"Any sign of her found?"

Our search patrol descended from our dragons, and I surveyed how much Moon Valley had changed as I avoided the gazes of the other small search patrols that were already there. The floating islands looked faint and dead at this time of the month, but it was the safest place to confer with the other search parties from the other guilds. 

To my surprise, Aros was the first to reply to Ref's question; it was pretty weird hearing his British accent in such a sorrowful tone, after all, he'd been quiet almost the whole time up until now.

"No, but we did find this  at our name stone..."

Kindle removed the mysterious, flat stone from his saddlebag after our guild leader spoke, and showed it to the small group of Ecrians present, who quickly exchanged worried glances with each other as they too grabbed for their saddlebag.

My heart sank.

Each guild commander held out a similar round stone in front of them, and Mali broke the silence; 

"Sherdol...he's doing the exact same thing as last time..."

"Hasn't he learned to play his cards differently..." 

Wayne, the rude brown guild commander who had openly ridiculed Aros at the Moon Ball, mingled in the conversation. His remark resulted in an irate look from his leader, who also joined in; 

"We still assume we overcame him all those years ago, but he's simply returned now. That's why he doesn't use other tactics. He knows he can defeat us again."

Agreeing mumbling rose from our little group as the second-in-commands put away the slabs once again, and I caught Kindle worriedly looking at the commander of the red guild. The girl, who shared the same anxious expression with my friend, had clearly taken the lead today, as the stand-in leader left a pretty bad impression last time. 

"How will we react? We have to do something...", Mali asked urgently, pacing back and forth as she looked frowning at the ground, deep in thought, "We can't let him just slaughter us again..."

A shiver ran down my spine at the thought of what traumas these Ecrians had already had to go through.

'They'd barely be adults if they were human, for god's sake...'

This time Rexus spoke, and the other guild leaders looked up in surprise: the dragon breeder spoke only when he deemed it necessary. 

"We need to work together. All join forces. We didn't do that until much too late last time, that was our weakness."

His deep, quiet voice silenced the few chattering people. I looked at Aros and saw an approving smile appear around his lips as he proudly nodded at his Dragon Breeder. 

"Good that.", the red guild commander agreed, "I suggest we all gather here with the whole guilds. This is the safest place to build our new camp."

"woah, woah, woah!", Ref came in between, "Our goal was to find my missing guild member, not to create a whole new guild in preparation of something that may never come!!"

Mali raised an eyebrow, eyeing the older guild leader from where she was standing; "Do you question Aros' loyalty? He literally flew against our enemy's force field."

Ref grumbled in reply, once again finger-brushing his ginger, braided beard in thought.

I took a step forward, ignoring Aros who opened his mouth to say something in reply as he looked at me in surprise.

"We can keep looking for Zelda once we are all united. It'll make us stronger, and we'll have the patron dragons of the guilds to protect us, right?"

Mali slowly nodded as a grin spread across her face: 

"I'll still have to convince Lady Imocré, our patron dragon...but I think that'll be settled. And we have Brutheo on our side already.", she said, pointing at Aros, who closed his mouth again, uneasy because of the stares he got. I wondered why they gave him those looks as I fidgeted with my Draxite-amulet.

Now, to everyone's surprise, it was Wayne who took a step forward, his hoarse voice getting everyone's attention: 

"Then we'd better go pack up and get the rest of our guilds."

...

Eastborne was teeming with activity, guild members running around with luggage like ants in a termite mound. This time, the atmosphere was dark, rather than happy and upbeat as it had been the first time we left for Moon Valley, and the packing process was sloppy and unorganized. 

I didn't partake in the working, and I hoped Aros could forgive me for it. Instead, I sat down in the yellowed grass in the guild's small graveyard in the far back of camp, in the shades of the dark trees, at the base of Rellian's resting place. Flowers grew beside each grave, their headstones inscribed with the name of the deceased, their cause of death, and a short piece of text about their lives. 

I sighed as I tinkered with the necklace with the note that I'd gotten from my old friend before he went mad. 

"I didn't think I'd have to say goodbye to you this quickly again... otherwise I would still have a whole lot to tell you...like yesterday, Cole pranked Kindle and hid his clothes while he was taking a shower...you should have seen it, it was hilarious..."

I let out a small chuckle as I picked a daisy and plucked the flower's leaves. For some reason, talking to his grave as if he was still there felt right, so even though it might have looked stupid, I hesitantly continued, making myself comfortable in my cross-legged position;

"We're going to Moon valley again. All of us. But we'll be back! I promise you, I will be back for you, no matter what. This is not  goodbye."

"Zig...?"

