumble in the small vile. 
Poison, for if he ever changed his mind.  His mother had given it to him. 
Ironic the woman who gave him life also provides the means for his death. 
He had often thought of taking it, but he never did.  He would just look it
over and over again.  
	A knock woke him from his thoughts.  He set the vile back and walked to
open the door.  Dr S'olomon stood there and turned when the door opened. 
"Hello.  You don't mind if I see how you're settling in do you?"
	"Come right in doctor."  C'aranth made a swooping gesture with his arm and
opened the door.  The doctor entered.
	"Please, call me S'olomon, I am off duty."  He walked to the large window.
 "Quite a view.  I can see why you like this place."  He glanced at the
drawing, then to C'aranth.  C'aranth quickly scooped it up.  "An artist, I
wouldn't have know."  He looked around the room at the books.  "Quite a
collection.  Did you steal all these from your last Warren?"  
	"No my mother is a writer.  This is part of her collection.  She will
donate the remainder to the Warren when she dies."  C'aranth set the
drawing on the bed and hovered there.  He knew the real reason for the
doctor's visit.  To see how he was checking in, to see if there were any
tell-tell signs of suicide.  The doctors' would say, "Please try to live,
try to recover, but we will help you if you want to end it all."  But in
reality, they would try all they could to remove the slightest chance you
would take your life in a fit.  C'aranth thought it would be better to end
it in a fit, then at least the crushing depression doesn't destroy you
first.
	"Sounds like a generous mom." He said as he walked to the glass vile.  His
finger touched a spine of a book and shuffled down the row.  "Impressive, I
haven't seen some of these copies.  Whole at least.  Mind if I come and
borrow some books some time.  I would like to look in on some of this
information and compare it to what we have."
	"Go right ahead.  I can't read them all at once."  
	"Thank you."  S'olomon turned and looked at C'aranth.  "Well I should be
getting back to the hospital.  Work, work, work, that's all I ever do."
"And you're complaining?"  
	"No, I suppose I am not."  S'olomon looked at the stone floor.
 "I do enjoy my work."  He turned to leave then stopped mid turn.  "Do you
enjoy your work?"
	"I don't complain."
	"I see."  He left the room and C'aranth sat on the bed.  
	The room was still.  The kind of still that settles and makes dust.  The
kind that makes places seem old and gives sacred places that haunting
quality that makes people whisper.  The stillness that clings to you even
after you leave the place, like a funeral.  It just hangs with you, but now
it filled the room.  C'aranth bathed in it.
***********************************
	Eating in the mess hall was an experience.  The chitchat of people around
him was a dull roar as he got his food and sat at a table.  His apartment
was furnished with a fireplace and stove, but to be honest, he wouldn't
even eat his own cooking unless it was on the trail.  Then it was just a
matter of browning the meat, or eating the cheese and bread.
	He ate his food they why he had always eaten his food after Britianna
died.  Counter clockwise from the top.  He used his left hand to eat so it
was the easiest way to navigate the plate.  His sticks moved with lightning
speed as he consumed the food.  He hardly ever cared what it was he was
eating; he was just filling one of life's little needs as he saw it.
His right hand didn't use the sticks so well anymore; he had to learn to
use his left hand.  But the skill came with practice.  His right hand
couldn't feel so well, but it could still wield a sword.  The one thing it
was deadly accurate at.
	He retired not long after the sun.  With a book at his side and his hair
undone he closed his eyes, and waited for sleep to come with its dreams. 
He didn't like the dreams so much, nothing he wanted to see.  Twisted
versions of life, people he knew he has never seen before in his life and
place he knows nothing about.  He would wish the dreams would just end.  He
wondered if the dead dreamed?
Darren Hunter
Roland Brock
korzad@lgcy.com