Xander went and sat next to his niece. The little girl hugged him and he startled before clumsily hugging the sobbing girl back.

"Uncle Xander, please promise we will go home to Halgard. Please promise me, Uncle!" Lyanna spoke in between her sobs.

That is not a killer. That is just a man, who is thrusted suddenly into a role that he has never prepared himself for before, that of a caretaker of a young child, Airin thought with some certainty that managed to calm her down.

Xander held Lyanna for some time, and Airin just stood, unsure how to act or what to say, suddenly feeling so foreign in her own living room.

Lyanna slowly drifted off to sleep again in Xander's arms, and Airin nodded at the direction of her bedroom, wordlessly telling Xander to bring the girl there, to which Xander complied.

"None of what I have told you is a lie, Airin," Xander stated as his gaze pierced a point in the rain outside. He stood by the window after he put Lyanna to bed in Airin's bedroom.

"You do understand that what you have told me is just so ... strange, right?" Airin sighed, she already made herself a cup of tea. Her hands hugged the cup and she enjoyed the warmth on her frosty fingers.

"Listen, this ... I can prove it that I am from Halgard, that I do not mean any harm to you," Xander shut his eyes tight, and opened it again. Airin tilted her head, fell deeper in her own confusion.

"Listen. Hephaestus is the god of fire, of volcano, of metalworks and blacksmiths. He was so thankful to Metiocles for helping to capture Ares, thus salvage bits of his honour, that he granted a little gift to Metiocles, and to all his direct descendants. A special skill ..." Xander explained.

"Special skill? Like what?" Airin tilted her head, knotted her eyebrows, and she sounded stand-offish, but she did not care anymore. She had to be sure.

"Do you have a coin? A metal coin?" Xander asked.

Airin sighed, this got weirder and weirder. She nodded, and went to get her purse, and from the purse, a coin of fifty cents. She handed it to Xander.

Xander twirled the coin with his right hand, rubbed the surface with his right thumb, and gave it back to Airin.

Airin took the coin, grabbed it in her palm for a few seconds, for some reason she dared not look.

Xander waited.

The coin felt cold within her sweaty palm, and Airin took a deep, long, breath, and opened her palm.

A gasp, and then a quick look at Xander's face, and quick look back at the coin in her hand.

The surface of the coin was now smooth, with no sign at all that it was previously a fifty-cent coin. Well, not completely smooth, because there was now an engraving on it, an engraving that was a replica of the tattoo that was on Xander's forehead.

"Wow ..." Airin took a look at the coin with even more focus. Her eyes did not deceive her. Her fifty cent coin had turned to be a smooth coin with an engraving of a strange character.

"I can work metals with my bare hands. A strange skill, isn't it?"

"Strange. You bet."

"Do you believe me now?"

"Wait. Coin is easy. You could just be a very good magician. Who knows? Now do the same to this!" Airin rushed to her kitchen, grabbed her iron-cast skillet, and handed it to Xander. "Make the same symbol. In the middle of that skillet!" she ordered.

"Are you sure, Airin? I cannot turn it back to the way it was. You will have a skillet with the engraving of the symbol of the House of Metiocles there."

"I am sure damn it. Do it."

Xander did not pause his gaze at her as he rubbed the surface of the skillet, now he used his right index finger to draw something on the pan, and returned the pan to Airin.

Airin now had a skillet with the same engraving as the one on the coin, and the one on Xander's forehead. Her jaws dropped.

Xander was quiet, and he went and sat on the couch with his back hunched and his eyebrows furrowed in deep thought.

Airin still stood in the middle of her living room, her skillet hung from her hand. She had no idea what to say, or do. Xander was not lying. Not even the best magician could do an impromptu magic show on an iron-cast skillet, engraving it with a symbol like what Xander did.

Something crossed her mind, and she opened her mouth. "Your story ... is not done yet ..." Airin took a deep breath, nodded her head. She hated unfinished story, not in this way, not when her life may have been entwined to it.

Xander nodded his agreement.

"I will tell you the rest of it now," he said, then he walked closer and stood an armlength from Airin. "Please believe me when I say: I do not lie to you."