I turned around with a startled look, not having heard that someone had popped up behind me, and I saw Aros standing at the fence of the small cemetery, leaning against the gate with his deer skull in hand. He gave me a small smile before walking towards me and Rellian, the fabric of his loose woolen sweater gently moving in the wind. The last few days had been colder, and the jungle had been plagued by rainstorms and squalls for some time. I had never really thought about the change of seasons here in Ecra, but the weather was really autumnal, and this made the atmosphere in the graveyard even starker. 

Aros extended his hand to me, and I stood up again, flicking dried grass off my pants as I grasped his hand.  

"We're leaving now, the others are ready to go."

...

The overwhelming bustle in Moon Valley made me dizzy. As I walked beside Kindle across the grassy field, I looked around: Cole, along with the other builders from the other guilds, was busy jotting down plans on a few makeshift tables, and others were already working on the skeletons of future huts, while Grunters were toiling hard, dragging materials back and forth from the landing strip, where the dragon breeders were doing their best to calm the excited dragons. Before I even realized it, I had been ditched by Kindle, and I just saw him disappear behind a tree at the edge of the clearing, clutching a sepia-colored hand in his. Stunned, I remained standing alone, frowning as I tried to fit the pieces of the puzzle together until someone bumped into me with a loud thud.

I turned around, only to try and hold back an annoyed sigh as I saw Wayne, the commander of the Brown Guild, dragging a barrel behind him.

"Don't just stand there newbie, get to work. Do not expect me to treat you nicely because you're Aros' favorite human."

He spit out the last word in disgust, but before I could reply something snarky he was already on his way again, walking in the direction of a temporarily put-up army tent with his load.

"ATTENTION EVERYONE!!"

About two hundred heads turned in the direction of the attention-grabbing exclamation. Mali, the leader of the Blue guild, stood on the ledge where the leaders had sat during the meeting during the Moon Ball, Aros, Ref, and the Brown guild leader at her side. As everyone gathered under the tall slate stone, I noticed how Aros looked down and turned to Rexus, who was sitting under the ledge with the other dragon cultivators;

"Where are Kindle and Sylvia? They should be here already..."

As if speaking from the devil, Kindle emerged from the back of the crowd, his head bright red as he joined the other second-in-commands, who all gave him playful shoves and chirped as he approached, running his hand through his dark curly hair.

The commander of the Red guild, who I now assumed to be Sylvia, appeared too, and she climbed up the ledge with Ref's help, as she smilingly eyed Kindle, who blushed again. Our leader smirked and rolled his eyes, as if a situation like this had occurred before. 

"Even though it hasn't been long, we'd like to update everyone on the current situation of each guild, as we will be spending a lot of time together from now on.", exclaimed Mali, after giggling at the scenario between the two 'missing' guild commanders. "Aros, go ahead."

Aros took a step forward and spoke up: "As you all know, Rellian, our dragon breeder, was infected by the Vortex." 

Mutterings swept over the guilds, and I saw the dragon breeders all looking in distress, as if they too had lost a friend.

"We put him out of his misery, he now belongs to the moons of Ecra."

As if in sync, all Ecrians bowed their heads respectfully, and a moment of silence was called.

"As is tradition, tomorrow morning at dawn, two days after Rellian's death, a new dragon breeder will be chosen for our guild, despite the circumstances."

I was beginning to get fed up with barely knowing the rules and traditions of this nation and decided there and then to ask Aros about it after the meeting.

Now, the second-in-command of the Red guild stepped in, her euphonious, accented voice carrying itself over the crowd;

"I sadly also bring terrible news.", she swallowed, looking at her feet for a moment, and when she was stable again she resumed her speech. 

"Last night, Lydys passed away, and I will be taking her place as leader. Yi-An is now the new second-in-command of the Red guild."

Before a second moment of silence, people applauded the new commander, and I watched as an athletically built Asian girl with short, black hair stood up proudly and bowed her head to the leaders as she took her place among the other second-in-commands, who all nodded approvingly and congratulated her.

The other guilds gave their brief reports, and the meeting was closed, leaving the Ecrians chatting and sharing their thoughts with each other as they all got up again to go back to work.

"Before we go back to work there is one more thing that needs to be done."

Aros took the floor again, and the murmurs died out. The leader, who in the meantime had jumped down from the ledge, pointed to the rock wall behind him.

"This will be our new name stone. Everyone, young and old, will scratch their names into it. We are also providing another place where the names of those who died can be carved as a memorial."

As everyone went back to their previous activities, I watched as some began to scratch all their names into the wall. I recognized Vega's blond curly hair, and saw Aros lift his little sister so she too could chisel her name into the wall, the gesture warming my heart.

I felt someone place their hand on my shoulder, and when I looked back I saw Kindle, gesturing to ask if I felt like helping him unpack again, as we were doing before the meeting.

"As long as you don't ditch me to snog Sylvia behind a tree," I replied laughing, and Kindle had gasped indignantly as I teased him, his pale cheeks glowing up red once again.