The Elder smiled.

"Thank you for your kindness and, I think, your restraint." The Elder said. Trevor smiled slightly.

"You're welcome, Elder. Can my friends and I accompany you to your train?" He asked. The Elder shook his head.

"We have settled here in Gresit. No caravans. But I would be glad of your company on the way to our lodging." The Elder said. He held out his hand, gesturing for the three to follow him. They did so.

"How many are you?" Meilė asked.

"Eleven, though I insist we be counted as 12." The Elder said. Ramybė lifted her eyebrow in slight confusion. The Elder noticed this. He smiled at her. "One of us is missing, you see." They walked to an old rundown building. "This is where we live. Please, come inside. Meet my people." The Elder said. Meilė smiled at the man.

"Thank you for your hospitality." She said as she, Trevor and Ramybė walked in. Once they were in the house, they saw more Speakers. One young Speaker walked up. He had dark skin and dark brown hair.

"Elder, we were worried about you." He said. "I told you it was too soon to go outdoors." He said. The Elder nodded, listening to Arn's words.

"And I told you it was necessary to offer aid to the people, Arn." The Elder said. "However, I was met by some of the Christian priests." The Elder said. Arn's eyes widened.

"Are you all right?" Arn asked. The Elder smiled and nodded.

"Thanks to this man and his companions here." The Elder said, gesturing to Trevor, Ramybė and Meilė. The Elder then frowned. "Although I fear there may be trouble ahead because of it." He said. Arn narrowed his eyes at the three strangers.

"What did you do?" He asked. Ramybė frowned and placed her hand on Meilė's shoulder.

"We didn't do anything. However, Trevor is a little out of practice." Ramybė said. Meilė stepped out of her sister's hold and smiled at the young man.

"They're both still alive." She said. Arn's eyes widened in disbelief.

"You used violence on them?" Arn asked. The Elder placed his hand on Arn's shoulder, silently telling him to calm down. 

"The younger people believe that words can speak louder than actions." The Elder explained. Trevor shrugged.

"Well, you're Speakers. Words are what you do." Trevor said. The Elder looked astonished.

"You know of us?" He asked. Ramybė placed her hand on Meilė's shoulder.

"Our family, as well as Trevor's, have always been on good terms with Speakers." She explained. Meilė nodded.

"Although, Trevor's father once got into a fight with one." She said. Arn narrowed his eyes.

"True Speakers do not fight." He said. Trevor looked at the younger speaker.

"When he tried to convince a Speaker to have your oral history transcribed on paper." Trevor said, looking out the window. The Elder chuckled.

"Ah, yes, we are quite protective of our ways." He said. "History is a living thing. Paper is dead." The Elder said. "Would you three like something to eat?" The Elder offered. Ramybė held her hand out and shook her head.

"That's a kind offer, but no thank you. My sister and I aren't hungry." She said. Trevor held up his hand.

"I'd prefer something to drink." He said. Meilė sighed and rolled her eyes and shook her head, knowing that Trevor only wanted some alcohol. The Elder looked at Arn.

"Arn, bring our friend here some water." The Elder said. Trevor froze.

"Oh, the, never mind, then." He said, taking back his request. Meilė chuckled at her friend's actions. Trevor smiled slightly. He loved the sound of Meilė's laughs. They always sounded like bells. Beautiful bells. Ramybė looked at the Elder and the rest of the Speakers.  

"Maybe you can tell me why you're here." She said, placing her hand on her hip.

"Speakers live anywhere they deem right. You must know that." Arn said. Meilė nodded, crossing her arms over her chest.

"We know Speakers are nomadic tribes." She said.

"You seem to have been here a while." Trevor said, walking over and standing next to the Twins.

"And how do you know that?" The Elder asked. Trevor held his hand out, tilting his head.

"Because the locals are blaming you for the attacks." He said. The Elder frowned.

"That's the church's doing. They need something to blame." The Elder said. "To divert people from the truth, that the church itself brought Dracula's hordes down on the land." The Elder said. Ramybė cocked her eyebrow up in slight interest.

