Throughout their journey, Marcella noticed the sun never moved. She knew they'd been walking for hours, but still nothing got brighter. The sun seemed tethered to the horizon at her back, while they walked towards a night sky which boasted a full moon in a situation comparable to its diurnal companion.

When Marcella assumed the sun should have been high in the sky, Silva allowed her to sit and eat some crusty bread and old cheese. Despite its simplicity it was a meal unlike any Marcella had ever experienced. The bread was flavourful and springy to the touch, the cheese was sharper than any she'd tasted before and the water was still ice cold.

"So this is how Lemurians eat, huh?" She asked her perpetually silent companion. "Kinda simple, huh? What kind of a place is this anyway? The colors everywhere are so dull, like they're fading away. How could a sad place like this be my home?"

Again Silva responded with just a stoney stare.

"I mean . . . everything from . . . earth . . ." She was unsure of herself as she spoke and nibbled on some bread. Had she left earth? Was she on a different planet, or just some mysterious corner of the world she'd never heard about or read about in books. "Everything from earth seemed so much more beautiful, more alive. Why can't I be from there?"

Silva got to her feet and Marcella knew what that gesture meant. She sighed and stood up as well. She spent her time watching things on the nighttime horizon come closer and closer, until she passed the point which was once in the distance, now replaced with some other distant land mark.

After an hour more of travel, Marcella noticed a grouping of strange white trees. She touched their smooth bark and wandered at their strange curvature, their lack of limbs and branches. She glanced toward the ground and noticed a row of similarly colored features which played out before her in a line.

"Wait . . . " she looked around her and realized what was happening. "These are bones aren't they? A rib cage and spine? What kind of huge animal was this?" She wished more than ever that Silva could respond. She wanted to be reassured that there was nothing else around like this dead, monstrous beast.

"T'was a sky whale, no doubt." A cranky sounding voice came from behind Marcella and she jolted in shock.

She turned to see an old, hunch of a man hobbling towards her with the aid of a gnarled walking stick. He had tattoos all over his arms and hands and a dirty sheet of burlap covering his lumpy back.

"Who are you?"

"Grelchin Louge, the Courageous and Enfeebled."

"Sorry?"

The man repeated himself, though it didn't help Marcella's understanding. Silva did not seem put out by his presence, though, so Marcella remained calm.

"You said this was . . . a sky whale?"

"Aye, a once great species which soared through the skies of Lemuria in massive pods. Their songs were the most beautiful music ever heard . . . until they started dying off."

"What . . . what killed them?"

"The same thing that killed everything else."

"Which was?"

"Absence."

"Absence of what?"

"Light, energy, life. Lemuria is a dying realm, one whose legacy is in fairy tales and stories. Its flora were gone first, then the beasts, followed by the lingering bits of its . . . more human population. There are only a few living beings left here now, most are weak and small."

Marcella looked around at the rotting remains which scattered the ground, the oozing pits of decay and the black, naked trees.

"So what did this look like before?"

"A beautiful land of natural wonders, technological revolutions and magical creatures."

"Bull."

"Lies have no place in Lemuria."

"Oh . . . right . . . that's real sad -- if it's actually true." She added in a whisper.

"Epically sad, but a tragedy which will come to an end soon, what with your arrival."

Marcella felt like the shock of the man's statement had slapped the voice from her throat. She gaped for a second then managed to say, "I'm sorry?"

"You, m'lady, are the answer to our prayers! I felt your arrival as soon as you crossed the border, and with Silva! No less than a noble escort for royal blood such as yours."

It became even harder to speak, to understand what the man was saying, to breathe. Marcella played with her hair as lyrics for nursery rhymes danced in her head.

"Did you hear me, m'lady? I said you're royal!"

"Mary had a little lamb." She pressed her hands against her ears and sat on the ground amidst the gigantic rib cage.

"What's that?"

"Whose fleece was white as snow."

"Silva, are you sure this young lady is right in the head?"

"Everywhere that Mary went."

Silva snapped at Grelchin.

"The lamb was sure to go."

"Alright, wolf, alright, I recognize your hard work, and I thank you dearly for it. I will be forever in your debt."

Marcella cried and sang as the old man stood over her, scratching his head. He turned to Silva and said, "we've got our work cut out for us with this one. Why's she doing this? I hope it's not how she always is. What do you mean she's spoiled? Really? She complained that much? Well, you did kill her granny. I know, I know, but does the girl know?"

Marcella stopped singing and turned her wet face to Grelchin. "You know about my grandmother, too?"

"Of course, that nasty manipulator was all the Lemurians could talk about for decades."

"Nasty manipulator?"

"Rowena has always been the nastiest of nasties, the pinnacle of slimy. She was no good for you, she fell in line with a bad crowd. Even managed to recruit a couple mortal-borns. A doctor by the name of Crenshaw comes to mind."

"You mean the guy who got me out of the hospital? Rowena was working with him?"

"Working with? She damn near created the man. He was nothing without her guidance."

Suddenly Marcella was making sense of the past few days. The half-truths Rowena had told, waking up in the basement with those machines . . . Crenshaw said his people wanted to study her.

"If Rowena is my grandmother . . . why would she want to study me?"

"Oh, not just you, others like you as well. She never thought such a talented receptor would come out of her line, I bet."

"So . . . all that time I spent at the cabin . . . with Joe . . ."

"Joseph is her dreamscaper. She would need a man like him to keep you in check."

"Dreamscaper?"

"An individual with the ability to shape and alter the sleeping unconscious processes which we call dreams. He could have had you under his spell for months without you realizing it."

Marcella felt herself slipping away, pieces of her were dying, brought down by the vicious truth of her life.

"Well, if we plan on making it to the citadel soon, we've got to keep going." Grelchin smiled and hobbled on, following Silva's lead.

"Wait . . . you're coming with us?"

The man's eyes twinkled amidst his dirt marred, wrinkly face. "I wouldn't miss a journey like this one, my dear, not for what little life I've got left."