"All that you have told me so far has been strange, weird. I don't know, Xander. This skillet ... this ... I mean how can anyone make engraving on it just like that? Please ... just tell the rest of your story."

Xander stared at her unblinked for a moment, and nodded.

<<<>>>

The War of Elegarii was fought for months. The sword of Zeus was a big help, and Xander fought hard with battalions of warriors under his command to defend the capital of Halgard, as well as ensuring the elegarii, river of inspiration, was well guarded.

King Rovan fought in the sacred forest, making sure the well of elegarii – the well that could turn to be a tunnel to another universe, the well where all the creatures of creativity, of imagination, of inspiration continued tumbling down into it – was safe.

As winter drew closer, Queen Leidra started to having difficulty with her troops' morale and supplies. Ares was annoyed and tired of the prolonged war, and the winged snakes, along with Queen Leidra's forces were called back. They laid a siege on the capital of Halgard, and the sacred forest, but attacks were scaled down as they tried to replenish supplies and morale.

It was then that Nydda, the trusted, wise, royal sorceress and oracle of Halgard's palace, a longtime confidante of King Rovan and the royal family, asked for an emergency meeting with King Rovan and Xander.

The three met in the middle of the sacred forest. Nydda stated her premonition that a bigger war was waiting for Halgard. Princess Lyanna, the crown princess of Halgard, the only child of King Rovan and his late wife, had to be whisked away, to ensure the continuation of the throne of Halgard.

Princess Lyanna must be brought to safety and it would be way too dangerous to try to break the siege of Myrana to smuggle Lyanna away, so Xander had to take Lyanna and jump into the well of elegarii, asking elegarii to bring them to where they should be.

King Rovan agreed, and commanded Xander to take Lyanna to a safer place.

Xander protested, he wanted to fight alongside his brother Rovan and the rest of Halgard. However, he could not refuse the direct order of his king, his commander-in-chief.

Nydda promised to go find him and Lyanna once the situation got better in Halgard. With that promise of Nydda, and the order of Rovan, Xander agreed to take Lyanna and they jumped into the well of elegarii.

That was how he and Lyanna ended up in the Greens.

<<<>>>

Airin calmed down a little. She could feel her body relaxed a bit. "So Halgard is like ... a guardian ... of inspiration? You guys fight for millennias to make sure my world here, human beings who live here in my universe, can have steady flow of things that could inspire, ignite their imagination?" she was surprised at how eloquent she had built her sentences.

Xander thought for a moment, and nodded. "When we walked in the tunnel just now ... I was just ... taken aback. You cannot see it, but I, a Halgardian, can see the orbs of lights that bless each of these artists with inspiration. The songs, the drawing, the dance. It is so beautiful, Airin."

"And you are reminded of why you fought the battles in Halgard ..." Airin half-whispered to Xander.

But a shadow seemed to descend on Xander. He bowed his head, and shook it gently. "Halgard has lost a lot in the battles to protect human beings in your universe, Airin. Elegarii is a gift that sometimes feels like a curse to us."

They were quiet for a moment, and Xander finally said,"Nydda has said that The War of Elegarii is a war where us humans pay for the sins of the gods. It began long ago with Ares and his sinful lust to his brother's wife. Halgard for generations has never been the same since elegarii came to us. Zeus, Apollo, Ares ... the gods ... each with their own plan, scheme, and us humans are just pawns serving their whims."

Xander stared straight at her was enough to make Airin's heart skipped a few beats. But a tugging feeling at the base of her stomach started to bother her. A tugging feeling, a gut instinct, that all told her: There are more secrets of Xander that he did not tell.

The rain pounded the window, and the room was quiet.

"Xander? Is there anything you have not told me yet?" she half-whispered her intuition, was not sure how to ask it without making the warrior feel like he was being investigated. But the tugging feeling got a bit too much for her to ignore.

Xander was quiet for a few seconds. Then he shook his head – slow, barely visible.

Thunder roared somewhere far away, though Airin could still hear the gentle tremble of her window panes from it.

Xander backed away from her, throwing his gaze to the floor, and stood by the window again, facing the rain outside.