"Really?" She asked.

"There were Speakers, in Targoviste one year ago. The church burned Dracula's wife at the stake as a witch." The Elder said, looking down sadly. Meilė and Ramybė gasped, eyes widening. Trevor sighed and looked down.

"Shit." He said. The Elder laughed dryly.

"That is indeed one way of putting it." He said. Trevor looked at the Elder.

"But you didn't answer Ramybė's question." He said.

"There is no structure left in Gresit. No doctors, no aid," the Elder looked at the three. "If you know Speakers, then you know we can't turn away from those in need. That is why we are here." The Elder said. He sat on an overturned bucket. Arn looked down at the Elder.

"May as well tell them the rest." He said. The Elder sighed. 

"In Speaker history, there is an old story, a legend, probably." The Elder said. Trevor shrugged, smiling slightly.

"I like stories." He said. Meilė and Ramybė chuckled at Trevor's childish behavior.

"The story says that a savior sleeps under Gresit, a great hero who sleeps until he is needed, until there is a darkness upon the land." The Elder explained. Meilė raised her finger.

"Oh, we've heard that one. The Sleeping Soldier." She said. The Elder nodded.

"It's a local legend." Trevor said. "Sounds weirdly convenient to me, if you know what I mean." Trevor said.

"Exactly how much do you know about this, sir?" The Elder asked.

"I'm a Belmont," he gestured to the twins. "Ramybė and Meilė are Gelbėtojais." He said. The Speakers looked at the three in astonishment. Ramybė stepped forward.

"We know you're a nomadic people who gather knowledge, memorize it, carry complete spoken histories with you." Ramybė said. Meilė nodded.

"We also know you gather hidden knowledge and have practitioners of magic knowledge in your tribes." She explained. Arn looked at the three.

"A Belmont, a-and Gelbėtojais? I thought your families had vanished." Arn said in astonishment. Trevor looked at him.

"If vanished is the polite way of saying exiled, hated, and burned out of the ancestral homes, then," Trevor said, listing all the ways his and the twin's families were chased out by the Church.

"Then you know something of magic, and so you know that just because we found a story in our past, it doesn't mean it originated there. The wisest and cleverest of our magicians know that dying is not absolute, that it is possible to hear stories from the future." The Elder said, looking at the three. Ramybė looked at the Speakers.

"So, you think there's someone that can save the city asleep under it, and you're here to wait for him?" She asked.

"One of us went to look for him." The Elder said. Meilė stepped forward.

"This would be your "missing" Speaker?" She asked. The Elder nodded.

"Yes. That one went into the catacombs under the mausoleum west of the church." The Elder looked down sadly. "Has not returned." The Elder said. Meilė frowned. Ramybė frowned.

"Isn't there a head man in Gresit you could go to?" She asked. No one saw or heard Meilė slip quietly out the door.

~~~

Meilė made it to the mausoleum. She sighed and closed her eyes, looking down. "Trevor, Sister, please forgive me. But I cannot leave a person alone to die," she said to herself. She walked in and found a way up into the Catacombs. She slid down a slope and went down stairs. Once down, she saw the headless corpses of what looked to be soldiers on the floor. They had been turned to stone. Meilė's eyes widened. She looked at the center of the room and saw the statue of a Speaker. Meilė walked up to the statue. "I have a bad feeling about this." She said to herself. A clanging sound caught her attention. She turned and found a stone-eyed cyclops. "Well, that explains it." She said. Taking some water from her water skin, she made a water whip and stuck the cyclops on the chest. The Cyclops looked down at the place where it had been struck. Meilė's eyes widened, realizing you had to strike the eye of the Cyclops to kill it. She formed an ice shard and was about to pierce the Cyclops' eye, when there was a flash of purple and then, black.

~~~~

//Dun, dun, dun!! What do you all think will happen next? Will Meilė and Trevor finally share a kiss? Find out by reading Chapter 4: The Bishop's Warning //