Night time fell and Loque Bella and Marius sat at the dining table having dinner; mushroom soup."I think that went very well," Marius said."Did it?" Loque Bella went."Yes, I told you he was going to help you.""Did he really?""He gave you Gorra's name.""Yes this Gorra woman who may or may not help me," she said."She will help you. All you have to do is convince her and she will.""And what if I don't? What if I can't do the one thing that is going to determine whether I get back to my time or not?""You will," he said."You don't know that.""You don't know she won't help you either; we just have to get to Miings and do the best we can because like Ludrin said it's either that or nothing. If you don't manage to convince her then it is done.""Wow no pressure. Goodness this is all too much. It's too much. What is going on? Why am I here? How am I here?" Loque Bella asked."Loque Bella, ha

Night fell and outside the hut they had rented for the night, Loque Bella and Marius sat on the ground around a fire; both with blankets over them and taking in the quiet of the night, with distance looks on both their faces."How are you doing over there?" Marius asked."I certainly could be better," Loque Bella responded. "I knew what she was going to tell me I had to do was going to be hard but I didn't think it was going to be this hard. Journeying through a hot desert against the blazing sun to reach an oasis that no living soul has ever been to sounds like one of the hardest things I'll probably ever have to do.""It is. The desert is so hot and vast that people who have attempted to cross it and come out the other end . . . Have never been seen again. Goodness I didn't even think there was anything alive in there, an oasis for that matter, if I hadn't heard everything else it would have easily been the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. An oasis in

The following day came and Loque Bella and Marius carried on. From walking across the hard ground of the desert they found themselves entering the loose sand portion of it with dunes of different shapes and sizes scattered across the area, as far as the eye could see."Goodness and now the real hard part comes," Marius said."We have to get across all that?" Loque Bella asked."Yes we do. And there's no sign of trees anywhere so I'm guessing we have double this ground to cover.""Great.""Come on let's go. Let's see if we can cover a good amount of ground before the overhead sun comes upon us and makes our day.""Alright," she said and they began making their way across the loose sands of the desert; continuing with their journey through the bare hotness to the Harborage of Embellishment where Loque Bella's last chance to return to her lover and family lied.Hours later the sun was directly overhead and was at its meanest; as below it

The sun rose over the dunes and brought forth a new day and walking on across the hotness Loque Bella and Marius carried on; now with only one bag with the things they needed to survive.There was a large dune in front of them and when they climbed it hoping to see something in the distance that would give them relief, it gave them the opposite feeling; they both gave out heavy sighs and threw their heads down, there was nothing out there but dunes, dunes and more dunes."Goodness gracious, I don't know how much more of this I can take. I am so tired," Loque Bella said heavily breathing, with her fur cloak stained with dried up blood and washed in dirt to keep the blood from being smelled by any nearby predators."We'll get there don't worry," Marius said with his bag on his back."Get where? We don't even know where we're going.""Yes we do. The Harborage of Embellishment.""Yes but we don't even know if it's out here," she said."Of

It was a couple of hours after midnight and the full moon still shining its bright light, Loque Bella in her moon essence form flew through the night sky in the direction of the Harborage of Embellishment. She had left Marius behind and it was a decision that cut her up. It reminded her of the heart ache that came to her when she saw Prince Mangus dead and what he put himself through just to ensure her safety and that just made her leaving Marius behind even more painful. The desert was dangerous and he was out there by himself, what had she done? With what they had faced, she couldn't believe that she had left him but she had to. Leaving meant he could have her portion of food and water which would give him another day but still that was not good enough; hunger and thirst were not the only things that could kill him out there, there were the creatures also. And what if one of them attacked him? They barely survived going up against them the two of them what more by himself?