Suddenly, the night sky, till now clear and bright, was darkened by a cloud that seemed to move without the need of a wind. The pup shivered despite the heated warmth burning in his heart. He looked down and saw with his night vision the form of a human running steadily and quickly through the forest. Looking beyond the man to what he was running from, the dragon saw nothing, but felt a presence, like a small part of something so very much larger. Then he saw the two glowing red eyes travelling above the ground and the fear they produced in the young pup was too much, and the pup flew off, leaving the human and the cold evil to themselves, regardless of what his mother might think.

The human, unfortunately, wasn't doing so well. At several points throughout this evening, he'd wished he'd had wings, but now, he wasn't so sure even wings could help him.

"Damn," he thought to himself, "why is it always me?"

If an innocent bystander had been there to see the runner at this point, he might be disturbed to see a quick bolt of lightning fly from the hilt of the runner's sword, which was slung across his back, to the headband he wore around his head to keep his long brown hair out of his face. If an innocent bystander had remained much longer to see why the runner was running, he might have lived long enough to feel the tangible evil of the force following the runner, but then he would have been destroyed by the encompassing power of the being, which was only a small part of a larger... something.

The runner came to a large tributary to the river running off to his left.

"Damn! Majestrix, I need help!"

He pulled the sword from its scabbard and watched a feeble glow flow out of it. A spark, nothing more, travelled the short distance to the runner's headband. Communication was quick, thoughtful, and focused primarily on preparations for the afterlife, which the runner wasn't at all looking forward to.

"Damn it, Majestrix, I'm so close! One bridge, one little bridge to Cymor or Sycil or even Darcwerld. Hell, I'll settle for Qayk at the rate we're going."

The sword hummed. It knew, as well as its wielder, the gravity of the situation, but even the thought of proceeding to Qayk, the home plane of all earth elementals and not at all designed for sustaining humanoid life, it thought a little drastic.

In the forest, something moved. It moved, not like a creature of the night or of the forest, but like acid through thin metal plate. The trees and creatures in its path were sucked dry of all life, their withered remains left to rot slowly.

"I feel you, human. You are going to die this time. Even your sword is powerless now. I will enjoy your soul."

The form, the red eyes, came out of the forest and into the opening next to the small river. The eyes seemed to look left and right, though they did not actually move. There was no one on the banks of the tributary. The only living things around were the trees, and even some of them were now withering away due to the life-feeding powers of the being in their midsts.

"You are here, human. I can feel you are still here. Come out. I might not devour your soul. Come out!"

There was silence in the wood. Nothing, not even the insects, made a sound.

"Then I will waste this forest with my mindgrasp, just to get you, human. And nothing can stop me!"

The eyes began to glow ferociously, as if drawing power from a source outside of itself, outside of reality. But, just as it seemed something would happen, a figure stepped from behind one of the elms along the far bank, a female figure.

"You will do nothing of the sort."

The eyes turned this time to look at the figure. The glow from the eyes were enough to illuminate a tall woman, pale, like birch bark, robed in a gossamer gown of darkest green.

"No! You will stay out of this one, woman! He is mine by right!"

"Maybe he is, but this forest is not. It is mine, and you are not going to destroy this entire forest for the soul of one mortal. You have no more power here. Be gone, before I must call Granyt and L'om to dismiss you."

The eyes quivered a moment, then vanished in a flash of brimstone and helsmoke.

The lady walked gracefully over to an ancient oak, fifteen feet across, and, like a doorman at a mansion, opened the bark to reveal, engrained in the wood itself, the runner and his sword.

"Come out, human. The evil is gone."

She held out her hand and took his and pulled him out of the tree. The newly revealed moon shone off the shock of white hair running down the center of the runner's dark brown locks. As he placed his sword, the one he had called Majestrix, back in its scabbard, a spark flew from it to the woman's forehead. She was startled at first, then looked knowingly into the eyes of the handsome youth.

"Well, I finally have the pleasure of meeting Hawklok of the Rebuilt Cities. Welcome to my forest."

Hawklok fell to his knees, partly in fatigue, but mostly because he hadn't been in the presence of a god in quite a few months, not since he defeated The Dark Lord five years ago.

"M'Lady," he said simply.

"If you must call me something, then let it be Green Mother, or Green Lady. Now, up. On your feet."

She drew him up and he felt his strength returning unnaturally, quickly. She looked at the several wounds he had received during his battle and his subsequent run through the wood. She bent and dipped her fingers into the cool waters of the river and traced each of the wounds. Each glowed briefly, then closed, healing in a matter of moments.

"You are one lucky man, Hawklok. Not everyone has even the stars looking after him."

Hawklok remained silent, not knowing what to think.

"Don't think anything. Sleep here, under this oak. He will keep watch for you and alert me if any danger should return. But now, just sleep, dream, and forget."

Hawklok raised his head.

"Who was that chasing me? I felt the evil, but not a mind."

The Green Lady laid him on the ground, left one of her green scarves as a pillow, then stepped into the silver shaft of a moonbeam cast down by Myshella, Goddess of the Moon and Protector of the Carousel during her course through the night, as Hawklok drifted into sleep and was gone.

The only dream Hawklok would remember after he awoke would simply be words he spoke in one of them, "Damn, why is it always me?"

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